How Good is the Nokia N95 8GB?

For the past few weeks I’ve been considering what is going to be the best phone for me, long term. Personally I feel I have reached the level of where I want my communication device to be. I’ve been a regular mobile user for many years, and have used a high number of handsets. Living in the UK, it is so easy to get a contract phone making ownership, initially at least, very low cost. I’ve been at a period where I’ve had over 17 mobile contracts running, allowing me to upgrade more than once a month, to get the latest mobile handset. These days I’m running around 6 contracts, allowing me to get a new phone every two months or so, but I find that I no longer need that, and slowly those contract options are disappearing. The reason is, there isn’t the ‘next best thing’ in handsets anymore. The next handset tends more often than not to be a redesign, or a new colour variant, rather than a complete overhaul of features, and that isn’t always a compelling reason to change. And I'm finding the handsets around now, offer me all I want in a phone, I no longer desire to chase the next best thing.

I have had a few favourite handsets over the years, and when the NSeries range initially launched, I was a happy user of the N70, then a very happy N73 owner. More recently, I’ve used the N82 and now the N95 8GB. It is specifically my experience with these handsets that make me think I’ve reached the level I want from my device.

The device I want to use these days needs to have a good battery. There’s no point otherwise. The three best NSeries handsets to date have also had the best battery life.

The phone needs to be simple to use, and well laid out. The benefit of the S60 UI is the high level of customisation available. You can pretty much make the menu layout your own, by creating new folders, hiding icons of less used applications, moving shortcuts from folder to folder, and so on.

I use the camera on my phone sparingly, the video recorder even less so, but if I do use them I want good results. When I put the pictures online, I want the quality to show through, I don’t want grainy results.

Communication is the ultimate point of a mobile phone, and I want a decent text messaging layout, good language options, and an email client. Connectivity is also a main focus, and I want my phone to offer multiple connection options, from Bluetooth, to WiFi, with 3G and even better be HSDPA compatible.

The last critical option on my phone is memory. There must be high memory capacity, anything from 4GB upwards is ideal.

And that is it. Those are my basic requirements for my mobile device. Anything else is an added bonus.

For a lot of that the N73 gave me all I need, the N82 and N95 8GB give me everything.

Aside from features, people put stock on is how the phone looks. I don’t put too much stock on this personally, but it can’t be denied the N95 8GB is one sexy looking piece of hardware.

So, in conclusion, it ticks all the boxes. It has the features, it has the software, it has the design, and it has the looks.

The N95 8GB offers all I need for my mobile usage.