I have loved my Sony W810i for the last year but really wanted to give it to my Dad as I knew he'd adore the thing, it is the perfect spec for him and he needs that size/shape really as his motor skills are compromised, so I tried all the latest and best Sonys and couldn't find anything too top that one, with the latest 5mpx cameraphone being a horrid plasicky shitpiece I returned after an evening of swearing. I so wanted to love it, too.
Then on my O2 £26pcm contract I got a 'normal' N95 on a free upgrade, where I'd have to have paid about £125 for the 8GB revision. Mini Review:
Size/Weight: Comparable favourably to any phone capable of same/similar functionality.
Appearance: I prefer the silver one I've got. Spec and performance wise the 8GB is akin to a 360 Elite in terms of what it does. i.e. it comes with more storage than you'll ever need, and is black. You can get new firmware onto a silver N95 and then it'll 'rock' 8gb microSD cards, if you absolutely have to have five seasons of South Park on there in Realplayer Format, along with every photo you ever took.
Charge: Holds it well
Phone performance, sound quality: Fairly average sound, but it does the job. What more do you really need, unless you are a girl and have calls which last over thirty seconds? Reception is decent and typical of anything on O2.
Build Quality: Excellent, sturdy, very useable keypad and nav buttons, the two-way slider makes it fairly versatile and the only downside is that while the slider is very tactile and lovely, a slight vertical jiggle sets in when in the middle (closed) position, although it is barely noticeable unless you look for it. The camera hardware is well protected on the silverN95 and the side buttons and Card slot are as good as any phone I've used, and the sort of weird metallic dark purple back is vaguely rubbery to the touch, in a sleek, grippy, posh sense.
Screen: Yum. Apparently a tiny amount smaller yet higher res than the 8GBmodel. The 8GB has no raised edge to trap gunk (not a major biggie) in its favour, mind you.
Camera: Neck and neck with the Sonys on quality and with a better user interface than the K850i monstrosity, thi is my main camera. The shit-hot video which outputs at mega high res is an uncelebrated massive win here, too. Just don't wave it around when filming and things are lovely.
Connectivity: MiniUSB, IR, Bluetooth, All yer mobile data networks, Wifi (which in a head to head race against my £400 Acer laptop running Vista is faster to see/connect and easier to configure/save profiles on 100% of the time). I've not installed the Nokia software and never would, but drag/drop usb is dreamily simple and tends to make me think of my phone as an extension of my pcs rather than a competing device as it is so easy and quick.
GPS: Right, in default, this streams the latest maps for where you are from your data connection. This CAN be wifi, but will likely be GPRS or 3G or summat. You can't afford it, trust me. Half an hour googling got me the full UK and Europe maps downloaded for free (which they are technically) and just save those to your card. To use the GPS you need the keypad showing (it's under there) and a direct line of sight to the sky. Then it will either try to triangulate and get latest sat positions over your data connection (you can turn this off if you like) or it can take an extra 2-3 minutes at least, and do it just scanning the sky for sattelites. This is the cheapest (effectively free) way to do it and is fine if you are lost or not in a rush and want an interactive map of your surroundings in 2/3D and are perhaps willing to pay a quid to find out where all the best brothels and curry houses are within a mile of you. Or how to get down the mountain. Not going to replace your TomTom (I bought both in a week and regret neither) but certainly nice to have if you are sensible with how you use it. A win feature. I bookmark every place I go where I might get some traction kiting done, or evena spot of stunt flying. I can bookmark these location before leaving (a car park is usually best) and find my nearest one if I see the wind is right. Also, voice direction are subscription or pay or something, I haven't ben arsed with them. I've my TomTom for the car.
Media functionality: There's a 'simple' spinny wheel of icons interface or a normal symbian menu or a file manager. Also atypical mp3 player menu system. Interface can slow a tad occasionally. Use it at a steady pace and it should keep pace with you, just don't expect to sprint many places and configure shortcuts to you liking for maximum useability. Firstly, this comes with cable which leads from your 3.5mm headphone jack to a composite yellow with phono white and red jack set. Straight into your telly with excellent results for 'showing people without getting it all done up nicely on the pc'. Home from kiting on the beach and want to check the pics over a smoke? Crack on, sunshine. Sadly, the multifunction 3.5 on the unit suffers with Audio playback. Reproduction is decent for a phone, comparable to Walkman standards, save for the background hum and hiss, which is utterly unacceptable. It is unnoticeable until about 60% volume, then it is unavoidable. I circumvent this by using the supplied lead only as far as the little broach of controls that come with these sorts of phone, which is itself a little flimsy (so, light then, which is what you want in such things) and does the job fine. I then plug into that my Sennheiser earphones which have an analogue volume control and work the two volume controls until I get a decent loudness with little or no residual hiss. This gets the job done but no decent cleanliness in the audio form boxed peripherals is a fucking disgrace and I've told one of the inventors this to their face. I was fairly pissed on champers at the time though. But the media player is great interface wise and you can slid out a little control keypad for it as well, which is unnecessary but nice. Not sure about the 8GB one, I don't recall liking it as much, but the media keys on the silver are 'ZX81' style and seem fairly hardy considering. You shan't be using them much, anyhow.
Video comes from Realplayer, which on a fixed platform isn't the system hog mess it is on Windows. Perfectly good for our purposes. Normal phone video and realmedia are the filetypes, I think. There's a podcast client on there but I don't understand podcasts. It'll do the media linky thing like my 360 and my pcs do over wifi. I've been known to use the inbuilt speakers when doing something quietly by myself, at medium volumes it is as good as one could hope it to be which is 'good enough'.
Then there's Lifeblog, which chronologically showreels you all your photos, videos, texts, picture messages, etc... and can be linked to your proper blogger/wordpress/whatever. Just tag the things you want uploading and hit 'go', adding text if you like. Prefect for travvel blogging. Have a day's fun, lurk outside a wifi cafe for two minues and your mates at home can roll their eyes at more middle class tales of Thai culture.
Games: Not bothered, downloaded Snake from nokia, it looks like tron nowadays. Apparently, the N95 is an N-Gage but honestly who is ever going to play on one of these when the DS exists?
Phone Stuff: Your SMS stuf is great, the keyboard is text friendly by modern standards.
Browser: Fairly snazzy, seems to give me a little zoomed in and out P-I-P choice when I need it and lose it as soon as it is unnecessary, which is nice. Not streamed youtube or owt as yet, fine for forums, bbc, etc. I use seperate GMail app and would recommend you do too. Only downside over Opera mini is no online caching/refrmatting for mobiles of page content, which drives down the data charges if you use Opera instead. I've not done so yet on this phone, mind, so the native browser must be good enough for my occasional use. A great 'always with you' wifi web device in such a common phone is surprising. I like it.
And so yeah get one, they rule. I keep mine in one of these: http://products.lowepro.com/catalog/Leather,27.htm because it can't easily be pulled off the belt, the flap is held by a really very decent magnet and I don;t like having clear pvc and faux leather all over my slider phone, trapping frim underneath and stopping me pressing things properly, which is the best any other case can offer. Whichever one in Comet is the right size, get it. I think I paid about £18 and my N95 is in pristine condition and there's been not a single 'accident' with the magnet in the three or so months I've had it.
Lastly, these are my Sennheisers. Great for sports, no trailing wires, secure yet removeable in an emergency, no hanging buds and a great volume control... http://www.sennheiser.co.uk/uk/icm.nsf/root/500495
/edit Bargain Alert: http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electro ... Headphones
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