N95 8GB unboxing & trial plans

The powerhouse arrived yesterday, courtesy of the WOMWorld team, a little bit late for Christmas, but I consider it a great holiday surprise. It's a shame they didn't create a new series for the N95, like a P95 as in Powerhouse95, or a U95 as in UFO95, or an O95 as in the obvious Oh-My-Goodness-Does-Such-A-Thing-Even-Exist95. Yes the device has its flaws, yes it's not perfect, but on the actual market it's one of the rare devices that can claim to live up to the "Perfect Device" title.

Here are the unboxing pictures. I wanted to record a video but my camera battery was close to dead. Then I thought I'd make a video out of the unboxing pictures, but my computer kept shutting down everytime I opened Windows Movie Maker. So you'll have to watch the unboxing pictures in a Flickr slideshow and try to imagine the "All I Want For Christmas" song as a soundtrack. That's the closest it can get to an unboxing video.



Now for the good part: What can you expect me to cover in these 2 weeks of N95 8GB trial? Well, I won't do it the ordinary way. Normally bloggers receive a device, review every aspect of it: hardware, software, battery, RAM, camera, music,...

Well this won't be the case with me. I am starting my own iteration of S60 New York and California Ambassadors and I'm calling it N95 8GB Lebanon Ambassador.

Why?

I thought that a device as powerful as the N95 8GB doesn't always wind up in the right hands that can show what N-Series combined with S60 3rd and Nokia can deliver as an overall experience. I also thought that I'd be too selfish to keep all those wonders to myself.

What?

N95 8GB Lebanon Ambassador consists of a 14-day 14-feature demonstration. Basically I will have the N95 8GB with me all the time, and every day I will have one new feature to demonstrate to everyone I run into: friends, family, neighbors, classmates,... just about everyone I know (or don't know, for all I care). I had previously asked readers here for opinions about the main uses of the N95 and the best applications to try on it, and I came up with this list of features to demonstrate (in no particular order):
1 - Camera shooting & Video recording
2 - WiFi connectivity, web browsing, instant messaging & mail checking
3 - Music & Video playing
4 - Accelerometer : RotateMe, LightSabre & NokMote (hopefully ShutUp)
5 - Controlling TV & Stereo with Psiloc irRemote
6 - GPS & Nokia Maps or Google Maps
7 - Nokia Music Store
8 - NGage (hopefully)
9 - Mobile Web Server
10 - Podcasts & Internet Radio
11 - Medical Consultant
12 - Uploading pictures to Flickr
13 - Catching RSS feeds
14 - Watching YouTube videos

Other features that may make it to the list are Widsets, Download!, Gizmo, Wikipedia, Photo Tagging, Fring, Nokia Channels & MOSH. Too much to try and so little time.

How?

As I said, I will demonstrate one feature per day. I will then present my own notes of the feature as well as people's impressions, questions, suggestions and remarks. I will then post a recap every 2-3 days.

And else?

Depending on how much free time I have, I am also planning:
- an evolution of S60 3rd post: comparison between the first S60 3rd device, the Nokia 3250, and one of the last S60 3rd devices, the N95 8GB
- a comparison with Windows Mobile, when it comes to connectivity, web browsing, rss and podcast catching.
- an actual review of the device (hardware, battery, memory, software,...)
- other random posts.

Final Word

That is about it. It is my first trial, and with a device as capable as the N95 8GB, I knew it had to be special. The N95 8GB Lebanon Ambassador started today, with the camera and video recording demonstration. I will get into details later, but so far so good. If you have any suggestions of something I should try on the N95 8GB, a new way to use the device, a new application I should try, a new feature I should demonstrate, please do leave your suggestions. I am a newbie in the N-Series world and I could use some advice. If you also have any questions about the device, please ask. I will try to get to them in my final review. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go dive right back into the N95 goodness!