Nokia N95

Provincialism has taken a back seat in the phone industry these days and Nokia is in the drivers’ seat. They're on a real roll here with newer and better phones being released almost on a weekly basis. And now this, the N95. This behemoth of a phone is Nokia’s attempt at overruling any and all phones out there in its class - business, media or otherwise. Being a leading and respected brand name for the mobile phone industry must obviously put tremendous pressure on Nokia to outdo not just their competitors but their own products and this is what they’ve done. They’ve taken communication to a new level and loaded this baby up with some really heavy artillery.

Does it work or does it crumble under its own weight? Let's find out.

Design
The N95 is a dual slider with a normal keypad that slides out from under the phone when it’s pushed upward and a second media keypad that slides out from the top when the phone is pushed downward. To be honest the second slider is quite redundant. I mean it’s got just 4 buttons for play and pause, stop and the rewind and forward or skip keys, which could easily have been placed on any edge of the phone without requiring a slider mechanism. In most Nokia phones the 5 way navigation pad (that’s present here too) can be used for all those options too, so like I said, the media keypad is redundant. Also, the buttons circling the navigation pad viz. the edit, cancel (clear) call and end keys and the two user definable keys will take a bit of getting used to as they’re rather slim.

On one side you’ll find the dedicated camera key with another key just above that’ll take you directly to the gallery. Nice, quick access. Above that are the volume / zoom keys. One of the speakers is also located just above that. On the other side there’s the microSD slot, the infrared port, 3.5mm (thank the stars!) AV (yes! audio and video) outlet and the second speaker. The camera is located on the rear, the USB port and charger port at the bottom.

The N95 is equipped with a brilliant 2.6 inch display sporting a resolution of 320x240 pixels with 16 million colors. For a phone that's being called a superphone, you'd wonder why the resolution of this phone is the same as the lowest end E-Series phone, the E50. The N80 came with a 352x416 display, so why not the N95? It seems the cost of a display of that resolution was too high, so they put a QVGA in here instead. Since when did cost become a problem for a high-end Nokia phone? The intended audience would pick it up even if it cost twice as much as it does right now.