Nokia N95-3 update released early, performance improved

Last week Nokia promised an update was coming to the North American version its venerable N95, the N95-3. But, the company played coy and failed to mention any details other than availability in "early June." We're not even out of May yet but the 20.2.011 firmware update is ready and initial reports are good. Boot time has been reduced to 19-seconds from about 30, camera start-up is now a quite snappy two seconds, support for Flash video has been added, and there's even a suite of new N-Gage game demos included in the deal. That's the sort of update we can sink our teeth into -- even if European N95-1 users have already been chewing it for months.

[Via Part-time phone reviewer; thanks Moses]

[Blaine Oliver @ May 26th 2008 1:11PM]

Yeh, ive had this update for a fair while, nearly bricked my N95 putting it on, but now its happily updated. Accelerometer (spelling) support is nice because the screen only tilts when you tilt the phone, rather than when you slide the phone the other way.

[Jan Fuellemann @ May 26th 2008 1:38PM]

And finally there is a Nokia phone suite for the Mac, right in time:
http://www.novamedia.de/fonelink

Kind regards

Jan Fuellemann (nova media)

[Al @ May 26th 2008 1:50PM]

There's better compatibility with python applications now as well.

[roole @ May 26th 2008 1:58PM]

It used to take 30 secs to boot up? Still takes 19 secs.? Isn't that kind of long for a cell-phone?

[Engadgetluvsappl @ May 26th 2008 2:08PM]

Not when it's a smartphone. I raced an iPhone owner with my N95 8GB and my N95 8GB won out by about 2 seconds.

[Andrew @ May 26th 2008 2:08PM]

I'm pretty sure my W810 takes longer than even 30s so I'd say 19 is fine. It's not something you do very often (unless you fly a lot).

[paul34 @ May 26th 2008 2:22PM]

My iPhone takes a fair amount of time, I'd say 20-30 seconds, and it isn't even a smartphone like the N95.

[Tom @ May 26th 2008 6:29PM]

No. As others have pointed out, it's a smartphone and, let's face it, who ever turns their phone off these days? My iPhone was turned off for an exam last week, the first time in - quite literally - months.

[Paule @ May 26th 2008 2:05PM]

just updatet to 21.0.016... ;-)

in combination with Nokia maps 2.0 (final) this sort of rocks!

[("o") @ May 26th 2008 2:13PM]

roole, this isn't just a cell-phone, its a smartphone. It boots up a lot of apps start up.

[Eric @ May 26th 2008 2:19PM]

So far so good. Camera starts fast enough to capture kids and dogs!

[Wonderkid @ May 26th 2008 2:38PM]

Nokia really need to get their Mac act together - and this is in their best interests against the iPhone. I have just acquired a Nokia N95 8G and want to upgrade to the new firmware, but cannot. I don't do Windows. Nokia, do you read Engadget, and if so, what's your take? Else, come June, I'll, you know, do the naughty thing. It's sync or swim...

[Al @ May 26th 2008 2:44PM]

Aren't there emulators for windows software?
What about dual booting?

[Surur @ May 26th 2008 2:46PM]

Yes Nokia, you are really missing out on that 6% of potential customers who own Macs. You know, 0.5% of them may even chose a Nokia over the iPhone.

[waiownsyou @ May 26th 2008 2:59PM]

Yeah you tell him Surur!

0.5% (aka a few million) is a complete waste of time IMO.

[ill trooper @ May 26th 2008 2:59PM]

Suror... Playing the percentage game? It's not that simple. If you factored in the people that buy smartphones, you'd likely see more parity. I think most companies would LOVE to get Apple customers on board - they like to buy things, and are willing to pay a little more. So yes, I think Nokia is missing out by not supporting OS X.

But sure, guy, if you want to stick to that percentage, OK. Just keep in mind that 94% you indirectly talk about includes a lot of grandparents, service department machines, cashier terminals, basically anything where you need the lowest cost device, lowest-common-denominator OS. I think it's deeper than your autonomic call-out of "6%."

[Jaws @ May 26th 2008 3:15PM]

I thought that 6% figure seemed a little high... you know, back out a few schools, and universities and actually get down to paying customers...

touche?

;)

[namtastic @ May 26th 2008 3:17PM]

@ill trooper, yes, consumer usage is MUCH higher that 6%. SPA says 16%, I've seen another report that said it was about to break 20%. No one knows for sure, but one thing is clear, it's not a market to be ignored.

[huh @ May 26th 2008 3:21PM]

do you really want to run their craptastic software on your mac? I'm using it for the first time in a while (on Windows) in preparation for the update and am being reminded just how horrible it is. Seriously, I'm sure they spent more time on making the colour scheme completely incompatible with the normal operating environment than they did in making tasks straightforward, error messages meaningful, or even for the thing to work normally.

I used the "content copier" to backup, it finished and said some files couldn't be copied, check the log, I did but the log did not explicitly tell me what failed (I'd paste it here but the brilliant app doesn't support cut and paste). And it puts everything in a made up file format (NBU). Great.

[Engadgetluvsappl @ May 26th 2008 4:13PM]

Nokia are a GLOBAL company and in GLOBAL terms, Apple takes 3%. A waste of time.

Besides, Nokia's software is fine. They wouldn't have such clear, horribly awesome dominance in the mobile market if their software was absolute shit, would they?

[huh @ May 26th 2008 4:28PM]

Engadgetluvsappl , you must be kidding. Their software is awful. I just had to use a hack workaround to restore my contacts to my updated n95. Their "content copier" fails everytime. I was lucky in that Nokia provides an extra program (a hack) to copy just the contacts, forget all my other data and settings.

This is critical data and should a rock solid process. Search around the nokia support forums and you'll see how bad it is.

Nokia's dominance is mostly through their low end fashion phones, which don't require this kind of app support.

I saw one nokia support post that suggested uninstalling their pc suite and bluetooth stack, defragmenting the drive, then reinstalling. Yes, defragmenting the drive is really going to help. Shows you how much they are on top of their own problems.

[pdexter @ May 27th 2008 3:12AM]

Thought Nokia does control smart phone market even more than whole mobile phone market(+ luxury phone market with Vertu and 8xxx series). Thought yeah it's true that most of those % of course come from lower end phones as they are the uuber mass phones.

Best selling consumer electronics device in the world....1100 with over 250 million phones sould =D

Btw have the US N95 8GB(N95-4) had any updates?

[De @ May 27th 2008 11:35AM]

http://www.symbian-guru.com/welcome/2008/04/pc-suite-nokia-multimedia-transfer-for-mac-updated.html

an article for the mac users and how to get pc suite for macs (links in the article carry you to nokia's download site0

[0mega @ May 26th 2008 3:22PM]

Wow, thats fricking awesome. And to think, I'm getting two n95s for the price of none! (No, that isn't a typo. )

[Itsuru @ May 26th 2008 3:37PM]

Everyone was rushing to correct you too.

[Virtuous @ May 26th 2008 6:13PM]

PC Suite is bloatware, therefore it doesn't belong on a Mac.

[Beetle @ May 26th 2008 9:18PM]

Now for an actual comment on the update....This software update is actually a nice surprise. It definitely speeds up the phone start up and the camera turn on speeds. The ability to use movies as ringtones is a lot of fun too. The new N-Gage games are a bonus that some may really get into. If you have the N95 back-up and then upgrade. It's pretty darn simple to do and if you back-up your system often (which you should), it's easy to get back your contacts.

Nokia Labs creates a lot of great stuff for it's users. Bravo on another great benefit to their customers. (and no I'm not a Nokia fanboy - I just like this particular phone For NOW).

[Kennyy @ May 26th 2008 9:23PM]

How about battery life? still the same or has been improved?

[carlo2 @ May 26th 2008 10:04PM]

I updated it a few hours ago on a charge from about 10am this morning, I don't have 3g where I live, I played with some video and have sent a few texts and browsed the web for about half an hour, and it's now 7:00 p.m. and I still have full battery bars. I'm not sure of the percentage, but I haven't lost any battery bars.

[cteegarden3 @ May 26th 2008 10:35PM]

As an N95-4 purchaser (got it Saturday), I'm glad to hear that. However, there's no love for Nokia in this household as the version shipped on my phone is still 1.2.011 and it CANNOT be updated at present.

I've got a message into Nokia support about the issue asking if and when an update is coming. I'll post the response here. BTW, substituting the 8GB EURO1 product code does no good.

Meanwhile, I strongly recommend that all those interested in the N95-4 hold off until an update is available. It's extremely upsetting that Nokia would release a $630 phone less than six months ago with such outdated firmware.

[eggothewaffle @ May 27th 2008 1:53AM]

I'm in the market for an Nokia N95 superphone and would it be correct to say, that with this updated firmware, there is very little reason (about .2" of screen space) to spend ~$100 or so more on the N95-4 8 gig version?

The lack of expandable memory on the N95-4 just kills it for me :[

[Tor Slettnes @ May 27th 2008 3:57AM]

There is an update for the N95-4 also! :)


Nokia N95 8GB (RM-421)

Firmware version

Current: 1.2.011
Update: 20.2.005


(I'll try it now, after synchronizing contacts, photos, music etc. the "old fashioned" way. I don't trust the built-in backup/restore...)

[jamie @ May 27th 2008 8:31PM]

ive been tearing my hair out trying to get my US n95-3 to update. I'm at 11.9.002 and the updater tells me theres no firmware available. do i need to hack it with a new product code with NSS?

can anyone verify a product code thats worked for them?

[Douglas Brown @ Aug 15th 2008 4:24PM]

Nokia phones are the best phone investment that you could make. Year after year they have been providing quality phones for consumers. Unfortunately the new Nokia phones can cost you an arm and a leg, especially an unlocked Nokia N95. I found a great site to find unlocked Nokia cell phones from auctions. I bought 2 Nokia N95 cell phones for me and my wife, and we love them. Check them out at Unlocked Nokia Cell Phone Auctions. Just my 2 cents.