Pros: Loaded with functions and features. Third-party software expandability.
Cons: Jack of all trades, master of only some.
The bottom line: Excellent as a phone and PDA that will appeal to business people and gadget freaks alike. Firmware updates should keep the phone fresh for a few years.
Let me preface this review by saying that I love high-tech toys, especially mobile phones of which I've owned many over the years. The Nokia N95 certainly has not disappointed me! My review is based on the global version of the phone (i.e. not that North American version) so I couldn't access the local 3G networks. Also, I recently upgraded my phone's firmware to version 20.0.015 which makes a big difference.

Physical Characteristics

The Nokia N95 is a dual-slider handset. Slide it in one direction and it reveals a standard numeric keypad; slide it the other way and you have access to media keys. The slider is spring-loaded so it offers a bit of resistance in each direction. However, I sometimes found that when trying to grab the phone from an inside coat pocket I would slide it open by accident. While I have used thinner and/or lighter phones, I felt it was well-balance and appreciated its solid feel.

The media keys are flat with printed markings so you can't distinguish them by touch, but it's still nice to have dedicated function keys. The numeric keypad is located pretty low on the handset. That, with the fact that the buttons are quite small, makes it hard to dial using one hand. However, given the amount of space Nokia had to work with, I think they did a pretty good job.

While I'm glad that Nokia gave the N95 a standard mini-USB connector for easier connectivity to your PC, it would have been even better if this connector could be used for charging as well, as it seems to be with many other mobile phones and PDAs. This would have saved me having to carry the charger along with me when I away on a business trip as I could have simply recharged the phone by plugging it into my laptop's USB port.

The N95 sports a 2.6" high-resolution, 240x320 pixel screen, which can display over 16 million colors. It is absolutely gorgeous and makes reading small text, web browsing, and viewing photos all that much better.

The 5-megapixel camera and flash are located on the back. The lens has a sliding cover that activates and deactivates the camera (which I understand has been changed on the North American version of the phone). A second, low-resolution camera on the front is used for two-way video calling.

Features

For a phone camera, it takes good photos. Slide open the lens cover and the phone automatically switches to landscape mode, giving you the familiar camera feel. The built-in LED flash gives you the flexibility to take photos in darker settings. For outdoor shots, I found the pictures to be quite good and have had many of them processed into actual photos. Noise can be a problem in not-so-good lighting conditions. Sure, I get better pictures from my older 4-megapixel Canon camera, but let's not forget the N95 is NOT a camera, but a phone with a camera function. I found it used to take a while to refresh in between shots, but ever since upgrading the firmware, this has been resolved and the camera functions are now much quicker and more responsive.

As a video recorder, I thought the N95 took pretty high quality videos at 640x480 at 30 frames per second. But, while they looked great on the phone, once I transferred them onto the PC or tried watching them on my TV (using the supplied cable) I found they were pretty digitized, although quite smooth. And yes, you can get better video from your digital camera.

The N95 functions quite well as a music player and FM radio. The built-in music player supports most audio file formats though I mainly used MP3 files as that is what I had stored on my PC. Being able to create playlists was a nice feature to see. The music player can keep playing even if you leave it's interface. This is a nice feature so you can continue working on the phone (i.e. send SMS, search for contacts, etc.) while listen to your favourite tunes. The N95 has a standard 3.5mm jack so you can use headphones of your choice to listen to your music in beautiful stereo. I even hooked it up to my home stereo and thought it sounded pretty good. There was a slight background hiss, similar to what you get from most flash-based MP3 players, but nothing that bothered me too much.

The built-in stereo speakers are surprisingly good. OK, they're not great compared to even small computer speakers, but for those times when you just want a little music in the background and you don't want to turn on the stereo, these speakers deliver pretty good sound.

Usability

I've used a lot of mobile phones, and I have to say that I really like the S60 interface, especially the S60 3rd Edition which the N95 runs. The home screen can display six customizable application shortcuts, upcoming calendar events, and search functions (with the newest firmware upgrade). The phone's interface felt snappy compared to older Nokia phones I'ved used.

The N95 can run in portrait and landscape modes. When you slide open to phone to access the media keys, the phone automatically switches to landscape mode. When you slide it to reveal the numeric keypad, it returns to portrait mode. Landscape mode is nice for viewing photos and videos and surfing the web (that doesn't require keyboard input).

Nokia's web browser is quite good. It rendered pages accurately and quickly, Javascript menus looked good, tables and graphics were correctly drawn. I found it easy to navigate with the d-pad and softkeys. However, if you are a heavy web surfer (on your phone?) you may want to look at Opera for its excellent scaling features.

The phone comes loaded with tools, applications, and Office programs (more on that later). Plus, you can download lots of free or purchase third-party applications for your S60 3rd Ed., making the N95 tops for expandability.

The contact management is very easy to use and is similar to that of other S60 systems. It's fast and easy to navigate. You can store tons of information for each contact, assign specific ringtones to contacts, assign pictures to contacts, organize contacts into groups, etc. I could go on and on, but basically, I think Nokia's implementation of contacts puts other phones to shame. As a side note, I like assigning specific ringtones for certain contacts (i.e. business associates, family members) so that I can tell who is calling without having to look at the screen... handy for when the phone isn't nearby.

The one big disappointment for me is battery life. Like the other reviewer said, I found myself having to charge my phone every second day, and that's only with moderate use. I've gotten into the habit of charging my phone everyday at my desk at work just so that I never run into a situation where the battery runs dry while I need it most. I should note though that ever since upgrading my firmware the battery life has improved. However, that's a relative comment. Nokia should have went with a slightly larger batter. Form over function, I guess.

Functionality

The N95's phone reception is excellent. I can make/receive calls in areas where my friends with Blackberry and Motorola phones cannot (i.e. underground parking). Call quality is very good. The built-in speakerphone is the best I have ever used on a mobile phone. I use my phone regularly with a Bluetooth headset (Cardo Scala 700) and find it works well in the car, but not when I'm walking about on the street. However, I'm not sure if that's a limitation of the phone or the headset (probably the headset).

Like many newer phones, the N95 has a customizable profile system. It comes with some pre-defined profiles (i.e. Normal, Outdoors, Pager) and I especially like the Offline profile which shuts down all communications channels so that you can safely use the phone on planes. Profiles can be configured in a variety of ways, and you can create new ones. One of my profiles is set so that only calls from my immediate family (i.e. spouse and kids) will ring the phone so as to not interrupt me when I'm in the middle of something.

The voice recognition is good. Since I use a Bluetooth headset a lot of the time, it is extremely convenient to dial contacts by simply saying their names, or launch certain applications or functions using only your voice. It's not perfect though and can be frustrating sometimes. For whatever reason, certain sounds get recognized easier than others. I found I had to really annunciate certain names to get the phone to pick the right one. However, that being said, if the phone is not 100% sure who you are looking for, it displays a list of other close matches for you to choose from. That kind of makes up for its inaccurate readings.

My N95 is the quad-band GSM, EDGE/GPRS phone. Unfortunately, even though I have high-speed 3G networks available to me, I don't have access to them with my version of the phone. There is a North American specific version of the N95 that does tap into 3G and 3.5G networks, but since I got my phone earlier I missed the boat.

Using the Configuration Wizard, my GPRS and MMS settings were automatically set up for me. This is cool since at the time I got the phone, my provider (FIDO) wouldn't have been able to tell me how to manually configure the N95 for their data settings.

The N95 also supports WiFi connectivity at 802.11b/g speeds along with WEP and WPA security. It's nice being connected at high speeds (for free) when downloading email or using third-party apps that access the internet. I use Gmail and Yahoo! Go on my phone and they work great when connected to my home or office's WiFi connection. I have connected to many free hotspots around town and when away on business and must say it is a feature I would not want to give up.

The N95 supports Voice Over IP (VOIP) but I never bothered with that feature so I have no comment.

Programs and Applications

The N95 comes installed with quite a few applications, including calendar, to-do list, alarm clock, calculator, converter, and Quickoffice. The calendar is similar to that found on other Nokia phones. It's great for setting appointments, reminders, alarms, etc. Quickoffice allows you to read common office document types. But, realistically, do you really want to read a Word document or view PDF files on such a small screen? Maybe in a pinch it works, but otherwise I pass. I guess it's good to have "just in case". The alarm clock has been upgraded so that you can have multiple alarms, set alarms to ring on certain days (i.e. weekly, work days only). I used to have to purchase a third-party app to do this, but now that it's included as a built-in feature... HOORAY!

The GPS system (with a built-in GPS receiver) had me intrigued. Unfortunately, I found that unless you were in ideal conditions (i.e. no buildings around and clear view of the sky) the N95's satellite tracking left much to be desired. It took forever to locate satellites, but worked OK once I was connected. Before upgrading my firmware, I could use the GPS real-time tracking to view my location onscreen. However, since upgrading it appears Nokia has removed this feature, presumably so you subscribe to their overpriced navigation service. Thumbs down to Nokia for taking this away from its customers.

Conclusion

The N95 is a solid phone and PDA device in so many ways. The beautiful display, fantastic call quality, excellent multimedia features, friendly user interface, plethora of applications, larger third-party software support, and general coolness makes it a real winner in my book!