Is a touch screen Nokia N95 coming?

Nokia announced several upgrades to its Symbian Series 60 software at the Symbian Smartphone Show yesterday. There are several software upgrades, but the one that most interests us is a touch screen user interface (UI). Though Nokia is still working towards multi-touch input – one of the key features of the iPhone UI – a touch screen is exactly what’s missing from the Nokia N95 and Nokia N95 8GB smart phones! The touch screen will support tactile feedback, which means that the user will feel a physical pulse and feedback when he or she taps on the screen! The touch screen will be used on new devices with or without keypads! Reports suggest that the existing S60 3rd Edition applications will be able to run on touch enabled devices without modifications while tools will be made available for developers to integrate the touch experience of their applications. Now Nokia will have to make their screens more smudge resistant!

Another software upgrade that is interesting is the added support for FlashLite 3. For those that don’t know, FlashLite 3 allows users to use web-based video in the same way as they do on a computer. Thus access and displaying YouTube videos directly from your phone will now be possible. Hopefully this upgrade will be made available for the N95 so that getting video on your N95 will be much easier!

Other software upgrades include support for a variety of sensors to support the touch screen UI, a ‘UI accelerator toolkit’ to enable flashier graphics.

Win a free Nokia N95 at the T20 World Cup

The ICC T20 (tenty-20) World Cup is currently being held in South Africa and local broadcasters M-Net are running a competition at each match with the prize being not one, but two free Nokia N95 phones! Winning it is a bit tough though, there’s none of the usual silly questions like ‘Who’s the captain of the Indian team?’, it’s more like a prediction: ‘Who will take the last catch in the forth coming match?’. Answers by SMS. Yes, you need a mobile phone to win a mobile phone! I wonder if anyone would care to record some of those big 6s on their N95 and send it over to us?

 

Strange thing is they value the N95 at R 8,000, which is equivalent to $ 1,150 or £ 550! The competition line is “Win a free Nokia N95 worth R 8000″ – mighty expensive down in SA!

 

As for the T20 World cup, Australia are the favorites, despite loosing their opening match to Zimbabwe! Of the top teams, only West Indies failed to progress to the Super 8 stage, having been beaten by South Africa and Bangladesh.

How to record video on your Nokia N95?

Last time I wrote about the Nokia N95 mobile phone as a camcorder but I got quite a few queries about recording video. It’s really easy if you know how and it’s in your user’s manual but that might be a bit too technical. Let me give you my version of the ‘How To Record Video On Your Nokia N95 For Dummies’ guide.

 

Firstly, it’s easier to use the recoding feature on the N95 when you use the phone in landscape mode, i.e., horizontally like a digital camera. Open the lens cover at the back of the phone to launch the camera application. Now configure your white balance, colour tone, or scene settings by using the scroll key to scroll through the active toolbar. Under white balance you can select automatic, sunny, cloudy, incandescent, or fluorescent; under color tones you can select normal, sepia, black & white, negative, or vivid; and under scene you can select automatic or night. As soon as you select a different setting, you will see the display change on the N95’s screen to show you how the changes will affect the video recording.

 

Once you’re happy with your settlings, it’s simply a matter of pressing the camera activation button on the right hand side of the phone to start recording. A red record icon will appear, and a tone will sound to indicate that recording has started. If you want to zoom in on the subject, you’ll need to press the zoom key that is also on the right hand side of the phone. You can pause recording at any time by pressing Pause, but be warned that a paused video recording will stop automatically if there are no key are pressed within a minute. To resume recording you simply need to press Continue, and you would press Stop to stop recording. Any video clip taken with the N95 is automatically saved to the Images & video folder, which is located in Gallery. The maximum video length that you can record is 60 minutes if you have enough available memory.

 

I hope you found this quick guide useful. If you’ve anymore queries, send them our way and we’ll do out best to help.

 

Nokia N95 Camcorder

The Nokia N95 is great as a digital camera, and its just as good at video recording. The video specifications from the built-in camera are quite impressive. With the Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar optics the N95 can record mp-4 video at a maximum VGA resolution and 30 frames per second (fps). It also records in 3gp for multimedia messages but mp4 is the default format. The N95’s video recording uses a single standard quality phone microphone directed towards the video subject. This is a major improvement on the N93i that has a pair of microphones that were directed upwards, but it’ not as good as the N93 has proper stereo microphones, directed towards the video subject and separated by the width of the phone. However, the N95 has automatic gain control with the level being sampled several times a second and automatically adjusted. This allows the N95 to record an audible and non-distorted soundtrack for everything from normal speech to loud music concerts.

 

There are also automatic and night shooting modes; as well as several white balance settings, including  automatic, sunny, cloudy, incandescent, and fluorescent; and color tone settings, including normal, sepia, black & white, negative, and vivid. In addition, the N95 has a digital video stabilization feature to reduce camera shake while you’re recording video. For a phone, video quality was also quite good and does not have any of the graininess that is on some video clips shot by camera phones. Video quality on the N95 is roughly comparable to that of the N93 and N93i, but is much better than older Nseries phones which capture video at 352 x 288 pixels and at 15 fps. However, it’s very average when compared to a budget home camcorder. Nonetheless, video playback is excellent both on the N95’s 26″ screen, and on TV/DVD/Monitor via the TV out port. Then there’s also Video editor and Movie director software that you can use to edit and enhance your video clips. Video clip length is only limited by available free memory.

Nokia N95 Camera Phone

The Nokia N95 is a great phone, but what about it’s multimedia features? The phone has been awarded the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA) award for ‘The European Media Phone of the Year 2007-2008′, and the TIPA award for the ‘Best Mobile Imaging Device in Europe 2007, so let’s take a closer look at its imaging ability.

 

First up, the N95 has a massive 5 megapixel autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss optics, a Vario-Tessar lens and a built-in flash that are located at the back of the phone. The camera activation button is located on the side of the phone, which requires that you hold the phone horizontally, like a digital camera, when you use the camera; but that’s not where the comparison to a digital camera ends. The N95 also boasts a full range of customization and editing options that allows it to compete with a stand-alone digital camera!

 

There are seven shooting modes, including automatic, user, close-up, portrait, landscape, sports, night, night portrait, and five quality settings, automatic, sunny, cloudy, incandescent, fluorescent. You can also adjust the brightness, contrast, white balance, color tone, ISO light sensitivity, and exposure value to get the best picture possible. In addition, the camera also has a red-eye reduction option, a self-timer and a sequence mode for shooting multiple pictures, and digital video stabilization to reduce camera shake! The quality of photos taken with the N95 camera is also very good with vibrant colors and sharp lines and edges.

 

This isn’t just a good camera phone; this is a great digital camera!

 

Other Nokia Blog Posts

Here are some other posts about the Nokia N95 phone.

http://www.ulpukka.com/obtaining-your-initial-gps-fix-on-your-n95

http://www.hypeboard.com/i-hate-the-nokia-n95-14.html

http://booored.com/my-nokia-n95/

http://naseerhaider.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-nokia-n95.html

http://www.cisco-akademija.info/it-fun/obtaining-your-initial-gps-fix-on-your-n95

http://www.keyboardjunkies.com/2007/09/13/nokia-n95/

http://www.advantagecontent.com/why-i-hate-the-nokia-n95/

Nokia Maps Revamped.

Nokia Multimedia announced the availability of a new version of the Nokia Maps application for mobile devices. The updated application has a new user interface with better search features and more detailed categories, but two new features caught my eye: a GPS status indicator that tells you when you have a satellite fix, and a three-day trial Navigation license to selected S60 3rd edition devices! Users can try out the trial Navigation service over a weekend or over a short business trip and decide if they want to subscribe to the service in the future. I know I’ll be trying it out the next time I’ve a trip up country. I might even arrange a trip just to try out the service!

 

Nokia also updated the map coverage and now covers more than 150 countries, with more than 50 of them navigable. Eventually Nokia will have the whole world covered and available on Nokia Maps, which is being integrated into Nokia’s Internet service, Ovi.

The excellent Nokia N95

The Nokia N95 must rate as the best mobile device around. It is already rated as one of the most feature-packed smart phones around, and it’s these feature that make the phone so great. It’s got wireless connectivity and Nokia’s great OSS web browser for surfing the net, it’s got a massive 5-megapixel still and video camera for all your image needs, it’s got built-in GPS receiver with a mapping application, it’s got a great music and video player for you multimedia needs, and it’s a phone!

 

I’m sure everyone knows Nokia makes great phones and the same goes for this quadband smart phone. It has all the features you’d expected from a phone, including a speakerphone, speed dialing, conference calling, voice-commands, vibrate mode, and text and multimedia messaging. Then there’s the address book that allows you to assign a photo, one of 44 ringtones, or a group ID, multiple phone numbers, work and home addresses, e-mail addresses, birthday, and so forth for each contact. That the N95 is a great phone goes without saying, after all, Nokia is renowned from making great phones! But it’s the other features that make this an exceptional phone.

Take the camera, for example. Most other phone cameras pale in comparison to the N95 with its massive 5-megapixel Carl Zeiss Tessar autofocus camera and built-in LED flash that can take still photos and video clips! It’s not surprising then that TIPA awarded the as the Best Mobile Imaging Device in Europe for 2007! Then throw in integrated GPS and wireless connectivity!

As if that wasn’t enough, Nokia saw fit to a throw an integrated video and music player in the mix as well! The video player is a RealPlayer media player with support for mp4 H.264/AVC, H.263/3GPP, and RealVideo 8, 9 and 10, while the music player has support for mp3, WMA, W4A, AAC, AAC+, and eAAC+! Not to mention that the N95 comes with a built-in equalizer, a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, and a Visual FM radio.

There can’t be many phones better than the N95. Over the next couple of posts we’ll be looking at each of these features in more detail. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a great deal on a N95, check out www.n95phone.com

Nokia N95 launched in the US

Yesterday saw the official launch of the Nokia N95 smart phone in the US. This is a new version of the Nokia N95 that offers compatibility with the North American 3G/HSDPA/UMTS but is not the Nokia N95 8GB. It is the same phone that is available in the Europe and the UK but with assisted GPS (A-GPS), 124MB of RAM to complement the included 1GB microSD memory card and the 160MB internal memory, as well as a higher capacity battery. The N95 has an estimated retail price of $699 and will be available from Nokia Flagship Stores in New York and Chicago, as well as a number of independent retailers in all major US markets.

 

Sure, these additional features are improvements on the existing N95. A-GPS offers quicker satellite fixes, extra RAM is always welcome, and the higher capacity battery addresses one of the greatest problems on such a feature rich phone – increased operating time! But where is the 8 GB internal flash memory? It seems early adoptee in the US will receive an inferior phone when the Nokia N95 8GB is released in the next month or so. I wonder what sort of deals Nokia will offer early adoptees, considering the media attention Apple received when it slashed the price of the iPhone.

Nokia Ovi

Nokia has announced its intentions to become a mobile Internet service provider (ISP) with the launch of Ovi, which is Finnish for “door”. Ovi will allow users to access their existing social network, communities, content and Nokia services on their Nokia handhelds. Nokia’s senior vice president for customer market operations, Asia-Pacific, Urpo Karjalainen said Ovi represents the company’s vision in combining the Internet and mobility. Karjalainen said: “The industry is converging towards Internet-driven experiences. Nokia is the world’s No. 1 mobile devices company. Looking into the future, we will deliver great devices, experiences and services to make it easy for people to unlock the potential of the Internet.”

Nokia plans to launch Ovi during the fourth quarter of 2007. The company will add extra features, including localization in the first half of 2008. Nokia users will be able to create communities with network sharing, photo blogs, multi-player gaming, music and video, for which smart phones like the Nokia N95 would be ideal! Ovi will also include services such as Nokia Maps, Nokia’s assisted global positioning system (A-GPS) service.

According to Nokia’s senior vice president, Likka Raiskinen, Nokia will provide free services, business services and subscription business models.