Nothings completely perfect, and there’s not enough information out there on the failings of most products, and this is no exception.  It still has no sway on my decision that at present it is the coolest phone that reasonable money can buy.

As anyone knows from my previous posts on the Nokia N95 8GB, I have an awesome amount of respect for this phone and its older brother the Vanilla N95.  It’s the perfect travel companion in regards to email, light web browsing, GPS/Mapping and a nifty little media player, in the case that a small laptop (or a pretty much immobile 17″ one for that matter) is too cumbersome to carry around.

Gman - Dark Side

But I musn’t go on, I’ve repeated myself enough already.  So on to the point of this post, you see, it has a dark side.  A few of them actually, Possibly not as major as the iPhone missing 3G support (until late July, anyway), or the NASA rocket, which was programmed for calculations in Miles, but data entered in metrics, but it has a down point.

I’ve found that no-one really talks about the N95’s points, the review sites are too concerned with the quality of the camera, or that it has thirty one and a quarter more features than the equivalent Sony Ericcson, Samsung or LG device.  And often if you search for what I would consider issues, you’ll find a small forum thread with two or three people discussing the problem, its just not heavily publicised.  So here’s my attempt to keep it real, level the playing field if you will.

The Major - Data Transfer Speed

The transfer speed to/from the N95 is nothing short of horrendous.  In this day and age of flash and other storage devices which can read up to (and in excess of), 50-100MB/s, the data transfer to the fixed flash card is a pitiful 500-600KB/s.  This wasn’t an issue when phones had 256 or 512MB free memory, as filling the device would still only take a few minutes.  Filling the full 8GB card takes the better part of three and a bit hours!

A faster data transfer medium

My 4GB iPod Nano has a file transfer speed of approximately 10-15MB/s a second, and I can fill its memory just under 10 minutes (not including the time it takes afterwards to level sound output and “determine gapless playback information”).  If Apple can get it right on a 2 year old, cheap as chips, consumer device, then why can’t Nokia achieve better than USB1 speeds on their “flagship” device?  I’ve been assured it is USB2, just not High speed (HS) ~480mbps.  Instead, we’re stuck with Full Speed (FS) which is marginally faster than the USB1 spec of 12mbps, Pitiful!

This probably wouldn’t bother most people as there might not be much of a need to be removing and replacing the data on the memory card often, but when you’re uploading movies, music and videos on a nightly basis this becomes a real pain.  This is the one thing I can see that might make the original N95 a better choice, as it has a removable memory card, so you can put it any old card reader in the hope that it may read/write faster.

Other

The rest of the bad points come as a direct result of comparing the N95 to the Apple iPhone.  That’s usability, and design, and interestingly enough battery life.  It really is just too complicated, sometimes just the easiest tasks can require 10-15 key presses.  Considering the keypad (not including the numeric keypad) consists of over 20 keys, you’d think there would be easy, fuid ways to accompolish simple tasks.

Nokia have included a lot of features in the phone that promote its use out in the open, such as using the web browser on a train, or walking/travelling with the GPS Maps app/Sports Tracker open.  In any form of glare or sunlight, this is a difficult task, often to the point where it gets too difficult and I’ll just give up.

Battery life has improved a lot since i did the latest firmware upgrade (I assume a permanently running process has been removed?!), but I still find on days of moderate to heavy use the phone can be dead before I get home to charge it!

A worthy competitor??

Considering the iPhone has a larger, more vibrant screen, and it still boasts almost double usable battery life and media playback/talk time, this is definitely something that might need a look in, in later models.

But as I said, nothings perfect, and trawling around the web shows that pretty much any product has its ups and downs, and the techy in me loves (almost) everything about this phone.  So no, I still wouldn’t trade it in for an iPhone, HTC (Windows Mobile) phone, Blackberry, or Cheeseburger phone despite their positives.  I just can’t help but think that it may have been a bad business decision letting these fundamental features slip, when they’re elsewhere in the market for a much cheaper price.

It’s been a whlie since I posted an article on the N95, and thats not to say it’s falled out of favor, or I’m bored of it.  To tell you the truth, this truly amazing piece of portable technology, continues to enlighten me, and still I’m finding new things out every day.  A couple of months ago, in my previous post, I mentioned Nokia Sports Tracker, which at the time, was a buggy, horrible example of beta software.

That’s all changed though, Sports Tracker is now a powerful, bug-free (at least from what I’ve seen), exercise accompanyment which is a damn load of fun to use at the same time.  Broken down, it:

• use GPS to map speed/distance travelled on a map;
• allows you to set routes for commonly travelled paths, and records times for previous workouts so you can beat previous routes;
• includes a Step counter to approximate work done and energy consumed;
• updates progress, and live workout status online, updating the users profile (ala Facebook).

Nokia Sports Tracker Online

I’ve now completed the 3.5 mile walk from the office to Waterloo Station 10 times, and got my time down to 24 minutes, though I’m sure this could be a lot better if I wasn’t walking through peak hour traffic to get there.  And best of all, the GPS/live part still works jammed in my pocket.

I’ve had a few emails since writing my previous entry on my favourite list of software for the Nokia N95. People were especially interested in the Truphone application and just how well it acted as an integrated internet phone application. I thought I’d take the oppurtunity to give my quick thoughts on the other chat/messaging/VOIP applications I’d tried since and list the pros and cons of each to get a fair idea of which app best suited which purpose.

The apps I’ve tried so far are Truphone, Agile Messenger, IM+ Messenger, MSN Live Messenger, Fring, Gizmo and Slick Messenger. Most are Instant Messenging clients that connect to anywhere from 1 network (MSN) to about 5, including ICQ, AOL, Yahoo, Google Talk, Skype, MSN and various others. If each has pros and cons, I’ll list them and give them a basic rating.

Truphone (http://www.truphone.com)

As you may know from my previous article, Truphone was an instant favourite of mine. It’s a Voice over IP application that’s main strength is that it completely integrates with the phone. I’m still yet to find an application that works so well with the N95’s interface, and at the same time never get in the way with annoying popups, or long processes to connect and make calls/send messages when required.

The Truphone Home Screen

Setting up Truphone is as simple as installing the app following the instructions on the site, creating an account and choosing an Access point to connect to the server with. Then anytime you’re in range of an internet connection, either via WLAN or 3G you have an icon (a phone over a globe), which allows you to make/receive calls on your specially assigned Truphone number, simplly by Clicking Intenet Call (instead of Voice/Video Call). Like using Skype on a computer it’s not perfect and requires a reliable wireless connection or full 3G for anywhere near normal phone call quality. But it’s crystal clear when its good, and dirt cheap too. In fact, if you sign up and use the service before March 28th, Truphone will give you free calls to most Western countries, both landlines and mobiles.

The N95 with Truphone connected (as shown with the top right icon)

Pros:

• Perfect Integration with the phone, no annoying popups, or drawn out call/connection processes
• Cheap calls and messages
• Works over both WLAN and 3G internet services

Cons:

• Call quality can suffer with less than perfect network connection (calling an Australian mobile left a lot to be desired, I’m assuming because of the added latency of the mobile network at the other end).
• In times of low network service, the constant polling for a better net connection is murder on battery life.

Rating: 4.5 / 5

Agile Messenger (http://www.agilemobile.com/)

I tried Agile Mobile Messenger about the time I first installed Truphone, it really filled in the gaps in regards to an IM Client. Like Truphone the integration with the phone is second to none, and everything really just works. The only thing that lets it down is lack of Skype support, but in reality I can do without it, especially when using such a full featured app. The protocols supported are Google Talk, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, XMPP, IMPS, AOL and AIM, and whilst surely noone can use all these protocols at once, it seems to cover pretty much all bases at once.

Agile Messenger Home Screen

One thing that impressed me about Agile was the extensive options and settings in relation to alerts and connection settings. The ICQ “uh-oh” sound was bad enough 10 years ago, and the two other IM clients which defaulted to this, and were forced to this were a definite down point, enough to make me turn them off and uninstall them. Luckily enough Agile doesn’t suffer from this at all, and has an extensive array of choices to manage alerts, sounds and vibration for incoming messages and events. A top notch message client

Pros:

• Perfect phone integration
• Cheap Life time registration
• Good Support accross pretty much all IM protocols

Cons:

• Battery life problems whilst constantly polling for connection (see a trend happeneing here)
• No Skype or other VOIP support

Rating 4.5 / 5

Fring Messenger (http://www.fring.com)

I tried Fring after my initial trial of Agile Messenger ran out, and was quite pleased with the results. It isn’t (yet) near as refined as Agile, and this is reflected in its interface, but it does seem to have a fair few of the features to back it up. The thing I liked most with fring was its intercompatibility between all chat/messaging protocols, and I could connect to my Skype account as well as the SIP provider Fring uses. Until recently I hadn’t often used Skype, but I have family/friends back in Australia who use it more than any of the other chat services and I’ve found the voice quality fantastic compared to most other computer -> computer solutions.

Fring Home Screen

Pros:

• Connects to pretty much any chat protocol, everything I’ve used thus far, anyway (Google Talk, ICQ, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Skype, Fring SIP service, etc)
• Like Truphone the Internet/Voice calls are well integrated into the phone, and Skype to Skype is useful

Cons:

• Clunky interface
• Battery life death in low connectivitiy situations due to scanning

Rating 4 /5

I’d planned to have a look at the other clients listed at the top of this post, but to be honest I really couldn’t find anything good about them at all. Slack Messenger, whilst having a nice looking interface was chunky, slow, and often refused to connect. The other clients had obvious negatives like connectivity with one protocol/network, in the case of MSN Live Messenger, and the Skype client, though 3 UK’s implementation of the Skype service is great with almost flawless connections over 3G GSM constantly.

Whilst I was recommended IM+ by a few people I found it didn’t compare the other three clients I’ve reviewed, so I’d put it in fourth place. But it’s a pretty even competition between Truphone, Agile and Fring depending on whether you want a fantastic, cheap VOIP service on top of an amazingly integrated client (Truphone), or a full featured and equally well integrated IM client (Agile), or a mix of the two (Fring).

With all this testing of IM/Messaging clients it once again became bleedingly obvious that the only real issue I have with the Nokia N95 is the battery life. I’m used to laptops with a usable battery life of 1-5hrs (and as low as 5 minutes, or a completely dead battery), and it seems reasonable that when used heavily in a situation a high powered phone would have similar life. Despite this, it becomes occasionally restrictive to have to carry around two batteries or be shutting down programs all day just so you can make a phone call on the way home.

To explain why I’m 3 hours late home from work because the pub was calling… of course.

Recently, I posted on my new toy, the Nokia N95 8GB edition. One might think, given that I’ve had it for 3 days now, that I’d have worked out everything about the phone there is to no, and would have subesequently become bored and moved onto desiring a new toy, like a new Apple Macbook Pro… or a rabbit shaped vibrator. But this is not the case, as I’d have to say every single time I’ve picked up the phone, it’s surprised me with some new (as yet, not found) feature or a faster/better way of doing something.

But you might say it’s just a phone, its not a PDA, and it doesn’t look quite as funky as the iPhone, but it really, just, works! No, its not just a phone, its:

• connected, through constant high speed access to the internet via wireless/3G network;
• for web browsing, email, RSS, social networking; and
• constant voip/skype connectivity for next to free international phone calls
• got an inbuilt GPS with Google/Garmin/Tomtom maps support
• a fantastic camera/video camera for day to day use, which stands up against most of the cheaper consumer modelled digital cameras
• a worthy media player for playing both 3gp/mpeg4’s and divx/mp3 and pretty much anythign else you can throw at it.
• also, all those other things you’d expect from a similar unit. A phone, calendar, address book.

As you can see, for the time being, I like this machine a little bit too much, and I hope things stay that way. Last night I was sitting on the Reading express train, frantic as I’d forgotten to pick up a paper or two at Waterloo station I was worried about how I would fill the next 20 minutes of my life. By the time I’d reached home, I’d updated my Facebook profile, uploaded a few photos taken earlier in the day, read most of the news articles I’d missed in the free tabloids, and watched the better part of the new American Dad episode.

I thought I’d end this by writing a quick list of the best applications I’ve found to date to make the N95 experience even better. Behold, in no particular order:

• 
• truphone - A VOIP/telephone app
• This app literally blew me away. As long as I’ve got internet connectivity (either through a Wireless LAN, or my phone providers 3G network), I can make and recieve phone calls to pretty much any where in the world (yes, Australian mobiles too) for free. I’ve long been used to calling friends and family via Vonage or Skype at home due to the sometimes prohibitive cost of calling an Australian mobile via land line, this is all that, and more from a device you carry on you at all times.

• Mobile Gmaps & Google Maps Mobile
• Just like Google Maps, or Google Earth, with the added benefit of GPS tracking through the phoones GPS. MGMaps is (I believe) a joint project between Microsoft, Yahoo and Google to provide extensive maps/satellite images to the mobile platform, so its definitely the better of the two.

• 
• Opera Mobile Browser
• Yes, the same web browser, which I used for a quite a while before the eventual migration to Firefox permanance (word?!), it definitely seems to out perform the standard web browser speed wise, though its not quite as streamlined, look and feel wise.

• 
• Gmail Mobile
• In all fairness I should probably group google maps altogether, as they’re always fantastic. But this a functioning, fast client for the Gmail mail service

And really, the list could go on forever. But a few more things to check out are:

• TaskSpy - A task/process list with memory/CPU information and the ability to kill processes
• YBrowser - A file browser, text viewer, unzipper to access all areas of the phones storage
• Accelerometer plugin - Plugin to access the phones inbuilt accelerometer (read: Wiimote ninja style)
• rotateMe - An app for auto changing between landscape and portrait depending on the angle the phone is held at (requires Accelerometer)
• FlipSilent - Flip the phone to silence an incoming call, flip it back again to turn volume on again (requires Accelerometer)
• ActivityMonitor - A Pedometer to record steps and exercise activity for the health buff (requires Accelerometer)
• SportsTracker - Same as above with GPS support for distance/mapping calculations
• RSSWorld - An RSS Feed Grabber
• putty - The same SSH Client
• Windows Live Messenger - Enough said

I got my new phone the other day, its a Nokia N95, the new one, that comes in black, because everyone knows, “Once you go black, you never go back”… Or so a lewd popup that came up when I searched for that picture would have me believe.

It’s not exactly new news, as the original version (the silver one) has been out on the market for at least a couple of years now. But there’s been some good fixes added to the new one that made the wait worth it (I’ve been waiting since about September last year). These are mainly related to the battery life, which apparently lasted less than a day of normal use, mines good for 24-36 hours of fairly heavy use so far.

Anythings an upgrade from the entry level £20 Prepaid mobile I’ve had since I arrived in the Ukey, but there are some big plus’s that make it worthwhile. Probably the main one of these is the camera in the phone, a 5MP beast which performs quite well, especially when compared to any camera phone I’ve seen before it. These photos were taken with the phone:

No complaints there! This is great as previously I’ve almost always gone out with a camera, phone and whatever else is required for that particular outing, now all I need (for most occasions) is the phone.