Music + N95 8GB + Sony stereo

It's times like this when you appreciate the smallest things. I was out watching a movie and came back home with a mood for some music. Usually I'd look for my iPod, hook it with the headphones and dream. Today I didn't. I know the iPod needs recharging so this isn't a viable option.

I just took the N95 8GB, and while looking for my Sony MDR-Q68 headphones, I remembered the Sony stereo in my room. Ah that old technology, totally forgot about it the last months. I hardly turn it on now. Well I have a wire hooked in the back of the said Sony stereo and hanging with a 3.5mm plug. Just plug it in the N95 8GB, turn the stereo on and rock on!

That is something I can't do with more than 5% of the devices on the market now. Thank you Nokia for adopting the 3.5mm plug and for heaven's sake, put it everywhere, I don't want to see any other device without it!

I am now laying down, N95 8GB next to me, recharging from one place and playing music through the stereo from the other. The room is filled with magic because of a small device barely the size of my palm, and I am not going over 50% of volume! Oh and quality? Crystal clear. I usually rip music myself from audio CDs, so I choose the 160 or 192 bitrate for mp3.

I'm going to go away and steal Mc Donald's phrase (if they read this blog, then I'm honored and well, sue me!) : Nokia, I'm Lovin' It!

What's Better Than An N95 8GB?

Thought about it? Well the answer is pretty simple: Two N95 8GB, laying next to each other!

A friend of mine was considering getting the N95 8GB for a while now, and after I got my hands on one and told him everything he wanted to know about the device, answered some of his fears, especially concerning the usability of the slider form factor and the soft keys / joypad, he decided to get one. Yes he still had doubts about cracking the safe and paying 800$ for a mobile device, but I promised he won't regret it.

Anyway, here they are laying side by side: the trial N95 8GB to the left and his N95 8GB on the right with the blue thing still hanging from the screen protector. Picture taken with the crappy 1.3MP Qtek 9100 camera (the only camera I had with me).

Updates on the N95 8GB Lebanon Ambassador

I find it rather annoying to post the same writing on Symbian-Guru and here, which is what I was doing with the N95 8GB Lebanon Ambassador reports. Well, both blogs take different formats and some html editing and it's hard to keep up so this once, forgive me. I have written 2 new reports on Symbian-Guru, Day 5 which is meant to criticize the not-so-perfect gaming use of the N95 8GB and Day 6, 7 & 8 which focus on the email checking, YouTube viewing and Medical consultant capabilities of the N95 8GB.

I still have 6 more day reports (to make the grand total of 14) to be published in the next 2 days, followed by a wrap-up. I should be sending the N95 8GB back to WOMWorld in the next days, but will be receiving an N81 8GB with Bose Quiet Comfort 3 Headphones, the same Vaibhav and Abul have recently received. I am really excited about it, considering that I still think the N81 is one of the sexiest devices Nokia has ever come up with. I am looking forward to the gaming experience (compared to the N95 8GB) and the music capabilities of the device. I am also interested to see how the shift will go from the N95 8Gb to the N81, what I will miss, what I won't. So expect some coverage on that one too. I will try my best to make the N81 8GB BOSE edition trial as unique as the N95 8GB, but if you have any question, any matter that you'd like me to cover, feel free to fire up. I will try my best to answer it.

3 & 4 - N95 8GB Lebanon Ambassador

I admit it, I have been late with the reports, but I've been suffering from a cold episode. Anyway, here is the second report from my daily N95 8GB Lebanon Ambassador Mission where I tackle the Music playing capabilities of the N95 8GB, as well as the WiFi connectivity and the browsing experience. You can also check the first report about the camera and the accelerometer.

Day 3 - Music Experience
Is the N95 8GB, with the great onboard memory, the dedicated music keys, the 3.5mm earphone jack and the 2.8"screen, the best Nokia music and video player ever?
It is no secret to people around me that I am a music maniac. It's not that I listen to music every single breathing second, nor that I know every song ever made, but it is that when I say I know a song, then what I mean is that I know the title, the artist, most probably the album and the release year. Having heard the song a couple of times on the radion doesn't account for me as knowing it. That's why organizing music for me is a must, as well as being able to browse by anything that comes to my mind, from artist, album, song title, genre, or anything else. The major letdown I had with my 3250, and many S60 3rd devices actually was the fact that the music was organized in the Gallery, just like pictures and videos. Seriously, this is no way a music lover would want to see his tunes. That's why I was pleasantly surprised with the music experience over the N95 8GB.

My Own Impressions
The fact that the Tracks part of the Gallery redirects immediately to the Music Player, without attempting to display the songs itself is great. The fact that the music player has a dedicated Podcast part is awesome. But the great bit is that before I even start a song, I can browse by Artist, Album, Song title, Genre or Composer, and that I can even search those, not only by the first word but the first letters of any word. That's heaven for any music freak. Really Neat. Thank you Nokia! I can also edit ID3 tags, can you top that?
A friend of mine who was seriously getting the N95 8GB asked me to do a little speaker sound comparison for him. So I thought what would be better than comapring it with my own 3250, one of Nokia's loudest phones yet (correct me if I'm wrong). I played the same song with both devices on 100% volume. The 3250 was 1-2% louder, I think due to the fact that it has one speaker with mono sound. The stereo sound on the N95 8GB made it a little less loud, but with greater quality. I also compared the volume to the 5310 MusicXpress, the 6120 and the N73. It came on top of the first two, but par with the N73 (a little surprising result).
Also worth mentioning are the dedicated music playing and volume keys that made the experience a lot nicer. I can seriously consider the N95 8GB a good contender to replace my iPod, actually in the last days, it has replaced the iPod, which is now sitting silently in the drawer, next to my Nokia 3250 and my Qtek 9100. The fact that I can search for a song by typing the first letters, something that no iPod can do without too many finger movements, is a major win.

Now, what were the letdowns?

Sync time. I used iTunes Agent and created a good 5GB playlist on iTunes. I didn't time the transfer process, but I can pretty much say it was more than an hour. Seriously? 5GB?

When I first sync'ed my playlist I realized I had done a mistake in the Smart Playlist itself and set it to select songs by Lowest Rating: I meant Highest Rating. I corrected it and re-synced. The songs that were removed from the Smart Playlist were deleted from the device memory and from All songs in the music player, but when I opened the Artists or Albums section, I would find the corresponding data, but with a "this folder is empty" note in it. Why not simply delete the whole thing? The weird part was that searching for the Artist of the Album on Nokia's standby screen Search plug-in, would return zero results. Anyway after another sync, it seems that the problem has been solved, but I'm not quite sure.

Why the hell can I edit a song details (or ID3) from the song list, but not from the Now Playing screen?

Could they add an option to create smart playlists? And a rating system of any sort?

I was disappointed that it didn't sync album art, I read a trick somewhere that would do it, but was too lazy to try it out.

When I first open the Now Playing screen, if a song is not actually playing, pressing on the dedicated FF or RW won't change the song to the previous or next one. But if I start playing then stop the song, I can FF or RW as much as I want. No such problem with the joypad keys however. Weird. Can anyone tell me if they've had the same?

People's Impressions
The dual-slider surprised a lot of persons around me. Normally when someone is holding the phone and sliding the keypad out, I would say "oh try sliding it the other way", then I would get some "ah"s concerning the dedicated music keys and the auto-rotation of the interface to the landscape mode.
Being able to control music with dedicated keys was the most remarkable feature, because everyone knows what each button does. The 3.5 mm plug got some praise too, many people have suffered from a lost or non-functioning mobile earphone, and explaining that you can plug in any earphone you have made them look at the device in another way.
Also I got a couple of "oh, I can browse by artist, album, genre and playlist, like on the iPod!". But when I added that you can just start typing any word and it'll look for it in each category, without having to scroll through huge lists, I got some good comments.

The less impressive parts were:

The sound being noted as high, but not quite enough. It would've been nice to comapre it to the N81 to see what they both can deliver.

The empty album art. I expect Nokia to do something about it, soon.

Typing to search for a certain song is slow. Takes a while to type each caracter. Improve it please.

Day 4 - WiFi Connectivity & Web Browsing
The greatest part about the N95 8GB is the 2.8" screen. I can't stop feasting my eyes on it. Yes I know it's a matter of resolution and not physical screen size, but man does it feel nice to have such a huge screen on a Symbian device! It makes everything attracting and easy to read.

My Own Impressions
Browsing through my univeristy's WiFi was a blast because of the easy setup: just a matter of clicking the WLAN Network on the standby screen and selecting Start Browsing. Seriously if someone tells me he couldn't get his WLAN to work, I would kill myself, instantly.
It was actually my first experience with the S60 browser (closing my ears to not hear all the "boo"s) and I can say I am fairly impressed. Coming from a girl who uses IE7, that might not sound as a very "creditable comment" but still, I am sure many people will tell you just the same. I instantly found my way around. Pages rendered quite impressingly compared to the desktop experience. I opened Dotsisx, my own blog and got a 100% match. I can not say this about the built-in WM browser.
Google, Gmail, Google Reader, and any page I attempted to visit loaded like a charm. I guess I don't visit sites that are too heavy. I liked the small mouse that appears on the screen to help browse, click links and fill fields. The site map that shows whenever you scroll a lil' bit on the site is a great thought. Visited pages were instantly bookmarked. But it is the Back button that shows snippets of visited pages that really wow'ed me.
Add to that a great screen that makes use of a good resolution to turn out some really easy to see sites, and you've got yourself the perfect web companion.

Overall, the experience was more than favorable and the one bit of annoyance I have with the browsing I have right now is one of connectivity. The device keeps asking me what access point I want to use. I've already picked and connected through WLAN, what access point do you think I want to use? Wap?! Come on! Please Nokia or S60 or both, do something about it. When I pick a connection, let it stick to it and use it everywhere, in any applicationt that needs a web access. PERIOD.

People's Thoughts
I won't go on for hours here. Just copy paste my own impressions. As it was my first experience with the S60 browser, it was also the first experience of many people around me. "Desktop-like quality" is a comment I got quite often, and I applaude Nokia for that. I am sure that with time I will find some problems with the browser. Just not yet.

So this is it for today's report. Stay tuned for more Lebanon Ambassador experiences. Alan left a comment on the first post on Symbian-Guru saying that I took the WOM (Word of Mouth) World experience quite litteraly. I thank him for opening my eyes to that fact, I hadn't noticed it myself. Do you think I can do better with the N95 8GB Lebanon Ambassador missions? Do you think there are some other letdowns that I didn't point, some solutions to them or some other great features that I didn't mention? Please leave your comments.

Math à la N95 8GB

I was laying down today enjoying a good Podcast over the N95 8GB when it suddenly hit me. In the 5-6 days that I've had the N95 8GB here, all my habits have been tremendously changed, and by changed I mean struck by a tornado and turned upside down in a way you couldn't imagine. I no longer carry an iPod with me, I've got the N95 8GB. I no longer worry about recharging my digicam batteries, I've got the N95 8GB. I no longer carry my Qtek 9100, I've got the N95 8GB. So I decided to take some pictures and show you just how many devices the N95 8GB can replace.

Equation 1
So as I said, the N95 8Gb replaces my 30GB iPod video, my Qtek 9100, my Nokia 3250 and my Kodak digital camera:

=

But that equation isn't all that correct. We all know that the S60 3rd OS, with its great catalogue of 3rd-party software allows us to replace many more devices and things. Let's see, there's MobiReader with a great collecation of eBooks, irRemote that replaces a couple of remote controllers, some free bible readers and praying books, and a lot of dictionaries (the MSDict collection and the SlovoEd collection), so where does that leave us?

Equation 2

=

Ah but let's not forget that our mobile phones already replace a couple of our past daily carry-ons, like the handwatch, the phone book, the agenda and the calculator. Hm it's getting bigger.

Equation 3

=

So think this is about it? Well it is for most people. But you do know I'm in the medical field, and with Mobireader, iSilo and lately Skyscape, I get to carry some great medical books. So let's add a couple of those to the table.

Equation 4

=

Looking better? Ah yeah, the good'ol N95 8GB, all alone on that table, and all those devices, books, electronics piling up. Ah, woops, forgot something! See, when I wanted to make use of the free WiFi in my univeristy campus and in the hospital, I used to take my laptop. When I wanted to edit a word document, a picture, add a title to a movie, write down a short story, check my email, catch on some RSS, I used to take my laptop. So the N95 8GB does replace my laptop too, in many aspects, not in all, but in many. Hm, let's add a part of a laptop to the picture here.

Equation 5

=

Ok, so this is about it. Now the equation looks a lot more logical. That's true math! Now when people say that 700$-800$ is too much for a phone, just tell them to check this out. Would you want to carry one device that does it all, in style and simplicity, or would you want to get yourself a travel bag and just stuff in all your gear? Thought so.

Edit: after I read Antoine's comment, i realized that there are other devices/electronics that the N95 8GB replaces that I either don't have either forgot to put in the picture, and those are: Camcorder (it definitely is my main camcorder now), Television (I don't have SlingBox but many people have already said a couple of great things about it), Portable gaming device like the PSP (the N95 8Gb with TV-Out just makes gaming a great experience) and a GPS receiver. Heh, well it looks like instead of the "=" sign I put in the last equation, I should have put a ">" because seriously, it is far bigger while yet being way smaller!

Double Edit: Forgot the Webcam too! Gosh we can go at this all day long!

1 & 2 - N95 8GB Lebanon Ambassador

This is the first report from my N95 8GB Lebanon Ambassador mission, where I spent the first 2 days demonstrating the camera and video recording capabilities of the device as well as the accelerometer goodness.

1 - Camera & Video Recording
When I first found out that the N95 was going to sport a 5MP cam and 640x480 video resolution with 30 fps, I was really impressed. I mean those are specs higher than my stand-alone digital camera. I am not a pro photographer, my main use of a camera is taking quick pictures and videos, now and then, for the memories. I usually didn't mind having a low-quality picture or video as long as the moment I took it in was great. After all, pictures and videos are like a visual diary, they are just here to remind us of great moments in our lives, moments that our lazy memory would erase or blurry. But with the N95 8GB, I am sure that I not only have a way to revive my memories, but also a way to show it and share it with everyone around me. That is the greatest part about it.

My Own Impressions
The picture quality is impressive. I don't print pictures, I don't make posters of them. I just keep them on my computer to view them later, so the 5MP is much more than enough for me: we all know that the laptop screen has a maximum resolution of 1280x800 (with something around 80dpi). The N95 8GB takes pictures with a maximum resolution of 2582 x 1944. Point made. Even if I did want to print out my pictures on a 17x15cm paper, they would come out really good.
The video quality blew me away. Yes I knew I was expecting a similar quality to my stand-alone Kodak digicam (who takes videos with the same resolution and fps), but I was thinking that it wouldn't actually BE the same quality. Well, I was wrong, really wrong. I also made a little comparison with the N73 (352x288 video res with 15fps), which still accounts as one of the best cameraphones out in the market. I took a video my friend had recorded with her N73 and sent it over BT to the N95 8GB. I then recorded one video with the N95 8GB itself. Then, using TV-Out, I played both videos on our 29in flat TV. And the result? Are you actually asking? No way you could compare them. The better resolution on the N95 8GB had a role to play, but the 30fps is the one that made the N95 8GB stand out. The N73 delivered a cameraphone video, expected result, but the N95 8GB delivered a quality as good as my own digicam. Thumbs up Nokia, seriously.
Also, having a dedicated not configurable gallery button was bugging me at first. But after a couple of days with the N95 8GB, I thank the designer team for introducing it.

Now, what didn't impress me all that much?

First of all there's the fact that everytime I popped the TV-Out cable in the N95 and selected TV-Out, the device would reboot. First time I thought it was my mistake, then I noticed it kept happening. So afterwards I had to press Cancel to have the thing working. But when I would disconnect the device from the TV, it would reboot, so it's a lose-lose situation. I guess it's a problem with my unit because I haven't heard anyone complain about it.

Second there's the fact that when I am connected on TV-Out and I take a picture, the preview image isn't the full resolution image, which means that quality on TV-Out looks crappy. I know that not many people would eventually try to take a picture while connected to a TV, but what if they do? They'll think their hand moved or that there's something wrong with the autofocus.

Speaking about autofocus, I noticed that getting the autofocus to work was pretty hard at first. I always ended up taking the picture before the focus was correct. Eventually I got used to it, but still

The gallery is painfully slow to load. I first thought that it was just me because I'm running so many apps in the background. Turns out other people are also complaining about it.

Why the hell can't I use the 1 and 3 buttons to rotate images left and right? Why???

And finally there's the obvious "where the hell is the video editor?", along with "where the hell is Muvee?". I saw Muvee on my friends' N73 and N76, which means it exists for S60 v3 (and fp1) why isn't it on the N95 8GB? Plain stupid!

People's Impressions
What people first notice is the huge lens on the back of the device. I got a lot of "is that a new camera?" questions. Well, I believe that no one would expect to see such a huge lens on the back of a mobile phone.
The other great positive they note is that point and shoot is tremendously easy, just because of the huge screen. They don't have to stare at a small screen to take the picture, they have 2.8in of goodness to feast their eyes on. 2 persons even told me the experience was comparable to their Sony CyberShot digital cameras!
With a TV around, I also demonstrated viewing the pictures and video on TV-Out. The only comment I got was: Wow. People don't know what 5MP or 3MP or 8MP is, they just buy the highest number around. When you say you've got a 5MP cam on a mobile phone, they think about their own 7 or 8MP digicam and tend to think that 5MP is much lower quality. Stretching the picture on a whole 25in or 29in screen shows just how good it is. They are even surprised that it comes with a TV-Out cable! Video playback on TV also got a lot of admiration.

Negative comments I got were about:

the camera button being a little hard to press

night pictures being lower quality

front camera is worthless

zooming takes all the picture quality. I did explain that it was a digital zoom, which doesn't compare in quality to an optical zoom, but hey, the end result remained the same, and that probably was the major letdown for many.

2 - Accelerometer Goodies
We were all mad at Nokia for not mentioning the N95 had a built-in accelerometer, and I still don't understand why they hid it. But thank God, they revealed it eventually! Thanks to Samir Oueldi, the accelerometer has a couple of great uses. I have installed RotateMe and Nokmote on the N95 8GB and leave them running in the background.

My Own Impressions
The accelerometer is pretty darn accurate!
RotateMe is simply the best application in the world. Viewing pictures, watching videos, browsing the web, everything is made ridiculously simple with it. Normally you would see a picture in portrait mode and either use the zoom either slide the screen downwards to reveal the multimedia menu, which rotates the interface to landscape mode. RotateMe simplifies the whole thing. Just physically turn the device and taraaaa! I found it extremely helpful while browsing pages, sometimes you need to enter text, just slide the keypad out, enter your text, either holding the device vertically either horizontally, like you wish. Makes browsing a lot easier. But RotateMe does annoy a little because it sometimes rotates the screen when it's not meant to. Fiddling with the settings got the problem somewhat solved, but after all it is quite fast so i don't mind re-rotating the device myself.
Nokmote doesn't have an adjustable senstivity and reactivity, for the obvious reason that it is still in development. But still having it around while playing Global Race or N-Gage's Asphalt 3 was a very nice experience. At first I spent the whole race time going from wall to wall, now I'm better at it, and I think that after a couple of days, I'll be a real pro at it. Of course Nokmote isn't meant to be used with the device, because you end up twisting it a lot, which makes looking at the screen to see where you are rather difficult. It is meant to be played on TV-Out and that's where it really shines. But it's pretty much impossible to leave it running on the device, because the sensitivity can't be set. I normally leave RotateMe on, but close Nokmote and only open it when in need.

People's Impressions
RotateMe really stood out as the champion of the day. People thought I was pressing a button or doing something, until I handed them the device and said "take it, see for yourself". A lot of nice comments were said. And because the iPhone is just starting to become famous in Lebanon, I heard 3 persons (roughly my age, 22-24) say "oh it's like the iPhone". Yeah the N95 can do that too baby! One comment I got from everyone (and I mean every single one) is "why doesn't it rotate the other way? or upside down?. Funny question. "The device is meant to be used in these 2 configurations only, I would understand wanting to rotate it the other way, but upside down, why would you need it?", answer "it'd be nice". So as you see, it wasn't about functionality, it was about the cool-factor.

I demonstrated Nokmote to a lot of people, who really liked the concept. But the main public I was interested in were my 9 (male) and 10 (female) year old neighbors, as well as my 23 and 20 year old male cousins. I started Asphalt 3, launched Nokmote and connected the N95 8GB to our 29in screen. All of them thought it was impressive. The 9 year old boy, who had just got a PS2 for Christmas said "oh it's like the Wii!" and I couldn't get him off the N95 for 15 minutes. He bumped into a couple of walls at first, then 2 laps later, he was flying like rocket. "What do you think of it, Tony?", poor boy looked at me after I took the N95 out of his hands and said "Cool, really cool, can I play more?". The 10 year old girl played a little bit, but she's not into racing games, I guess if I had some sort of Super Mario running, she would've been swept away. My 23 year old cousin who loves technology a tidbit (he's a mechanical engineer after all), didn't have any trouble adjusting to the play mode, but 3 minutes later, he was tired of twisting the device. My 20 year old cousin who is really into all those racing games was watching his brother not impressed about it, but when he got to play with it he ended up having fun and getting used to the sensitivity in no-time. Other friends that saw it didn't get the chance to experience it with gaming and TV-Out, but just with the gallery, videos and music playing. They were amazed by the concept but found it rather annoying and hard to control. I explained it was still in development.

What do you think of the comments I have been receiving so far? Do you get the same notes with your friends? As far as I can see, the first experiences have been rather good. Stay tuned for more N95 8GB Lebanon Ambassador reports. Coming next are music and video playback, wifi and browsing.