Welcome to March 2007, and Nokia has just released the ‘Computer 2.0.’ The N95 is the absolute zenith of the pre-touchscreen era, a device so packed with technology that it feels like the engineers in Finland were simply trying to see if they could break the laws of physics. It is a ‘dual-slider’; slide it up to reveal a high-quality alphanumeric keypad; slide it down to reveal a dedicated set of media controls and transform the 2.6-inch screen into a landscape cinema. It’s finished in a ‘Plum’ or ‘Sand’ plastic that feels surprisingly lightweight at 120g, but don’t let the plastic fool you—this is the most powerful consumer electronic device on the planet.
For the UK early-adopter, the N95 is the ‘everything’ phone that actually does everything.nnThe technical sheet is a love letter to the power user. It features a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, and a mechanical shutter. It’s the first phone to record ‘DVD-like’ VGA video at 30 frames per second, making it a legitimate camcorder replacement. But that’s just the start. It is one of the first phones to feature integrated GPS, meaning you can actually use ‘Nokia Maps’ for turn-by-turn navigation on your dashboard. It has Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), HSDPA (3.5G) for ‘broadband-like’ mobile internet speeds, and even a 3.5mm headphone jack—finally allowing us to use our own decent headphones without a clunky adapter.
The screen is a massive (for the time) 2.6-inch QVGA display that is bright, clear, and perfect for the built-in accelerometer that rotates the view automatically.nnRunning Symbian OS 9.2 (S60 3rd Edition, FP1), the N95 is a true multitasking marvel. You can be browsing the web via Wi-Fi, listening to an MP3, and receiving a GPS signal all at the same time. It features 160MB of internal memory and a microSD slot that supports ‘High Capacity’ (SDHC) cards, potentially giving you 8GB of storage for your entire music and video library. However, there is a catch: the battery life. The 950 mAh BL-5F battery is effectively trying to power a miniature city, and if you’re using the GPS or Wi-Fi, you’ll be lucky to make it to lunchtime without a charge.
It’s a technical ‘Godzilla’ with the appetite of a hummingbird. Despite the battery woes and a slightly creaky sliding mechanism, the N95 is the greatest smartphone of its generation. It is the definitive ‘Swiss Army Knife’ of tech, a legendary device that proved Nokia could do it all before the world changed forever in Cupertino a few months later.