23 April 2007

It's not necessary 2B perfect 2B famous!

Music aspects of this phone have improved a lot; even in comparison with mighty N91 it definitely falls into music range even if it isn’t promoted as a killer music device. Of course, the music party, the sound quality maybe isn’t as good as with iPod or SonyErricsson’s Walkman series of phones, but over all I am pretty sure that for most of us phone will meet all our needs for music on the go.

Phone has standard 3,5mm audio jack, stereo speakers, mini-USB connector for faster music transfer, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR support, A2DP as well as AVRCP profiles and 160 MB of build in memory expandable over the microSD slot that officially supports only cards up to 2GB but it seems that in practice situation with card sizes is a little bit different.

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Let me say that I usually enjoy listening to music in my car and sometimes in my home as well, and the main reason why I need an MP3 player is that I can carry my favorite tracks to keep me occupied while walking outside or to gain motivation with some nice tracks when I hit up the gym.

Therefore, I am perfectly satisfied with this player, playlists, equalizer, great stereo speakers, supplied stereo headset, DRM 2.0 support, stereo FM radio as well as the storage, which can be bottleneck for the real music freaks, as the phone does not (officially) support cards larger than 2GB.

VIDEO

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Speaking of hardware, the first thing you will probably notice is pair of very well positioned chromed speakers capable to produce really good and surprisingly strong stereo sound. Speakers are the most integral part of any audio system and I have to say something about it although this is very objective part and I accept that my ears maybe aren’t sensitive enough for professional sound quality rating but I’ll anyway say that I am satisfied with the quality of the loudspeaker.

Sound is a little bit “grainy” without so strong bass, but from the other hand it’s hard to expect good and strong bass from such a small speakers. Basic physical dimensions limits the lower frequency range that speaker can produce but sound is still good enough for the radio, watching video clips and for listening music as well. You shouldn’t go above 80% while listening to music and for real listening experience you will have to attach headphones or connect phone to some external speakers or stream music over the home music system.

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So, in short, the frequency range isn’t great; speakers can’t play the highest and the lowest tones at the same time. Speakers are definitely bombastic on high frequency songs while being almost inaudible at low frequencies. Also when the volume is increased, the sound tends to get fuzzy or grainy and at the same time, the speakers cannot play sounds at low volumes after reaching a certain point. But once again, how good sound you can expect from these small speakers?! They just can’t produce sound comparable to a pair of stereo towers and subwoofers which are still reserved for car audio fanatics and real audiophiles with good home systems and it will be silly to expect all this and therefore I’ll say that speakers are good enough but there are lot of space for improvements on upcoming phones.

Second but not less important thing is the standard 3,5 mm audio connector on the left side, actually it’s not standard connector as it has one more pin for audio in and therefore it is used for connecting headphones, headset and provide TV out as well. This is great as we have to carry just about one hole capable to accept wide range of accessories. Port is also capable to detect attached accessories but of course in some situations the phone will get confused with attached accessories it will offer you to choose between a few different options.

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Speaking of the 3,5 mm jack, there is a useful piece of hardware that comes packed with the phone. It’s a useful remote controller that provides all basic commands like answering the call, play, pause, forward and backward. Also it has microphone and standard 3.5 mm jack as output so you can connect any standard headphones to the phone over this controller and control music or accept call while the phone is in pocket.

PLEASE don’t be hesitate to ask anything

From the bottom side there is another already mentioned welcome addition. MiniUSB connector that allows faster music transfer which is really nice improvement over not so fast pop-port connector that is very well known with its very weak and wobbly connection.

Furthermore, it has 160 MB of build in memory expandable over microSD slot positioned on the right side and as I have already said all about it in hardware part I will not repeat it once again here, I’ll just say that officially it supports only cards up to 2GB in sizes made in old SD format while in practice it looks a little bit different and we have some confirmation that larger cards made in new SDHC format work just fine.

Nokia N95 isn’t first Nokia phone with dedicated multimedia keys, N91 or 3250 feature the same keys but Nokia N95 is the first phone that implements these keys by dual sliding mechanism which is the best solution so far in my personal opinion.

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Keys are very well arranged and supported by the volume keys positioned on the right side of the phone and together allows to control music on the easiest possible way. The next important thing is that these keys allow controlling the music in background no matter whether you are in menu or any application which is active, you can always start/stop music, change volume or song and thanks to the improvements in UI that comes with Feature Pack 1 you’ll be notified via nice and useful pop-up window on every change.

There are also some invisible improvements, mainly related to BT part. Nokia N95 is the first S60 phone with support for A2DP and AVRCP profiles together and in practice it basically means that we can enjoy in high quality stereos sound wirelessly and control it remotely as well.

For those who don’t know, Advanced Audio Distribution Profile, or A2DP for short, is just one of the many standardized applications of Bluetooth.

Advanced Audio Distribution Profile is the technology that lets devices stream high-quality sound in stereo to each other via Bluetooth™. Also some of them have a hands-free feature that makes such headphones the perfect solution for Smartphone users.

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Without being too technical, A2DP basically allows stereo sound to be transferred to a headset or even car stereo wirelessly. Basically all you have to do is to pair an A2DP headset with A2DP Smartphone and you can enjoy in your favorite tracks while your phone in the pocket, or across the room.

Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) is another nice and welcome feature of Bluetooth. In short it allows remote controlling your media player, controls like going straight to the next or back to the previous song or pause/resume or stop/restart the current one.

So hardware is undoubtedly outstanding but what about software!? Well same as hardware the software part is also improved although it doesn’t bring anything important in comparison to other 3rd edition phones.

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Music player has all features that you could expect or need and also supports wide range of the music formats: AAC, AAC+, eAAC, eAAC+, MP3, MP4, M4A, WMA and I guess it will be more than enough for most of you.

Player interface found in the N95 is the same player like we can find on all Music Edition phones, the basic player functions can be controlled over the 5-way d-pad on very easy way or via the dedicated multi media keypad as well. Already mentioned multimedia keys are very interesting feature and welcome additions, they basically allow to control music no matter whether you are in the menu exactly or any active application, you can always control your music and volume on the very easy way without need to leave the application or send it in the background.

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Even better thanks to the Feature Pack 1 that brings pop-up windows you’ll be notified over the pop-ups on every change related to the music, since the changing track over the stopping/pause streaming till the volume changing. Of course, same as on all newer Symbian phones player is part of the idle screen and as usually it shows information about currently active song. So, to sum, player can be controlled via the d-pad, dedicated multimedia keys, via the remote controller that comes in package or wirelessly with devices that supports AVRCP profile, all in all, great, simply great.

The player can be started on numerous different ways, over the menu as usually or over the fancy new multimedia menu, or by pressing the play/pause key on the multimedia keypad but for me personally, long press on multimedia key is the best and fastest solution.

Once started, player will load last played song with the main screen that offers basic controls, information about current song, number of the songs on the current play list and it is able to show album art. Beside this, player really features a lot of options so let’s try to count all of them. It supports shuffle and repeat modes, the Audio menu brings balance, Stereo widening and loudness.

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Furthermore it supports 6 predefined Equalizers and you are able to create your own as well. Another nice addition is the support for visualization, not using it very often to be honest but you can choose among three offered visualizations, Album art, Oscilloscope and Spectrum. Last but not less important is the thing that there is pretty detailed Music menu that allows pretty good music base controlling. You can sort songs by Artist, Albums, Genres or Composers. There is also support to play with few predefined lists like Most played tracks, Recent tracks and Recent additions.

Software of course supports synchronization which could be useful feature for some of you but I’ll not write about as I don’t like and I don’t use it. Idea to synchronize phone whenever I add a song isn’t very brilliant for me. Phone has miniUSB port and mass storage mode which makes simply drag and drop method the best solution for me and Nokia Music Manager isn’t so bad after all.

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On the end, if there is somebody who will not be satisfied with the default soft there are numerous different 3rd party solutions and some of them are really good although all of them have a few big downsides. They aren’t integrated with idle screen and can’t be controlled over the Multimedia Keys although it will be maybe fixed in the future.

Oh yes, I almost forgot, there is a standard Nseries/Nokia S60 radio player with support for Visual Radio. Nothing especially to say about, stereo FM radio 87.5-108MHz/76-90MHz that as usually requires headphones to be connected to get it work. I know its not very popular solution but its case with all phones with Radio feature, phone just needs something to use as the antenna and headphones are the best possible solution.

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.:[ Nokia N95 - Technical Specifications ]:.