When you go from the old Nokia N95 to the new US-spec 3G HSDPA version, you lose about an hour of browsing life. That’s due to the larger battery, and the folks at WirelessInfo.com were actually expecting even more of a drain, so this is good news. More:
Phew. After months of waiting, your diamond-encrusted Nokia N95 is finally ready. In fact, Alexander Amosu, ringtone mogul and maker of the oh-so-necessary golden iPod, has built 10 of these N95s, each with 325 diamonds covering its 18-ct white gold surface. You’ll be glad to hear that when you pay the £12,000 sticker price, your phone also gets a year of “free” concierge service and a limited-edition number—you know, from 1 to 10. [Amosu]
We knew it was just a matter of time before the HSDPA-enabled Nokia N95 would score itself a Series60 friendly Sling Player, and lo, here it is. As you can see in the gallery, you initially access commands through menus, but the trick is to set your favourite commands along with your favourite channels. In case you were wondering, you can’t use the transport keys for the N95 video player. One of these days, that would be nice. But as hand model Dave Zatz was showing us, you can do some quick maneuvers using keypad hot keys. Stay tuned for our detailed review. [Sling Media]
Joe Brown at Wired got the first US Spec’d Nokia N95 superphone and confirms that the update smooths away the primary flaws. HSDPA now works with US bands, tested to download at 699Kbps on AT&T’s network. Bumping the 128MB of RAM to 160MB takes away all traces of lag, too.
It still has the A-GPS, maps, the 5MP Carl Zeiss camera, and all the other goodies. Yet, photos are not quite as good as the ones on the old one, and at the risk of being unfair, it still lacks a QWERTY still. (By design or not, when a phone has this many functions, you don’t want to deal with T9.) This means two things: It is finally a real iPhone competitor…again? And B) the American who bought the first edition of the N95 less than 6 months ago just got screwed big time. Your loyalty has just been punished. [Wired]
Nokia is indeed releasing two N95 variants, probably in response to the happy anti-Apple smartphone league’s joyous American reception of the pricey but powerful handset. Both of the new phones are flawed, but not for technical reasons. The n95i is the beautiful black model you saw on the FCC website, has a 2.8 inch screen instead of a 2.4 inch screen (same QVGA res, still not touch), and improved battery life of up to 30% better life, which could mean it was tested with backlight and wireless gimped. It also has no lens cap, as previously gawked, and a Xenon flash instead of LED. It is $749. It’s flaw is that it also doesn’t have US HSDPA band support, which is more our problem than Europe’s.
The black US version of Nokia’s N95 has hit the FCC, featuring 8GB of storage in addition to the new exterior. There’s no mention of a 3G HSDPA connection, which it was rumored to have. We think there will in fact be a 3G connection on here, as there are links that point to Nokia.com/music in the filing and downloading music to a phone wirelessly would be pretty painful on a 2G connection. But maybe this is a second handset, for T Mobile’s EDGE network, only. Not a lot of new info otherwise; we’ll keep you posted as this becomes official. [Wireless Info]
Symbian-Guru’s all over the US N95 launch, this time bringing us a handful of up close snaps, confirming the body changes picked up from the flyer. The shutter slider has indeed been jettisoned, but now the camera is receded into the the back of the phone. They’ve also apparently raised the media keys and made a handful of changes to the battery compartment to accommodate the beefier bulge—meaning it probably won’t fit into the Euro models. Subsequent peepage after the jump.
If Om’s solid word wasn’t solid enough for you, Symbian-Guru got its hands on an official sales flyer (check it full size, post-jump) for the US 3G N95, which brings a few new (mostly excellent) details about the US version super-phone to light. Topping the list of improvements, the battery’s been bumped up from 950 mAh to1200 mAh, so you’ll be able to squeeze a bit more playtime out of it.
During a meeting with the CEO of Sling Media, Om Malik got a peek at a trial version of the Nokia N95 that supports the US version of HSDPA. A few phone calls later, he’s confirming that Nokia has plans to release the 3G’d up N95 in the US next month.
One of our big knocks against this beast of a phone was the lack of 3G stateside, so it’s nice to see them take care of that more-than-niggling issue. If they could do something about the $750 pricetag while they’re at it (possible, if they have a carrier on board), then they might see sales really pop.
AU: They didn’t get 3G N95s? Haha! -SB
[GigaOM]
newVideoPlayer("jealouslaptops_gawker.flv", 475, 376);What better way to portray your so-called laptop-replacing smartphone than to make fake videos and images detailing how laptops are attacking people who use it? Take this ad, showing a new college student being bitten by an unnamed laptop as she’s making a movie with her parents with the Nokia N95. Then there are the “medical pictures” of various laptop-inflicted wounds. We’re thinking this is a swing and a miss for Nokia, but what about you? [Jealous Computers]
