N95 Reflections
I’ve had a full-on review of the N95 sitting in draft for several days now. I’ve trashed it 2 times and started over. However, I’ve decided to trash the whole thing and give you my thoughts. If you want to read a review, there’s PLENTY indexed here and here. Hit those up. What follows from me are real-world usage and thoughts. And yes, I’m going to make you read through to find out my "official" stance, as to whether I’d still suggest skipping it.
First things first, let’s address the battery. It’s not what I’d call
dismal, but it’s nothing compared to the N73, either. I think Nokia
goofed up by not putting the same battery as the N73 in it. Do I think
that the extra 150 mAh would have solved everything? NO. The N95 has
SEVERAL things that the N73 doesn’t have: 2+MP in the cam, higher video
recording, WiFi, GPS, a bigger, brighter screen, etc. Can I make it
through a day (given that I’m a heavy user)? No. However, I make it
close, and I spend most of my day at my desk or in my truck, both
places that I can plug in at. Can I make it most of the day? Sure,
depending on what I’m using. But normal usage? Yeah, I’d say the
battery is fine.
Second, memory management. In my experience, this SUCKS. I’ve got the
latest firmware on here, and it’s hit or miss as to how low I can run
on RAM before the thing shuts everything down. I can record a video
(sometimes), but can’t edit it without a reboot. I also can’t replay it
without a reboot to clean up the RAM. On a fresh restart, I have about
15MB. Pretty much equal to the N73, and I can repeatedly wear the N73
down to 2-3MB before I have trouble. The N95 seems to have trouble
letting go, often having a mere 10MB of RAM left with no apps open.
Stability. Not quite there yet. Random reboots, freezes, etc. I
received an SMS the other day and it completely shut down Nokia Maps. A
phone call this morning shut down the video camera. Things like this
shouldn’t happen. The Web browser shuts down immediately and randomly,
with no warning. Routinely. This is something I’d expect from a Windows
machine, but not S60. Luckily, this can (and hopefully will) be fixed
with another firmware update. Keep in mind that the N73 is on its what,
4th or 5th firmware revision?
WiFi. Usable. I ranted on this the other day, and stand by that. Until
my phone can intelligently manage the WiFi, it’s more of a nuisance
than anything else. Yeah, it’s convenient for MOIP, but again, only
when managed intelligently. Like Truphone. I setup profiles, and when I
walk in range of a specific hotspot, it automatically hooks up, and
disconnects when I’m out of range. I don’t even know it, except to tell
Grand Central which number I’m using. Every app should be that
intelligent.
Camera. Slow to load, has trouble with stability, as well. Routinely,
if I’ve been using other apps (even if I’ve shut them down) the camera
app will refuse to load without a reboot. I actually get the error
message "unexpected error, please reboot." When it works, it’s great.
Sharp pics, easy to focus. Video is the same way.
GPS. Slow, as in the other reviews. Seems to take longer if I’m driving
while it’s trying to connect. No real indicator whether it’s on or not,
other than with Maps open. Hopefully it’s shutting down when Maps shuts
down, but there’s no way to tell. You just kind of hope. To activate
it, you have to have the phone slid open longways, with the number pad
visible. Closing it disconnects. I’d like to use it in landscape.
Music. Great. Syncs fine, still have to "update" your music library,
which is annoying. Unlike N73 ME, you can actually exit the music app
without using Handy Taskman. Speaker quality is phenomenal, as is the
3.5mm jack. Clear, no hiss or whine or anything. All the options would
expect in the newer Music Player application, none that you wouldn’t.
Browsing. More a convenient, common sense upgrade, really. Links in
SMS/MMS/Email FINALLY open in the appropriate browser (cause there’s
only one now) and I like that favicons show up now. Saved passwords is
convenient. RAM blowouts still hurt, though. Switching between
landscape and portrait is easy as pie.
Build Quality. I almost forgot to mention this. Mine’s awesome. Zero
creaks, period. Slide is REAL solid, and sort of "snaps" in place. Love
it. Keys are responsive, no mushiness, backlight is even. Battery plate
fits nicely. The phone is pretty lightweight, but I like it. I don’t
think it feels cheap either in holding the device or using it. I’m very
pleased and impressed with the build quality, and wish I could say the
same fr my N73, which creaks like no one’s business.
Frankly that’s about all I can think of. My final opinion? At this
exact point in time, I don’t think it’s worth $350 more than the N73.
$100-150, maybe. After a firmware revision to fix the memory/stability
issues? 100% for it. The features are hard to argue with, and after I
had my N80, I was in love with the slider form factor. However, for
$800 after tax, I’m dismayed at the memory handling and stability of
the firmware. It’s hard to use as a daily device some days. Battery
life, in my opinion, is all about your expectations. If you’re
comparing to the N73, then yeah, the battery life blows. If you’re
comparing to any other phone, and keeping in mind features, then I
think it’s doable.
To address my Why I’m Passing post:
1. On the fence. FP1 fixes many small things, and I’ve heard that FP2 won’t show up on shelves now till 1Q 2008, at the earliest.
2. Not as bad as I was thinking.
3. Still a factor, but I can’t really say if there’s a huge difference with the N95’s processor.
4. I think I’m over this. I strongly believe that Nokia is going to (wisely) skip US 3G for the most part and hit WiMax HARD.
Do you have anything else you’d like me to test? I have 2 videos
currently being edited. One compares (finally) TomTom on the N73 with
Smart2Go on the N95. The other shows how freakin awesome having a
built-in 3.5mm adapter is. Any questions, please leave them in the
comments and I will get to them as soon as I can.
FP2 fixes the memory problems at least that’s what Stefan saw at the S60 event in New York and Barcelona! fingers crossed about that!
oh and shozu doesn’t work well (at least from what Alec Saunders and Ken Camp have blogged) on the N95 due to general S60v3 issues, the lack of RAM and ShoZu bugs
Couple things I wanted to bring to your attention about your N95 experience.
First off, I have never seen such bad memory errors as you’ve reported, on either the old or the new firmware. I’ve never had a single problem opening the camera application, recording a video, and watching it right after, much less not being able to open the camera application at all.
Second is in regards to Maps/Smart2Go. I’ve been able to successfully use the GPS functionality in landscape mode, though if I view satellite info, it’s typically not as strong as when the keypad is slid open. No reason why you shouldn’t be able to use connect to GPS in landscape mode unless your just not set up to connect to satellites properly. I do agree that it takes a bit of time to load, but even so, I’ve found that there’s ways to set it up to cut the time down significantly. I set up a vent mount for GPS use in my car and if I place the phone in the mount with the keypad open, open Maps, and open the satellite info, it only takes about a minute to connect or so.
I’m curious to know how you were able to store passwords in the browser? I’ve seen the option to delete stored passwords when clearing the cache, but nothing about storing them to begin with. Maybe I need to just look around a bit more.
@Roland - Yes, I will hopefully get to play with FP2 in the next few weeks. I hadn’t even thought of ShoZu being the culprit. I’ve had it on my N95 since day one and haven’t had any of the normal problems with the actual app, but hadn’t considered it might be the cause of the stability and memory issues. I’ll uninstall for a few days.
@Jonnybruha - you have to go into the browser settings and turn it on. I tested the GPS more today, and sure enough, it would get REALLY flaky if I closed the slide. I have a mount in my truck as well, you’ll see it in the video soon.
I think you have a bad unit, my free ram on a fresh start is 19.8, ive used the gps in landscape, its suggested to use it with slide open for better reception, the locking in time has improved i dont know why, maybe clearer skies, but the other day i locked in in 30 secs, i posted it in hofo, i was amazed, but average time has been 2 min.The camera, ive never once experienced the issues u are having, like i said maybe u haver a bad unit, i think the camera is a little faster than the n73’s and focus is definetly faster, all in all a great review but dont agree with all your points, at least not with the unit i have. Thanks for the time and effort as always to give us info.
I have never experienced your memory issues with either firmware. The N95 is by far the most stable and fast smartphone I have owned right out of the box (no firmware updates). The latest firmware has improved camera access speed and multimedia mode.
Maybe an app Ricky is using has a memory leak?
Having used the n95 now going on a week I too have found the handset rebooting at unrandom times. But overall I think the unit is outstanding.
Shozu! Uninstall it! I had it installed on my N95, and had the same free ram as you, the same bugs, and sometimes worse (like shutting off when i sent or recieved a text)… After uninstalling that program, everything works much, much, much better… Not only does it suck a LOT of ram, it also has myriad incompatability issues… Like for instance, when i plug in my phone as mass storage, drop some stuff on there (music, say), and then disconnect it, shozu acts like it just found all 700 plus photos… it loads them one after the other, for 5 minutes, and then asks if i want to upload all of them to flickr (which i’ve already done)…
Anyways, uninstall that program and you will find your N95 much more usable… Its very unfortunate, because it was one of my favorite apps on my n70, and I considered it a must have app on any future phone.
But, the instability it causes is just too much to ignore.
So yeah, uninstall that one, and see what you think.
And here’s to hoping shozu gets that and the video upload limit of 4mb fixed asap.
Kind Regards,
Phono
Great article & summary of your Road Tested Experience with the N95 Ricky.
I’m definitely sticking with my $199 N75 for now thanks, especially since Cingular hasn’t added its Java and Certificate crippling tactics to the Firmware like they have with previous S60 phones.
Agreed about uninstalling resident apps like (I assume) Shozu. My N95 has 18MB free on startup, for example. Only RAM issues are when trying to play back captured videos every now and then, with Camera and Gallery running in the background….
Wow, ive never seen problems with both of my 2 N95’s like this, and i used these on a construction site for 9-10 hours a day. Memory on first boot is about 20mb, and after 2 weeks of constant use, and managing the memory (closing apps thru the inbuilt task manager) i end up with a bit of leakage and an average 17-18mb of available memory constantly.
The camera is great, while my Sand color model had an issue with a power surge in the LCD from the backlight during focus, and had to have the LCD replaced. All good now tho.
Also, battery life can be prolonged by disabling the WiFi scanning, and lowering the backlight settings.
I laughed after reading your final thoughts on the N95 because what stuck out was this:
1) Unstable
2) RAM issues
3) Slow in parts
4) General inconsistencies
Sounds like every Nokia released!
But in all seriousness there are some good comments here that might give you a better experience with the N95.
You should see/use the SE P900i.
I had it for 4-5 months, it was good build but unusable due to restarts even when writing sms, not to talk about video.
Only thing that worked ok was the audio player.
I am planning to buy a nokia N95 and replace my N70. I just hope that the problems with it would be fixed. This is also for the sake to improve the sales of the smartphone. Thank you Nokia.
And also for the user’s satisfication…
By this, it would then be regarded as one of the best smartphones.
I’ve almost given up on the concept of a perfect smartphone, something which i (that is, we!) was or were promised over four years ago now. When is this mythical beast going to emerge?? Can large, corporate, influential, stinky-rich concerns like Nokia, HTC or Sony Ericsson just not be bothered with testing little things like the random access memory on their shiny new (flagship) handsets? P990 anyone? Surely some of the bucketloads of lolly that nokia have hurled at the sleazy high street dealers here (and in a lot of other countries too, most likely) could have been put to outstanding use in yanking a couple more hoodies off the streets of London, slapping an n95 into each of their nicotine-stained little palms and telling them to go postal? How can a hardware component that should have been stressed to the maximum YEARS ago still be causing these crazy Fins so much trouble?!
Think i’ll just wait for this iPhone, at least when it breaks i’ll have the satisfaction of being able to head down the Regent street and throw it at some hepcat behind the ‘genius’ bar.
I’ll have updated reflections up this weekend, hopefully. I get hi-speed internet back in my house on Wednesday.
Anyways, I’ve uninstalled ShoZu and am VERY pleased now. That sucks, though, as the built-in web upload is painful to use.
As for your comment, Si, I don’t recall ever being “promised” the perfect smartphone. Every phone has to have limitations, that’s what prompts you to buy the next one out. Common business sense.
As for the iPhone, when you compare the specs and the price, that’s a no-brained decision.
I was all set to jump on one of these as an upgrade to my N73, but after reading this and some other comments on a couple of forums, I think I’ll hold off and see about the N82. Myabe by then the price of the N95 will have come down and newer firmware will have improved the stability issues.
price of n95 is alredy down, I got my from plemix.com, 695 + sh
I don’t know what the hell you did with your phone, but like all my friends we haven’t had any errors or faults with the phone.
I really think this could just be a hardware damage on your phone, or maybe software. Or you don’t use the phone like you should.
If you put this phone in a slightly humid place, you can easily get some hardware damage.
And I would advise you to see a Nokia retailer, they might repair some stuff.
Glenn, read above comments, you can see that once I removed ShoZu from the phone, I had zero issues, and actually I now love my N95.