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If you want to use the N95 for Sat Nav, music playing or extended Wi-Fi use then battery life is important. And you may well be disappointed as it only managed to give me five hours of continuous music from a full charge.

There is a 160MB of built in memory and fresh out of the box my review sample (from Orange), had 105MB free. A microSD card slot sits on the left edge ready to provide an additional memory boost. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and infra-red are all here and the Wi-Fi benefits from a scanner that can sit on the main screen and be used to quickly search for available networks.

The N95 has a 5-megapixel camera. The last mobile phone I looked at with 5-megapixel capability was LG’s KG920, and that performed very well indeed. I found this autofocus and flash equipped camera slightly less forgiving than LGs on its auto settings, though it is very easy to use.

The coloured dish photographed indoors under standard household lighting is less vibrant than I’d have liked. The cat was moving slightly when her photo was taken and there is no discernable blurring, while the colours of the hanging basket are pretty close to true. You will most likely need more than 1MB of storage for each photo shot at the highest quality.

UPnP support makes it easy to share data such as music or photos across a wireless network and the other software includes the usual Web browser and mobile email with readers for PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. There’s also a voice recorder, a unit converter and a calendar.

Verdict

The N95 is certainly packed with features, but more isn’t necessarily better. The phone is large, its software seemed to run a bit slow at times, the build quality is not that good, battery life is poor and the GPS antenna was not as efficient as some. On contract it might be attractive, but SIM free it’s vastly overpriced.

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