Beautiful to look at and great to use the Nokia 6600 Fold Phone is a awesome new phone just announced by Nokia. With a array of appealing functions, the 6600 sports a business like look packed with many of todays modern phone features.

Some of the features are:

Now here’s a tasty-looking phone. Nokia have finally joined the ultra-thin revolution with the 6500 Classic phone. This is the slimmest Nokia phone released in the UK and, incredibly it’s a 3G phone too! And doesn’t it look nice, with its sleek aluminium casing (”individually polished”, according to the Nokia blurb) and available in Black and Bronze. Let’s pause a moment to enjoy the looks.

OK, having drooled enough, let’s look at the exterior of the phone in more detail. There’s absolutely nothing to complain about here. Whereas Sony Ericsson seem intent on destroying nice phones with unergonomic keypads, Nokia have learned their lesson from making “cool” keypads and have provided the 6500 Classic with a small but functional keypad and navigation key. The combination of an ergonomic design, a plain Series 40 interface (no Smartphone junk here!) make this an easy phone to use. Power it up, and the next thing to enjoy is the large and ultra high-resolution LCD display boasting the latest 16 million colour display technology. It’s a display that you can easily customise with a choice of themes (wallpapers, sounds, screensavers, and backgrounds).

The featurelist of the 6500 Classic matches what you’d expect from a mid-range 3G phone in 2007: a 2 megapixel camera (no autofocus - so don’t throw away your digital camera!), a competent music player (although support for Bluetooth stereo headsets is missing), a video camera and good connectivity via USB and Bluetooth. There’s nothing to get very excited about here, but it ticks all the boxes that most people will care about. One obvious thing that’s missing, considering that this is a 3G phone, is video calling. There’s no front-facing camera, so video calling is out, I’m afraid. However, the sales package does include a Nokia Stereo Headset HS-82 and a microUSB Connectivity Cable CA-101, so we can’t fault Nokia for their generosity there.

One of the unusual features of the 6500 Classic is that it has a fixed memory of 1 Gbyte, of which around 920 Mbytes is available to the user. Now this has its good points and bad points. The bad point is that there’s no slot for increasing the memory beyond 1 Gbyte. But on the other hand, 920 Mbytes is enough to store 200-300 songs, which is certainly enough for most users, and it means that the memory is all easily accessible in one place, without any hassle of copying data from internal memory to memory card. Given the kind of phone that the 6500 Classic is (i.e. mid-range) we think that this is a perfectly good solution.

Other thing to point out is that battery life is poor, which isn’t surprising for an ultraslim 3G handset. It’ll probably need charging every other day.

We do like the 6500 Classic. It’s a very beautiful phone and lovely to use, apart from the small keypad. It isn’t all-singing and all-dancing, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Nokia 6500 Slide is a slide design phone with enhanced features but is not ultraslim.

Features of the Nokia 6500 Classic include:

• 2 megapixel digital camera
• Video camera (176 x 144 pixel resolution, MPEG4 format)
• Display: 16 million colours, 240 x 320 pixels (2 inches)
• Music player (AAC, eAAC+, and MP3 formats)
• Integrated handsfree speaker
• Ringtones: MP3, MP4, eAAC+, AAC, WMA & Video ringtones / 64-voice polyphonic (MIDI) ringtones
• Voice recorder
• Voice controls
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email with attachments (POP3, IMAP4 & SMTP protocols)
• AMS (audio messaging service) for sending voice clips over-the-air
• Java games
• Themes: wallpapers, sounds, screensavers, and backgrounds
• Calendar, To-do list, Notes, Alarm clock, Stopwatch, Countdown timer, Calculator
• xHTML web browser
• Memory: 1 Gbyte (not expandable)
• Connectivity: Bluetooth, micro USB 2.0
• WAP 2.0, GPRS, EPGRS, 3G (max download 128 kbits; upload 356 kbits)
• Quadband (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) plus dual band 3G (WCDMA 850/2100)
• Size: 110 x 45 x 9.5 mm
• Weight: 94g
• Talktime: 3.5 hours
• Battery standby: 9 days

The Nokia 6500 Slide is … wait for it … a slide design version of the Nokia 6500 Classic. Or is it? You’d think that two phones that have the same model number and are so similar in appearance would have the same features, but no, the guys at Nokia clearly thought that would be too boring.

“Hey Aleksi! Why not release two phones with the same name but make them completely different inside?” … “Cool idea Joonas! Let’s put a nice 3.2 megapixel camera with flash and autofocus inside the 6500 Slide and a rubbish 2 megapixel one inside the 6500 Classic.” … “Niko thinks the Slide should have a bigger screen - that’s what those Samsung boys do with their slide phones.” … “Roosa has a great idea - let’s make them both 3G but only allow video calls using the Slide (hey, hey)”… “Arttu thinks that the Slide should have a memory card expandable to 4 Gbytes, but we won’t put a memory card slot in the Classic at all!” … “and why not put an FM radio into the Slide too, Kristiina? But not in the Classic!” … “Oh and one more thing, Matias - because we left all the good bits out of the Classic we can make it ultrathin, but keep the Slide big and heavy!”

“So, run this past me one more time, Johanna. We make two phones with the same name. One is a Slide and one is a Classic. We put all the best features into the Slide, but we make the Classic really thin and better looking. And we sell them both for the same price! Our customers are gonna love this idea. How they will laugh at our wacky Finnish sense of humour! Those boring Swedish squares at Sony Ericsson will be so jealous!”

Features of the Nokia 6500 Slide include:

• 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, auto focus, double LED flash and 8x digital zoom
• Video camera (VGA, 15 fps / QCIF, 30 fps) with 4x digital zoom
• 3G video calling (QCIF resolution, 15 fps)
• Display: 16.7 million colours, 320 x 240 pixels (2.2 inches)
• Music player (MP3, MP4, AAC, eAAC+, and WMA formats)
• FM radio with Visual Radio (get info about music played)
• 64-voice polyphonic ringtones
• Voice commands and recording
• Push to talk using volume key (Nokia PoC)
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, email (with support for attachments)
• Themes with wallpapers and screensavers
• Java 2.0 games & applications (High Roller Casino, Golf Tour, Rally 3D, and Snake 3)
• Internet: WAP 2.0, GPRS, EDGE, 3G
• xHTML web browser (Opera Mini browser)
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, TV-Out, 2.5mm headset socket
• Memory: 20 Mbytes plus microSD memory card slot (expandable to 4 Gbytes)
• Flight mode
• Quadband (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) plus dual band 3G (WCDMA 850/2100)
• Size: 97 x 47 x 16 mm
• Weight: 123g
• Talktime: 6 hours
• Battery standby: 320 hours

There are some great features in this phone, but others that aren’t so hot, so you’ll need to make sure it’s right for you. Starting with the exterior, we’ve mentioned the attractive design of the phone already. It’s a very nicely-sized phone and not too heavy, although we’d have preferred a slightly larger keypad - what is it with Nokia and small keypads? The slide design is practical as well as smart, as it enables a large screen to be fitted to a compact phone. The screen is one of the nicest features of the E65, using Nokia’s latest 16 million colour technology and a high resolution. However, the E65 does use very small fonts, so be wary of this if your close-up eyesight isn’t what it used to be! On the other hand, it enables you to view a lot of information on the screen at one time.

One of the selling points of the E65 is the fact that it can make Voice over IP (VoIP) calls using the integrated wireless LAN connection. It’s virtually unbeatable when it comes to connectivity in fact. Not only does it have WLAN (both 802.11b & 802.11g are supported), but it offers Bluetooth, USB and infrared too, so you ought to be able to connect it to just about anything. Onboard memory is reasonably generous at 50 Mbytes, with a slot for a MicroSD memory card too.

Although the phone features a camera and a music player, these are bonus features, not core to the phone. One obvious ommission is that there’s no capability for making video calls, as there’s no secondary video camera.

The battery life of the E65 is less than average, which is not surprising considering that this is a 3G phone with WLAN and Bluetooth. You can switch off any of these features to conserve battery life if they’re not needed.

Overall, the E65 is a reasonable implementation of a 3G Symbian phone, although it is dogged by reliability problems and slow menus. If you don’t have a need for all the high-end features, you’d be better off with something simpler, like the Nokia 6300 or Nokia 6500 Slide.

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Features of the Nokia E65 include:

• Series 60 3rd Edition Symbian operating system
• One Touch keys for direct access to contacts, mute/unmute, and conference calling
• Java & Symbian applications
• Voice over IP (VoIP) calls via integrated WLAN
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email with attachments (POP/IMAP, SMTP, and IMAP4 protocols), Instant Messaging
• Voice dialing
• Voice commands for menu short cuts, keypad lock, and profiles
• Voice recording
• Integrated handsfree speaker
• 2 megapixel camera
• Display: active-matrix TFT, 16 million colours, 240 x 320 pixels
• Music player (MP3/AAC) and media player
• Talking ringtones
• Calendar with weekly view, contacts, to-do list, and notepad for short notes - all viewable while managing a phone call
• Memory: 50 Mbytes plus MicroSD memory card support
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 1.2, USB, Infrared, WLAN (802.11b, 802.11g)
• WAP 2.0, EDGE (maximum download speeds of up to 296 kbps)
• XHTML web browser
• Size: 105 x 49 x 15.5 mm
• Weight: 115g
• Quad-band (EGSM 850/900/1800/1900) plus 3G (WCDMA 2100)
• Talktime: 3-6 hours (2G) or 2.5 hours (3G) or 3 hours (VoIP)
• Battery standby: up to 11 days (2G) or 5 days (3G/WLAN)

In a nutshell: The Nokia E51 is a powerful communications device equipped with email, a wealth of organiser applications, web browser, camera and media player. With 3G HSDPA and WLAN it can connect to a wide range of networks and devices. It’s also a slimline and lightweight phone that looks good and is very easy to use. In our opinion, its one of the best business phones available.
Best buy: *Free* from Vodafone Business Shop.

The Nokia E51 is a business smartphone that is packed with useful features. It’s a slim phone with classic looks, although with a rugged edge to its appearance too. Although it lacks the QWERTY keypad of a BlackBerry, it’s still a competent email device, and unlike the very disappointing E50, the E51 really does deliver on its potential.

The E51 is available in a choice of three colours - black, silver and pink - although the front face of the phone remains black, with just the edge and back changing colour. Design-wise, this is a no-nonsense easy-to-use phone, with a classic shape, a nice conventional keypad and a 5-way navigation key for easy scrolling and selection. There are also some handy shortcut buttons for email, calendar, contacts and the active standby screen. On the right side is a mute key next to the volume keys. On the left side you’ll find a Push to Talk key and a voice recorder key. An LED indicator is used to notify you of new email and messages, as well as missed calls. It’s a nice-sized phone too, and very slim, at just 12mm. First impressions are excellent - the E51 looks and feels like a quality device.

The LCD display is a large 2-inch TFT screen with high resolution (240 x 320 pixels) and 16 million colours. An ambient light sensor is used to automatically adjust the brightness of the display. This is a great screen, and is ideally suited to the functionality of the phone. When not in use, the display reverts to active standby mode, where it shows a summary of the day’s activities and provides quick access to common applications.

The primary functions of the E51 are to communicate and to organise, and it does both of these jobs well. Email support is comprehensive with support for POP3, IMAP4, and SMTP protocols and attachment viewers for all common file formats. Web browsing is also competent, with a fully functional web browser doing the best it can with the available screen size. The E51 is a 3G HSDPA phone, so download speeds are fast (up to 3.6 Mbps), and it also supports quadband GSM, so you should be able to use it anywhere in the world. You can connect to a PC using a WLAN connection. The WLAN connection also enables VoIP calls.

The applications supplied with the phone include:

• File Manager & search function
• Organiser tools: Contacts, calendar, to-do list, weather, world clocks and a currency converter
• Windows Live provides mobile access to Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail
• Nokia Team Suite for organising and facilitating group conference calls, email messages, or text messages
• Viewers for Excel, Word, PowerPoint & PDF documents
• Active Notes for creating notes with rich text and multimedia
• Yahoo! Go: get your email, news, maps, and more all from the same customised web page
• ZIP file extractor
• Support for Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite with email, file synchronisation, voice, and device management
• Support for Symantec, F-Secure, McAfee, and Trend Micro antivirus software

You can also download and install third-party Symbian and Java applications of course.

In addition, the E51 packs in plenty of multimedia functions. These include a 2 megapixel camera with video recording and video calling capabilities. The phone includes both a music player and an FM radio too. A standard Nokia headset supplied, which connects to the 2.5 mm headset socket, and the phone is also compatible with Bluetooth stereo headsets.

The E51 has a very generous onboard memory of 130 Mbytes to support all of the functionality, and usefully it can support microSD cards up to the new 4 Gbyte size.

Battery life isn’t bad, although with slim phones there’s always a compromise here. Unless you’re a really heavy user you won’t have a problem with the E51.

All things considered, the Nokia E51 is one of the nicest business phones that we’ve seen for a while. It lacks the full keypad of a BlackBerry, but apart from that limitation, this is an almost perfect implementation of a business phone. It’s very easy to use, very powerful and it looks great too! Highly recommended.

Features of the Nokia E51 include:

• Series 60 3rd Edition Symbian SmartPhone
• 2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom
• Video camera
• Display: TFT, 16 million colours, 240 x 320 pixels (2 inches)
• Music Player (AAC, eAAC+, WMA formats)
• FM radio with Visual Radio support
• MP3 ringtones
• Speakerphone
• Voice memo recording
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, email (POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP protocols), Instant Messaging (supports Yahoo, AOL, OMA 1.2, MSN)
• Attachment viewer for Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel
• Symbian and Java? MIDP 2.0 applications
• Contacts, calendar and to-do list: supports PC synchronisation with Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes via Nokia PC Suite
• Internet: xHTML web browser, WAP, GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA up to 3.6 Mbps
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, InfraRed & WLAN (IEEE 802.11g)
• Memory: 130 Mbytes plus support for microSD cards (up to 4 Gbytes)
• WAP, GPRS, EDGE
• Vibration alert
• Quadband (850/900/1800/1900) plus 3G (WCDMA 850/2100)
• Size: 115 x 46 x 12 mm
• Weight: 100g
• Talktime: 4.4 hours
• Battery standby: 312 hours

The Nokia N81 is a very powerful multimedia device that is in some ways like the Nokia N95’s little brother. Available in a choice of Cobalt Blue or Graphite Grey, it’s a really nicely designed slide phone that’s chunky and heavier than the N95, but slightly slimmer. The first thing that strikes you about the N81 is the huge number of keys and buttons! In addition to the usual number keys and Navi Wheel, there are dedicated keys for playing games and accessing music & video: play/pause, rewind, forward & stop. You’ll either love this or hate it. We found that the whole user interface is built on the idea of complexity, as the menus and settings can be quite overwhelming, but offer full control over every aspect of the device. The N81 is very much a hard-core SmartPhone, and if this sound like your kind of phone, then you’ll love it to bits.

There are a few areas where the N81 can’t keep up with the N95. The screen is the first thing that you notice: although it’s a high quality display with 16.7 million colours and 320 x 240 pixel resolution (the same as the N95), the screen is physically about 15% smaller. More seriously, the camera is a poor cousin of the N95’s 5 megapixel camera: the N81’s camera has just 2 megapixels and lacks autofocus. So, if camera quality is important to you, you’d definitely be better off with the N95. SatNav is missing too, although the Nokia Wireless GPS module is available as an optional extra. The Nokia Maps application is included as standard. So really the shortcomings of the N81 compared with the N95 aren’t too great.

Now let’s take a closer look at what the N81 does have. The first feature that really differentiates the N81 from the competition is the whopping 8 Gbytes of internal memory. This is enough to store 2,000 music tracks. The N81 has a fantastic music player that can give the iPhone a run for its money. The music player supports all common music formats including MP3, AAC and WMA, as well as Windows Media DRM. Managing playlists is a breeze, and the device can synchronise music with Windows Media Player. There’s a 5-band equaliser, support for Bluetooth stereo headsets and a 3.5mm headphone jack. In addition, the RealPlayer media player supports full-screen video playback. There’s also a built-in FM radio with Visual Radio support that tells you what song is playing, and other info. Music lovers have everything that they could want from the N81.

The N81’s other focus is gaming. We’ve already mentioned the dedicated games keys on the front. Games can be played in portrait or landscape mode, making full use of the fantastic 16.7 million colour display. The N81’s secret is that it includes support for Nokia’s NGage series of games. The choice of games is excellent and the quality of the 3D graphics is exceptional. If you’re serious about games, then this is seriously highly recommended.

The list of what the N81 can do goes on … it’s a quadband 3G phone that supports video calls with a second front-facing video camera. It’s fully equipped for wirefree use with Bluetooth and Wireless LAN support, voice-independent speech recognition and voice commands, automatic answering with a compatible headset or car kit, internet calls using VoIP, … Really there isn’t much that the N81 doesn’t do, and being a Symbian phone the wealth of 3rd party applications that are available for download is huge.

As always with Symbian devices there’s a tendency for the N81 to be slow or to freeze if pushed too hard, although the 8 Gbytes of memory certainly helps here. To really get the most out of the N81 you’ll have to have used a SmartPhone before, or be prepared to invest time learning how to use it properly. If you don’t like high-tech then keep well away, but if the music and games features appeal, then you’ll do well with the N81. It’s an excellent alternative to the N95 and a great phone.

Features of the Nokia N81 include:

• Operating system: Series 60 version 3.1, Symbian 9.2
• 2 megapixel camera with 20x digital zoom and flash
• VGA video capture at 15 frames/second
• Front-facing camera for video calls
• RealPlayer Media Player
• Display: 16.7 million colours, 320 x 240 pixels (2.4 inches)
• Nseries music player supports MP3 (VBR), AAC, eAAC+, AAC+, WMA/M4A, WAV
• Stereo FM radio with Visual Radio support
• Nokia Stereo Music Headset supplied
• Gaming: supports N-Gage games (Space Impact Light, Asphalt game demo, Fifa soccer 2007 demo games included)
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, e-mail with support for images, videos, music and documents
• Talking ringtone
• Speaker independent name dialing
• Voice commands
• Voice recorder
• Speed dialing
• Integrated hands-free speaker
• Automatic redial
• Automatic answer with compatible headset / car kit
• Internet calls (VoIP)
• Nokia push to talk (PoC)
• Java MIDP 2.0
• Advanced contacts database with support for multiple phone and e-mail details per entry, also supports thumbnail pictures and groups
• Nokia Web Browser with Mini Map
• Memory: 8 Gbytes (supports microSD memory cards)
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0, WLAN (802.11 b/g), USB 2.0
• 3G (WCDMA 2100) + Quadband GSM E850/900/1800/1900MHz
• Size: 102 x 50 x 18 mm
• Weight: 140g
• Talktime: 3 hours (3G) - 4 hours (2G)
• Battery standby: up to 400 hours
• Music playback time: up to 11.5 hours

Nokia’s N series of cell phones are well recognized as solid and sturdy units and the N81 has not deviated from this trend. However; this new N series phone has made a few trade offs in features. For instance phone function in the N81 only has a 2 mega pixel camera in it compared the the 5 mega pixels in the N95 but it does include a a great functioning flash feature as well as state of the art Zyss camera optics.

The trade of though is that the N81 weighs in heavy when it comes to state of the art entertainment features. Some of the new features the N 81 has for gamers is a navigation pad that features a touch wheel that is very similar to the wheel on an iPod and a super brilliant 16.7 million color screen display that offers a clear image and fantastic resolution.

If you are primarily interested in games then you are going to love the way that this newest addition to the Nokia N series supports N-Gage the latest trend in mobile gaming. The N-Gage gaming platform contains the best graphics available in mobile phones today and something that any serious gamer should give close consideration to. As an added bonus, this new game oriented phone from Nokia comes pre loaded with three popular games.

Along with the screen being able to be opertated in both landscape and portrait modes there are also controls on it dedicated exclusively to game use. Of course, the designers of the N81 also had music lovers in mind when they were at work and the results are obvious.

This new phone does not need a memory card, because it comes off the shelf with a whopping 8 GB of memory so there is room to hold all of the songs that you need to record. Also, as well as Bluetooth stereo headphone support this N 81 also includes a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack. Other features that the N81 has for music lovers are an equalizer, FM radio and play list support.

Other features that are crammed into this solid and hefty unit are video calling, Nokia map applications and wireless GPS. So all in all the N81 is a great improvement on other N series phones from Nokia and has built on excellent features that can be found in previous models to give gamers a top notch phone for what they like to do.

Also, this phone is a great handset for someone who is looking for excellent music features as well. One thing that is fairly obvious when the phone is held in the hand is that it is somewhat bulky and has more heft to it then other similar products on the market. There is a good reason for this however and that is that it is designed and built to be a sturdy and durable unit that can hold up to heavy use.

While using the phone, the user is never short of any entertainment features, as the phone is pre-loaded with java games, providing the user with lively gaming experience. The phone features email service,and the user can create, send & receive emails complete with file attachments. Along with these features, the phone allows send/receive of SMS and MMS, and also can share the video clippings and music with other phones compatible with multimedia features. The user has the facility to chat online, using texts and symbols, and can communicate this way with phones having similar features, with those which are online at that instance.

Nokia N77 has a built-in RealPlayer, which supports many of the popular formats, which include, P3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, and WMA. The user has a stereo headset along with the phone to enjoy the full stereo effect of the music played. It offers an equiliser feature, and creation of play-list. It has a FM Radio, which the user can tune into, while travelling. The visual radio provides text information to the user, regarding, for example, the music that he is listening to. Nokia N77 supports polyphonic, mp3 and 3D sound ring tones.

The Smartphone N77 features Quickoffice viewer to view Quickword, Quickpoint orQuicksheet documents, and the phone comes with Adobe PDF reader. It has an advanced address book contact entries, and allows a photo of each contact to be stored, along with group selection feature. It has useful call feature, which include auto answer, which works with an appropriate head-set. It has a push to talk feature, which allows the user to use the phone as a walkie talkie type hands-free operation.

The Nokia N73 updates the Nokia N73 3G SmartPhone. The N73 is a lot thinner than the N70 and weighs less as well, making it one of the lightest smartphones. It has a conventional boxy design with a regular keypad very similar to the N70. The keys are a little too small for large fingers to use easily and the joystick can be fiddly too. The display is very large with an amazing 240 x 320 pixel resolution and 262,000 colours. Its one of the best displays on any smartphone.

As well as upgrading the display, Nokia have upgraded the camera in a big way. The N73 sports a 3.2 megapixel camera using the same Carl Zeiss optics and CMOS sensor that made the N70 a powerful imaging device. The camera has a built-in flash, 20x digital zoom, macro mode, plenty of optional settings and a photo editor. It doesn’t perform quite as well as the best camera phones from Sony Ericsson, but it significantly outperforms its predecessor and is a very good camera. Video recording is at CIF resolution with a framerate of 15 frames per second. Usefully video can be recorded in either 3GP or MPEG4 formats. A video editor application is included. There’s a second inward-facing VGA camera for making video calls.

The N73 is also a great music device. It has a music player that supports a wide range of formats including MP3, WMA and AAC, and also an FM radio with Visual Radio functionality to display information about the artist and track playing. The music player supports playlists and an equalizer lets you adjust sound quality. Sound is through dual stereo speakers or using the stereo headset supplied.

The internal memory has been expanded to 42 Mbytes and there’s support for a hot-swapable miniSD card. This will provide bags of room for storing music tracks and videos, making full use of the possibility to record videos of up to 90 minutes in length. Connectivity is via Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0 and infrared. Battery life is very good for a 3G phone.

The latest versions of the firmware do seem to be fixing the reliability problems however, and Nokia are very good at making new firmware releases available. The N73 is such a capable phone that you might want to take a risk, particularly as there are now such good offers available on new contracts.

Another Nokia Nseries smartphone! And this one is the most technically advanced ever! Can it really live up to the hype, or will it prove to be as unreliable and bug-ridden as some of Nokia’s other Nseries phones?

The headline features of the eagerly-awaited Nokia N95 are mouth-wateringly amazing:

• Built-in GPS navigation
• 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss & Tessar optics
• Wi-Fi wireless internet connection
• 2.6 inch display with 16 million colours
• Ultra-fast HSDPA data transfer

Let’s start with the basics. The Nokia N95 is a 3G smartphone built on the Series 60 Symbian interface (version 3.1). Let’s be clear from the start that these types of phone are slow, have a tendency to freeze or shut down, and have unstable firmware. They are also large and heavy. At 120g the N95 is of average weight for a smartphone, but is pretty bulky, despite its slide design. At least you won’t forget which pocket it’s in! When closed, you can access menu functions using the 5-way navigation key and the associated control keys. The N95 also has several other dedicated media keys that can be used as shortcuts to media functions. This is a good feature if you like to have lots of buttons to push, but sometimes they just end up getting in the way. When you slide the phone open you have access to a full keypad, but like the Nokia N73, the buttons are too small to be really comfortable. The user interface will be familiar to anyone who has used a Series 60 phone before: it’s not as simple to use as the Nokias of olden days, but you wouldn’t expect such a high powered device to be, would you? So, without getting into the functionality of the phone yet, we’d give it 2 stars for usability.

Now, the kind of person likely to buy this phone isn’t going to be put off by wimpy considerations like size and ergonomics. Perhaps not even by warnings of bugs and a sluggish user interface. It’s what the phone does that matters most. And this is where the N95 really delivers! The first multimedia feature that you encounter is the screen, and it’s a massive one: 2.6 inches across, 240 x 320 pixels, and an incredible 16 million colours. An ambient light detector is used to control the brightness of the screen, making it usable under most lighting conditions. It’s one of the best screens ever, and does full justice to the camera and navigation systems.

The camera is a first in the UK: the first phone camera to hit the 5 megapixel mark. At this number of pixels, you can (theoretically) match anything that a dedicated digital camera is capable of - provided that you have the optics to back up the megapixel grunt. Nokia have been developing their camera capabilities quite impressively recently using Carl-Zeiss optics and Tessar lenses - the Nokia N93 being the best camera phone before the release of the N95. The N95 lacks the optical zoom of the N93, but retains the autofocus, flash and lens. Does the 5 megapixel sensor make up for the lack of an optical zoom? The answer is no, so in our opinion the N93 is still king of the camera phones, but for practical purposes the N95 is a better option. It can certainly match or beat the Sony Ericsson K800i. The video camera is also outstanding, recording in VGA resolution (640 x 480 pixels) at up to 30 frames per second with stereo audio. There’s a second front-facing camera for making video calls too.

The other most interesting feature of the N95 is the built-in GPS navigation system. The N95 actually has a GPS system built into the phone, that communicates directly with the satellite. This enables you to use the phone to track your position either on foot or in-car. You’ll need to buy a license to use the Nokia mapping system though. Now, whilst this is a nice feature to have in a phone, we’ve got to say that it doesn’t match the quality of a dedicated satnav system like the TomTom One. The sensitivity and reliability of the GPS receiver is not as good, and neither is the user-friendliness of the system.

These are the most groundbreaking features, but the N95 has almost everything else you could think of including in a phone too: a music player with support for all common music formats, a stereo FM radio, integrated handsfree speaker, speaker independent voice dialling, talking ringtones, HSDPA (the fast data transfer technology dubbed “3.5G”) and lots more! When it comes to connectivity, the N95 is the best-connected device in town, with support for Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, Infrared, Wireless LAN, TV-Out and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Its memory is also more than adequate with up to 160 Mbytes of onboard memory and support for microSD memory cards (up to 8 Gbytes). Battery life is OK - when you consider how much work has to be done to power this beast, you can’t really set your expectations too high.

In conclusion, The Nokia N95 is bound to be a smash hit, but equally there are bound to be unsatisfied users returning their N95 to the shop. Early adopters will love the wealth of features that this phone offers (literally the best you can get at the time of launch), but the N95 does suffer from practical disadvantages, and you’ll need to decide whether the benefits outweigh the problems.