Nokia N95 - The Music Review

Hey Rafe and Steve.
I love your site and the reviews.
The review is very well..nice work 😉

Check out my site: symbianworld.de.vu

Great article Rafe.

Something I would also be interested to hear is bitrate - what can the N95 support and what is the best compromise between quality and storage space? Also, which format do you think is best for audio?

I generally use mp3 as this is what I typically playback on my PC and on other devices so I usually just drop the same mp3s on my phone. Some mp3s I have ripped from cd in very high bitrate however, so usually compress these a bit for mobile - usually 128kbps.

I would also like to know more about the video playback of the N95 and again, bitrate support - what is a decent bitrate for the device and what is too high. Have Nokia done a tech spec which tells you max video and audio bitrates??

A lot of what is detailed in this article also applys to video - connectivity, accessing and playing the content on the phone - but I would love a bit more indepth information on this and perhaps other media players such as SmartMovie. I get my N95 next week and would like to start preparing content for it so would really like to know what it can handle.

Thanks for the article.

What's the difference between the Stop and Pause buttons? In most MP3 players today, there is only one of the two, no point in having both I think...

The stop button stops the music and takes you back to the beginning of the track, the pause button stops the music and will then resume it. Yes the stop button is strictly necessary as the same effect can be achieved by pause - backwards... That said it does makes sense for some (i.e. listen to the whole of track etc).

I'll look into the bit rate stuff and get back to you. As I recall the supported bit rates are quite high for audio. Off the top my head officially its 320 ish for mp3 512 ish for aac. In practise it may be higher. Personally I think 128 for MP3 128 or 96 for AAC is ok or 96 or 64 if AAC+. Though the majority of my music is 128 in MP3 or AAC+

We'll be covering video in a separate review, I'll try and take your requests on board. And yes a lot of this article is applicable to video so we wont necessarily go into the same detail (on UPnP for example). But by contrast TV-Out is much more useful for video (and frankly I imagine most people would use this rather than UPnP).

symbianworld.de.vu - nice site and thanks for linking back here 😊

as a music player? 1 hours? 10 hours? It would be a good test if you all could put some music on and just let it run...

We're talking in the region of 10 hours or more. However its not that simple since it will be different depending on whether you used Bluetooth, speakers, headset etc. Also have visualisation on and the screen on will make it lower.

Music isn't terribly processor intensive so the battery life is good. Its the other stuff (GPS, WiFim 3G) which will run it down more.

Did you try out PocketOgg on the N95? I never owned a Symbian phone, so I am wondering how good the integration is with PocketOgg. Can you easily make it the default music player?

Also I heard that the video player only supports a limited set of codecs. Are there replacements similar to PocketOgg that you have tried out, especially with the TV out?

Is there not also a volume up/down on the remote unit? It looks like there are some additional buttons on the side there?

Cheers

Hi - is the Audio Quality when playing MP3`s better than the Nokia N80 or Nokia N91?
in particular, the volume output.. nice an loud?
my old N80 and SE W810i just werent loud enuff 😞
but then my old N91 had incredible sound through headphones and plenty of volume..

thoughts?

Thanks Rafe, look forward to you answering more questions on video. Thanks for some info regarding audio bitrate.

As for some of the other questions, there are apps like smartmovie with which you have an expanded set of video formats that you can playback such as divx/xvid.

thecreativelifeblog.com tested the battery life for video which came in at just over 3.5 hours in offline mode and audio playback was over 10 hours. I would have thought that radio would be better still as it would be less intensive on the phone.

Basically the phone should withstand a day of heavy use and 2-3 days of general or easy use.

Great review - thanks.

I saw somewhere that Sandisk recently announced a 4Gb MicroSD card. Any idea whether the N95 will be able to support it when it becomes widely available?

Hi. Can you have a review about the Nokia N95's 5 megapixel camera? thanks

No you can't make PocketOgg the default player. I imagine the developers may look at this in the future. It does work as a solution, but its not ideal. Then again I think .ogg users will probably be OK putting up with this because they tend to be more technically minded.

I though I had mentioned volume controls, but yes they are the button of left hand side.

I honestly have difficult telling the difference between these devices. I think the N91 was very good, but I can't do a direct comparison. The volume issue due to EU regulation is still there, but a good set of headphones can solve this. It's been OK for me (I've been using around 60% volume).

I'm trying to get confirmation of the 4GB cards. they are SDHC cards and although I have seen a report these work there's nothing official yet.

The camera is next on the review list. Should be late Monday / early Tuesday.

Great write-up! It's really nice to see that when a respectable web site gets a free N95 they really take the time to review it right and share with the community.
Unlike some *cough Darla Mack cough* who get their free phone, throw up a crappy unboxing video and then never mention it again.
I'm happy that not everyone abuses the system. Keep up the great work!

Nokia's Music Player is a turd compared to the iTunes on the iPhone. No gapless playback, no Cover Flow, no smart folders.

Sigh, my uPnP works only one way via Home Centre network Simple Centre program....

N95 works as a remote and can access stuff on the laptop but my laptop could not find the N95....

anyone can help

to the above poster, i used the ipod before.... wonderful as it is... it is a dedicated music player.... N95 is a multi-convergence device...does everything effectively...no complaints here, but there are different stuff aimed at different markets

You can use 3rd party video applications to view divx/xvid video on tv via the line out socket but only in portrait. If you want to view full screen you are advised to convert to high quality mp4 and use real player. This way you can rotate the screen using the unique slider and get true widescreen viewing!

how far away you can take the n95 to your bluetooth stereo headset? which one is better Noki BH-501 or Sonys970? Thanks

For Ogg vorbis files and a much better looking UI, try Symbian OggPlay. It supports Nseries devices as well as 2nd Gen S60, UIQ and more.

The biggest issue with most music players is that they cannot seem to play 'gapless' - if I have a mixed album (most dance compilations are like this) the player will insert a gap of some duration between the tracks. This is extremely infuriating and breaks the flow of the album. You haven't mentioned in this review if the music application on the phone has this drawback or not. Could you let us know?

EDIT

Sorry - just read a post above that said it doesn't play gapless. Pity. It looks like a nice phone. Regarding the comment above about the iPhone - it doesn't have 3G - only EDGE. That's a major flaw in my view.

I'm told PocketOgg has gapless playback.

OggPlay also has gapless playback, but it's only been implemented in the P900 version. Also, it's only at the "Beta test" stage at the moment and I haven't tried it myself so I can't say how well it works.

Development on OggPlay has been stalled for some time now...

I have had my N95 for a couple of days now, and wanted to use it instead of my iPod nano. However, the audio quality is awful. There is a lot of noise. If I listen with my headphones on, even moving around the menus results in white noise starting shortly before and ending shortly after the keypad 'blip' sound plays. I hope I have a faulty one, but I have 14 days to return the 'phone if I can't find a solution.

Can anyone else with a N95 comment on whether they get noise with audio playback over headphones?

Unregistered wrote:Nokia's Music Player is a turd compared to the iTunes on the iPhone. No gapless playback, no Cover Flow, no smart folders.

If these features are important to you, yes you may not get on with the N95 (see above comment about gapless playback in OggPlayer). This is a good example of how everyone wants different things. Can't say I've missed gapless playback (music I listen to) or cover flow...

Unregistered wrote:Sigh, my uPnP works only one way via Home Centre network Simple Centre program....

N95 works as a remote and can access stuff on the laptop but my laptop could not find the N95....

anyone can help

Check out simple center's forum here: http://www.simplecenter.com/jive/forum.jspa?forumID=18&start=0

Unregistered wrote:how far away you can take the n95 to your bluetooth stereo headset? which one is better Noki BH-501 or Sonys970? Thanks

I found they were about the same - 6-7 metre (ish).

A player of this standard would have been acceptable 2 years ago, but now it really lags behind almost every other platform. Why cant they just put that little extra effort in?

Major let down 1) - Gapless playback. I mean come on Nokia, everyone is doing it now, it should be a standard feature. The Nokia developers should get off their snowboards and take a look a Conduits Pocket Player for an example of how a smartphone Mp3 player should be. Christ, even if it was half as good as Pocket Player it would be ok.

(Oggplay/pocket ogg is a) not free, b) Only plays Ogg Vorbis files and c) pretty amature IMO).

Major let down 2) - uPNP. What a wasted opportunity!!! You have to copy the files over to the N95 before you can play them. Do Nokia even realise what uPnP what designed for FFS? Again, just take a look a Pocket Player (or other fine examples) to see how it should be done with the ability to play the files live streamed off the network.

People with no experience with uPnP will no dout be wondering what the fuss is about. It's absolutely fantastic, but it's crippled in the N95. A real shame, there hardware is all there waiting to be used.

Yet another crap effort at MP3 software on a phone. But then to be fair, even Sony have not cracked it yet. They sell these phones as "Multimedia devices" yet the MP3 software always feels like an after thought. Are they being bribed by Apple?

In conclusion, i dont regret buying my N95. But i wont be giving up my WM5 device either. Symbian phones have the power - why is there so little decent software out there? and what is seems very watered down and 'home made'? Windows Mobile 5 is light years ahead now, and version 6 is almost here. If i wanted all this pathetic home brew i would have a PSP (well actually i do, but anyway). Even the dying palm platform is still having better development. A crying shame, i dont understand it.

autopilot - I think you have to compare out of the box experience as that is what most people are going to be using. I'm sure Pocket Player is a fine piece of software, but it doesn't (usually I assume) ship with the device.

Actually OggPlay is free, well opensource, (its in beta for S60 3rd edition though). PocketOgg is pay for though. I also think Ogg is relatively niche. Powers users are never going to be quite satisified. e.g. absence of AAC on Windows Mobile out of the box (quite an omission especially given the new DRM free iTunes stuff) or the lack of support for ITunes DRM on anything other than iPOds, limitations of DRM on sharing on Zune etc etc.

Gapless playback - yeah would be nice to have this, but its not an out of the box feature on most phones, and I wonder how many people miss it (a niche-ish feature - though I understand important for certain types of music). I guess you'll always find things missing.

UPnP - well again this isn't something we see available out of the box elsewhere. I agree with you in a sense that it would be a nice to have feature, but I would imagine most people are going to have UPnP playing over there stereo with the big speakers.

You think its crap, fair enough... I don't agree. I think you wont find anything comparable out of the box. And I do think you have to bear in mind the other functions. Converged devices, to be sucessful, need to be good enough for 90% of users and their use cases out of the box.

Getting the last 5% is only generally going to be possible in a stand alone device. Software platforms can change this somewhat - but it does depend on people knowing about third party programs and finding them.

Interesting that you mention Apple - I'm assuming you mean the iPhone rather than the iPod - we don't know all that much about the iPhone but I think we can be reasonably sure it be locked into the Apple way of things (not necessairly a bad thing)... but that would mean no WMA for example, no subscription music services, no syncing with software other than iTunes, I've not seen UPnP mentioned (though it does have WiFi so maybe). Moreover it wont be available in Europe for at least 8 months...

Interesting to see your a fan of WM5 - personally I think its dangerous to say things are light years ahead or better or worse in a generic sense. Each platform has its own strengths and weakness. Symbian is a long way ahead in power management, memory and chipset technology for example... or say you're a keen photographer - the Nseries in general are ahead here (SE K series also be very good)... See what I mean - it depends on your perspective.

Rafe wrote:autopilot - I think you have to compare out of the box experience as that is what most people are going to be using. I'm sure Pocket Player is a fine piece of software, but it doesn't (usually I assume) ship with the device.

Actually OggPlay is free, well opensource, (its in beta for S60 3rd edition though). PocketOgg is pay for though. I also think Ogg is relatively niche. Powers users are never going to be quite satisified. e.g. absence of AAC on Windows Mobile out of the box (quite an omission especially given the new DRM free iTunes stuff) or the lack of support for ITunes DRM on anything other than iPOds, limitations of DRM on sharing on Zune etc etc.

Gapless playback - yeah would be nice to have this, but its not an out of the box feature on most phones, and I wonder how many people miss it (a niche-ish feature - though I understand important for certain types of music). I guess you'll always find things missing.

UPnP - well again this isn't something we see available out of the box elsewhere. I agree with you in a sense that it would be a nice to have feature, but I would imagine most people are going to have UPnP playing over there stereo with the big speakers.

You think its crap, fair enough... I don't agree. I think you wont find anything comparable out of the box. And I do think you have to bear in mind the other functions. Converged devices, to be sucessful, need to be good enough for 90% of users and their use cases out of the box.

Getting the last 5% is only generally going to be possible in a stand alone device. Software platforms can change this somewhat - but it does depend on people knowing about third party programs and finding them.

Interesting that you mention Apple - I'm assuming you mean the iPhone rather than the iPod - we don't know all that much about the iPhone but I think we can be reasonably sure it be locked into the Apple way of things (not necessairly a bad thing)... but that would mean no WMA for example, no subscription music services, no syncing with software other than iTunes, I've not seen UPnP mentioned (though it does have WiFi so maybe). Moreover it wont be available in Europe for at least 8 months...

Interesting to see your a fan of WM5 - personally I think its dangerous to say things are light years ahead or better or worse in a generic sense. Each platform has its own strengths and weakness. Symbian is a long way ahead in power management, memory and chipset technology for example... or say you're a keen photographer - the Nseries in general are ahead here (SE K series also be very good)... See what I mean - it depends on your perspective.

Hi Rafe, first of all all thanks for responding. I take your point about Pocket Player not being free or included in the box. But that was not the point i trying to make. It was that its a example (one of many) of what can be done technically. The N95 is an excellent platform, but more (much more) should have done to realise it's potential. I am not taking about the advanced feature PP has that many people wont use, i am talking about standard playback features.

As for gapless, i strongly disagree about it being niche. It an extremely incorrect assumption that people use to excuse it and its often based on a fundemental misconception about why relatively few people talk about it. Just because people dont know what it really means and dont ask for does not mean they dont want or need it. Dance music is the most common type of music and much is released in a mix. But don't forget that many other genres requite it to be able to listen to the music in the way it was intended, as it would be if you bought the CD. Examples are Audio books, Opera, Classical, live gigs and many albums that have transitions between track, going far back the Pink Flyod and the Beatles. If not niche by any means, not by a long way. It's just the 90% of people are not technically minded enough to understand and think thats just the way it is.

As for my Apple comment, that was a joke really. But it was regarding the iPod - you see phones do present one of Apples biggest threats in the MP3 player market, if not the biggest. If a mainstream phone manufacturer actually made an interface and feature set even close to as good as the iPod (storage issues aside), they could really hit iPod sales. It's not technically impossible, in fact its not even hard, it will happen.

Symbian devices do have a number of advantages over WM devices. But they are mostly hardware related. There is no WM5 device that i know of with the photo and video capabilities that the N95 has. But therein lies another problem , which why WM5 application development is a long way ahead - Symbian devices differ greatly between models, even with good API's this makes development harder and more time consuming. Most of the mobile software houses know that it's easier, quicker and more profitable to concentrate on WM5. Thats not always the case, but when it come to "serious" (probably the wrong word, i know) software rather than simple apps in mostly is. It's also down to the type of person that buys Symbian phones and their typical usage and software consuming habits, but that could change if someone would only take the lead. WM5 owners, apart from the business types that have them thrust upon them, then to be the power users. But there is plenty of potential for giving them what they want, do you see my frustration? But thats going slightly off on tangent, 99% of the population are not power users. But they still deserve more.

Anyway, i do love my N95 on the whole. But it's potential has not been completely realised. But then if we had the perfect phone, we would all upgrade less 😉

Rafe, i know you are slightly biased and thats not a bad thing or a criticism mate, but i do see the benefits of both. Horses for courses and all that. But If you know a magic way of somehow merging my N95 with my WM5 device, please let me know 😊

Peace.

autopilot wrote:Hi Rafe, first of all all thanks for responding. I take your point about Pocket Player not being free or included in the box. But that was not the point i trying to make. It was that its a example (one of many) of what can be done technically. The N95 is an excellent platform, but more (much more) should have done to realise it's potential. I am not taking about the advanced feature PP has that many people wont use, i am talking about standard playback features.

Yes that is a fair point in a way, but I think the basic features are all there compared to other devices? What is it that you feel is missing that you see in other converged devices? Fair point though about what can be done, but I suspect we wil always find something else to add to our wish lists. As I mentioned in the review a properly integrated music shop would be good. I'd also like to see the TrackID technology that you get on SE phones.

autopilot wrote:As for gapless, i strongly disagree about it being niche. It an extremely incorrect assumption that people use to excuse it and its often based on a fundemental misconception about why relatively few people talk about it. Just because people dont know what it really means and dont ask for does not mean they dont want or need it. Dance music is the most common type of music and much is released in a mix. But don't forget that many other genres requite it to be able to listen to the music in the way it was intended, as it would be if you bought the CD. Examples are Audio books, Opera, Classical, live gigs and many albums that have transitions between track, going far back the Pink Flyod and the Beatles. If not niche by any means, not by a long way. It's just the 90% of people are not technically minded enough to understand and think thats just the way it is.

I'm not a music expert as such - interesting to hear the explanation. I think you make my point thought by saying that 90% of people are not technically minded enough to understand it - its not a feature that 90% of people miss. Still I think this is exactly the sort of feedback Nokia should take on board and do something about.

autopilot wrote:As for my Apple comment, that was a joke really. But it was regarding the iPod - you see phones do present one of Apples biggest threats in the MP3 player market, if not the biggest. If a mainstream phone manufacturer actually made an interface and feature set even close to as good as the iPod (storage issues aside), they could really hit iPod sales. It's not technically impossible, in fact its not even hard, it will happen.

I think iPod sales have already been hit - I think the latest numbers saw them going down (still selling a lot though). The iPod as a mass consumer item in its present stand alone form has limited time left. I don't think you need to equal the iPod I think you need to make it good enough for 90% of people and I would contend Nokia are very close to doing this. We all know the superior technology does not necessarily win. Storage issues isn't going to matter soon with Flash memory trends. Apple will always have a sector in high end device, but there Nano line will be damaged.

autopilot wrote:Symbian devices do have a number of advantages over WM devices. But they are mostly hardware related. There is no WM5 device that i know of with the photo and video capabilities that the N95 has. But therein lies another problem , which why WM5 application development is a long way ahead - Symbian devices differ greatly between models, even with good API's this makes development harder and more time consuming. Most of the mobile software houses know that it's easier, quicker and more profitable to concentrate on WM5. Thats not always the case, but when it come to "serious" (probably the wrong word, i know) software rather than simple apps in mostly is. It's also down to the type of person that buys Symbian phones and their typical usage and software consuming habits, but that could change if someone would only take the lead. WM5 owners, apart from the business types that have them thrust upon them, then to be the power users. But there is plenty of potential for giving them what they want, do you see my frustration? But thats going slightly off on tangent, 99% of the population are not power users. But they still deserve more.

I think the first part of your comment is a bit of a red herring. There's no more variation between devices than there is elsewhere. There are many more Symbian devices sold than Windows Mobile. People talk about the division / compatibility between Symbian versions and devices, the same is true elsewhere between Linux variants between Windows Mobile Smartphone / Pocket PC etc etc. There were more S60 3rd Edition phones sold last year than any other platform (and that for a platform which was only available from the end of April). If you're talking about number of devices per platform version then S60 is a clear winner here. UIQ is actually the most sucessful Symbian platform for third party software despite being relatively small - this suggests the issue is less to do with number of devices / compatibility and more to do with market behaviour.

As you say its got more to do with the type of people that buy the respective devices and the market it creates. Palm Treo and Windows Mobile users are often Enterprise user and/or have come from a PDA background where the idea of 3rd party software is embedded. By contrast S60 / UIQ users tend to upgrade from other phones. I've referred to this tendency as ancestral memory before.

I do share your frustration - everyone wants to see more application development.

autopilot wrote:Anyway, i do love my N95 on the whole. But it's potential has not been completely realised. But then if we had the perfect phone, we would all upgrade less 😉

Rafe, i know you are slightly biased and thats not a bad thing or a criticism mate, but i do see the benefits of both. Horses for courses and all that. But If you know a magic way of somehow merging my N95 with my WM5 device, please let me know 😊

Peace.

Heh, potential is never fully realised - there's always something you can do better. Yes we always want the next big thing in the next device... The device makers have to keep the shareholders happy.

And of course I'm not completely subjective, its very difficult to be so. I do try though. You'll obviously see me writing about Symbian here more than Windows Mobile, but I'm not blinkered to the rest of the mobile ecosystem. I personally think Windows Mobile is extremely strong in the Enterprise space and is likely to remain that way. WM6 Enterprise stuff, particular in you use Exchange 2007 is very compelling. I also think there's a lot of benefits to having a relatively nimble company like HTC and other Asian OEMs doing a lot of device innovation. However based on what I've seen and heard the consumer space looks less promising for WM (I think Linux has potential here though). The thing is that a lot of power users (consumers) will do best with the Windows Mobile devices because of the nature of Enterprise focused devices. I actually think this is one of the reasons that relative to their market share (60-70%) the mindshare among techies and geeks is lower.

Finally thanks for posting - nice to get some different viewpoints and discussion going.

Windows Mobile is finally breaking out from the enterprise market, has been for a while and i have never seen so many people with XDA's etc as i do now. None of which are business users. But this year and the coming year we will see a much greater adoption by the general public. It's partly due to the better design and smaller devices, HTC and I-Mate have some seriously slick and tasty looking WM6 units due out soon. They are going to be huge in the next 24 months, trust me.

BTW Rafe, have you heard about MusicStation? It's a subscription based system, offering unlimited music downloads for £1.99 per week download direct to the phone (WiFi, 3G, 2.5G). It's will be compatible with Symbian, in fact they claim in will work with 75% of phones in circulation. All the majot labels are signed up. It will seriously kick the iphone in the testies, well thats what they are planning, as the iphone wont have direct downloads from itunes.

http://www.omnifone.com/

Does anyone have any experience in syncronising playlists as well as the audio fileswith WMP11.

Obviously dragging and dropping the playlist into the sync list copies the files nicely onto the N95 but the playlist itself is lost, meaning that I have to recreate it on the N95 (a pain when you have a few playlists)

Can anyone advise if I'm just missing something?!