The Nokia N95 multimedia phone, which was announced in the month of September last year, could be very soon seen on the shelves. The feature-packed phone was claimed by some to be the multimedia phone of the year 2007. Well, March 20 is said to be the release date for the phone by many resellers. Here are my two cents on the stormily awaited Nokia N95.

Why is it good?

Well, the Nokia N95 touts all kinds of new functionality that will indubitably make gadget-freaks drool. To be very honest, some of the features are not so innovative but still there is some great novel stuff and solutions that make it a bit more special.

The very first thing is its innovative two-way slide movement. Moreover, it’s the first Nokia handset to sport HSDPA (also known as 3.5G, which geeks call Turbo 3G) offering swift download speeds of up to 3.6 mbps. First of all, let’s go straight to have a sneak preview of the salient specs and you will come to know that the multimedia phone has almost everything. The N95 to me is a solid proof that we are witnessing a mobile revolution that is about to make over society in a profound way.

Salient specs of the Nokia N95:

Nokia N95 boasts a whopping Carl Zeiss optics enabled 5-megapixel camera (2592 x 1944 pixels), and a plethora of connectivity options including 802.11g WiFi, HSDPA, infrared, Mini USB, WLAN Wi-Fi, UPnP, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, and probably even Jake 2.0. The other inspiring features include:

•A 2.6-inch QVGA screen with 240 x 320 pixels (doesn’t impress me) with ambient light detector.

•Symbian S60 3rd edition user interface.

•Up to 160 MB internal memory, 128 MB microSD card, memory card slot sporting 2 GB microSD memory cards.

•VGA video recording at 30 fps and audio recording, TV out support.

•Digital music player with sport for MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, M4A with a .5mm headphone jack.

•Built-in GPS, Easy-to-use e-mail client, Nokia web browser with mini map.

•Java and Symbian applications.

•Battery: Claimed talk time of up to 6 hours and 30 minutes but the battery is always a concern while using other features.

Design of the multimedia phone:

Although the smartphone looks big, but it feels good and handy in the hand. Buttons are efficiently stretched out while the display stands out like a lighthouse in the middle of the hours of darkness. It touts an enhanced N80 slider design with the innovative two-way sliding movement. The phone measures 21mm wide by 53mm tall by 21mm deep. You slide it one way and you come across the media keys and slide it the other way and you get a keypad.

Nokia N95 vs. Apple iPhone:

While the Apple iPhone is claimed to a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone, I will definitely give more points to the Nokia N95 smartphone.

•The N95 comes with an iPhone-beating 5-megapixel camera (iPhone has a 2-megapixel camera).

•The Apple iPhone boasts Wi-Fi but most importantly lacks 3G connectivity (Rumor: a 3G version of iPhone is in the works) while the Nokia N95 is surely a monster in this case with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, infrared and HSDPA (a.k.a. the Turbo 3G).

•The Nokia N95 comes rocking built-in GPS with maps of over 100 countries. Well, the iPhone does offer Google maps but no satellite navigation.

•The Nokia N95 will soon hit the market while we won’t be able to see the iPhone anytime soon.

•The only downside with the Nokia N95 with comparison to iPhone is the lack of a touchscreen.

Nokia N95 in photos:

Nokia N95 in action:

•Nokia N95 preview:

•Nokia N95 features:

•Nokia N95 GPS demo:

•Nokia N95 preview from All about Symbian

Availability of the hotly anticipated phone:

The Nokia N95, supposedly priced at €550, is allegedly going to be available some time soon, with getting ubiquitous by the end of this year. I suppose they will get the N95 soon to the US shelves since the iPhone has been announced officially.

Final thoughts:

The Nokia N95 is no doubt an awesome phone. The only thing I would like to say is that if someone asks me to recommend the phone to my near and dear ones, my answer will be ‘YES’ for sure.

Image Credit

Check out the photos taken with the 5-megapixel camera.

Check out the full phone specifications.