Nokia N95 With US 3G Support Cell Phone Review - Other Features

Richard Baguley
Published on December 17, 2007 Comment on this

Tethered Modem (6.5)
The Nokia N95 can be used as a modem for your PC either via USB or bluetooth. You can use the included PC Sync software to manage all of your connections, although you may need the dial in number for your carrier, and some carriers may not allow this kind of use. We found setup fairly easy, and dialing out once we were set up was extremely simple.

GPS (8.0)

The N95 includes a GPS receiver, and the software to take advantage of it; unlike most phones (which include GPS navigation only as an extra cost option), it comes with GPS software out of the box. This software is very good; it quickly found our location in an area with good GPS signal strength, and quickly came up with a map of the area. It can also plan a route, find local objects of interest (such as restaurants, gas stations, etc) and track your path. Turn-by-turn navigation is extra, though; you have to pay Nokia $11.95 for 7 days of use (or $132.95 for a 3 year licence).

Nokia also seems to have improved the speed at which the N95 can lock onto your location; previous models took several minutes, but this one quickly worked out where were were, even in an area with poor GPS signal strength (under trees). This is because they have added support for Assisted GPS (A-GPS), where the phone gets assistance from a more powerful Internet server that uses the GPS signal and the location calculated from the cell signal to home in on you. The N95 is one of the few phones we've seen that use both A-GPS and true GPS; others (like the Helio Ocean) use only A-GPS, which means that they can't constantly keep track of your location. The N95 can, and Nokia makes use of this in some of the optional GPS applications they offer, such as the Sports Tracker, which can keep track of your lcoation when you are out on a run or walk, then export this data into an application such as Google Earth.

Radio (5.0)
As with most N-Series devices from Nokia the N95 includes an FM radio. In order to use the radio you will need to have the wired remote control and headphones plugged in to act as an antenna. The radio application on the device allows you to easily set favorites and search through stations. If your local stations support it you can also get information about the currently playing track via a data connection. Reception was a mixed bag, with a lot of fuzzyness at times.
Nokia Europe also ofers a new application that offers access to internet radio stations.

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