The UK Mobile Phone Blog

Exclusive Camera Phone Test: Day Three, The Nokia N95

December 18, 2007 at 6:28 pm by Ben | In Mobile Phones

Here is the next of the latest camera phones to be tested, as reviewed by Ben.

First Impressions

Every once in a while a handset comes long that sets the benchmark for others to judge themselves by. Sometimes this is achieved by superior design, sometimes by functionality. The Nokia N95 sets the standard in both areas.

The design of the N95 is not in the fashion type styling but in the unique dual slide. The N95 slides up in the normal way, revealing a keypad with good sized usable keys that are well spaced at and comfortable to use. If you slide the phone in the opposite direction, you reveal multimedia short cut keys. The N95 automatically switches view to landscape mode and you can start watching videos, or listening to music.

Living with it

The Nokia N95 also sets the standard in handset functionality, and it is a level few phones are able to achieve. Starting with the camera, the N95 is equipped with a 5.0 megapixel camera, which has auto focus, and a Carl Zeiss lens. The camera is activated by flicking open the lens cover by the switch at the back. The Nokia N95 has excellent video recording abilities, recording video at DVD quality 30fps. The view finder on the camera takes advantage of the fantastic screen, a large 40×53mm QVGA screen supporting up to 16 million colours. The clarity is amazing, and has to be seen to be enjoyed. On top of this the n95 has a TV Out option. The cable is supplied with the handset, just plug it into the built in 3.5mm jack point, plug the other end into the TV (I prefer to use a scart plug for this) and you can view all videos in full screen quality. Another option for the TV Out is to use the N95 with a Bluetooth keyboard, and you have a PC. Browse the web, write a word document, send receive email, all viewed on the large TV screen.

The Nokia N95 is a 3G phone, supporting Mobile Broadband (HSDPA) as well as GPRS and HSCSD. The N95 also has WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0. Built in to the N95 is a GPS chip. Working alongside the built in Nokia Maps functionality, the N95 can be used as a full Sat Nav device. The Nokia Maps application is supplied free of charge, you only pay for a licence if you want to use turn-by-turn voice instructions.

The N95 mobile phone doesn’t lack on further media options. As well as a built in FM stereo radio and video player, the N95 has an MP3 music player. Download songs directly to the handset OTA or transfer them from your PC via the USB cable and take your music with you on the move. With the Nokia Podcasting application you can download your favourite Podcasts on the move and listen to them wherever you are, whenever it is convenient. With the built in 3.5mm jack you are not restricted to the Nokia headset that comes with the phone, just plug in your favourite headphones for comfort and sound quality.

The Nokia N95 supports Symbian S60v3FP1. This operating system is very light, very quick, easy to use and fast to navigate. The N95 comes with all the usual Symbian phone features, including a built in email client and a very good web browser. The source code for the browser is the same as that used for the browser in the Apple iPhone.

Conclusion

There is so much in the Nokia N95, it really is the most complete phone available to date.

Technical Specifications

Dimensions
• Volume: 90 cc
• Weight: 120 g
• Length: 99 mm
• Width: 53 mm
• Thickness (max): 21 mm

Memory Functions
• Up to 160 MB* internal dynamic memory for messages, ringing tones, images, video clips, calendar notes, to-do list and applications
• Memory card slot supporting up to 2 GB microSD memory cards

Display
• Large 2.6″ QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) TFT display with ambient light detector and up to 16 million colours

User Interface
• Operating system: S60 software on Symbian OS
• User Interface: S60 3.1
• Dedicated Media Keys
• Multimedia Menu
• Active standby screen

Messaging
• Text messaging: supports concatenated SMS, picture messaging, SMS distribution list
• Multimedia messaging: combine image, video, text, and audio clip and send as MMS to a compatible phone or PC; use MMS to tell your story with a multi-slide presentation
• Automatic resizing of your megapixel images to fit MMS (max 300 KB size depending on the network)
• Predictive text input: support for all major languages in Europe and Asia-Pacific

Imaging
• Up to 5 megapixel (2592 x 1944 pixels) camera, Carl Zeiss optics, Tessar lens, MPEG-4 VGA video capture of up to 30 fps
• Direct connection to compatible TV via Nokia Video Connectivity Cable (CA-75U, included in box) or wireless LAN/UPnP
• Front camera, CIF (352 x 288) sensor
• Video call and video sharing support (WCDMA network services)
• Integrated flash
• Digital stereo microphone
• Flash modes: on, off, automatic, redeye reduction
• Rotating gallery
• Online album/blog: photo/video uploading from gallery
• Nokia Lifeblog 2.0 support
• Video and still image editors
• Movie director for automated video production

Mobile Video
• Video resolutions: up to VGA (640×480) at 30 fps
• Audio recording: AAC stereo
• Digital video stabilization
• Video clip length: limited by available memory
• Video file format .mp4 (default), .3gp (for MMS)
• White balance: automatic, sunny, cloudy, incandescent, fluorescent
• Scene: automatic, night
• Color tones: normal, sepia, black & white, negative, vivid
• Zoom: Digital up to 10x (VGA up to 4x)

Mobile Photography
• Image resolution: up to 5 megapixel: (2592 x 1944 pixels)
• Still image file format: JPEG/EXIF
• Auto focus
• Auto exposure - center weighted
• Exposure compensation: +2 ~ -2EV at 0.5 step
• White balance: automatic, sunny, cloudy, incandescent, fluorescent
• Scene: automatic, user, close-up, portrait, landscape, sports, night, night portrait
• Color tones: normal, sepia, black & white, negative, vivid
• Zoom: Digital up to 20x (5 megapixel up to 6x)

Camera Specifications
• Sensor: CMOS, 5 megapixel (2592 x 1944)
• Carl Zeiss Optics: Tessar lens
• Focal length 5.6 mm
• Focus range 10 cm ~ infinity
• Macro focus distance 10-50 cm
• Shutter speed: Mechanical shutter: 1/1000~1/3 s

Music Features
• Digital music player - supports MP3/AAC/AAC+/eAAC+/WMA/M4A with playlists and equalizer.
• Integrated handsfree speaker
• OMA DRM 2.0 & WMDRM support for music
• Stereo FM radio (87.5-108MHz /76-90MHz)

Navigation
• Built-in GPS

Digital home
• Play video, music and photos on home media network - compatible TV, stereo and PC over WLAN/UPnP

Connectivity
• Integrated wireless LAN (802.11 b/g) and UPnP (Universal Plug and Play)
• Integrated Bluetooth wireless technology v.2.0 EDR
• USB 2.0 via Mini USB interface and mass storage class support to support drag and drop functionality
• 3.5 mm stereo headphone plug and TV out support (PAL/NTSC)
• Nokia PC Suite connectivity with USB, Infrared and Bluetooth wireless technology
• Local synchronization of contacts and calendar to a compatible PC using compatible connection
• Remote over-the-air synchronization
• Send and receive images, video clips, graphics, and business cards via Bluetooth wireless technology

RealPlayer Media Player
• Full-screen video playback to view downloaded, streamed or recorded video clips
• Supported video formats : MPEG-4 , H.264/AVC , H.263/3GPP, RealVideo 8/9/10

Bookmark at:
StumbleUpon | Digg | Del.icio.us | Dzone | Newsvine | Spurl | Simpy | Furl | Reddit | Yahoo! MyWeb