28 September 2008

Nokia N95 Meets It's Evil Brother

The Nokia N95-1 was truly a marvelous accomplishment that was unrivaled at the time, and remains strong even now, a year and a half later. It was the most talked about S60 smartphone, the most ambitious juggernaut Nokia cleverly named 'multimedia computer'.

So it wasn't long before Nokia, in front of the huge success, spawned several updated versions of the smartphone.

One of them was N95-2, yet another ambitious Nokia phone, but the word 'update' makes me kind of scratch my head. I'm well aware most of you already know everything about the N95-2 so I won't do the usual review here. Instead, I'll write my own impressions of the N95-2 through comparisons to the N95-1, it's older brother.

I've also included pics with some noteworthy views of the phone. Enjoy!

Increased Ram does make the difference. And the difference is around 50 mb, which greatly helps at improving the phone usability at certain things. Mostly I notice the difference when surfing with the Safari browser: I haven't experienced even a single memory low warning, also the browser almost never crashed. Other thing I noticed is the gallery produces picture thumbnails faster, but, other than the mentioned things, it feels pretty the same like the original N95 with the demand paging implemented in the newer fws.

8Gb memory is sufficient for most of the needs, if you don't take the term ''multimedia computer'' too serious that is. At least I haven't managed to fill it up. I was downloading podcasts extensively, without deleting any older ones, stored converted videos without taking their size into account, music etc. While it's still possible to fill up the memory and it can't be increased, the 8GB of stored space still delivers a certain degree of freedom for some time being. And when 8GB finally starts to feel cramped, you'll long be on a newer device.

The back cover blends even better now with the rest of the phone's classic, yet stylish design, and feels in hand more coherent with the rest of the phone (although the color pallet can be noticed a tone different than the upper part, which is darker).

*click to enlarge

The 3.5 mm audio jack is placed the same place as on the N95-1. Why is it a positive thing? Think how awkward it would be to have earphones plugged in while using the multimedia buttons. I really doubt the usefulness of audio jack top placement on the newer Nokia double sliders.

Thanks to the clever design of the audio jack (see pic abowe), it's possible to place the phone on it's side, and enjoy some videos. Isn't it a good thing ?!

The music keys are extruded now, and compared to the N95-1, their usability is really improved, allowing to press the right key without looking at them. After using the phone some time, I realized I'm using the music keys more often than I did with the N95-1.

The numeric keypad remains the same, but it's hard to say it's a bad thing. They could've had a bit more spacing between them, but I consider them to be good enough.

The menu and multimedia keys are another excellent improvement over the older one's. Even though they're smaller (about 1/2 their original size), they are slightly extruded rather than totally flat, and therefore more easily to operate with.

The new design of the phone also means that the old problems with the 'c' and 'pencil' keys are partially resolved here too. It's a lot harder now to accidentally press the red or 'End' key when using the 'c' key. They could have been a bit bigger though.

The speakers, for the better or the worse, are still the same like on the N95-1, but at least they're producing loud enough sound without any noticeable static.

So that was me talking about the positive sides or the improvements over the N95-1. They weren't many, but they're still there and can't be overlooked. Nokia might have addressed some of the user complains about the N95-1, but does it make the N95-2 a win-win for everyone? Not quite. Read on my black list, or the downsides of the N95-2.

The battery is still laughable. One could think that by putting a bigger 1200 mAh battery (even if has to remove other, valuable parts of the phone, see below) the juice would last longer for this black beast. It's true in other situations, but not in the context of the N95-2. The phone now has even bigger screen, right? So the bigger battery doesn't make a huge difference here after all. Well, maybe you'll stop counting those phone calls you made (if you did on the N95-1), but that's basically it.

The phone still requires to charge it every day. And if you're a power user, it's really not so hard to dry the battery even in half a day.

Remember I mentioned about improving one thing, but making other things worse? This is the case with the N95 8Gb camera lens protector. It's a notable difference compared to the N95-1, that is discussed even amongst people who aren't so fanatic about shooting pics with a phone. Count me in to those people. I use the camera rarely. Even then I use it mostly for practical things like snapping my study plan or some notes

I'm too lazy to write down, but the absence of the camera lens protector slowly creeped on me during the month I used the phone. It's actually really scary to think about even the tiny scratches on the camera protective screen, as these would mean permanent damage on your pics. I don't even want to think how much it could cost to replace this part. But I have, even though insignificant, solution to this problem, see pic below:

*click to enlarge

It keeps the back of the phone a little bit off the surface of, say, table you put it on. It won't protect your camera from being damaged in your pockets though, or from dirt, but it's still a nice thing to have.

The soft keys are actually even worse than the original ones! Having seen the newly designed soft buttons on the N95-2, I thought it could be now possible to press them like I regularly did on N70 or N73 for example. But to my disappointment, the new keys works exactly the same way as on the N95-1. For them to work, your thumb must travel all the long way from the d-pad, to the near edge of the phone, right where Nokia marked the sweet spot! Not even to mention they actually got smaller.

The d-pad is another misfortune of the N95-2. By increasing the physical dimensions of the screen, the main keys had to be pushed down, which in turn dramatically reduced the usable space for theses keys. At first I thought the D-pad will work and feel the same way like on the N95-1, which is mostly true. The middle button is still there, and it helps at eliminating any movement when pressing the 'ok' or the middle button.

But like I mentioned before, thanks to the smaller space dedicated for the keys under the display, the D-pad also got smaller, and by no means it's an improvement. It's still very responsive and allows precise browsing, but ultimately feels cramped. For the people with bigger thumbs it could pose a problem here. Thankfully, it's at least as solid as before, and the central button has that rubber feel to it, so slippery fingers won't be a problem here.

The volume keys are yet another weak spot in the design, and were left unchanged since it's older brother, the N95-1. These keys are still too small, hard to press, and work perfectly the same as before. I mean, take a good look at the N82 volume keys for example. Compared to them, the one's we see here is a joke. Also the gallery and shutter keys escaped any changes.

While the gallery key is quite ok for me, the shutter key has the same flaw as before - it's too deep to press, which means longer time to focus the camera and take the pic. Add the time to activate the camera by unlocking the phone, pressing the cam activation key (no thanks to the absence of the camera protective shutter) and the moment will be long gone.

The mass memory storage transfer speed is really bad and is noticeably slower than the speed I got when copying files to my N95-1 4Gb micro SD card. Newer firmware updates might improve on that, as at the review time I was using the older V20 fw.

When you think about the improvements that should be done over the N95-1, I doubt anyone would forget the biggest design flaw of the N95-1, the dual slider mechanism. You can forgive Nokia for messing up their first dual slider phone, but what about the N95-2? At first glance, one could say the design of the rails is a bit different, but in reality they're still the same !?

What on earth did the people designing the N95-2 think by putting the same weak spot in their improved model? The crappy slider scenario was perfectly the same I went through when I got the N95-1: first 2-3 weeks it was ok, but then the slider became loose, again, the gap between upper and lower parts at the bottom of the phone is noticeably larger on the left side. The upper part also has a huge vertical play, that destroys any remaining thoughts about solid built quality of the phone.

*click to enlarge

The one thing I haven't experienced even on my N95-1, is that the phone produces a creaking noise when the keys are pressed (especially the soft keys), thanks to the huge gap between the lower and upper parts. It's even more notable in a closed keypad position. By opening the keypad, the problem is still there, and the upper part wobbles like it's about to fall off! One thing to mention here is, the particular model I had was 'made in Finland'.

It's not how expensive phone should feel like, and I doubt it's acceptable even for cheap dummy phones. At first glance, the materials used in the N95 8GB seem to be better quality than N95-1's, but the built quality is just as horrible, and like I said, simply unacceptable.

I can't say the N95 8Gb is a huge leap from it's older brother. It feels and works nearly the same way, with the biggest change being the visual look, while the hardware remains the same. Roughly said, you can consider N95 8Gb a small update on the aging N95-1. So, for the people, who already own a N95-1, this purchase isn't justified by no means. As for everyone else, the N95-2 can be attractive purchase only if you like/love sliders and aren't put off by it's high price cap. It packs a punch in technological department and has nice, bright screen for your video viewing pleasures. But on the other hand, the N82 is still all around the best purchase in terms of price/functionality.

Overall, my rating for this phone would be around 7 out of 10. People, who obtained the N95 8GB and never had N95-1 before, can object to such a score, because it's flaws do get minimized in front of all the technological power it houses, and hence the better user experience. But, having had both N95 models, I was able to look more critically on this phone.

Please bear in mind, the final score would be much higher if not for the mentioned built quality issues, and I will critically look upon any future Nokia phones with the same built problems. If Nokia keeps the same ignorant pace like now, I'm afraid the score for my future Nokia phones will be a lot lower!