9 posts tagged “review”

(updated the photo section)

We all know the advantages of convergence. Either you carry a pletora of unconverged gadgets on your toolman Tim belt or use a single multifunctional mobile (MFM) like the N95. Unfortunately the convergence makes you also vulnerable when that single device breaks down. I experienced this personally when my vacation became a burn-out test for my N95. Getting a backup device or better yet upgrading and turning the N95 into a spare is a smart but perhaps posh move. After a lenghty deliberation fed by numerous internet resources, reviews (AAS extensive review i.e.) and specifications my logical conclusion agreed with my intuition: The N82. The fact I get two year garantee on that model made it even sweeter for me. Currently I think there is none better in a highly mobile (small) package with a versatile web 2.0 software collection to fit your my needs.

Touchscreens are currently still lacking basic multifunctional qualities and their product maturity is still questionable. Even though Nokia S60 Touch is on the horizon, a high-end version with a sliding qwertypad in a super mobile size (100mmx50mmx20mm) is most likely miles away and no guarantees about running Maps, Sportstracker and more. IPhone, E90, E71they all are way to large for me to keep them pocketed 24/7. And yes, Nokia fans will have noticed that the N82 exceeds my idyllic specs with 10mm length (update: The new N85 fits it beautifully) . Definitely a compromise by me.

The Comparison

The N82 is more or less a repackaged and revised N95 with nearly similar specifications. The original 'classic' N95 had numerous complaints about its built quality (slider i.e.), battery capacity and firmware. Not unlikely the product was pushed to be released months before the iPhone, getting an unpolished but capable product. Successive firmwares did a lot of improvements and pollishing, if you were not simlocked that is.

My question is: Did Nokia took all the consumer input to their heart and made the N82 a better N95 in a different formfactor? The 'classic' N95 costs in the Netherlands 1,5 years after its release about 20 euros less than a N82. For those 20 euros more I get a real Xenon flash, a only slightly smaller screen, slightly bigger battery capacity and 4x more memory for running applications. Sound very promising for a mad power user like me. I'm comparing two unlocked models, both with the latest firmware installed (N95: V21.0.016, N82:V20.0.062).

Built and design

I love the feel of the N82 in my hand. It feels solid, more solid than the N95. The N82's 11% higher capacity battery snaps nicely and more securely into its place. The battery cover is also better designed that the N95's cover. There is now little chance of accidentally breaking the hooks that hold the cover in place. Oke I'd rather had the back in the same material the sides of the N82 are made or in black titanium ;^) Still it looks and feels very nice. The look and feel of my N95's silky plum coloured rubber cover is even better. I also assume the rubber is also better at absorbing shock. Alas, it softness and flexibility requires a certain shell thickness that would not have served the size of the N82 well.

N82 vs N95 screensize

The N82's vertical spacing key spacing of the numeric pad is a bit to cramped for full comfort, but it is still very usable. The height of the numeric buttons work well and I can get close to the N95's typing speed, though it took several days to get used to them. The other buttons and the navigation pad work very well and I instantly adjusted to them. Yet a bit of topology would have been slightly better. Volume, power, gallery and photo buttons are exemplary. The photo shutter? Wow!

The N82 has a slightly smaller screen but compared to a classic N95 it not a point. The difference is very small, since it higher dpi makes it crisper, sharper to read. Note the photo on the left is not representative in crispness between both. 25% screen brighness is comparable with 50% of the N95.  Then again my N95 is set at 25% and when in 'sunny ville' at 50% and anything above 75% is a complete battery waste. The display of the N95 is a bit too colorsaturated, the N82 a bit too little. The real important difference is in direct sunlight. With the sun directly above the display (perpendicular) the colors of the N82 are washed out and difficult to read while the N95 retains its color nicely. However the screen text and symbols are still sharp and easy to read (using the default black background and white text theme). No worries for reading e-mail or using the mobipocket reader. Turning the N82's display 90 degrees away from the sun makes the color quality close to the N95's and certainly well enough for evaluating a photo shot you just took. Only in direct sunlight the transreflective qualities of the N82 are less than that of the N95. But how often are you stuck in a position needed to watch a video with the sun over your shoulder?

Photo's & Video

The N82 is faster in getting ready for taking a picture. Geotagging is an integrated option in the photomenu and works like a blast. Alas there is no feedback like with location tagger wether it succeeded in tagging or not. The photo's of the N82 also look a tad better than the N95. Less color blotches and noise in the mid and lower shades, no minute hint of purple.

The Xenon flash not only works miracles at night, it also does a great job to fill-in sun shaded faces. A Xenon flash has more great qualities. First of all, its microseconds flash duration is well suited to give unblurred night photo's compared to flash LED's. Second, the continuous colorspectrum of Xenon is fantastic for getting natural colors. LED's are pretty awful, particular in reproducing warm and sunny colors. Check some comparison shots here.

The N82 sports a IR autofocus asist LED for focussing in dark places where as the N95 uses its flash led. The IR AF assist LED lets the N82 do a better job of focussing in the dark than the N95. Video is comparable with the N95. A focus setting for macro or headshots in video-mode is still missing on both. Though it would be an easy addition to make and increases its use significantly.

Sound & Music

The sound output through external speakers is good. The larger distance beween the external speakers of the N82 give a better stereo effect as the N95. While the N95 doing better in the lower frequencies and volume, having a more solid sound. Yet I prefer the N82 speaker implementation, stereo when watching a movie in landscape mode is very important to me. If I need volume, use a headset or a AD2P boombox. The sound quality over a wired headset is much better with the N82. Both my N95's (one passed away and the other, its replacement, lately recovered from coma)  have at lower volumes (10-20%) a clear and annoying hiss through a wired headset. The N82 is the clear winner here.

Media menu

The Caroussel media menu allows a quick access to different kinds of media an information. You rotate horizontally through the caroussel selecting on of a fixed set of topics. Each giving a vertically browsable quicklist: Videos (latest used), Music (Now playing, Music, Podcasts, Playlists, Shuffle all songs), Gallery (Last captured, slide show, albums), Contacts (configurable list of prefered phone/sms contacts), Weblinks (rootlist), Maps (latest used places). It is design is definitely more useful menu than the one of the N95. It lacks however the flexibility and configurability the media menu of the N95 has. I could imagine this being a configurable menu for downloadable plugins that give quick access to information an individual user wants. A plug-in that works locally or an internet widget for the lastest weather at your location. The N82's menu is definitely more useful, but still only in it's infant stages.

The larger RAM is a real breather. Finally I can run Maps 2.0, open the video recorder and make a recording and Maps is still there and so is sportstracker running quietly in the background without any trouble. It allows all the N82's power functions to be used to the full. Not impacting each other (other than processor capacity). Even web browsing is a better blast. Pages load better and faster. YouTube and other flashsites do much better with more real RAM. The N82 seems to have a better battery life. Whether it is the 11% more battery capacity, the slightly less energy consuming screen or  perhaps better power optimalizations in design and firmware. The battery capacity feels better and more capable. Roughly 4 hours of eAAC+ music at 32 kbps took half the battery capacity with a wired headset.

GPS

The GPS is located in the top of the phone. It is described by Nokia to be working optimal when the phone is handheld at an angle of 45 degrees. Compared to the N95 there is no slider that needs to be open for optimal reception. This is far more practical. Sportstracking and GPS now perform well in your jacket, on your belt or anywhere else you stuff the phone not worrying about keeping a slide open. Even holding the N82 in you hand, the chance that you cover the GPS sensor with your hand by sheer stupidity is very low. The reception sensitivity does

N82 default headset

Headset

The N95 has the most luxurious headset of both. It has media control buttons for play, pause, next and prev. It even a lock for the keys. Yet the design of the N82's default headset is far more practical and discrete. It's has a terrific practical neckband that allows for subtle headset use. See the picture.I do find the lack of mediacontrol buttons on the N82's headset annoying, because the phone lacks them too. Yet, I have the choice between both headsets and the N82 headset gets actually used!

Final Verdict

N82

The N82 beats the N95 hands tied behind its back in nearly all aspects. It looks like Nokia listened well to all the complaints about the N95 and built a worthy replacement for it. It's GPS implementation is far more practical and the battery life improvements will suit most consumers. The N82 is a full featured smartphone in a really mobile form factor oriented towards consumers that want a xenon flash. With its pricing (350-380 euros) it is slightly above the bottom range of current smart phones. Yet I think its the current best buy multifunctional phone if it is compatible with your local 3G protocol. The vertical spacing of the numeric keys are a bit too cramped though not overly so. I find the washed-out color in direct sunlight is not really a problem, but have a look at it in a shop and decide that for yourself.

Currently there is a new batch of Nokia's announced. Particular the new N85 is a direct competitor to the N95, N95 8GB and the N82. It's excellent OLED screen, larger battery capacity and wmv video support it all looks very promising. Yet it will also be a much more expensive phone (for a while). With S60 touchscreens around the corner I can imagine migrating next year again, spending more valuable cash. The N82 is now nearly a year on the market with a proven track record and a grown-up firmware version for a very delicous price. Giving stability and know characteristics. Besides, a xenon flash is pretty terrific for nighty nightly pictures. Only one other Nokia sports it, a wifi-less one. So for nightstalking photographers the N82 is a simply irristible 24/7 pocketable smartphone. Without any doubt the best choice when compared to a N95 classic and certainly the best buy smartphone..

The one thing

The one thing I miss. The one thing from the N95 I miss, is the feature from the latest firmware. Open the slider, unlock the keypad of the phone. Close the slider, lock the keypad. Pure genius. So intuitive, so cool. For some reason it does not work on my N82. Funny, I actually keep trying it in my dreams.

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I make avid use of my N95 for pictures and the occasional video shot. I noticed of course that the occasional night shot might benefit from a steady hand. More important the longer video shots sometimes causes severe cramps holding the camera steady. I needed a hand, preferable a steady hand.

And a tripod is as steady as those hands come. Originally I found the DT-22 design more suited for the N93(i) than the N95 and was rather sceptical as a N95 utility. Yet others commented favorable on the DT-22 with the N95 and I decided to give it a try. Thus, quickly ordered my doorbell rang a while ago delivering the DT-22, Nokia's universal tripod.

Well time for a closer look and then some silly testing... For those wanting to be sure not to waste any penny for useless gadgets.

The DT-22

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On the left you can see the size of the tripod and the phone clamp relative to the N95. A well known size for many of us. As you can see it is small enough to fit in a jacket breastpocket or even the innerpocket. The tripod's length width the standard  1/4" screw pointing up is about 164 mm, give or take a mm. With the legs unfolded and maximal extended it has a standing height of 254 mm without the screw.

In the right picture you can see the telescopic tripod legs in its three different lenghts. The middle length can't really lock into position as do the other two positions, but there is a notch that gives sufficient support to hold the N95 on the tripod. The clamp is visible in the following picture series. Clearly you can see how it unfolds. The screw is on the left:

Maximum inner clamp size is at least 54 mm with sufficient thread remaining to clamp with adequate force. Below you can see the N95 mounted in the DT-22. Since this is a asymmetric distribution there is the preference to tipover in the direction the phone is held. I measured the weight placed on the different leg tips  in this situation and got 70, 120 and 160 grams. Which is is a geeky way to say, don't bump the table where you put the tripod-N95 combo on, not even slighly.

N95 in the DT-22

2 comments

It's capable of holding my SonyEricsson w800i phone too, but not my N800. The N800 form factor is inconvenient, which is a pity. It would be great to hold the N800 at a more pleasant viewing height when working with a bluetooth keyboard at a table.

Addenum: I forgot to mention something about the build quality. Well it is excellent and I really mean excellent. Durable  wearproof plastic and metal. The only comment I have is that the balljoint is a bit light. There is a slight tendency to sagg holding the N95 in landscape mode.

This is follow-up article on my article about first experiences with Nokia Maps 1.0. I have been running the new Maps for a couple of weeks now and can give you report about its stability and reliability. Maps 1.0 seem to run just as stable or unstable as the previous version did. Maybe even a bit better. However the maps has a different storage directory on the microSD card and not cleaning the old directory really wastes card space. In my case 470 MB of storage space! Here the full story:

Superfluous Mapdata

After the first installation I had problems with crashes on starting Maps were not seen. They all seemed be solved with using the latest maploader. However the map data is now stored into a different directory. If you did not clean the old directory before changing you should do this. I had a double copy of the Benelux and surrounding areas on my N95! Talk about circa 400 MB of wasted card space. The new map data is placed in the 'cities' directory on the microSD card. Switch your phone to mass storage mode,hook it up to you PC and clean the data in the hidden directory 'Private\20001f63'. This is where the mapdata for the previous Maps version is stored and it is no longer needed.

Stability and reliability

The new maps girl in my phone is just as blond as the previous one (non-digital ones excluded). She had the same routing errors or rather routing quirks. An experience driver would choose slightly different routes. Still she gets me where I want in the promised time. The new features all work well and reliable. Picking a destination without a GPS lock rocks and increases driving safety. No more embarissing geeky waiting-for-lock-moments, unimpressing the hot girl driving shotgun. Stability seems just as good, maybe even a bit better. None of the earlier problems like the mentioned tracking slowness in a turn etc. showed up any more. I had only two problems in the last weeks.

- Once the phone closed Maps to free memory when a call came in which I took. Normally it should keep Maps running. It was the only moment I got a call in the car during the last weeks. I had to restart Maps, luckily I save my destination always to an orientation point ;-) Still the previous version had the same problem occasional. So, nothing special.

- During heavy rainfall in a heavy tree covered road getting the GPS lock while driving took ages. So I parked the car to get a lock instead of continue driving in the wrong direction. The GPS fix was still a bit shaky under heavy and wet (GPS signal absorbing) treecover. Rainfall was pretty heavy, I had to slow down to prevent aquaplaning of the carwheels. Nothing unexpected though. AGPS really improved the locking and the older version might actually have had more problems.

Conclusions:

In general the new Maps is just as stabile and actually feels to be slightly more stabile than the previous one. No crashes at all, even during long drives. All the new features like the new search categories and map layout work flawless and are really an improvement. There is certainly room left for improvement, but Nokia seems to be bent on improving it. Surely many more versions of Nokia Maps will be released in the future. Especially now Nokia is interested in buying NavTeQ.

Nokia seems to be getting it, finally! But then they have to since Apple is getting into the competition. For now, I have my two most important features implemented. AGPS and selecting a navigation target without a GPS lock. The new search categories are actually a bonus. Altough I'd rather assign some numeric buttons to navigate to the nearest parking spot, fuel station, or back to the original path.

Well today, my second 2GB microSD card from Kingston arrived. The reason I bought the Kingston was that I got a primo small cardreader with it. The 2GB works fine in my N95 and incombination with the cardreader it functions as a usb-stick. The right picture shows the cardreader, the microSD card and the next cap separate. As one can see from the pictures the size is about as small as usbstick can be. The microSD card itselfs fits snugly inside the back of the cardreader with nothing sticking out. Better yet, mounted in the cardreader, the cap still fits over the cardreader and can protect both, the cardreader and your 2GB microSD card.

The transferspeed of the microSD card in the cardreader clocked at 5 MB/s writing speed and a whopping 18 MB/s read speed. It clearly supports USB 2.0. Which is a lot more than the 0.9 MB/s of the N95 in usb-stick mode and the 0.6 MB/s of the wifi. My older microSD cardreader hardly did more than 0.96 MB/s being USB 1.1.  So these are kick-ass. Note that I did not set any password on the microSD card.

Gotten curious, tested my 2GB microSD card from SanDisk. It came up with 5.5 MB/s writing speed and read speed of 10 MB/s. Not bad but the Kingston nearly twice faster. The Kingston microSD card tested to work fine. I did a quick movie playback, no problems. The cardreader got a bit warm during usage but, there seemed no detrimental effects on the cardreader or the microSD card. The metal usb connector easily dumps its heat to its surrounding. It feels small but sturdy. Getting the microSD card out of the cardreader does requires a certain level of motorcontrol and good fingernails. Getting the cardreader out of the usb slot or the protective cap is easy. Pull on the cord.

Card encryption seems to work well too. I set a password on the card via the N95 and the card became instantly unreadable in the cardreader on the PC. As it should. Clearing the password made the card readable again with the cardreader.

Conclusions:

The microSD card as wel as the cardreader work well. The microSD card and the cardreader had excellent read and write speeds (20/5 MB/s). Used as a usb-stick in combination with the cardreader the high read speed is well suited to run applications or a virtual pc directly from it. One might even use it to boot a PC from the usb into one's private and personal OS. In that case I simply hope an 4 or 8GB version will come out for my N95 ;-) The cardreader is really small but usable and can be used as a store for a spare microSD card, turning it into a 2GB usb stick.

Here is one clear reason why Symbian is such a powerful OS for your phone. The N95 has a wide range of possibilties to communicate with other equipment. A wide range of third party software extends these capabilities even further to webserving, ftp, ssh, telnet, vnc and more. SymSMB 2.0 is one of those applications. A very useful and nifty one. It allows you to export shares to a windows network and it can copy data from shares within this network to its flash memory or the card drive. So let's have a look:

The capabilities

Screenshot0005

The first thing one notes is that it does not do a real mount of external shares. You can copy within the SymSMB applications files from an external share to and from the phones flashmemory and the SDmicro memorycard. As such you can not search through large files or play music or video from external shares. A real pity. 

Exports of directories in the flashmemory and the memorycard however are real exports and can be opened as a real share on a remote machine. This works under Windows XP and other SMB/CIFS supporting OS systems. It tested out OK under XP and my Dell Axim Pocket PC running Windows Mobile 5. Shares can be configure to automount/export when a connections is made to a certain network. Access to the exported shares (read or write) is configured per user. It works both in a domain as well as for a momentary point to point mounting using ip numbers.

 
The manual and configuration of SymSMB 2.0

The manual seems well written and readable. Since it is very easy to configure SymSMB I actually did not read much of it, but the parts I read seemed clear and simple. In no time I had SymSMB configured for my home and work network.

 
Communication speed

Screenshot0006

I did a quick test, copying some files. There is some variance in the results, I did not do long term copy actions and timed them with a stopwatch. I just copied some simple multi MB music files and watched the transferrate in Connections of my N95. Here is an overview of the results:

• Copying under SymSMB from the N95 card to my PC's windows share, 150-190 kB/s.
• Copying under SymSMB from the PC's windows share to the N95, about a 100-120 kB/s
• Copying under Windows from a N95 shared directory to my PC's main drive, 180-220 kB/s
• Copying under Windows from the PC's main drive to a N95 shared directory, 310-350 kB/s

As you can see SymSMB is a significantly slower than the N95 in USB mode, which is around 900 kB/s in both directions. it is also slower than a download with the webbrowser on the phone which is about 500 kB/s.
It shows that transferring large files is might not be really interesting over the wifi network.

 
Conclusions and usability remarks

All in all the software is a nifty piece of programming, which allows you easily transfer or access files to and from your corparate file server or your home PC. The transfer speed is a bit slow, making  it is most useful for smaller files. Luckily when talking office documents, pdf's and others these in general are in an acceptable size, especially if you would like to read them on your phone.

This is however not true for media files. A nice movie can easily be 500 MB to a GB large. And transfering such a file from a PC's share to the phone before playback is not practical. I would like to see SymSMB 2.0 to be further developed to truly mount external shares visible for the phone's OS or add media playing capability to the SymSMB copy application. I want to hookup my N95 to a TV or stereo and playback A/V media from my favorite file server. 

Sharing the phone's media to a PC is workable. The transfer speed however is not enough to playback the highquality video's recorded by the N95 video camera. These require an average  of 365 kB/s. But a quick test with a encoded mp4 (from a DVD) at 175 kB/s (1400 kbit/s) played back smoothly via an exported share from my phone on my PC. Note that 1400 kb/s is about the maximum bit rate for a mp4 video to playback at 640x480 pixels at 25 fps on the N95's tv-out. Playing Mp3's from a phone share is no problem at all, since they require a much lower bandwidth than video.

However if you only want to exchange files between a file server and your phone using any (free) ftp client/server for Symbian might do the trick at most likely higher data transfer rates since the protocols have less overhead. FTP speeds from a server to the N95 may be expected to match that of a browser download ( ca. 500MB/s). So wether this application is worth the $25 in its current state is up to you. In any case Telexy is a company to watch since this product shows they are capable of producing userfriendly, smart and stabile software. I am looking forward to their next project. A PPTP capable vpn-client for S60 3rd edition might not be a bad idea to complement SymSMB. Allowing users secure access of their data files through the phones 3G network.

Visit their site for product information or to check out more about transfer speeds in their publications and their user feedback forum.

Hi Folks,

The discussion of battery life for the N95 is one of te larger ones on the internet. I collected some testdate of the battery life of the N95 for music play, video play and gps standby from different test all over the internet and will be giving an overview of the results here. I invite you to draw your own conclusions after the facts.

If you are a Geek and want to play with your new toy and all it's features, tv-out, wifi, music and gaming al at once. I am sure the power just seems to evaporate. In fact, having a buggy application running contineous in the background, can really drain you power  seemingly without reason. This was valid for my old P900 and is still the case with the N95. A competent taskmanager to hunt down those badly written programs is regrettable still not a standard part of the Symbian OS. It is very interesting to see the processor capacity some socalled non-active programs use... However let's look at the real facts collected with Google ;-):

Standby and TalkTime:

Specifications of Nokia for the N95:

• Battery: Nokia Battery (BL-5F) 950mAH
• Talk time: up to 160min (WCDMA), up to 240 min (GSM)*
• Stand-by time: up to 200 hours (WCDMA), up to 225 hours (GSM) *

Specifications for the N80i:

• Battery BP-5B 860 mAH
  
• Talk time: upto 180 minutes
• Stand-by time: upto 192 hours

To compare it to the very nice Run-of the-Mill cellphone, the w800i, a camera/music phone without the smart part. The specifications from SonyEricsson:

• Battery BST-37, 900 mAH
• Talk time: 9 hours
• Stand-by time: 400 hours.

Several people on the internet actually mention a talktime between 7.5 to 10 hours talktime. The values seem to be exceptionally high but reliable. The same for the music play time. I'll get back on that later. Let's take a look at the P990i. The phone that should have been the N95, but wasn't. According to SonyEricsson it boasts:

• Battery BST-33, 900 mAH
  
• UMTS talk 3 hours, standby 300 hours
• GSM talk 9 hours, standby 340 hours.

My first observation is the difference between UMTS and GSM looks shocking (P990i). However getting back to the talktime and standby time. The N95 has seemingly far lower standby and talktime values then Sony Ericsson. However it is unknown how SonyEricsson and Nokia test their battery life and if these values are comparable at all.

My first guess to explain the difference would be that the W800i has a tiny efficient cpu, and the P990i comes with ARM9-based processor clocked at 208 MHz. And the N95 has a Dual CPU.  Type: ARM 11 at 332 MHz and a 3D Graphics HW Accelerator. More MHz usually means more power drain! 

However CNet Review tested the N73. The N73 is stated by Nokia to have 4.1 hours of talktime. Bonnie Cha of CNet states their test gives the N73 9.1 hours. More than double the value of Nokia. PC World states they are going to test the N95 talk time. I await the results with confidence and would guess the results to be quite satisfying and competitive to the P990i. It looks like it that the Nokia talktime and standby figures are VERY conservative values. The testing conditions of Nokia are probabely far more demanding than those from SonyEricsson and other producers.

Video Playback:

• Playback until battery dead, 3 hrs 14 min for the N95 versus 4 hrs 4 min. for the iPod 30GB, the N95 had bluetooth and 3G connection switched on during playback. In offline mode it does 3 hrs 35 minutes. All tests were on a PRE-production version. Source :James Burland at The Creative Live Blog

I would say video play power consumption is very acceptable.

Music Playback:

• 5 hours of contineous music from a full charge. No settings or firmware specified. Source: Sandra Vogel at Trusted Reviews. Did she use speakers?
  
• 8.5 hours  at maximum volume settings and random playback with default headphones and remote control used,  source: Eldar Murtazin at Mobile Review.
  
• 10 hours, 20 minutes. Playback until battery dead in offline mode, PRE-production version. Source :James Burland at The Creative Live Blog
• 3 hours of contineous music from a full charge using a bluetooth headset. Lukas Kahwe Smith at Poo-tee-weet.Odd, I would not expect bluetooth to be such a power drain.
  

The W800i: 30 hours of battery life in music mode (i.e. non-phone mode) or 15 hours of battery life if the phone is also being used to receive calls. This is incredible and at far outperforms the N95.  But then again, the W800i is a dedicated musicphone which happens to have a 2MPixel camera with a attachable flash. I think 8-10 hours iwith the  default headphones seems to be  reliable figures. James and Eldar also specified their used settings. As such then the 8-10 hours of the N95 compares well to an iPod (12 hours) or a iPod mini (8 hours) according to Ipod Battery FAQ.

GPS Time:

• 6 hours of battery life with the GPS was on. No further test specifications. Source: Rahul at Yahoo Research Berkeley.

Well my Garmin eTrexx is designed for lightweight and powerefficiency lasts about 12-18 hours with a fresh set of batteries. Using the Garmin for satnav in my car actually drains the batteries a lot faster. There is more display action and on the fly route calculation. In comparison 6 hours for the N95 then seems comparable and very usable. Few people take the N95 GPS for long walks in the outdoors, there I want a waterresistant and shockproof GPS with an altimeter and compas.

CONCLUSIONS:

Each function separately the battery performance seems quite as can be expected.  Up to par with current technology. It is clear the W800i has the circuitry of a real standalone highly efficient mp3 player inside itself. This is supported by the Walkman only mode, where the phone part is simply switched off. Few phones can actually compete with that sound quality and power efficiency lasting (in offline mode) 30 hours. But for the rest I would say the performance seems on par with other devices that deliver comparable functions on a comparable battery capacity.

The same seems to hold for the standby time and the talktime. The CNet test for the N73 seems to indicate a very different vorm of testing between SonyEricsson and Nokia. It seems that the N80i and the N95 are not very different in power usage compared to the competitors. To me the phone seems to not drain the battery when I do not give it a reason. That means, excellent standby and calltime, no significant impact when using it as an organizer during a work day. Powerefficient when I use it wisely.

I can have a connection to a SIP server over Wifi all day at work without actually draining the battery more than a  bar. I am next to the linkup ;-) However when using tv-out to play movies or driving with the GPS navigation for hours from cell area to cell area, with all lights and speakers blazing, I am somewhere where I can and should hook it up to a power out-let to use all those nice powerhungry extra features. However I would say in general the battery life is much better than most laptops ;-) Go Nokia, go!

I would say the figures speak for themselves and suggest you all are going too keep an eye out for the PC World Testlab results. And the best thing is perhaps yet to come. Doubling of the battery capacity!

Wolfgang Gruener at TG Daily wrote at may 8th, 2007:

Researchers of the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory claim to have developed an enhanced approach to building of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.According to a press release, the technology could be used in virtually all lithium-based rechargeable batteries – and improve the battery life for example in consumer electronics, laptops, medical devices and even hybrid electric vehicles.

It was unclear if and when the technology could go into mass production. But specifications seem to indicate a possible doubling of capacity.

Some more  pictures of trees, water and ants. Go N95.

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1 comment

A small test with the GPS seems in order and always a good reason to take a small trip with the car and do some walking. The GPS seems a bit more skittish than my Garmin eTrexx. It takes more time to find it's position and has a lot more noise in it's positional data. I couldn't test the navigation yet since. You get a free seven days of navigation with the n95 but I did not register it yet.

29042007007.mp4

I also did a test of the video recording. A 360 degrees panning shot with video motion compensation enabled. Looking at the quality I think the video is downgraded in bitrate by vox.

Welcome to the life of blogging. That is what they should have called the phone. instead of the boring N95 sound. It is a mobile lifebloggers dream. It has high quality pictures and movies and tracks almost all changes on my mobile phone, images, movies, notes, sms messages, video downloads and more and collects them for transport to my pc using Nokia's lifebloggin software. More than that, I can select some items and send them to my weblog with comments and all by phone or by pc. So why not give it a try. So here I start my blog with a small review of the 'gadget' of 2007. In terms of TopGear this thing is subzero!

You can find all the specs of the phone on www.nokia.com so I won't bore you with that.

N95

Oke, unwrap, insert simcard , put the battery in it, connect charger and lets have a look. The first thing I notice is that it is less than a mm thicker than my SE w800i and only 5-6 mm wider. Weight seems comparable by feel, no real difference can be felt. Of course the w800i  has a stylish orange-white 60's look, the N95 is a lot more serieous. If it were not for the 'deep purple' look it would have a rather dull office look. It's design looks solid like some product of German Automotive Engineering ;-)

Let's get a crack at the rest of it's outside. The first thing I notice is the absence of the handy mirror under the lens from the W800i. the mirror is very handy to take pictures of yourself and your friends. Further the cameralens on the front looks very unprotected.

Numericpad

Mediapad

One very hidous thing is the extremely brigh red light that burns under the camera, it's glare even shows up in macro video recordings. Terrible irritating... You could really blind some people with that thing!  Put your finger on it and it will glow redhot. Darn...
But there are some really smart pro's. There is no branded connector you need. The thing connects using a mini-USB connector, V=video and charging also use freely available connectors. And the phone is fully usable by USB when charging in comparison to the w800i. Startup of the camera/video application is pretty slow.

The SD-micro geheugenkaart of 1 GB is remarkable small, smaller than my pinky's fingernail and about a mm thick. In comparison the memorystick duo of Sony is more expensive and larger . The SD-micro is available up to 2GB and San Disk has 4 GB that works on the N95. Just on the market now. The memory stick duo goes up to 8 GB but my w800i can't handle them any way. 4 GB makes the N95 a great video player with its video-out connection.

Microsd

My first impression for the user interface of the S60 was that of chaos and confusion. It almost felt like M$ Windows. However the N95 has a lot more functions than a w800i and they tend to use each other. However after a little use it becomes natural pleasant to use. Memory fragmentation seems to occure after heavy use and some internet downloaded non bugfree applications, but Symbian (the OS) detects most hangups and automagically reboots. One hell of a feature for you gsm, it keeps you reachable!

Voice dialing on the n95 is really nice. No more recordings voicetags of your voice. It matches automatically to the phonebook. It works no worse either. Actually it works quite well.

I installed only a couple tools on the n95.

• F-secure a necessary viruschecker. Yes my old P900 was plagues by a time virus and shifted appointment times randomly.
  
• Fring. So I can voice chat on any available wifi net. It works with Skype and MSN.
  
• Calcium the nifty keymapped calculator.
  
• Mobireader for books on the go.

I might still look for a synchronizable, searchable database. To track my music and book collection. Always handy to prevent buying a book twice...

Some regrets:

• uPnP is a blast, but not being able to play movies directly from LAN is a pity. It could be great as a uPnPClient.
• No wmv movie support, no divx. No CIFS/SMB support.
  
• Moronic mapapplication, not navigation routing if there is no sattelite lock first.
  
• No charging from USB when using the connecting  to the pc.
  

In the coming days you will find some test shots and more experiences with the N95 on the weblog.