Just a few years ago, every Verizon Wireless customer was eligible towards a $100 discount when they upgraded their phone after their two-year contract expired. In 2007, I wrote an article about Verizon downgrading their Upgrade Plan. Their new “Every Two Plan” would only entitle customers paying over $80 a month on services a $100 discount towards a new phone, while the rest only received a $50 discount. They recently once again made some changes which has upset many customers.

Verizon Wireless’s latest changes apply to their Early Termination Fee (ETF). Normally if you choose to cancel your two-year contract, there would be a $175 fee for any device. As of November 15th, there’s a new fee for Smartphone owners, categorized as “advance devices” by Verizon. If you were to purchase a smartphone such as the Motorola Droid and decide to switch providers or cancel your contract, you’ll now have to pay a $350 ETF. If you moved to a new location that doesn’t have signal and decided to cancel your service the second month into the contract, that would mean you would end up paying nearly $550 for just the device. While Verizon does knock $10 off the ETF each month, that’s still a $130 left over to shell out 22 months into a contract. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has even introduced a bill to revert this change since it’s “anti-competitive” and “anti-consumer.” As for now, fortunately, non-smartphone devices still only have a $175 ETF.

It’s true that the devices such as the Motorola Droid are heavily subsidized; otherwise we would have to pay a couple hundred bucks extra up front. However the required Smartphone data plans with the cheapest calling plans will still cost an average customer nearly $2000 over a two-year period. Even with the subsidy for the device calculated in, that’s still large amount to spend. While this won’t affect customers that don’t plan on canceling their contracts, it would still be nice to at least see Verizon increase the amount knocked off the ETF each month by at least a couple dollars so that the ETF would be close to zero a month before a contract ends.

While it’s great to see new high tech phones with more features become available for lower prices each year, it’s a bit depressing when you realize the service cost through just about every provider hasn’t.

What do you all think about the increased ETF? Is it fair to charge Smartphone owners more?

Links: VerizonWireless.com

If there is anything you should take from that last paragraph, it should be that I am hypercritical when it comes to reviewing smart phones because I have yet to experience the recipe for a so-called “iPhone-Killer”. So when I say that the Motorola Droid is my new favorite phone, you can take me seriously. Yes, yes, all of the smart phones in this generation do just about everything short of cooking for you. But the Droid just does it better with Motorola’s feature-packed hardware, Android’s new open source operating system, and Verizon’s high quality network. I’ll explain.

The Hardware
This phone is built like a tank. It weighs about an ounce more than the iPhone, but the extra weight just makes the Droid feel like it’s expensive and has a lot to offer rather than just a heavy burden. I was initially concerned about the sliding mechanism for the keyboard, which is often the first to break on phones with a similar form factor. However, this isn’t the case. The Droid is far from flimsy. Although the phone doesn’t sit flush on a flat surface; the shape of the back elevates the phone just enough so that it doesn’t vibrate off of a table or let the camera get scratched. The lip below the screen didn’t seem to serve any purpose, but I soon realized that it houses the microphone and helps the user to tell the speaker from the microphone.

I only have a few small complaints. My first complaint is with the external buttons. Don’t get me wrong, all three power, volume, and camera keys work fine, but they sit loosely in the frame, which feels as though it takes away from the quality of the build. My second complaint is with the battery compartment cover. It slides off rather easily. It even came off once when I pulled it out of a tight pocket in my backpack. I suppose that’s better than not being able to take it off at all, but it’s something to keep in mind if you like your jeans extra tight.

• Overall Quality – 5/5
• Mechanical Parts – 5/5
• External Buttons – 4/5

The Display
Measuring 3.7 inches and 480 x 854 pixel resolution, the Droid’s touch-screen display is beautiful, bright, enormous, and knocks competitor’s displays out of the park. The screen is both larger than the one found on the iPhone and also has over two times screen resolution. That means it can easily fit and render websites normally designed for computers. Plus, it’s large enough of a resolution to playback DVD quality movies. It’s also accurate and sensitive enough to register touches properly. Like all glossy touch screen phones, the screen tends to get covered with fingerprints and smudges, but it’s nothing your t-shirt can’t fix.

• Size – 5/5
• Resolution – 5/5
• Brightness – 5/5
• Quality – 5/5

The Keyboard
The Droid offers both a physical keyboard and an on-screen keyboard to suit your taste. The on-screen keyboard works perfectly in both horizontal and landscape modes. A key press results in both a sound and/or haptic (vibration) feedback. In fact, the on-screen keyboard is almost the same as the iPhone’s, so it should be an easy transition for those used to Apple’s keyboard.

The physical keyboard is pretty standard. The buttons are square and the keys become illuminated when it’s dark. There’s nothing incredibly special or annoying about it. The only issue is the layout. Rather than having slightly offset keys as found on standard keyboards, everything is aligned in a perfect grid. However, just like any other phone, you get used to what you have after a day of use. I shouldn’t understate the keyboard. Many smart phone owners are first time buyers who are accustomed to the traditional click and feel of physical keyboards. The Droid wouldn’t have been as interesting of a phone if it didn’t have one.

One major drawback to the keyboards is the lack of language interchangeability. Android does not offer native on-the-fly language switching. There are a few applications on the Android Marketplace that will do this for you, and something may be in the works for future upgrades, but I’m disappointed that the Droid can’t handle more languages than I can out of the box.

• On-Screen Keyboard – 5/5
• Physical Keyboard – 4/5
• Language Options – 2/5

The Interface
The touch screen interface is flawless, responsive, and frequently used, which makes the Droid extremely intuitive. Surprisingly the Droid lacks multi-touch gestures, while the European version, called the Milestone, offers it. I can’t imagine why they left this out, but hopefully it can get fixed with a future software update. But even without that, the Droid is just as easy to get along with. I felt that the double-tab to zoom command was easier than the pinch-to-zoom since it can be done with just one finger.

There are four touch-sensitive spots below the screen: back, menu, home, and search. The interface controls for nearly every application stay in an orderly manner, so the touch sensitive keys work perfectly everywhere. My favorite by far is search, which looks through both your phone and Google. Thanks to the Droid’s ability to multitask, this feature can be used at just about any time without losing your work. For example, say you are in a call with a friend and need to find the address of a restaurant. Just hit search and type in the name of the restaurant. If the information is not already saved in your address book, it will search Google and display results while remaining on the line.

• Multitasking – 5/5
• Touch Interface – 5/5

Voice Recognition
Android’s voice recognition engine is unparalleled and works with almost everything. That includes slang and even thick accents; “Call Kreestan” works just as well as “Call Kristen”. Android was even able to recognize my French and (bad) Spanish without changing any settings. “Direcciones al gymnasio” (Spanish for “directions to the gym”) gave me a list of nearby gyms while my locale was still set to English. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow using this feature to dictate text messages, but if it did I would image it would work better than the Samsung Rogue. With laws prohibiting texting while driving, it would be a great idea to let you speak your texts through a hands free device.

• Voice Recognition – 5/5

Phone Calls
With all the other stunning aspects of the Droid, it’s quite easy to lose sight of its primary function: a phone. The Droid does not fall short in this category. Calls are as clear as ever and the microphone intelligently cancels out background noises. During one particular call, a caravan of buses passed by not three feet away from me, and the person on the other end didn’t even notice. Until I mentioned the busses to see if anything was heard, the caller thought I was in a quiet room. Signal strength was strong just about anywhere I went in Northern California and I didn’t face any dropped calls. And as I’ve mentioned before, it’s easy to multitask while on the phone. You can add callers, look up contacts, search for information – the only thing you can’t do while on the phone is use the microphone.

• Call Quality – 5/5
• Signal Strength – 5/5

The Android Roadtrip
The Motorola Droid’s features integrate incredibly well with its operating system, Android 2.0, so it’s hard to talk about one without the other. I decided the best way to really discover the capabilities of both by taking the phone on the road and use the Droid for everything and really push it to the limit.

We had no idea where we were going, but we knew what route we wanted to take, so we packed a lunch, hopped in the car, plugged the Droid into the stereo, and created a station for The Kills on Pandora.

Navigation
The Motorola Droid on Verizon is the first device to feature Google Maps Navigation. It’s a completely free service that offers 3D maps with voice guided turn-by-turn directions. The VZ Navigator available on most Verizon Wireless phones costs an additional $10 a month for use. A decent turn-by-turn direction App on the iPhone sells for a one time fee of nearly $80-$100. On the other hand Google Maps Navigation is entire free and is offers a lot more.

Our journey through Sacramento was a familiar one. Kristen (my lovely driver) and I were feeling the familiar drone of the autopilot set in, and decided that a caffeine fix was necessary. The Droid features a “Car Home” mode, which offers quick access to on-the-road navigation features. I hit Quick Search and asked for “directions to Starbucks”. The voice recognition registered all the terms successfully and gave me directions to a Starbucks right off of the highway in Folsom. The navigator showed us a Google Street View of our destination, so it was easy to point out where it was upon arrival. If I had the official dashboard mount, the Droid could have easily replaced my current GPS.

The drive through El Dorado National Forest is beautiful. There were lots of trees and mountains that probably should have thrown off the GPS or at least our streaming soundtrack, but both remained strong. We lost GPS signal once while weaving through mountain roads, but that lasted less than five seconds, and the only reason we noticed was because the navigation voice started to give us alternative directions. After seeing a couple small rivers running along side the highway, we had the urge to go find a waterfall. With the GPS and Pandora still running, I searched for “nearby waterfalls”. The browser remained fast even while driving through a forest with the other programs running in the background. I was given results relative to our location – our new destination was Vikingsholm in South Lake Tahoe.

• Navigation Interface – 5/5
• Accuracy of Directions – 5/5
• GPS Accuracy – 5/5

Camera & Camcorder
The Droid sports a 5-megapixel camera. It produces images with a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1936 pixels. The scenic road through El Dorado was a perfect place to give the camera a shot. With 16GB of memory on the included Micro-SD card, I wasn’t afraid to keep snapping. The camera took some great shots, though I did find that the automatic stabilization function needed the camera to remain still for a few extra seconds to work properly. The digital zoom produced some pretty grainy pictures, as expected. The flash kicked in at appropriate times and improved pictures taken in darker environments. Plus the geo-tagging feature marked coordinates of where those photos were snapped. With a program such as Google Picasa or Apple iPhoto, you can easily import and view your photo library on a visual map.

The Droid’s large screen is great for reviewing photos and videos, though I was most impressed when I played back the captured videos on my laptop. Videos are shot at an impressive 720×480 pixel resolution at 24 FPS. The quality was excellent and it didn’t jitter at all. Android also supports sending images and videos via MMS, email, or uploading to services such as Facebook and YouTube. The Droid’s camera won’t be replacing a traditional camera anytime soon, but it’s a big step up from other camera phones.

• Photo Quality – 5/5
• Video Quality – 5/5
• Camera Interface – 5/5
• Media Sharing – 5/5

Notification System
Android has a centralized notification system to keep track of the things happening on the phone. By simply dragging down the top toolbar, you can view alerts for new emails, texts, missed calls, finished downloads, calendar reminders, and voicemail. On the other hand, the iPhone simply places a number above Apps that have an alert, but that requires swiping through multiple pages to check on them. The BlackBerry Storm2 probably has the most similar ability with its built in news feed. Simply organizing those updates into one place makes thing easy and responding to those alerts is just a single click away. The system also provides a simple interface to access applications that are running in the background. For example, it will show what song it playing on Pandora. It’s definitely going to be hard to go back to other systems after giving this a shot.

• Notification System – 5/5

Speakers & Headphones
The Droid uses a standard 3.5mm audio jack and has no problem putting out high quality sound. It sounded just as good as my iPod Touch. But using headphones on this trip would have been selfish, so I cranked up the volume of the external speakers so that Kristen could listen in. The speaker’s sound quality was absolutely fantastic; they sounded better than my three-year-old Macbook’s speakers! The speakers would not put out much bass, but surprisingly they did not garble the rest of the audio. From ten yards away with a river running in the background, Kristen was able to clearly comprehend Jack White’s lyrics.

• Speaker Quality – 5/5
• Headphones – 5/5

Media Player
While listening to Pandora, I came across a song I really liked by the White Stripes. I clicked on the “Buy” button in the menu and it took me straight to the song’s page on the Amazon MP3 store. I bought the song and opened up Music for an encore. The purchased song was added into my music library with the existing songs from the White Stripes album. Although the phone’s media player offers all the basic functionalities such as browsing by Artist, Album, Genre, or Songs it does have a few issues. For example, you can’t view all the songs by a single Artist, but rather have to jump back and forth through the Albums by that Artist one at a time. Edit: The media player does allow you to view all songs by a single artist, but it was a little tricky to figure out how (touch and hold the desired artist, select “Play”, and hit the “Playlist” button to view all songs). It’s a well developed player and includes Album Art, a shuffle and a repeat feature. Although it could use a few tweaks, it’s a completely viable alternative to purchasing a dedicated MP3 player.

• Music Player – 4/5

Syncing
Before my road trip, I manually copied a few hundred songs from my computer to the phone with the included Micro-USB cable. The phone appeared as a mass storage device and didn’t require any software. Android automatically recognized the music and other content. Although people despise the bloated iTunes software, it offers an easy syncing relationship between a computer and an iPhone/iPod. Unfortunately, neither Motorola nor Verizon suggest nor include a tool to manage your media. Edit: Scratch that, Motorola just released a tool called Media Link which easily lets you manage music, photos, and videos. Computer geeks will find a solution that suites their needs, but others will be left in confusion.

• Library Management – 4/5

Battery Life
The battery was at about 75% when we left Davis. After four hours of multitasking, the Droid was just about finished with a little bit of juice left to take a few pictures, exceeding my expectations completely. The official specs claim 6.4 hours of 3G talk time and about 11 days of standby.

As we headed to the car to start our trip home, after four hours of heavy multitasking, the Droid gave me a low battery notification. It wasn’t just a standard, single-line message; it brought up a panel that displayed the power consumption of each running application. Right at the top of the list were my power hungry applications. I knew where we were going, so with 5% battery left, I closed all applications and put the Droid on standby. It stayed on for another hour, which was both unexpected and impressive, though I would recommend purchasing a car charge if trips like these are a regular occurrence. It only took about three hours to completely charge the phone once we got home.

• Battery Life – 4/5
• Power Management – 5/5

The Bottom Line
So that brings us to the big question, “Would you recommend the Motorola Droid over the Apple iPhone?” Yes and No. In terms of technical specs, yes the Droid is better. Yes, the Droid does have more features. And yes, I would absolutely recommend that you check it out, but in the end it is a matter of preference. I don’t believe the Droid will be the mythical “iPhone-Killer”, but there’s a good chance the Android platform will. For example the HTC Hero which we reviewed last week and the upcoming Samsung Moment on Sprint both run on the Android platform. This means all the same set of applications downloaded through the Android Market, similar to the iTunes App Store, will run on any of those devices. Unless Apple drops a bomb in the near future with some major changes to the hardware and opens up the software, Android has a clear shot to take out the iPhone.

If you’re convinced and ready to buy a Motorola Droid, it’s going to hit Verizon Wireless stores this Friday, November 6th, 2009. Due to high demand, Verizon is opening all it’s stores earlier than normal at 7 AM. It’s not that expensive either considering the powerful camera, GPS Navigator, and 16GB MP3 player it packs inside. It will only set you back about $199 after signing a new 2-year contract and sending in a $100 mail-in-rebate. If you’re an existing customer who’s eligible for an upgrade, you should be entitled to an additional $50 or $100 discount based of the price of your current calling plan.

Links: VerizonWireless.com Motorola Droid

Note: This review was edited by Sahas Katta.

The Hardware: 5/5 stars
Although the HTC Hero shares similar elements of style from it’s European predecessor, this model has a new and revised body. The distinctive bottom lip (Jay Leno chin?) that characterized the original Hero has been replaced with a more traditional rounded edge. I never spent much time handling the chin-ed version, but I’m satisfied with the comfort the new HTC Hero offers. There’s a large illuminated trackball centered below the display. A send and end button are on the far left and right of the bottom portion, respectively. A Menu and Home key are on the left of the trackball while the search and back key are on the right. The mini USB port is on the bottom, the camera is centered on the top portion of the back side, and the headphone jack is on the top of the phone. The trackball was quite responsive and the inclusion of physical keys for answer and ending calls suited my taste. The phone isn’t the most fancy device on the market by any means, but it’s smoke gray coat with gun-metal accents look elegant. The phone’s also has a great grip to it and feels durable enough to survive a few small drops.

Touch Screen Display: 4/5 stars
The HTC Hero features a 3.2 inch 320×480 HVGA display. I should note that this is one of the few Android devices that supports multi-touch gestures. Even the Motorola Droid on Verizon lacks it. The screen is pretty bright and sharp. It isn’t extraordinary, but meets the standard of other smartphone displays. The default touch sensitivity was just right and was quite responsive. Since the phone doesn’t have a physical keyboard, the on-screen keyboard is the only option. It takes a bit of getting used to especially if you are moving over from a device that had a physical QWERTY keyboard. Even with a bit of practice, it’s still isn’t as easy to use as the virtual keyboard on an iPhone. The screen is a bit smaller and slower to respond. Photos and Videos either captured by the phone or transferred over all looked great on the display.

Battery Life: 2.5/5 stars
After using the phone for about a week or so, I have become quite disappointed with the battery life. A full charge should be able to last at least a full day. And of course, bearing in mind that you only run a fair amount of applications at a time. I found myself having to cut back down on checking emails, refreshing Facebook, and browsing Twitter just to save enough charge. Although HTC claims 5 hours of talk time and 360 hours of standby, I can testify that it didn’t last nearly as long. I did however see standby time improve after disabling the GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, however features such as those are what make this phone a good phone. I feel as though improvements could be made as easily as by releasing a software upgrade to manage power usage better.

User Interface: 4/5 stars
The user interface is a distinguishable factor of the phone. Dubbed “HTC Sense”, the interface is composed of seven customizable panels. These provide a wrap around panoramic view of everything going on. The panels are fully customizable offering you the power to select which widgets or application shortcuts appear. I found that the preloaded layout to be quite adequate for the average user, but it’s fun and useful to spend a few minutes and pick the things that fit your needs and taste. I wish more freedom was offered to rearrange items on the home screen. Overall, the interface looks quite wonderful, colorful, and exciting. Plus the widgets offer plenty of information on those panels without even having to open applications. The HTC Hero runs on v1.5 of the Android OS, but rumor states that an upgrade to the v2.0 OS will be possible in the near future.

Messaging + Email: 4/5 stars
The preloaded messaging app has a solid set of features. For SMS, it displays history of conversations between you and your contacts. Following a threaded message is more convenient than a mess most phones call an inbox. The default options such as quick text and attaching files are available. Unlike the the iPhone prior to the 3.0 OS, the Android supports copy and paste. Multimedia messaging worked seamlessly with Sprint’s network. Although the casual texter should be satisfied with the default app and a quick search on the Android Market will uncover more powerful messaging tools for the power users. Email on the Hero was quite remarkable. The setup process was easy and I didn’t have any configuration issues with any of the accounts I added in. The Mail App even provides the ability to consolidate multiple email accounts into a single view. Emails can also be tagged or labeled for organization. The Android 2.0 OS takes it a step further with more features, but even the current version offers just about all the features anyone would want on a mobile device.

Camera + Camcorder: 4.5/5 stars
The HTC Hero offers a powerful 5.0 megapixel camera with auto-focus. Unfortunately, a flash is missing and would have been a welcome addition. Photos can be shot in either landscape or portrait mode. Images max out at resolution of 2560×1920 pixels. There are a number of other features found in the setting including self-timer and timestamps. Photos in your library can also be easily uploaded to web services including Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. The camcorder functions almost as well. It wasn’t remarkable, but decent for a phone. Recorded videos can also be uploaded to YouTube or shortened clips can be sent out through a MMS.

Music: 5/5 stars
The Hero comes preloaded with an easy to use and functional music app. A widget displays the album cover and offers a few basic controls. Tapping on it will launch the full application. There’s a cover flow view similar to what iPods offer. There’s also a list view which allows browsing by Artists, Albums, and Genres. The phone even has a built in tool to create custom ring tones with your own music, take that iPhone! Sound quality through the speaker was decent. The quality with standard headphones plugged into a 3.5mm headphone jack is a lot better. No cumbersome headphone adapters required! And since Android can handle multitasking, you can do just about anything else you want while listening to music. This is especially handy with Pandora. Once again, iPhone can’t do that either. The Hero utilizes Amazon MP3 as it’s primary music store just as the iPhone does with iTunes.

App Store: 4/5 stars
The Android Market offers over 10,000 applications. That may sound like a lot, but that’s still a 10% of the 100,000 found in Apple’s App Store. Despite that, the quality of the applications I found were quite impressive. The interface allowed an easy way to browse, find, or search for programs. The reviews and ratings also help making decisions towards purchasing paid ones. Installation is as easy as tapping a button. The Android Market continues to grow and I’m fairly confident that with more Android-based phones hitting the market, there will be even more quality applications coming along.

Other Features: 5/5 stars
The web browser is fairly powerful and is close to what the Palm Pre and Apple iPhone offer. It utilizes the same pinch gesture to zoom in and out of web pages. There’s a tabbed interface to browse through different pages. Although it jerks at times, it isn’t too much of an issue. If you have decent amount of signal, pages load fairly quickly on Sprint’s 3G network. Plus with WiFi built in, everything becomes a whole lot faster. I was happy with the GPS performance on the Hero and the ability to use two very powerful navigation tools is a huge advantage over some other phones. Other features like the Sprint TV and Navigation package is a very nice benefit for being with Sprint. With Sprint’s Everything Data plans you have unlimited access to both.

Bottom Line:
The HTC Hero is a powerful smartphone and has a lot to offer. The hardware is excellent and the Android software is truly flexible. If you are currently in the market for a new phone, I would highly recommend taking a look at the Hero. I would definitely rank the Hero as one of Sprint’s best phones along with the Palm Pre. I wouldn’t suggest it for customers that aren’t tech-savvy, want a cheap plan, or don’t need business features. The packaging includes an AC adapter, a USB cable, a 2GB micro SD card, and documentation. If you are ready to grab one, it’s priced at $179.99 with a new 2-yr contract.

Links: Sprint.com HTC Hero | HTC.com HTC Hero Info

Nokia N95 8GB Specifications:

• Type: WCDMA 850/1900 + WiFi
• Display: 2.8-inch with 320×240 resolution
• Form Factor: Two-Way Slider
• Battery Life: 5 hours talk & 12 days standby
• Main Camera: 5 megapixel w/ flash & auto-focus
• Storage: Built-in 8GB Flash Memory
• Special: WiFi, GPS, 2nd Camera, Home Network
• Other: Bluetooth and Standard Headphone Jack
• Dimensions: 3.9″H x 2.09″W x 0.83″D
• Price: $550 – $650 for an Unlocked Version

The Body – 4/5 stars
From looking at the images, you’ve probably realized that this isn’t exactly the best looking phone. It’s a bit bulky and definitely doesn’t look attractive. Keep in mind the reason you are probably purchasing this phone is for it’s features. On the front of the phone you’ll find the large 2.8-inch display with four-way controls, send/end buttons, the left/right soft keys, and a couple other short cuts. Above the screen is the secondary camera with its flash for video conferencing and self-portraits. Sliding the screen up will reveal a numeric keypad while sliding it in the opposite direction will reveal multimedia controls. The power button can be found on the top of the phone while the mini-USB and charging connections are on the bottom. A standard 3.5mm headphone jack can be found on the left side of the phone besides an infrared transmitter. A volume toggle, media button, and camera key are all on the right side. The 5 mega pixel camera is on the back above the battery compartment which also holds the SIM card.

The Screen – 5/5 stars
The N95’s 2.8-inch screen can only display at a maximum of 320×240 pixels, but is extremely bright and sharp. Just about anything displayed on the screen such as the menus, photos, or videos all look wonderful. The screen also looks great out doors and glare isn’t as bad as it is on other phones. And for those of you wondering if the screen is touch capable, it isn’t. Although I felt it would have been neat for such a large, the control system is fairly easy to use once you get a hang of them.

User Interface – 5/5 stars
For a first-time user of the Symbian OS it took a little bit of time figuring out how everything in the phone work. But once you learn the general stuff, everything becomes quite easy. Just about every place you want to go in the phone such as the phone book, email, or browser are all individual applications. You can open them up and close them when you are done. Running too many at once can slow down or possibly crash the phone. Most of the apps have a similar layout. The left soft key just about always brings up a context menu of options to perform including quitting. The four-way pad is to browse through the menus and the center button is usually the ‘Enter’ key. The home screen is also quite informative as it displays shortcuts to the phone book, email, web browser, clocks, and camera. It also will show alerts, upcoming calendar events, connected access points, the time, signal strength, and battery life. Overall I loved it a whole lot more than the Windows Mobile OS which I dreaded to use on the HTC XV6800.

Office Suite – 5/5 stars
I also discovered that the Nokia N95 had a built in Office Suite with support for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDFs. I was able to quickly transfer a couple of documents onto the internal storage device with a USB cable then view them on the phone. Although the formatting on some them got distorted and others were slow to load, it would indeed be quite need to have these document views on a phone. To create new documents or modify current ones, you’ll have to buy the full $70 QuickOffice Suite. As for email, the phone supports the IMAP, POP3, and SMTP protocols. The interface is neat and easy to use. Push email is also supported by using the widely popular corporate Microsoft Exchange Server.

Digital Cameras – 5/5 stars
The Nokia N95 8GB has a 5 megapixel camera, which is the most powerful camera I have used on a phone. I only wish it had some optical zoom, which it didn’t. It does have a digital zoom, however this means quality is lost the further you zoom in. The phone takes photos quite instantly, however I noticed some lag when it tries to auto-focus and when saving the photos to the memory. The built-in LED flash is also quite bright and can easily make photos taken in under lit places a whole lot better. The quality of the photos themselves were pretty darn good. The colors looked natural in outdoor situations while the images were well focused and sharp. I was shocked to see how many options the camera settings offered. There were 6 scene modes including an Auto and a Custom option. The Flash can be turned off, always on, or set to reduce red-eye. There’s a self timer to take group photos. A burst mode to continuously take photos is available in addition to an option to take photos at a set time interval until the space runs out. The color tone, white balance, sharpness, contrast, and ISO can all be customized as well. Moving on to the .3 mega pixel camera on the front, it is plentiful for video conferencing since too much bandwidth can’t be transfered anyways. The quality is incomparable to the camera on the back and barley any customization settings are offered for the secondary camera.

Multimedia Playback – 5/5 stars
Once again, the N95 beat my expectations regarding music, video, and photo management. Starting with music, I was able to immediately start syncing my DRM-Free Mp3s in Windows Media Player 11 with the Nokia N95 without any additional software. I was also able to manually drop music onto the phone’s mass storage device and the files were also automatically recognized if placed in the right folders. The phone supports playback of AAC, MP3, and WMA files. I loved the music player interface as it was quite powerful and allowed me to browse by Songs, Artists, Albums, Genres, and Composers. Browsing through was quick and smooth without any hiccups. And with a 3.5mm headphone jack I was able to use my own Shure SE210 earphones. The built in FM radio was also a neat addition in case you get bored listening to your 8GB of music! To make things even better the phone also has a built in podcasting client. I was quickly able to download and start listening to the latest episode of TWiT through my WiFi network. (Can also use 3G data network!) Moving onto Video, the phone runs Real Player which has an excellent 3GP and MP4 decoder turn it into a great portable media player. I was also able to playback iPod Formated movie trailers and even DiggNation episodes without needing to re-encode the content into a special format. Everything worked as it things should without any horrible twists.

Speakers & Headphones – 5/5 stars
The Nokia N95 has a set of stereo speakers which was the best that I had seen on a mobile phone. The quality was clear and crisp. Even with the volume turned up to the max, it remained clear without beginning to crack like most phones do. The audio playback quality through the headphones was excellent. I wasn’t able to tell apart it apart from when playing the same song on my iPod Nano.

N-Gage Games – 4/5 stars
I had a chance to play some demo games available on the phone and the quality was quite impressive. The graphics was much better than I had expected a mobile phone to have the power to handle. The games are by no means as good as those on the Sony PlayStation Portable, but are much better than games available for most mobile phones. The games seemed a bit pricey, but it’s still a plus that they are available for purchase and that the phone can handle and support playing them.

Phone Functions – 5/5 stars
The phone comes with all the standard functions of most phones on the market. These features include an excellent phone book with pretty much no capacity limit, speaker phone, conference calling, bluetooth headset with stereo support, speed dial, voice commands, text messaging, email, calendar, calculator, notepad, voice recorder, and more! With a 3G Network, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS, and WiFi (b/g) the phone is almost always connected to something. Despite this it has a impressively powerful battery and manages it’s power saving quite well with the ambient light sensor. The phone had better signal in most locations versus the phone I usually carry. Call quality was pretty clear and crisp. WiFi signal strength was quite strong as well. The Bluetooth in the phone supports more profiles than any phone I have ever used meaning that it should connect to just about any device you can think of. The phone also supports the new DLNA media sharing protocol so once I connected my phone to my home network, I was able to access music, photos, and videos on the phone from my laptop and even my Sony PlayStation 3.

Web Browser – 5/5 stars
The N95 features an impressively powerful web browser. Sometimes web pages took a bit long to render, but in general they rendered a whole lot better than on most phones I have seen. I still feel the iPhone’s Safari browser is superior to this one in most aspects. However the N95 topples the iPhone’s browser in some aspects such as supports for the Flash player. This means YouTube and a whole slew of other streaming videos can be viewed from within the browser. The browser works by accessing either a WiFi access point or using the Cell Phone network, both of which functioned well.

GPS and Maps – 5/5 stars
The phone has a built in GPS which can be utilized for many different purposes. The N95 allows locating yourself on a map, getting directions, looking for points of interest near by, and much more. I didn’t have a chance to test the turn-by-turn directions, but I would expect it to work as advertised. The phone also has a cool feature to tracking your jogging and it takes it to a whole new level by recording pace, distance, time, altitude, speed, and steps taken. (Displays pretty-looking data graphs too!)

Included Items – 5/5 stars
The Nokia N95 comes with a couple accessories in addition to the power supply. Nokia includes a USB cable for data transfer and syncing media. A pair of headphones and a small wired controller to control music playback. The phone is also capable of video output using the included composite cables. Other than that Nokia provides a CD with some software, a couple of manuals, and a quick start guide. For the price that this phone goes for, I wish they would have also thrown in a case.

Conclusion
Overall the Nokia N95 is now one of my personal favorite phones. It is definitely not for everyone and most people will probably never get to using even half the features it offers. But for those who are looking for a high end smart phone, the N95 8GB will not be a disappointment. The only thing I felt that this phone lacked and that I should mention is the fact that it lacks a microSD expansion. Although it has 8GB of on board flash storage, it would have still been a nice addition. The phone offers more battery life talk time than most phones. With a powerful office tools and media playback tools the phone covers just about all grounds. The only downside might just be the high price of $600. The phone is currently not available through any service providers in the United States. However that doesn’t mean it won’t work here. You can just go ahead and purchase the North American version from a site such as Amazon. And for service, you can sign up to a calling and data plan from AT&T and insert the SIM card you receive.

Links: Nokia N95 8GB (nokia.com)
Purchase: Unlocked Nokia N95 8GB (US) – $580

Today, Motorola announced the Motorola Q, a PDA Smartphone to compete with the Palm Treo and RIM Blackberry. The phone is powered by Windows Mobile 5.0 and supports the high-speed EV-DO network. The phone will be available starting next week (May 31, 2006) through Verizon Wireless. The Moto Q also includes a full QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth, 1 mega pixel camera, miniSD expansion slot, and speakerphone. This phone will be especially useful for people that exchange many emails continuously since it supports synchronizing up to 8 Microsoft Outlook Accounts at once. The phone is quite expensive, and will run you $199.99 even after signing up to Verizon’s Voice/Data Plan and signing a 2-year contract. Although Motorola didn’t state when they would release this phone for other carriers, they probably will do so soon.

“On Verizon Wireless’s broadband EV-DO network, the Moto Q brings together all of the converged solutions you need to work, stay in touch or have fun.” – Ed Zander, Motorola CEO

This phone has not been officaly reviewed by anyone at this time, but the specs speak for themselves. The phone seems to be promising, however this such as the short 4-hour talk time may just not cut it for everyone.

Links: Motorola Q (demo) | Verizon Wireless (info)
Related: Offical HQ Images | PhoneScoop Specs