Nokia N95 8GB & N81 Multimedia Power

I like to think of the multimedia cell phone as a walrus. They are often very big, very heavy, not very pretty and very slow. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG and Motorola have in the past all created walruses…

Nokia it seems, has now realised the error of their ways and are now setting out to make their walruses extinct, and replace them with sexy, fast, easy to use mobile phones. These new mobile phones are their latest N-Series models, the recently released N81, N82 and N95 8GB. So have Nokia replaced their walruses? in a word Yes!. The new N-Series range is really: really good looking perhaps even sexy. They are still rather large, (with the exception of the N76), take the N95 8GB for example, it is in no way dainty, but it makes up for this with it gigantic 2.8‚ QVGA display.

Previously, Nokia’s N-Series phones have been rather complicated to use. The menu’s looked as if they were designed by a rocket scientist, and as a result even if your N-Series had 4 million features, you could never use them because you could never find them in the menu. Nokia has now thankfully corrected this problem, by apparently firing the scientist and hiring some cool new software designers. Their new menu systems are spectacular, they are intuitive, fast and the new icons and graphics look really cool.

The new N-Series even synchronises with your PC (or Mac) really easily and incredibly seamlessly, this was unheard of in the walrus era.

Do these new multimedia mobiles have any real multimedia left in them? Oh yes! The N81 and the N95 both have the N-Gage software installed (other N-Series owners can download it), we all thought N-Gage was dead, but Nokia has revived it as a gaming platform and what a revival. Just the other day I was playing FIFA 07 on an N81, and it was honestly fun. Nokia has signed contracts with EA games and many other game designers so N-Gage now has some seriously cool titles.

While I was playing FIFA on the N81 I was also listening to a play list I had created on Windows Media Player. The sound quality was astonishingly, iPod smashingly good: the N81 comes with a 3,5mm jack so you can plug in almost any pair of headphones. This gives it a serious edge and makes it a true multimedia cell phone.

The Camera was the only disappointment. With the N81 that boasts so many features, and such a good display, you expect a camera that complements all of this. But instead you get a mediocre, bottom of the barrel 2 mega pixel camera. Thankfully this is not the case with the N95. With this cell phone you get a full 5 mega pixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and a Tessar lens. (WOW, now that’s something to tell your friends)

The new N-Series range is really a step in the right direction for multimedia cell phones. The N81 and N95 8GB are fine cell phones as well as great multimedia devices. They look sexy and have a real quality feel.

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