The recent launch of the iPhone has raised the stakes in the increasingly popular music phone market. This has put pressure on the more established manufacturers to step up their game. The original Nokia N95 was never designed just for music functions they were just one of many strings to its bow, though its poor battery life did let it down in this aspect.
With the launch of an updated version with 8GB of internal memory, Nokia are surely looking to capitalise on the iPhone's lacklustre phone features and compete for the title of premier music phone.
With a 0.2" extension to the screen and more streamlined front controls to accommodate this, the N95 8GB certainly looks much different to its previous incarnation. The new all-black styling, on a handset of this size, is going to look much better and it definitely suits the N95 8GB.
Aside from the shrinking of the front controls, there have also been some other space-saving measures employed as well. The camera lens cover has been removed and so has the memory card slot. Those who own(ed) the original N95 may miss having this, but in reality it isn't that much of an issue. This is partly because a lens cover is not that common on other cameraphones and also because there is a slight recess on the camera lens to offer some kind of protection from marks or scratches. Still, when the camera is this good, it is a little disappointing that the lens is that much more vulnerable.
Though it comes with 8GB of built in memory, the removal of the memory card slot does have some obvious drawbacks, mainly that you are limited to a set amount of memory with no way to upgrade this (unless your handy with a screwdriver, soldering iron and mini-flash drives.) Even if 8GB is a lot of memory, to truly compete with the iPhone an SD slot upgradeable up to 4GB would have stretched the possible memory to 12 GB, which would have been a great selling point. Instead it's left as a slight missed opportunity.
One of the main gripes of the original N95 was the insufficient capacity of the battery, which thankfully has now been resolved with a larger capacity battery being supplied now with the 8GB N95 and there have been some software tweaks that also make the most of the increased battery capacity.
For those who didn't take up the tantalising offer of the N95 originally, the addition of the extra memory as well as the solution to known problems should make it a better prospect. Whether owners of the original N95 would be prepared to pay the extra money for a brief upgrade remains to be seen, but personally, the jury is still out.
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