After looking into it, I'm starting to think that N95 is actually the best mobile thingie out there. Even better than first generation iPhone. :) (This should tick your nerve :) ).
The camera, the screen, the GPS all seem awesome. I'll never get lost again! :)
on my 2nd N95 and after a couple of months of using them, I'd say it's only a babystep better than the previous gen S60 phones. it's a bit faster overall, the camera takes ok pics (with the latest firmware, finally), the GPS is way too slow to get a fix to be useful, it doesn't run out of memory as often but it still does, etc...
but hey, i guess it's still one of the better phones out there. as far as comparing it to iPhone, i bet the iphone UX will be miles better. but feature-wise N95 wins.
Yeah I think this will be case. iPhone will be amazing to use and I'm gonna suffer mentally for not getting it. But I'm not going to use my phone as a music player anyway, so iPhone is too much in that sense for me. I'll just wait for a proper touchscreen video iPod, which just has to come eventually. I'm one of those who want a separate media device and a separate phone. I cannot have my PHONE connected to my STEREO at home all the time. I need to be talking to it. :)
I agree with akiville - I don't think that N95 is that much better than old S60 phones. Symbian sucks anyway. ;)
There is couple things that I'm missing. The biggest thing - ability to sync all calendar events & contacts etc with some open source software at my computers. And some other points - hsdpa, nice design, bt and long standby & operating times (Teppo - good luck with N95 specially with this).
ok let's rant a little more, it's monday after all. :)
my biggest annoyances about N95:
finally nokia has normal audio out for headphones, and not just the god-awful pop-port. BUT, the audio out is placed to the side of the device, not the top! sigh.
finally there's also a standard USB port, yay. maybe sometime in the future it is also possible to actually charge the phone through it - a feature many other manufactures already are offering.
ok then there's quite a few software-related issues, but let's not even go there...
good things: sync and media transfers work quite nicely on both OS X and Windows. connectivity is amazing, WLAN seems even better than on N80. screen is decent and as said, camera takes pretty good photos. i guess i have become used to S60 3rd ed device battery life coz i don't even see it as a problem anymore... i do carry a spare battery when i'm travelling. :)
Yeah I heard a rumor that there's a megapower battery coming for the N95. It's probably a good investment.. But I have to say the same as A-V, I'm now used to shitty batteries in phones. My N70 can barely survive only one day if Jaiku is on, without it for 2-3 days maybe.
At the same note, my original, few years old 1G iPod Mini still does 16h playtime or something ridiculous and never ever runs out of battery..
I guess you guys have checked out Nokia Media Transfer for Mac which will probably make N95 Mac experience much better, seems even enjoyable. I'm always seduced by Flash animations. :)
Anyway I guess there isn't any really good calendar solution anywhere on any device. I would want a way to auto-sync my Google Calendar to my phone's calendar, without any export/import files shit. Do you guys know a solution for this?
Nokia Media Transfer seems to work fine, tried it out a couple times. I still wish there was an OS X version of Lifeblog... seems nokia is being real nice to mac users finally. :)
how to sync Google Calendar, depends if you're on mac or windows. on OS X you can add the Google Calendar feed to iCal and it'll sync nicely then.
if you want two-way sync, that might be a bit harder to achieve. i tried a j2me app that was quite immature some months ago that did two-way sync directly between google cal and S60 phone... i think it was this one, maybe it's better nowdays: http://www.gcalsync.com/
My fear is that there would be a cool 3rd party app that I just couldn't install on the iPhone. Cue: Jaiku, other map software than Gmaps or what ever the future brings. Although Apple can change this in the future, the latest info is that at launch you cannot install anything on it.
Now I got a SMS saying that the N95's have been sent by post and my connection subscription type will change at midnight. So I guess by tomorrow our whole office will ninetyfiving!
What I do normally is that I have a battery charger next to my bed, where the bugger recharges over night.
Then at the office I have a separate charger (from my previous phone), where the bugger recharges during the day.
This way I hardly ever run out of battery, no matter how bad the battery is. This might be bad for the battery though. Dunno. But with my previous phones this method has not affected available use times even over many years of usage.
I also use a nearly identical method for my iPod where it charges in a stereo-connected cradle over night (at least at times), and then charges more in the mac-connected-syncing-connector over office hours. Again, no effect on the battery durability.
But yeah, charging N95 over USB cable (like the iPod does) would be ideal. Too bad that it is not an option.
browser settings -> access point -> user defined, instead of of always ask. i think similar setting is not avail for every app, but for the browser at least. i still use the "always ask" setting since half the time i use the browser it's over WLAN.
i upgrade my nokia firmwares on a macbook pro. under parallels, man. the most ironic thing is that i've had the upgrade process fail twice under real windows, and succeed right after under parallels
i guess the screen ain't wide enough for more than six :)
This must be turning into the longest Jaiku conversation ever. :)
But the fact that you cannot upgrade the phone software on a Mac is strange. At least that Media Transfer software for Mac is now out. I guess Nokia wants to fight iPhone on this field as well. Not to scare all high-end tech geeks away by not offering Mac software that is. Many of these must be on Macs anyway, and thinking about going with iPhone instead of Nokias also because of compatibility. Maybe.
ville: oh yeah, i forgot to bitch about the "Anssi key" aka multimedia key. i too keep hitting it accidentally all the time when writing messages. annoying as hell :D
teppo: haven't tried the google mobile cal for real yet, usually google's stuff works well... but i'd still prefer if stuff synced with the phone's calendar app
Slow cameras on phones is something that I still cannot understand. Can't they steal 80% of the phone's CPU for the second you're taking a shot and then return it to the phone. I mean, it's not like you need GPS, WLAN or GSM functionality when you're taking a picture, right?
Now I've watched the whole Steve Jobs keynote. There really isn't real 3RD party apps for iPhone after all. They're just webpages inside iPhone-Safari. So that does it, now I'm good with N95 again.
I was really looking forward into making some special website management tools as widgets for iPhone, but now I can just as well do them for N95/iPhone as webpages. But thats not really that good. So for me this iPhone really isn't so revolutionary anymore. JS/CSS/Flash based widgets would have made soooo much sense on a portable device.... hmm.. Nokia, take notice and add them as a software update to S60 and I'll love you...
25 comments so far
I hope that some manufacturer will bring a mobile phone that I even can consider of buying... :) Good luck with your new toy...
2 years, 6 months ago by Kumi
After looking into it, I'm starting to think that N95 is actually the best mobile thingie out there. Even better than first generation iPhone. :) (This should tick your nerve :) ). The camera, the screen, the GPS all seem awesome. I'll never get lost again! :)
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve
on my 2nd N95 and after a couple of months of using them, I'd say it's only a babystep better than the previous gen S60 phones. it's a bit faster overall, the camera takes ok pics (with the latest firmware, finally), the GPS is way too slow to get a fix to be useful, it doesn't run out of memory as often but it still does, etc...
but hey, i guess it's still one of the better phones out there. as far as comparing it to iPhone, i bet the iphone UX will be miles better. but feature-wise N95 wins.
just my two cents.
2 years, 6 months ago by akiville
Yeah I think this will be case. iPhone will be amazing to use and I'm gonna suffer mentally for not getting it. But I'm not going to use my phone as a music player anyway, so iPhone is too much in that sense for me. I'll just wait for a proper touchscreen video iPod, which just has to come eventually. I'm one of those who want a separate media device and a separate phone. I cannot have my PHONE connected to my STEREO at home all the time. I need to be talking to it. :)
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve
I agree with akiville - I don't think that N95 is that much better than old S60 phones. Symbian sucks anyway. ;)
There is couple things that I'm missing. The biggest thing - ability to sync all calendar events & contacts etc with some open source software at my computers. And some other points - hsdpa, nice design, bt and long standby & operating times (Teppo - good luck with N95 specially with this).
Another two cents...
2 years, 6 months ago by Kumi
ok let's rant a little more, it's monday after all. :)
my biggest annoyances about N95:
finally nokia has normal audio out for headphones, and not just the god-awful pop-port. BUT, the audio out is placed to the side of the device, not the top! sigh.
finally there's also a standard USB port, yay. maybe sometime in the future it is also possible to actually charge the phone through it - a feature many other manufactures already are offering.
ok then there's quite a few software-related issues, but let's not even go there...
good things: sync and media transfers work quite nicely on both OS X and Windows. connectivity is amazing, WLAN seems even better than on N80. screen is decent and as said, camera takes pretty good photos. i guess i have become used to S60 3rd ed device battery life coz i don't even see it as a problem anymore... i do carry a spare battery when i'm travelling. :)
2 years, 6 months ago by akiville
Yeah I heard a rumor that there's a megapower battery coming for the N95. It's probably a good investment.. But I have to say the same as A-V, I'm now used to shitty batteries in phones. My N70 can barely survive only one day if Jaiku is on, without it for 2-3 days maybe.
At the same note, my original, few years old 1G iPod Mini still does 16h playtime or something ridiculous and never ever runs out of battery..
I guess you guys have checked out Nokia Media Transfer for Mac which will probably make N95 Mac experience much better, seems even enjoyable. I'm always seduced by Flash animations. :)
Anyway I guess there isn't any really good calendar solution anywhere on any device. I would want a way to auto-sync my Google Calendar to my phone's calendar, without any export/import files shit. Do you guys know a solution for this?
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve
Nokia Media Transfer seems to work fine, tried it out a couple times. I still wish there was an OS X version of Lifeblog... seems nokia is being real nice to mac users finally. :)
how to sync Google Calendar, depends if you're on mac or windows. on OS X you can add the Google Calendar feed to iCal and it'll sync nicely then.
http://www.tuaw.com/2006/04/13/howto-subscribe-to-a-google-calendar-using-ical/
if you want two-way sync, that might be a bit harder to achieve. i tried a j2me app that was quite immature some months ago that did two-way sync directly between google cal and S60 phone... i think it was this one, maybe it's better nowdays: http://www.gcalsync.com/
i hope you get your N95 soon :)
2 years, 6 months ago by akiville
My advice on a fresh owner of N95; buy another battery stat. I got tired of charging on daily basis..
2 years, 6 months ago by samin
Hey coolness, you are the calendar master. I'm on a Mac Pro so that'll do just fine for me. I'll have to check that out now.
Btw: have you already read the latest: iPhone Details from AT&T's Sales Training Workbook
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve
yup, no MMS for iPhone. no biggy in the states, but personally: blah!
2 years, 6 months ago by akiville
My fear is that there would be a cool 3rd party app that I just couldn't install on the iPhone. Cue: Jaiku, other map software than Gmaps or what ever the future brings. Although Apple can change this in the future, the latest info is that at launch you cannot install anything on it.
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve
Now I got a SMS saying that the N95's have been sent by post and my connection subscription type will change at midnight. So I guess by tomorrow our whole office will ninetyfiving!
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve
samin: does having more batteries really solve the "tired of charging" problem?
what i mean is that there's then twice as many batteries to charge and manage. your spare needs to have charge in it, etc...
i've found it bit of a hassle, personally
2 years, 6 months ago by akiville
What I do normally is that I have a battery charger next to my bed, where the bugger recharges over night.
Then at the office I have a separate charger (from my previous phone), where the bugger recharges during the day.
This way I hardly ever run out of battery, no matter how bad the battery is. This might be bad for the battery though. Dunno. But with my previous phones this method has not affected available use times even over many years of usage.
I also use a nearly identical method for my iPod where it charges in a stereo-connected cradle over night (at least at times), and then charges more in the mac-connected-syncing-connector over office hours. Again, no effect on the battery durability.
But yeah, charging N95 over USB cable (like the iPod does) would be ideal. Too bad that it is not an option.
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve
ville:
browser settings -> access point -> user defined, instead of of always ask. i think similar setting is not avail for every app, but for the browser at least. i still use the "always ask" setting since half the time i use the browser it's over WLAN.
i upgrade my nokia firmwares on a macbook pro. under parallels, man. the most ironic thing is that i've had the upgrade process fail twice under real windows, and succeed right after under parallels
i guess the screen ain't wide enough for more than six :)
and ville that was three things, not two ;)
2 years, 6 months ago by akiville
This must be turning into the longest Jaiku conversation ever. :)
But the fact that you cannot upgrade the phone software on a Mac is strange. At least that Media Transfer software for Mac is now out. I guess Nokia wants to fight iPhone on this field as well. Not to scare all high-end tech geeks away by not offering Mac software that is. Many of these must be on Macs anyway, and thinking about going with iPhone instead of Nokias also because of compatibility. Maybe.
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve
Hey guys what about this solution for our/mine mobile calendar needs:
Google brings calendar app to mobile
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve
ville: oh yeah, i forgot to bitch about the "Anssi key" aka multimedia key. i too keep hitting it accidentally all the time when writing messages. annoying as hell :D
teppo: haven't tried the google mobile cal for real yet, usually google's stuff works well... but i'd still prefer if stuff synced with the phone's calendar app
2 years, 6 months ago by akiville
iPhone to Support Third-Party Web 2.0 Applications
... Don't I feel stupid now..
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve
I already regret getting that N95. :) Even before I have it. Maybe I need to make a promise to myself to get iPhone 2G or 3G later on in my life.
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve
Teppo don't worry, it's really an ok phone - it's just not that good as they advertise :)
today even the GPS worked ok and got a fix in seconds. i could not believe my eyes :)
2 years, 6 months ago by akiville
Your GPS today got lucky, also no one complains about the speed of the camera, thats the biggest issue IMHO, the camera just does not work
2 years, 6 months ago by john
Slow cameras on phones is something that I still cannot understand. Can't they steal 80% of the phone's CPU for the second you're taking a shot and then return it to the phone. I mean, it's not like you need GPS, WLAN or GSM functionality when you're taking a picture, right?
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve
Now I've watched the whole Steve Jobs keynote. There really isn't real 3RD party apps for iPhone after all. They're just webpages inside iPhone-Safari. So that does it, now I'm good with N95 again.
I was really looking forward into making some special website management tools as widgets for iPhone, but now I can just as well do them for N95/iPhone as webpages. But thats not really that good. So for me this iPhone really isn't so revolutionary anymore. JS/CSS/Flash based widgets would have made soooo much sense on a portable device.... hmm.. Nokia, take notice and add them as a software update to S60 and I'll love you...
2 years, 6 months ago by julesnerve