I have been waiting for a phone worth buying since about a year. Initially I wanted an FSC Loox T830, but then I got all worried about Windows Mobile sucking on the phone end of things, so I switch to waiting for the Nokia N95. The phone promised to have it all: Symbian OS, large screen, wifi, bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0, GPS, 3D gfx, TV-out, microSD hotswap, 5 megapixel carl zeiss camera, small form factor.

Today I must say that overall the phone is a disappointment. Of the above listed items most have failed to impress. The camera is the one thing that stands out most on the plus side. Using the software you can setup your phone to automatically sync all pictures and contacts via bluetooth once you are in reach of your computer. IMHO an absolute killer feature (bummer that I broke my bluetooth setup on my thinkpad while trying to get my headset to play with Skype)! The screen is also was beautiful as I expected. The 3d gfx are also nice, giving you almost a PSOne in your pocket. MicroSD is also developing nicely with a 4GB card just around the corner. The unit itself is also nicely lightweight.

But this is also where things start taking a down turn. The dual slider is kinda wobbly. I hear Nokia has acknowledged this issue and is willing to fix any related issues. So I will see if they can improve things once I get home and drop it of at the shop I bought the phone at. The biggest frowns have so far been the result of the GPS. It takes ages to get a fix (TI has a newer chip released already that promises much quicker initial fix times) and you have to be in wide open space. Worse it seems like you have to stand still. The free maps (only voice guided navigation costs you) from across the globe are a nice touch, though this is available for all recent top of the line Nokia phones. Transferring the maps to the phone takes ages though.

The wifi works mostly, but seems to cause most of the crashes of the software I have had so far. The bluetooth is very annoying as it seems like audio is briefly interrupted whenever a bluetooth device gets close (eventhough I keep my bluetooth in concealed mode). This makes it really very little fun to use as a mobile player, the thing I was looking for most as a secondary feature besides calling.

This brings up the topic of battery life. I was hoping to get 6 hours of battery life while listening to music via bluetooth. Well it looks more like I am getting half of that. Wifi and GPS obviously also drain the battery pretty badly, though I have made little use of either feature so far: GPS because its unusable and there is currently no Skype client (fring.com does have N95 support, but the software is very user unfriendly, for example the entire connection management is very annoying atm). The only solution to be able to use it as a music player is carrying my proporta external battery with me. On that note I should also mention that you cannot charge via the USB port.

Now onto the TV-out. First up it works and video's look really good. However I was hoping to use it with my powerpoint presentations. I tried this only once on a very fancy insanely large TV a client had in his office. Kind of unsurprisingly (not that I think about it), the text was not readable, since the TV-out only does a resolution of 640-x480.

Final thing to mention is that Nokia apparently has decided that N-series devices should not get access to their free Exchange server sync tool anymore. So new releases only support E-series phones. This is really unfortunate since I was planning on using this app to sync with our Zimbra server that features an Exchange interface. Now I am stuck using the old version without any fixes (which has some limitations) or buying 3rd party software for $49.

So what is my final verdict? The GPS should have been left out in favor of a slightly larger battery. USB charging should really be added and whats up with this dump decision to not give N-series devices (not exactly cheap phones) access to the Exchange sync tool? Finally I hope that firmware updates will get rid of the issues with bluetooth audio breaking off when other bluetooth devices get close and reduce the number of crashes. Finally I hope that S60 will soon get solid support for Skype and friends (fring.com is almost there). I am going to keep this phone for now, but I would not recommend anyone buying it.

Update:
I bought OggPlay in order to play vorbis ogg files, but that software leaves a lot to be desired (though the maker promises to add mp3 support as well as the ability to use the N95 music buttons. I also forgot to mention that Nokia does not seem to make it easy for people to add support for other music formats (like vorbis ogg). This is what I would prefer as a solution above all!

2 months ago probably I would have agreed with you that Windows Mobile sucks, but after buying the product of the beast :) ... I'm amazed.

Mostly it's about the usability. I must say I will never go back to a Symbian, at least not very soon.

So, getting ready for your next dream phone ?

Beyond the feature set and your disappointment, I think the N95 is one of the ugliest phones I've ever seen. ;-)

I am more or less considering staying with SE for a P990 (since I've had a P910i for long).

My opinion has improved since them. I have adjusted to the battery life. I just make sure to charge everyday. I also have an USB adapter from Nokia (what a rip off in price though) along with my external battery. I enjoy many of the features (like reading my friends thesis paper on the pdf reader). The video capabilities are also amazingly good. I took a short video that we then played back on a portable battery driven projecter one of the geeks at a customers office had. Very sweat.