Mobile phones companies these days are trying harder and harder to please the consumer. Do you remember 10 years ago how mobile phones used to be like? You had a phonebook, the option to choose a ringing style and two buttons (or on some, just one). These days you can take pictures, record videos, run office programs, access the internet, play smart games and more more other things.

Nokia is one of those mobile phones manufacturers that’s taken production to a whole new level. They identify what people need in a mobile phone and then build it. That’s the case with the new Nokia N96, that was officially released in February. Famous for its multimedia capabilities, the Live TV with DVB-H technology and a 5 megapixel camera that packs Carl Zeiss Tessar lens, built-in GPS and Wi-Fi we can say that the dual slider is almost perfect.

Considering that many experts in the industry considered it .. kinda boring .. what would you say if we take it for a quick review that will shed some light if you should buy it or if you should wait for a new model to be announced.

PROs

• Smooth shiny surface and high end finishes
• really well implemented slider hinge,
• big clear screen – it’s a 2.8-inch QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) LCD TFT display
• fast responses and small details like touch pad navigation or built-in quick stand for watching video,
• great movie quality thanks to those built-in video accelerators
• built-in GPS receiver, with support for assisted GPS (A-GPS), Nokia Maps application and voice guided car navigation
• like most of the cellphones these days, it also features a 3.5mm stereo headset plug, but Nokia N96 also comes with TV-out support for PAL and NTSC
• smart email client with support for SMTP, IMAP4, POP3, MMS, SMS.

CONs

I know I said it’s close to perfection, but for a geeky/newsy guy like me … it’s not really that smart. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means it could’ve been much better, so here’s what Nokia missed when coming up with the N96.

• Battery life. Nokia kept the same battery they used in N95 and the result is that it doesn’t last as much as we’d like to. At least not if you listen to music, browse Gmail and call lots of friends a day.
• The Symbian operating system is still not 100% reliable
• It’s quite a large phone for my taste, with a chunky, plasticky build
• Not impressed with the browser. How about Safari on that one guys ?
• Compare it to the iPhone? Not as easy to use I must say.

All in all, our advice is that it’s worth the investment.

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Value for money Rating:
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Just the other day I was out in the city, trying to see new things in town and I realized I’d love some music on my new iPod Nano. I decided it’s time to get one “capable” headset for a test drive and see if they’re better than what Apple provides and see if I’m missing something, because headsets technology has developed a lot these days. First impression: MUCH better!

So I took the most recent entry into the earbud market, Philips SHE9850, and decided it’s worth my time to review it for you guys. The first thing that fascinated me is that the rubber and foam tips “intelligently adjust” to your ear, based on “detailed research into the anatomy of ears”. Of course you’ll have to try it yourself but believe me, they offer a high comfort level because they’re angled the right way.

However, thought they look perfect, they’re not really. Apparently built to cancel background noise (that’s why it has rubber tips) they are not very good at it, just the average.

Another great point is the sound quality (they actually deliver bass levels), which is actually much better than a solid equivalent headphone you put in your ear.

Last thing I enjoyed is that you’ll have to pay from $70 to $90 for a set of Philips’ SHE9850 headsets and that really doesn’t sound that much when you get such quality.

If you tested them, too, just shoot us a comment with your thoughts. If not, would you buy your pair?

Everyone kept telling me that this little piece from Nokia, the N95 is such a great phone and that we should do a review on DevicePedia.com. So what we did? We got one, used it for 2 weeks and now we’re ready to tell you why Nokia N95 rocks and something about those nasty things that you only find out, using one.

So I got myself a Nokia N95 8GB and used it intensly. But here are the first things that we’ll start with. The GOOD part. The specs, which are great.

• Screen 240×320 px, 2.6 inch, TFT LCD – Exceptional video quality, vivid colors and high brightness controlled by ambient light detector
• Camera 5 Megapixels (Back): it’s a 2592×1944 resolution, autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss Tessar optics (f/2.8, 5.6 mm, 10 cm ~ infinity focusing range) and 1/1000th ~ 1/3rd s mechanical shutter provide the best quality you can get from a camera phone.
• Second camera CIF video call (Front)
• Operating system Symbian OS v9.2, S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1
• Input Keypad
• MicroSD memory card if 8GB is not enough
• Networks HSDPA (3.5G), Quad band GSM / GPRS / EDGE GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900
• Connectivity: wireless LAN (802.11 b/g, up to 54 Mbit/s) and UPnP (Universal Plug and Play), Bluetooth 2.0 EDR (up to 3 Mbit/s) and USB 2.0 Full Speed (12 Mbit/s) via Mini USB with mass storage class support.
• Built-in GPS receiver and the Smart2Go software
• Exceptional video quality, vivid colors and high brightness controlled by ambient light detector
• Standard 3.5mm jack that’s great with your new pair of expensive headphones
• Runs on Symbian OS 9.2 S60 3.1 (3rd Edition Feature Pack 1)
• TV-quality video recording @ VGA resolution and 30 frames per second
• powerful ARM11-based TI OMAP2420 processor running at 330 MHz
• Form factor Slider. Slide up to reveal the keyboard, slide down to reveal the multimedia buttons.

Not all is great with our Nokia N95 8GB Review so there are things we didn’t like. The BAD.

• The battery. The specs Nokia comes gave us, are only true when you disable GPS, WiFi or if you don’t surf the Internet. Because if you do, you’ll have to recharge the battery daily. We won’t mention those that speak at least 2 hours on the phone daily (business people) which may see this as a big drawback.
• I would have enjoyed the Sirf Star III GPS chipset instead of the Sirf Star II (which is older and less precise).
• The sliding part is a tad too loose – moves and rattles. Also, I would enjoy a lock to prevent it from sliding out.
• The 22MB free RAM is just too little for this beast

All in all, that’s a great mobile phone that we’d have put a better battery inside to make it one of the best.

Announced last year, the new Sony Ericsson w890i is the perfect mobile phone for a music lover because it’s a Walkman phone. This is why I’ve thought of reviewing it. I will start with the key features.

w890i Pros

I have to start with the fact that it has turbo 3G HSDPA technology for faster connections, has the Walkman music player and TrackID Music Recognition.

Wrapped up in a metal finishing in a slim casing, we get a 2-inch 262k TouchScreen display doing 240 x 320 and a 3.2 megapixel camera with digital om. The keys are small and discrete with a helpful navigation key.

Battery: good enough, 9.5 hours talking time or 360 hours in stand-by mode.

Other features: Bluetooth and USB connection if you want to connect with other mobile devices either wireless or via a cable. It also supports Java, EDGE and HSCSD.

w890i Cons

As you expected, it can’t have them all and even though it emphasizes on music other features let us down. The first thing to come into my mind is the 26MB built-in memory. Guys this is a music phone, allow me to store at least 100 mp3 files before I go grab an expansion card.

The camera: yes I know it’s a 3.2mpix, but it doesn’t have flash or auto-focus so it may not be as good as you expect. Another drawback is doing video recording @ 15fps.

Last thing I can think of is the fact that I don’t see it coming with any Walkman player skins.

All in all this is a good mobile phone. TestFreaks reviewed the w890i and the average score is 8.2 out of 10.