TimeTravelTuesday: Nokia N95 vs iPhone (Crickey, the N95 was sooo good!)

I read some of our comments mentioning the N95 and the iPhone (5) and whilst searching for a comparison I came across this little gem from way back when the N95 was fresh and the iPhone was a new toy.

We have Suzi fighting for the N95 and Jason for the iPhone. Funnily enough Jason argues about the battery life in the N95 when using GPS…First iPhone didn’t even have GPS, or AF camera, or video recording, or front facing camera. I laughed when they compared music and Jason tried to show off the speakers on the iPhone (N95 had some of the best loudspeakers on a phone, and in stereo!).

Even then we hear in terms of camera that function wise it’s “the most important subsidiary function”.

There’s three challenges. The second one looks at camera. 5MP, AF, Carl Zeiss optics vs 2MP potato. Here how Suzi, from the N95, stopped taking her digital compact around! Crickey! Sounds all too familiar. Whilst Suzi was super pleased with the n95 even in low light, Jason had to concede that the iPhone wasn’t up to the job of documenting a party. For video tests, the n95 had a night mode function (drop in frame rate to get more light). What did the iPhone do? Nothing! It couldn’t record video!

Unfortunately, despite the superior hardware and features of the N95 it wasn’t enough to sway the trend away from touch/iPhone. Sure the N95 sold loads! It sure as heck made Nokia too confident (slow/proud) in not getting with the times and seeing where the future lies – in handing over ‘smartphones’ to the general public (i.e. with a faster, more reliable, easier to use touch platform – at least that’s how some Maemo guys said in when referring to those in the Symbian team).

It’s things like this that make you remember precisely why Nokia was number 1 and why there were so many Nokia fans and Nokia fanboys out there. Whilst some have moved on, I bet they’ve still got soft spots for Nokia.

Suzi talks big about the removable battery, and how should there be any freezing you could just whip the battery out. Ha, kudos on the battery trick for them freezing situations. Not that the iPhone was immune to that.

http://gadgetshow.channel5.com/gadget-show/videos/challenge/challenge-n95-v-iphone-pt-1

http://gadgetshow.channel5.com/gadget-show/videos/challenge/challenge-n95-v-iphone-pt-2

Holy crap, I forgot that the n95 had 3G. The iPhone did not! 😮 Check out this GPS test. The iPhone doesn’t even have a GPS chip. Unfortunately for Suzi the N95 was not finding any satellites (I believe I also faced that problem when I used early iterations of maps. You just stood there, waiting for a satellite to be found. Nada. It did get better in future software updates but that wasn’t in the time frame of this test. A point there for ‘usability’ in terms of having features that easily and reliably work. The N95 still won with the iPhone causing Jason ‘endless problems’. Despite him really liking the iPhone the pressure got to him and he starts punching the iPhone.

http://gadgetshow.channel5.com/gadget-show/videos/challenge/challenge-n95-v-iphone-pt3

I remember earlier discussions either on this blog or on forums about how there will come a turning point for iPhone and Nokia. How iPhone will get stronger and stronger and how Nokia would face a very tough battle if they did not snuff out the competition in time. Ah well. We gots two problems now. :p

Category: Nokia, Symbian