Nokia N95 8GB – Both Rugged and Beautiful

As a long time lover of tech toys, this reviewer has had an opportunity to try out the great, the good, the bad and all the shades in between.  As a bit of a workaholic, my avid hunger for efficiency and the tools that both manage and create it makes a Smartphone like the Nokia N95 8GB a welcome face on the mobile phone scene.  It manages to offer rugged can do functionality combined with a great deal of beauty, too.

The most noticeable feature of the N95 at first glance is the shiny, sleek, and totally cool black case.   An expanded display screen dominates one side of the phone.  The added capabilities of the N95 have slightly increased the weight of the phone, up 8 g for a total of 128 g, but the added benefits offered by this new release make it all worthwhile.

The solid weight of the phone will still rest in a single hand (although it probably won’t be a comfortable fit for those with unusually small hands), but has definitely outgrown resting in a breast front pocket, and certainly won’t be unnoticeable in any pocket.  Nokia has however, added to the battery capability in trade and offers up to 300 minutes of talk time or 280 hours on standby without recharging.

For someone who is literally on the run as much as I am, the durability of this phone comes as a welcome relief.  Dashing for a flight or from appointment to appointment rarely means that I get to baby my equipment the way I would like to, and it’s a relief to be able to toss the phone in a bag – or even drop it – and know that the consequences probably won’t be major ones.  The biggest concern is making sure that the display screen doesn’t get scratched any more than it absolutely has to.

The display screen is definitely part of the N95s beauty and caring for it properly will definitely pay off.  Coming in at over six and a half cm, the 16 million colour display is a lovely treat.  The touch screen interface has been refined, and menu options are clear, efficient, and delightfully sensitive to the touch.  No more poking, missed, or misunderstood interfacing. 

As a photography buff, it’s a welcome relief not to have to drag along a stand alone digital camera, too.  The five mega pixel camera is heavily muscled competition for most digital cameras, and is a great example of convergent technology at it’s finest.  Onboard image editing is excellent, and offers some fun options.  The phone even offers direct upload of images and videos, and integration with email and messaging makes sharing simple, fast and almost instantaneous.  It even has blog interfacing capabilities.

If you have an appreciation for beauty, you too will enjoy this phone.  It’s not often that we have the opportunity in today’s busy world to combine a thing of beauty with such a high level of functionality, but the N95 8GB definitely offers that, and then some.