Nokia releases 8GB N95 smartphone

The 8GB version of Nokia's N95 3G phone - sorry, "multimedia computer" - has begun making its way out of the Finnish phone giant's factories and onto store shelves, the company claimed today. Nokia N95 8GB Nokia's N95 8GB: back in black The new model represents not only the addition of four more gigabytes of storage to …

[Andrew Radley]

Oh the battery life....

Please God let them have improved the battery life.

What's the point of all that functionality when it stops working two thirds of the way through the day due to a dead battery?

[Phil Eagle]

Corrections

Just a few corrections:

1) The A-GPS feature is available to all N95 owners, not just the ones with the N95-8Gb. this feature was enable with a firmware update 12.0.0.13+. It works quite well: I find the fix time dropped from 2 minutes (yes really) to 20 seconds or so.

2) The original N95 never had 4Gb of memory. It has 160mb of internal memory with the possibility of addressing upto 4Gb of memory using a microSD-HC card. On the N95-8Gb, this memory slot is removed to give space for the internal memory. So this model in truth adds 8Gb to the older model.

regards, Phil

[Ian]

Oh the battery life....(2)

Well said Mr. Radley. Battery life is truly terrible. Plus the satnav is a bit rubbish too. The GPS doesn't work through the car windscreen unless the phone is flat on the dashboard at which point you can't see the screen.

It's a real disappointment. It promised so much and delivered so little. Unfortunately I signed up for an 18 month contract. What a pillock I am.

[Phill Key]

Want one....

.... but I wonder if it will be crippled by Orange et all? Which networks will carry this as Nokia seems to be dropped by everyone. Wonder if Orange will let me upgrade as I have just got an N95?

[Lloyd]

2/3 of a day???

I get a full 24 hours out of mine (the old 2G Card flash version using the mp3 player for 2 hours of the day and games when I'm bored), but if the drive's anything like the N91 then I fully understand that it dies a horrible death.

[Bad Beaver]

It's still

a POS in my book, but hey, now it is slightly less ugly! And more space too! Sweetness! Featuremaniacs rejoice!

[Kieron McCann]

Battery Life

If you turn off the dual mode and stick to GPRS as default the battery lasts a whole load longer,,,,

[Anonymous Coward]

@Phil

2 minutes to lock on to GPS?

You lucky, lucky thing! I took the N95 on a walk through open countryside and it managed a lock after no less than 20 minutes!

By lock, I mean sort of lock - it placed me 200m from my actual position on the wrong side of the Grand Union Canal, but that's practically USAF levels of precision.

It *might* have got better recently, but since I don't have a Windows box I can't update my uberbrick to something more useful than a paperweight.

Still, only three weeks until the iPhone after which the temptation to reaquaint the N95 with the Grand Union Canal might just become overwhelming.

[Anonymous Coward]

Graveyard..

My N95 is sitting in my mobile phone graveyard after I tolerated it for a whole week, but only got about 3 days actual use out of it.

Went back to my very old 6610i which just goes and goes and goes...

Ho hum, technology rumbles on...

[John Vaudin]

Symbian just looks silly

I'm afraid the iPhone makes the N95 and Symbian look silly. Symbian have created the most unpleasant development platform known to man (NewLC anybody), all in the name of efficiency, but the iPhone, which just runs a (not even particularly efficient) version of UNIX blows it out of the water running on essentially similar hardware.

Using the N95 is painful - everything is just so slow to respond - whereas on the iPhone, even with it's sophisticated NeXT derived Display Postscript display technology, manages to feel completely smooth. It's not clear to me whether Apple are doing something very clever, or Symbian are doing something very wrong, but either way, they're not just in a different league, they're not even playing the same game.

I just wish Apple would open up the iPhone up to third party developers - then we could finally consign Symbian to the bit-bucket of history where it belongs.

[Darren Coleman]

Apple & UIs

Apple UIs are generally always good. I agree that the Apple UI on the iPhone makes Symbian and Windows Mobile look antiquated, however the UI doesn't really have to do much on the iPhone given that it's so crippled both in hardware and software.

[Anonymous Coward]

Battery life

It has a new battery which is 30% stronger.

[V.B.N.]

Symbian just looks silly & Apple & UIs

Ever tried UIQ? A family of Symbian! Give it a try! Somehow I find it a whole lot easier than the various Symbian phones that I have had!

uhh...what is so wrong about WM anyway?

Now, if you are strictly into Java handsets, please stick to it!