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Posts: 7 | Thanked: 0 times | Joined on Aug 2007
#6
I was going to get the E70 (for the keyboard and VoIP/SIP client), but ended up with the N95 (for the video camera, still camera, and GPS, and SIP too).

I'm very happy with the N95, although it took me a couple of weeks to get comfortable using many of the features. (It was my first smart phone of any kind). Setting up the internet phone in particular is complicated because you have to seperately configure the net Access Point, SIP account, and SIP settings.

Other bad things about the N95: I find that it has similarly bad power management behaviour with certain wireless access points as the N800 (specifically, I have to disable power management with my Billion 7404VGO router, but it works very well with a Netgear WPN824 at work). With power management the battery will be drained in a day with wifi switched on, so I have a cheap charging cradle. Without power managment, you can almost watch the battery discharge over an hour or so, even when the max transmit power is set to 4mW.

I've heard that there is a version coming with 8GB storage built in, but I also heard that it doesn't have an external microSD slot. Mine has 160MB of built in RAM, and I've read that it can take an 8GB card in the external slot (I've only used a 2GB card), so that's fine.

I've also seen the US version, which has a bigger battery compared to the European version that I have. That would be useful (but you'll probably still end up recharging every day anyway). I see that it doesn't have a lens cover (which also works as a switch to activate the main camera).

The camera in the N95 is very impressive (excellent "for a phone"), and the GPS is a lot of fun, and useful, and more responsive with the current firmware (v12.0.0.13). It probably requires a signed application to expose the internal GPS as a Bluetooth GPS device, but I've no doubt that it could be done.

There are lots of freely available apps, both in Java and natively compiled, and a python interpreter is available too. In particular mgmaps is a lot of fun (combining GPS position with Google Maps, MS Maps, Yahoo Maps, ..., and uploading your position to http://www.gmap-track.com

The GPS and maps: if you're in the UK, the http://www.viewranger.com/ application is great for hiking and biking, and looking at the stats for the tracks that you can record, and well integrated with the phone features. The built in map application is great for road travel, as is mgmaps.

It works very well as a modem for the N800, but the N95 on its own is very capable, and I actually prefer it for a quick check of email and RSS feeds vs the N800.

Final niggle, the N95 records MP4 videos at 600x480 that the N800 can't play back! The N95 can play back MP4 files encoded with Nero Digital AVC, which the N800 can't do either. (Yet?)

Sorry to ramble, but I hope it's helpful. Did I mention I love my N95?

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Update

A built in app that I discovered was useful: local search. Type in a company or service name and search (the phone gives your current location as a default), and a list of companies from Yell (Yellow Pages directory) will be returned. You can add any result directly to the phone address book. Cute.

Update 2

The phone fits in my pocket very comfortably ;-)

Last edited by sjmac; 2007-08-31 at 22:21.