Nokia N95 Cell Phone Review - Connectivity
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Alfredo Padilla Published on May 08, 2007 Comment on this |
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Cellular Bands (8.0)
The Nokia N95 is a quad-band (850/900/1900/1800) GSM phone. This means that it will work on Cingular and T-Mobile's networks in the U.S. as well as any GSM network worldwide. It will not function on CDMA networks like those run by Sprint and Verizon. Our score for cellular bands is standardized based on how many bands are supported.
Data Support Score (6.0)
The Nokia N95 supports both GPRS and EDGE on all four of its GSM bands. It also supports both UMTS and HSDPA on the 2100 Mhz band, which is used in Europe and Asia. Unfortunatley for those who live in North America, it does not support 3G data on our bands. This is a serious dissapointment, especially considering that other high end phones like the Treo 750 and Cingular 8525 have provided global 3G data support for several months now. We would have liked to see this feature on Nokia's flagship device, especially considering the $750 price tag. Our score for data support is standardized.
Bluetooth (9.0)
The Nokia N95 supports Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR (Enhanced Data Rate). It includes the following profiles: A2DP, AVRCP, DUN, hands free, headset, imaging, PC Suite, OBEX file transfer, SDP server, SynchML. We were able to easily pair it with a bluetooth headset, and it also supports stereo bluetooth headphones for listening to music wirelessly. We were very pleased to see the Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) support, as this is not found on many phones, even ones that suppport Bluetooth 2.0. EDR allows for data transfer rates of up to 3 Mbps.
Wi-Fi (7.0)
The Nokia N95 suppors Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g. Wi-Fi is well implemented with a plugin on the active standby screen that allows you to easily turn Wi-Fi scanning on and off. You can also create Wi-Fi access points that can be used for specific applications, for example you can tell the web browser to always use a single access point. Use of Wi-Fi has a major detrimental effect on battery life though, so be careful. The Nokia N95 also support UPNP, a protocal that allows easy sharing of multimedia over Wi-Fi networks. For example you could stream the music on your N95 to a UPNP enabled stereo. Support for UPNP is still not widespread so this is of limited utility, however we like to see it on board. Overall we were very pleased both with the presence of Wi-Fi on the N95 and its implementation.
Infrared (7.0)
The Nokia N95 does support infrared for short range line of sight connectivity. Although most modern devices will use Bluetooth for short range connectivity, infrared is useful when dealing with older devices.
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