The Nokia N95-4 has been sold in mainstream retail stores for about a month. And, for a little longer than that, Nokia has given us a copy to review.
Is Nokia’s fourth go-around with the N95 one that can stand up to iPhone 3G? Read more to find out.
Buy a Nokia N95-4 from Amazon.com
Buy a Nokia N95-3 from Amazon.com
Phone Encyclopedia: Nokia N95-4
First, the iPhone comparison. There’s no real secret that Nokia retooled the old N95-3 to answer iPhone. About the only major differences between the two devices are an all-black color, and 8 GB of memory. The N95-4 also abandons its microSD card slot, similar to Apple’s iPhone. Nokia says that this was done to make room for (and to use the connectors) for the 8 GB memory.
As such, when it comes to folks that say that the N95-4 is not something Nokia aimed at iPhone… the changes were made specifically to answer Apple’s smartphone.
Out first impression, is that this change is more than well-implemented. Nokia has given the N95-3 the same software improvements that the N95-4 has in it. And, as such, buyers in North America (NAM) have a choice; they can get the N95-3 for less money (which has a microSD card slot), or pay a bit more and get the N95-4 with 8 GB preinstalled.
In terms of usage, the 8 GB memory is considered external storage, it functions just as if you had an 8 GB microSDHC card installed. We saw no real-world difference between it, and a high-quality microSDHC card in terms of speed.
General Usage
The N95-4 prides itself in being a normal phone, with every feature you can think of surrounding it. And, as a “normal” phone, it’s an excellent device. Strong signal, excellent audio quality, and it plays well with both 2G and 3G networks.
About the only basic phone drawback we could find on the N95-4, was that you cannot recharge the device using its mini-USB port. After numerous complaints about this on the first three N95 revisions, one would hope that the fourt N95 would have addressed this. If Motorola and LG can charge over USB, why not Nokia?
One thing that did wow quite a bit was the camera. Hands-down, the N95-4 has the best camera we’ve ever used inside a phone. Even with a CMOS image sensor, it blows away the CCD camera phones (which gained niche popularity) in the first half of the decade.
AppStore vs Download! & N-Gage
Both iPhone and N95-4 are revved up with online stores for buying apps. Both launched without online application stores, but now are offering them. However, this is probably one of the largest areas where Nokia takes a step forward… and then a huge step back.
With the N95-4, you can download software from anywhere. If it’s S60 3rd Edition, it just works. But, the Download! application only lists about 1% of the available S60 software. Why? Because Download! only allows for commercial software to be listed.
That means all the awesome, amazing, well-polished S60 free applications and software… are nowhere to be found. Same applies to Nokia’s N-Gage service.
The AppStore on iPhone, on the other had, allows for unlimited free software (developers simply pay a one-time $99 fee). However, there’s a problem… iPhone doesn’t allow for unsigned code in most cases. Developers need to have the code signed by Apple before it executes.
Apple may have a workaround to allow for unsigned code. However, even if they don’t, the general user won’t care. The general user will find hundreds of times more applications (and we’re not overstating that) on iPhone’s AppStore, from day one.
In case we haven’t hammered it home yet, Nokia Download! doesn’t help with the one main problem with S60: Easy access to all the free software out there still doesn’t exist.
Issues
The N95-4 comes pre-loaded with Nokia Maps 2.0. We downloaded the latest update, and it worked without problem. Well, mostly…
The main issues we encountered were with North American limitations. While Nokia Maps touts live traffic support, such service is not available in the United States. The included 180-day license however, means you don’t have to pay to find out that limitation.
Documentation came up a bit short too. It was tedious to find out how to enable features like Night Mode. And, the default settings are off. For one, Nokia Maps dares to be different from other GPS software, and doesn’t leave the screen on by default. While driving, this is not a pleasant thing to find out.
Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) also, unfortunately had issues with disconnecting and dropout. We tested the N95-4 with the Motorola S9, one of the most popular Stereo Bluetooth headsets. Even inside a pant pocket, we experienced disconnections between the device while playing music. The dropouts were multi-second silences in playback.
But, worst of all was in one area where Nokia touts its openness. The N95-4 simply did not want to work as a wireless modem. Our attempts with Bluetooth DUN modem connections… simply were not what was expected. We expected the N95-4 to champion tethering. What we got were a series of failed connections on both Mac and PC. When it worked… it was remarkably slow, giving us about half the speed we experienced on the device’s internal connection.
Adding JoikuSpot (a Wi-Fi base station app) didn’t help much either. Speeds were extremely sluggish, indicating a bug in the N95-4’s internal IP relaying system. We might have understood that on, say, a CDMA Series 40 phone. We don’t understand that on a flagship S60 phone with the latest firmware update installed.
Speaking of Wi-Fi, the N95-4 didn’t help with that. It simply has the worst Wi-Fi we’ve ever seen short of a Linux system. It works, but it would be faster to use 3G than to wait for the constant setups and nagging connection screens.
Conclusions
Not much was said here that was good about the N95-4. That’s because we’ve come to take a lot of it for granted from Nokia. And, who wouldn’t expect that after years of successful phones. S60 has become the most dominant smartphone platform in the world.
Perhaps we’re nit picking then to point out the flaws on the device. We almost agreed… but then we remembered the retail price of N95-4. Right now, Best Buy (the brick and mortar) wants $759.99 for the phone. That’s three times the contracted price of an iPhone 3G. Even without contract, the multi-touch screen iPhone 3G is $160 cheaper.
What do we get for that $160? We get a better camera, buggy Stereo Bluetooth, buggy modem, and the ability to run unsigned applications. Is that worth $160? Since most people are under contract, a better question would be to ask is that worth an extra $560? We can’t say yes no matter how much money we have.
Now, shortly before going to press… Nokia changed their tune a bit. While Best Buy is still asking $760 for the N95-4, Amazon has cut the price down to just over $600. Still, for a non-touch screen… the unlocked status of this phone is still lost on us. It doesn’t feature UMTS 2100, and as such… we really wouldn’t want to use it abroad anyways. Nokia has yet to craft a truly world phone capable of international and domestic 3G frequencies.
Does all of this make the N95-3 a better phone? Yes, it does. It’s over $150 cheaper, that’s more than three times the price of an 8 GB microSDHC card.
Bottom line; if you want Nokia’s flagship phone, don’t go with the N95-4, go with the N95-3 instead.
Pros: Excellent camera, battery life, signal, balanced S60 phone.
Cons: Buggy Bluetooth, buggy tethering, bad app store, overcomplicated Wi-Fi, grossly, grossly, grossly overpriced.
Final Score: 2/5
Buy a Nokia N95-4 from Amazon.com
Buy a Nokia N95-3 from Amazon.com
Phone Encyclopedia: Nokia N95-4
[…] on the Phone News pages, Christopher Price has posted a review of the ‘Grossly, grossly, grossly overpriced’ N95-4 8GB NAM…I think we can see where this […]
Err…. you can’t compare the unlocked, subsidised price of one device with the fully subsidised price of another!!!!! The iPhone only looks cheap because you’re paying for it over 18 months! Add it all up and you’re looking at $2000.
Compared to $700 or so for the Nokia. OK, you’ve got extra pay-as-you-go or whatever charges on top, but the chances are that the Nokia will still work out cheaper in the long run. It’s NOT ‘grossly’ expensive.
I completely disagree, I constantly use my Nokia N95-4 to connect with One-click access or whatever it is named, I have to say it is better than the card that ATT gives you. About WI-FI you just have set your home WI-FI as an ACCESS POINT and it will be connected when available. Camera you are right, but you forgot to mention it captures video DVD quality, while iphone does not have even video recording.
And I cant believe you compared Nokia Maps with Gmaps, Gmaps is NOT navigation, while Nokia Maps will tell you exactly how to arrive where you want to go, activating Night Mode is extremely easy, while navigating options>night mode. If you dont like Nokia Maps install Gmaps!! and you are done,But can you install navigation on IPHONE, (2.0 too) I think NOT
About Apps, S60 kicks Iphone OS just go to Symbian-freak and will find millions of the best apps ever.
It is like you are not open minded to a new phone, or you hate Nokia
I agree with Steve,
And touchscreen is not better than buttons, they are two different input methods. The user has to decide that, not you
AHH… and the N95-4 has bigger screen, do some research before writing this please
iPhone 3G:
$200
$40 voice + $30 data
Total cost for 2 years of use: (40+30)x24+200=1880
N95 8GB
$600
$40 voice + $15 data
Total cost for 2 years of use: (40+15)x24+600=1920
Not much of a difference.
Or put a pay-as-you-go SIM in it, and it’s $1000 or less with sensible Wi-Fi use. Or don’t you have pay-as-you-go in the USA?
How can the Wi-Fi use be considered sensible when the implementation itself prevents the radio from functioning properly to begin with? It’s no secret that Wi-Fi on S60 is extremely hit or miss, and all of the argument regarding lifetime cost means nothing if it’s hard to live with just in the first month.
Steve, regarding PAYG use in the US, since I’m assuming you’re posting from another country, AT&T offers unlimited PAYG data and messaging for $19.99 each per month, but even it doesn’t address the fact that the normal consumer in the US isn’t willing to even consider paying so much for a phone, much less one with glaring issues, which is why Chris stated it was grossly overpriced considering its poorly implemented non-voice features.
A majority of enthusiasts such as myself won’t even bat an eyelash at spending up to $1000 for a phone, but I’m not willing to fork out the money for this phone, and I didn’t even pay for mine, since it was given to me as a gift from another enthusiast.
I have to echo Chris’s sentiments because these are problems that simply should not be present in a modern smart device whatsoever, especially one from a company that positions it’s high-end products as being the pinnacle of its expertise in mobile devices.
First, I’ll respond to N/A’s post separately, as most of his/her information is simply incorrect.
We did not compare Nokia Maps to Google Maps. Nor did we compare it to Apple Maps for that matter. We simply pointed out that Nokia Maps on the N95-4 had a few cumbersome limitations that make it sub-par compared to a GPS navigation application.
Second, most of the S60 user base has never heard of third-party sites like the one you mentioned. In fact, most S60 users have yet to install a single third-party app. Saying “just go here” doesn’t work… Nokia has yet to provide a way for S60 software to be easily distributed to the entire platform, and the third-party community cannot fill that void.
Finally, iPhone does have video capture ability, you simply need to download a third party app. Quite a few will be available tomorrow, in fact.
Please don’t get into our heads and assert that we hate Nokia. We get a small minority of comments that, when added up, would argue that we hate everyone in the wireless industry. The industry will not improve if we don’t point out the problems in each device. Glossing over them would be a disservice to our readers.
Now, as to the comments about prepaid pricing; we typically do not include prepaid pricing in reviews. Most of our readers do not have prepaid plans.
However, if you are a frequent reader of PhoneNews.com, you will see that we have lead the way in prepaid pricing coverage, even showing how to use iPhone on prepaid plans. As such, prepaid pricing is really exogenous to our review… you can use iPhone on prepaid too, if you want.
iPhone 3G carries a $30 price-point for data as it is considered a PDA Phone. All AT&T PDAs are charged at $30/month. However, once iPhone 3G works on prepaid, there shouldn’t be anything stopping it from being used at the $20/month rate as well.
And again, we do not consider the N95-4 a viable worldwide phone for use. It lacks UMTS 2100, and as such, the fact that it is unlocked really is diminished. A $760 phone should be able to take advantage of 3G abroad.
[…] News – N95-8GB NAM […]
The comparison to the iPhone is just not right here at all. Shouldnt be a comparison because they are two different phones. the iphone lacks too many things and is making a killing on the touch interface…. nokia did not copy the iphone on the 8gb, it was a business decision on the n95 series to mint money by changing it here and there. there are about 3 versions or so of it and each one made them money. i myself had the original and then the US n95 and now the 8gb. the 8gb has never given me any problems at all with wifi or anything else. the camera is awesome. the features i need to hook it up to facebook and listen to my music without worrying about the battery are just amazing. reviews on other sites just dont compare phones and see the good and the bad…. its a review meaning a user experiance….anyho – the n95 8gb by far, is a better phone and device than the iphone including the new one !
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