Back in September, when it was announced, I was pretty excited about the Nokia N95, and I stand by my assessment that it’s the most fully-featured device to come out outside Asia — yes, I think it’s better on paper than the iPhone. What’s pretty interesting to me is that lots of people here in the US are taking notice, even though the device is thus far only available at Nokia’s flagship stores and for the steep (relative) price of $750. It appears to have sold out there already, while sites like Gizmodo are giving it some serious praise, and even Engadget, usually pretty up on the “but we’ll never get it here” stuff, seems fairly impressed.
But.
Every single review, despite being very positive, mentions how poor the battery life of the N95 is — and when you’ve got so many things right on the phone (GPS, 5-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, 150 MB memory, and so on), you really can’t screw something so basic up.
From the Gizmodo review:
Why Nokia’s N95 Sucks:
1. Battery: No matter what anyone says, the battery life on the N95 isn’t good. You can justify it by considering how much power true GPS, WiFi, and those booming speakers take. Even turning off 3G access, as you won’t find reception in the US, the phone will be begging for DC after an 18 hour day of moderate/heavy use.
Battery Life: If you are looking for a reason to not spend $750 on a phone, well here is a good reason. The battery on this device simply sucks. It doesn’t even last the whole day, and that is when you are using it in GSM mode, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS turned off. Nokia needs to fix this as quickly as possible otherwise, N95 could become a PR nightmare for them.
Even light email usage and web surfing starts sucking N95’s battery like Nick Nolte hitting the sauce. If you still insist on buying this phone, then buy a few extra chargers and have them littered around your house, office and car.
But the reality of the situation is that the N95 is a brilliantly conceived mobile phone that is nearly crippled by its battery life. A device such as this begs to be used, but the battery is not even remotely close to being up to the task. If it weren’t for the fact that the N95 does almost everything not only well, but superbly, the battery life would be an instant deal breaker. But due to its near other-worldly capabilities, I feel it deserves some leeway, and as such I still give it a “Recommended” rating. If the battery issue didn’t exist, I would probably have considered the N95 to be the best non-QWERTY smart phone ever developed to date.
You get the idea. It’s almost stunning that Nokia could knock every other feature out of the park, then drop the ball on something as basic as battery life. Yes, I understand that all these features can suck up a lot of power, and there’s not a lot of room for a huge battery, and so on. But all the features in the world aren’t any good on a phone with a dead battery.
I tend to not put too much faith in complaints about the battery life of mobile handsets, because it’s never enough for some people, but these are too widespread for me to dismiss. I was fairly prepared to drop the cash for an N95, either to Nokia or an import shop, as I’ve done before, even after I saw the $750 price tag. But with complaints about the battery life so widespread, I can’t bring myself to do it. Given the uncertainty, without testing it myself, I can’t realistically spend the money. And I wonder how many other potential buyers feel the same way.
The battery is good for a day’s use (probably 2 days, once it’s settled down), the sound quality is good enough for 95% of users . . . so that leaves to 2 groups of people who will not be happy with their N95 - People who never sleep, and people who never actually listen to music because they’re too busy listening to the sound of the music! Oh well - it takes all sorts I guess!
I was also about to buy this only to read about the battery life and cry off. It does sound good, but 18hr use between charges is a joke.
ahas - I don’t think you fully understand, on two fronts:
1) Battery life never doubles “once it’s settled down”, it is down all the way from that first charge. Maybe it’s 1 second less usage after every charge for the first 100 charges, but over time the trend is always less life not more.
2) The 18hr standby time is what you get if you turn off every feature on the phone. So why buy this phone? If you want GPS, you get
Hmm - cropped my comment without warning
Could you add a warning before posting & cropping?
Gist of it was, you want GPS you get
Ah I see! you can’t use the less than symbol, else you get mercilessly cropped without the ability to edit or get your comment back. Apologies for spamming your comments!
…you get less than 4hrs; you want 3G/WiFi, you get less than 18hrs; you want music or to make an hour’s phone call, remember to plug in first.
Great for the sedentary, who maybe commute into work a bit but otherwise stay close to a plug socket. Also great for posers who only buy top-end gadgets so everyone knows they havfe top-end gadgets loaded with features: “look, it’s got GPS, and it was only $750!” should be OK early in the day, if you remember to turn it back off after 2 mins…
Real shame.
I made a comparison with my Nokia LD-3W GPS module, as it uses a standard Nokia battery:
- The battery lasts for approx 15 hours (verified) when the module is in active use, meaning it’s got a Bluetooth connection with a phone and actively processes GPS info.
- It lasts for much longer (possibly several days) if not communicating with a phone. In that case it shuts down GPS processing, so effectively it’s a power-save mode, yet with a short up-time when a phone is connecting to it.
I hope the N95 does the same thing when there’s no application using GPS, otherwise it’s apparent from the above that GPS processing will bite a big chunk off the battery.
Hopefully the N6110 is better battery-wise. I’m going for that one in any case. Haven’t seen a release date though.
In the car you could obviously charge it, but the “mobile” aspect of the phone diminishes with this sub par battery time.
I’ve got to put a plug in for the HTC P3300. It has all the features that Nokia N95 stacks, but the battery life is much better.
Moreover, it plugs nicely into the USB port on my Apple (yes Windows Mobile & Apple get on just fine) so that I can top-up the juice whenever I feel like it.
The HTC comes with a car charger and car cradle so it charges whilst Tom Tom/GPS is running.
Even if Orange offered me a free N95 (which they probably would because it’s been a while since my last upgrade and my monthly bills are nearly £1000 a month) I would still turn it down. HTC is superior in every way.
There seems to have been one thing overlooked here - obtaining battery longevity when your device is so stuffed full of features is incredibly difficult to do.
Despite the obvious comments on battery life splattered all over the web there is also a general opinion that the battery supplied is just about the best available and Nokia have done incredibly well under the circumstances.
Perhaps a future firmware will enhance battery usage but until then I will be content to have a car charger or USB charger at hand for emergencies and remember not too long ago the first 3G handsets (NEC 606 for exmple) had a battery life of just a few hours.
I have an N80 which faces similar battery problems. At first it’s a pain but after a while you adjust and ensure you charge the phone whenever you have a chance at home, work or in the car.
I’m getting one in September when Vodafone let me upgrade.
I was one of the first to buy the N95 from the Chicago Store on Saturday, and I was one of the first to return the phone today, why?
Everyone said it before me - BATTERY! its kills this phone!
Don’t waste $750 tax= $815 on a phone that didn’t last even a single day to me. Wait for the N95i that will hZve a decent battery life.
Seems that N95 can only accept MiniSD card of up to 2GB only. If so, then I think that’s just sad.
“yes, I think it’s better on paper than the iPhone”. Hm… I’d rather wait and see until the iPhone is released. (Who knows, even the iPhone might be better on paper, than in real life. Or has anyone actually tried one?)
I’m one of those geeks who tend to agree with Everton: my FujitsuSiemens PocketLoox (Win Mobile 5, GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi, but no GSM/GPRS/UMTS) doesn’t last a day if WiFi is used for more than 2 hours. _That_ is a pain. But once you get used to it and charge whenever you have a chance, you’re actually able to live with it. And the benefit of having your newsfeeds, powerpoint slides, or Google Maps with you when you want/need them IMO outweighs the battery problems.
I don’t see why the battery not lasting longer than a day is such a big problem for people - so plug your phone in every night, so what? OK, so you’re used to longer times with other phones. Other phones aren’t basically an entire multimedia PC though are they? How long do laptops last - 1-3 hours? I’d say a day is very good going as an in between figure.
Marc - wouldn’t touch Windows Mobile with an extremely long barge pole. Urgh! Microsoft DO NOT GET mobile.
Jack - yes shame only 2GB, especially when 4GB cards are now on the market and this is such a user of storage. Possibly a firmware update might help, though it might be a hardware issue.
Finally, are we saying it is physically impossible to have a higher capacity battery in the same physical package as the N95’s battery? If not, why can’t someone bring out a higher capacity battery? This is exactly the sort of thing I’d expect to be able to buy off EBay from some innovative Asian dealer for under a tenner.