Photokina - Five megapixel Nokia N95 camera phone with GPS

Ian · #1 28-09-06

Nokia is forging ahead with its Nseries line up and I got a sneak preview of the flagship-in-waiting, the N95, which will be available in the spring. It sports an extra large screen and five megapixel camera section mated to a Carl-Zeiss autofocus lens. If that wasn't enough, the N95 has a buil-in GPS-receiver for satellite navigation plus all the latest mobile broadband support as well as WiFi.

It's easy to be sceptical of camera phone image quality and not even Nokia would claim that the N95 is comparable in quality to a typical dedicated compact digital camera, but they were confident enough to show what the N95 is capable of via some large prints, up to A2 in size. Sure, you can see JPEG artefacts and some dynamic range compression at the larger sizes, but step back and the prints looked remarkably good.

The N95 design is very cute, with the whole rear of the unit sliding upwards to reveal playbakc/rewind, etc. multimedia controls, then you can slide it downwards to reveal the number pad. Like the N73, which we will be reviewing soon, the N95's main camera is on the back but instead of a sliding cover it has a switch that slides to open a pair of doors revealing the lens and switching the camera on. I can't wait to try a production unit.

Ian

Ian · #2 29-09-06

I had a second look at this yesterday as I think it was, individually, perhaps the most impressive thing I saw at Photokina - which says a lot that I was wowed by a mobile phone at a photo trade show!

There is just so much packed into this device, it's amazing. Nokia's Damian Dinning told me that the photo optimisation development work is far from complete and that the samples taken on a prototype N95 will be improved on noticeanly by the time the N95 goes into production early next year.

You can use photos stored in the N95 as a surreal slide-show background to the main screen display, blurring from one image to the next. There is AV out for connecting the N95 to a TV, too.

The GPS section of the phone will include access to basic maps of around 100 countries and SatNav route finding, including turn by turn 3D navigation and voice prompts, though maps will need to be downloaded using chargeable bandwidth and some enhanced features may reqiure a subscription. Details are still a bit up in the air.

The N95 phone is going to make a big noise when it ships...

Ian