Disclaimer: I'll write a big post comparing the N95 to the iPhone. Please, take in mind I do like the iPhone, I love the awesomely responsive multitouch and iPhone's games. I do like the N95 a lot as well and I have a N95 because I tried the iPhone and it doesn't do what I want. I don't like the N97 because it lacks some things the N95 had that made it popular in 2007 in the first place. The N97 is not really good, though. The iPhone is much better than the N97 in my opinion.
[flamesuit]Don't take what I say in a bad way, it's not my intention to be offensive (who knows how people will read my post ) and I'm writing this in a happy tone.[/flamesuit]
If you don't want to read all of this, go to the bottom. I have included a small list of features the iPhone doesn't have, and the N95 does.
I'm talking about the first N95 models (and the N95-3, which is what I have, and supports up to 16GB microSD card. I have a 8GB microSD card). The N95 8GB is also a great phone, with a even bigger screen but doesn't support microSD cards (thus, limited to 8GB). The N95 8GB does exactly the same things as the N95-3, has the same camera design and flash position, exactly same hardware specs and the same RAM. The N95-3 and N95 8GB have 128MB RAM, whereas the N95-1 has 64MB RAM. The first iPhone (and all the other ones, apart from 3Gs) also have 128MB RAM. 3Gs has 256MB RAM.
Just to add, whenever I say something about the N95, I'm talking about the N95-3 and N95 8GB (models with 128MB RAM), because I've never used the 64MB RAM models. Apart from RAM, all the hardware is the same and all apps are compatible between them, so there's no difference.
Which is not the point of the N95. It wasn't supposed to be a touchscreen phone, and it does not try to be a touchscreen phone, so you can't really compare this. If it were, you could say "hey iPhone's multitouch is better" or something, but it's not. Thus, for not being a touchscreen phone, you can't have gesture-based scrolling or whatever other feature that requires a touch sensitive screen. But you can use the volume controls (or other key of your choice) for that...
Screen: you already mentioned iPhone's, so let's go to N95's: 2,6" (or 2,8" if you consider the 8GB), 320x240.
TV output: Even though the N95's screen res is 320x240, its TV output is 640x480, and also outputs widescreen. You can play up to 640x360p videos, movies or anything else on your 16:9 TV, or 640x480p on your 4:3 TV. But that doesn't mean it doesn't playback videos at higher resolutions; By using other media players (such as CorePlayer, DivX player or UCPlayer) I could open and fully watch 780x480 .avi, .wmv and .divx videos without lag and without converting them for use on the phone; I have directly downloaded them from the internet to the phone and playback on the phone. I haven't tried higher resolutions though, and the default media player won't play higher than 640x480 videos from the tests I made, but does playback very well high bitrates (such as 12mbps and higher).
All versions of the Nokia N95 come with the Nokia TV-Out cable by default (you don't have to pay extra $50), but you can also use one you probably already have for your cabled TV (in Brazil would be NET, Sky, or something alike), since it uses the same port as the headphones. But you can't do that with your iPhone, which has its own port for TV-Out, and requires the Apple cable.
The N95 also comes with bluetooth mono headphones. The iPhone doesn't come with anything.
Now, talking about bluetooth, the N95 (just as any other normal phone that supports bluetooth should, apart from all of the iPhones) supports file transfer, remote connection and media streaming. N95's bluetooth is 2.0 with A2DP. And to add to that, since the first N95 model it already supported many bluetooth keyboards and bluetooth mouse (not only from Nokia). Not only that, but it also supports more bluetooth devices, such as printers and hands-free. But wait, what if your printer doesn't have bluetooth? There's no problem, you can use a cable on N95's mini USB port to connect it to your printer and print your Office 2007 and 2010 .docx files, Office 2003 and older .doc files, PDF or pictures from all formats. That's it, straight from the phone to the printer. By the way, the phone supports viewing and editing all of Office's (all versions) files, from powerpoint and excel to documents. You can also display powerpoint presentations on a projector directly from the phone.
iPhone - supports opening and editing Office (all versions) files through QuickOffice application.
So, let's say you need a file that's in your work mate's phone. But his phone is quite old and only supports infrared (it has already happened to me)... ok, no problem. The N95 features a infrared port too. And you can use this infrared port as a universal remote control to take control other infrared devices, such as air conditioning, TV, DVD, home theater, VCR, Tuner, SAT, etc. Video.
(TV controls include not only turning on and off, but also volume, channel, numbers, etc. Same thing for other devices).
You mean 2009 iPhone 3Gs' only "30fps" video recording? It is not exactly 30FPS. It is up to 30fps. I haven't seen any video recorded from an iPhone 3Gs that actually had 30FPS. The iPhone camera gets lower FPS as illumination decreases, and also lower when you try to focus. I have seen iPhone's videos with 16,3fps, 21fps and so on. N95's camera don't get as influenced by exposition as the iPhone. It will basically stay 30FPS no matter how much lighting you have*. It's 9:25pm right now, I have just recorded a video right now with no lights turned on at all (just my monitor light), and it stood very well with stable 25fps. There was one guy doing some tests, trying out his new iPhone 3Gs inside his home, at about 5pm with all lights turned on, and his iPhone recorded the video at 16fps.
*Unless you purposely choose "Night mode", which makes camera exposure about 5 times bigger, so you'll have like 10~15fps videos depending on lighting, but now showing a lot more details at very dark scenes. However, this mode is not required for recording videos at night. I for one only use it if there is no source of light at all in the place I'm recording a video, which would make the normal mode totally black, but show up well in the night mode.
As some other people have already pointed out, this picture was taken with a N80.
Here are some pictures I have taken with my N95-3. I sent them to the PC over bluetooth (which, btw, the iPhone doesn't support) and uploaded the raw pics here:
Picture 1, Picture 2, Picture 3, Picture 4, Picture 5, Picture 6.
Notice how you can read perfectly every single letter of the NFS Undercover box and how defined the other ones are.
I had to edit this pic because it included the cd-key. I opened it with paint and saved with paint JPG. Still, notice how you can see the details from the printer used to print that cd-key card. (opened, cropped and saved again using Microsft Paint's JPG)
I took this last picture with an N73 (because the N95 had to appear in the pic ).
Nokia N95 and iPhone
N95 can transfer files through bluetooth, wifi, infrared, MMS (yes, not only pics or videos, but any file).
It opens compacted .zip files by default, and with a simple free app you can make it also open, view and decompress .jar, .rar and other formats.
Another thing it has is a built-in File manager, which the iPhone doesn't have.
To sum it all up, here are the features the N95 has and the iPhone doesn't (not even the 3Gs):
- Bluetooth
- 5MP camera (iPhone ranges from 2MP to 3.2MP)
- File manager
- Mini USB port
Features the N95 had since 2007 and the iPhone had to implement years later, through software updates. Some of these features are only available for the newer released iPhones:
And the iPhone CAN'T make good use of bluetooth, CAN'T display flash websites, CAN'T take pictures with camera flash, CAN'T...
The N95 not only "does" these things. It does them well.
I agree with you. It may be easier to use when you have never ever used it before, but you'll use the phone everyday, for every task. No matter which phone you choose, you'll always know how to use it. The N95 is not difficult either. Do you know how long it took me to understand all of N95's buttons, from the moment I got it home after purchasing? It took me 1 minute to realize I didn't know how to turn on and ask a friend (I was used to hold the end call button as ON/OFF on my friends' phones), and then about 5 minutes to learn what every button did (by pressing them one at a time and check out ). And you know what? The N95 is my first cellphone. I had never had a cellphone before this one. I didn't even know what T9 was (and it's great, by the way, I write with it almost as fast as I write on the PC).
If I use an iPhone for a week I'll spend the whole day playing games, and I'll need to bring my N95 as well for using the features the iPhone doesn't support.
[flamesuit]Don't take what I say in a bad way, it's not my intention to be offensive (who knows how people will read my post ) and I'm writing this in a happy tone.[/flamesuit]
If you don't want to read all of this, go to the bottom. I have included a small list of features the iPhone doesn't have, and the N95 does.
I'm talking about the first N95 models (and the N95-3, which is what I have, and supports up to 16GB microSD card. I have a 8GB microSD card). The N95 8GB is also a great phone, with a even bigger screen but doesn't support microSD cards (thus, limited to 8GB). The N95 8GB does exactly the same things as the N95-3, has the same camera design and flash position, exactly same hardware specs and the same RAM. The N95-3 and N95 8GB have 128MB RAM, whereas the N95-1 has 64MB RAM. The first iPhone (and all the other ones, apart from 3Gs) also have 128MB RAM. 3Gs has 256MB RAM.
Just to add, whenever I say something about the N95, I'm talking about the N95-3 and N95 8GB (models with 128MB RAM), because I've never used the 64MB RAM models. Apart from RAM, all the hardware is the same and all apps are compatible between them, so there's no difference.
Which is not the point of the N95. It wasn't supposed to be a touchscreen phone, and it does not try to be a touchscreen phone, so you can't really compare this. If it were, you could say "hey iPhone's multitouch is better" or something, but it's not. Thus, for not being a touchscreen phone, you can't have gesture-based scrolling or whatever other feature that requires a touch sensitive screen. But you can use the volume controls (or other key of your choice) for that...
Screen: you already mentioned iPhone's, so let's go to N95's: 2,6" (or 2,8" if you consider the 8GB), 320x240.
TV output: Even though the N95's screen res is 320x240, its TV output is 640x480, and also outputs widescreen. You can play up to 640x360p videos, movies or anything else on your 16:9 TV, or 640x480p on your 4:3 TV. But that doesn't mean it doesn't playback videos at higher resolutions; By using other media players (such as CorePlayer, DivX player or UCPlayer) I could open and fully watch 780x480 .avi, .wmv and .divx videos without lag and without converting them for use on the phone; I have directly downloaded them from the internet to the phone and playback on the phone. I haven't tried higher resolutions though, and the default media player won't play higher than 640x480 videos from the tests I made, but does playback very well high bitrates (such as 12mbps and higher).
All versions of the Nokia N95 come with the Nokia TV-Out cable by default (you don't have to pay extra $50), but you can also use one you probably already have for your cabled TV (in Brazil would be NET, Sky, or something alike), since it uses the same port as the headphones. But you can't do that with your iPhone, which has its own port for TV-Out, and requires the Apple cable.
The N95 also comes with bluetooth mono headphones. The iPhone doesn't come with anything.
Now, talking about bluetooth, the N95 (just as any other normal phone that supports bluetooth should, apart from all of the iPhones) supports file transfer, remote connection and media streaming. N95's bluetooth is 2.0 with A2DP. And to add to that, since the first N95 model it already supported many bluetooth keyboards and bluetooth mouse (not only from Nokia). Not only that, but it also supports more bluetooth devices, such as printers and hands-free. But wait, what if your printer doesn't have bluetooth? There's no problem, you can use a cable on N95's mini USB port to connect it to your printer and print your Office 2007 and 2010 .docx files, Office 2003 and older .doc files, PDF or pictures from all formats. That's it, straight from the phone to the printer. By the way, the phone supports viewing and editing all of Office's (all versions) files, from powerpoint and excel to documents. You can also display powerpoint presentations on a projector directly from the phone.
iPhone - supports opening and editing Office (all versions) files through QuickOffice application.
So, let's say you need a file that's in your work mate's phone. But his phone is quite old and only supports infrared (it has already happened to me)... ok, no problem. The N95 features a infrared port too. And you can use this infrared port as a universal remote control to take control other infrared devices, such as air conditioning, TV, DVD, home theater, VCR, Tuner, SAT, etc. Video.
(TV controls include not only turning on and off, but also volume, channel, numbers, etc. Same thing for other devices).
You mean 2009 iPhone 3Gs' only "30fps" video recording? It is not exactly 30FPS. It is up to 30fps. I haven't seen any video recorded from an iPhone 3Gs that actually had 30FPS. The iPhone camera gets lower FPS as illumination decreases, and also lower when you try to focus. I have seen iPhone's videos with 16,3fps, 21fps and so on. N95's camera don't get as influenced by exposition as the iPhone. It will basically stay 30FPS no matter how much lighting you have*. It's 9:25pm right now, I have just recorded a video right now with no lights turned on at all (just my monitor light), and it stood very well with stable 25fps. There was one guy doing some tests, trying out his new iPhone 3Gs inside his home, at about 5pm with all lights turned on, and his iPhone recorded the video at 16fps.
*Unless you purposely choose "Night mode", which makes camera exposure about 5 times bigger, so you'll have like 10~15fps videos depending on lighting, but now showing a lot more details at very dark scenes. However, this mode is not required for recording videos at night. I for one only use it if there is no source of light at all in the place I'm recording a video, which would make the normal mode totally black, but show up well in the night mode.
As some other people have already pointed out, this picture was taken with a N80.
Here are some pictures I have taken with my N95-3. I sent them to the PC over bluetooth (which, btw, the iPhone doesn't support) and uploaded the raw pics here:
Picture 1, Picture 2, Picture 3, Picture 4, Picture 5, Picture 6.
Notice how you can read perfectly every single letter of the NFS Undercover box and how defined the other ones are.
I had to edit this pic because it included the cd-key. I opened it with paint and saved with paint JPG. Still, notice how you can see the details from the printer used to print that cd-key card. (opened, cropped and saved again using Microsft Paint's JPG)
I took this last picture with an N73 (because the N95 had to appear in the pic ).
Nokia N95 and iPhone
N95 can transfer files through bluetooth, wifi, infrared, MMS (yes, not only pics or videos, but any file).
It opens compacted .zip files by default, and with a simple free app you can make it also open, view and decompress .jar, .rar and other formats.
Another thing it has is a built-in File manager, which the iPhone doesn't have.
To sum it all up, here are the features the N95 has and the iPhone doesn't (not even the 3Gs):
- Bluetooth
- 5MP camera (iPhone ranges from 2MP to 3.2MP)
- File manager
- Mini USB port
Features the N95 had since 2007 and the iPhone had to implement years later, through software updates. Some of these features are only available for the newer released iPhones:
And the iPhone CAN'T make good use of bluetooth, CAN'T display flash websites, CAN'T take pictures with camera flash, CAN'T...
The N95 not only "does" these things. It does them well.
I agree with you. It may be easier to use when you have never ever used it before, but you'll use the phone everyday, for every task. No matter which phone you choose, you'll always know how to use it. The N95 is not difficult either. Do you know how long it took me to understand all of N95's buttons, from the moment I got it home after purchasing? It took me 1 minute to realize I didn't know how to turn on and ask a friend (I was used to hold the end call button as ON/OFF on my friends' phones), and then about 5 minutes to learn what every button did (by pressing them one at a time and check out ). And you know what? The N95 is my first cellphone. I had never had a cellphone before this one. I didn't even know what T9 was (and it's great, by the way, I write with it almost as fast as I write on the PC).
If I use an iPhone for a week I'll spend the whole day playing games, and I'll need to bring my N95 as well for using the features the iPhone doesn't support.