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[JamesV6CDX]

... It's in mint condition, looks smart.

I like:

Appearance
MP3 player
Good Camera

I dislike:

Battery life
Screen gets too easily smeared by finger prints.
Awful reception
Everything feels "clunky"
It's very SLOW at doing things.

I'm not sure if I'm gonna keep it or not, yet  :-/

(On the basis that I HAVE a good MP3 player / Camera already!)

[Kevin Wood]

Only ever used it for testing but I tend to agree. I've hated flashy menu systems on phones since they changed from the very basic Nokia platforms. Look nice but you can't beat something very basic and quick for getting the job done. (same problem I have with Windows GUI effects - why should I have to wait for pointless animations to finish on a dual core machine?)

What firmware version are you on? And what network provider?

Kevin

[tunnie]

... It's in mint condition, looks smart.

I like:

Appearance
MP3 player
Good Camera

I dislike:

Battery life
Screen gets too easily smeared by finger prints.
Awful reception
Everything feels "clunky"
It's very SLOW at doing things.

I'm not sure if I'm gonna keep it or not, yet  :-/

(On the basis that I HAVE a good MP3 player / Camera already!)

Ok.

First two points, by default the N95 is set to always search for a 3G signal, unless you do video calling, disable this. Set it GSM ONLY.

That way the phone just hunts for a standard signal, searching for 3G takes a fair bit of power because signal is weak, even here in London its very patchy!

This should help your battery life significaltly, as well as signal.

Remember the N95 is an Operating System based phone, its not like regular phones which have a bespoke application which are lightning fast.

The phone has to "boot", at the end of the day the N95 is a very powerful phone... but that power does slow down the user interface.

[Kevin Wood]

True. Switching 3G off does dramatically extend the battery life of the N95. I developed an application for benchmarking battery life for one of the network operators and did a lot of testing on the N95.

If you clip it into a holder and it presses one of the buttons on the side, it'll eat a battery VERY rapidly. Scratched my head for ages on that one, thinking that it can't be right that my software was predicting a 9 hour standby time or something silly. Happened to try it out of our test fixture and realised the issue. Having a button pressed stops the processor going into standby and canes the battery good and proper!

You are right, though. Modern phones are full of bloatware which makes them tedious IMHO. I guess it's keeping Tunnie (and, to a certain extent, me) in a job so mustn't grumble.

Kevin

[tunnie]

at the end of the day consumers demand extra features, just look at the demand for the iPhone.

We still have a way to go, Symbian, and the iPhone are far from pefect, but maybe a combination of each is the way forward.

iPhone lacks basic tasks, such as Picture Messaging & being able to foward contacts as text messages. But its a fast.... (and cool)

Symbian is a lot more powerfull and there are millions of applications around for it... but its slow... it has got faster recently.

Be interesting to see and play with google's take.....

[dejongj]

It was indeed for those reasons; slow, clunkiness, slow, poor battery and did I mention slow yet   That I got rid of my Nokia N95. I got an E65 instead which was a little better speed wise and battery wise, but riddled with faults and 8 months on still no firmware update....Oh and the Symbian user interface is really made for people who like to press as many buttons as possible before they can get to a function. Very powerful, but so poorly implemented that I would find it hard to belief anyone truly uses all functions...And if they do they are most likely a geek  

Then in November last year I got the iPhone, Wow! Yes it has got less functions, is slower and more expensive...But that is all paper comparison...Use it in real life and you'll find it all does not matter....Absolutely brilliant at what it is supposed to do; i.e. making phone calls, check emails and browse the internet. For the general public I guess not having MMS is still a problem in Europe, although who on here actually send those stupid messages that are not compatible between different phones and providers anyway! And since you have e-mail it is actually much more powerful....

It may cost a little more, but at least it does what it says on the tin, with speed, ease, and the required battery life....And when comparing like for like the cost is actually not that much more over the live time...

My time with the N95 reminded me of those Akai or Goodmans HiFi sets. It has got absolutely everything on it, for a very good price. But those sets were ugly, didn't sound very well. Less is definitely more in my book....

[miggy]

... It's in mint condition, looks smart.

I like:

Appearance
MP3 player
Good Camera

I dislike:

Battery life
Screen gets too easily smeared by finger prints.
Awful reception
Everything feels "clunky"
It's very SLOW at doing things.

I'm not sure if I'm gonna keep it or not, yet  :-/

(On the basis that I HAVE a good MP3 player / Camera already!)

More importantly.........does it make phone calls..