Nokia N95 With US 3G Support Cell Phone Review - Messaging

Richard Baguley
Published on December 17, 2007 Comment on this

Supported Email Services (6.0)

As with other Series 60 phones the Nokia N95 support POP3 and IMAP4 email services. There is no support for automatic configuration of popular email systems like Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail; you'll need to enter the server details manually to use them.

Push Email (0.0)
The Nokia N95 does not support push email out of the box. You may be able to add this functionality in using the software Nokia provides for its E-Series devices that allow you to use Blackberry or Exchange server, amongst other push email services. Because we only review devices out of the box the N95 does not receive any points in this area.

Multiple Email Accounts (10.0)
The Nokia N95 is able to support multiple email accounts, up to at least the five that we test. Each email account is given its own inbox in the messaging application.

HTML and Attachments (5.0)
As with all Series 60 devices the N95 does not support html email. It does, however support attachments. The view only version of Quickoffice is on board that allows you to view Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. An Adobe reader is available to view PDF files, while a zip manager allows you to open zip files. We were particularly pleased to see support for zip files as this was missing from the Nokia N73.

Email Customizations (2.0)
The email customization options available on the Nokia N95 are limited. You cannot change font, size or color. You can add signatures to outgoing emails, but that's it. Other Nokia devices (such as the E-Series devices) allow you to change how many lines are used to display emails, an option not found on N-Series devices.

Time to a New Message (4.55)

To test how easy it is to send a new email message we time how long it takes to go from the home screen with the phone unlocked until we have a new email dialogue up. We repeat this test five times and take the average for our score. The Nokia N95 took an average of 4.4 seconds to complete this procedure. This is slightly faster than the HTC Tilt, but slower than the BlackBerry Curve 8320 and the Helio Ocean, both of which could manage it in about 2 seconds.The Nokia N95 was hurt primarily by the fact that it took a lengthy amount of time to launch the messaging application. Access was not a problem as the left soft key on the home screen is assigned to messaging and the highlighted item when you open the application is to create a new message, but we then had to scroll down the list of new message options to reach the email one.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Nokia N95 with US 3G support	4.4	4.55
BlackBerry Curve 8320	1.7	11.76
Apple iPhone	1.9	10.53
Palm Centro	1.86	10.75
Pantech Duo	2.33	8.7
Nokia N95	4.4	4.55

Email Usability (6.0)
The email interface on the Nokia N95 is the same that is found on all Series 60 devices. The messaging application gives you list of folders. Each email account gets it own folder. Once in the folder you see a list of the messages in your inbox. You can move to other folders using left/right and move amongst messages using up/down. The right soft key is assigned to exit, while the left one opens the options menu. When creating a new message the interface is simple, with To: and Cc: fields at the top and the body where you enter text below. You move between fields using up/down. There is are single folders where drafts and sent items are stored. The N95's email client is adequate, but it isn't as fully featured or as easy to use as Windows Mobile devices such as the HTC Mogul or BlackBerry devices like the Curve 8320.

Like all Series 60 devices the Nokia N95 does not attempt to automatically insert email addresses into the To: field while you type in a name. This is an unfortunate omission as it is standard on other smart phones like the Centro and Blackberry Curve 8320. What the N95-3 does do is a little backwards. If you type a name in the To: field it will try to match it with a contact once you've actually hit the send key. Of course this doesn't help if you happen to have typed the name wrong, and it's also not very transparent. Only half points for this functionality, we would have much preferred the automatically filtered list as found on other devices.

Supported IM Services (0.0)
The Nokia N95 does not support any instant messaging services out of the box. You can install any of several third party applications to add this, though, such as Agile Messenger.

MMS Support (7.0)
The Nokia N95 handles MMS messaging just as other Series 60 devices do: MMS messages appear in the same inbox as SMS messages. Unfortunately this integration doesn't extend to creating new messages as you cannot turn an SMS into an MMS. The interface also doesn't make it obvious that you can insert multimedia, which you do via the left soft key menu. Other phones like the Centro have a helpful field for pictures or video in the interface that makes it plain and easy to insert such items. MMS is well integrated with other applications on the phone. You can send an MMS directly from the voice recorder, camera or gallery. Overall we found integration and usability to be solid, with just a few small drawbacks.

SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
To test whether a phone properly interprets smileys, we send four sample smileys to the phone in an email. We were disappointed to see that the Nokia N95, like other Symbian Series 60 phones, fails to properly interpret the smileys, instead leaving them in text format. This is not a huge problem, but we like things that smile appropriately.

SMS/MMS Ease of Use (6.0)
As we've mentioned SMS and MMS are integrated into the messaging application with all such messages going into a single inbox. The interface for creating both messages is fairly simple, with a To: field and an area to enter text. With MMS messages you can insert media using the left soft key menu. We found creating both SMS and MMS messages straightforward, and found the interfaces to be fairly well organized and easy to use.

Time to a New SMS Message (11.11)

To test how easy it is to create a new SMS message we time how long it takes to go from the home screen to a new SMS message dialogue. The Nokia N95 took an average of 0.9 seconds to complete this process. This is an excellent time and is the result of the fact that the Nokia N95 has a shortcut to a new SMS message in the applications shortcut bar on the home screen; a new SMS message is jsut a couple of button presses away.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Nokia N95 with US 3G support	0.9	11.11
BlackBerry Curve 8320	4.22	2.37
Apple iPhone	2.62	3.82
Palm Centro	0.86	11.63
Pantech Duo	2.39	4.18
Nokia N95	0.9	11.11

Previous Next

Reviews | About WI | Staff | Advertising |