Yes, yes, the Nokia N95 is a great phone. It has a badass 5MP camera rocking those high-quality Carl-Zeiss optics – like only “ze Germans” can do. It boasts quad-band 3G GSM and GPS radios. It’s got that beautiful, dual-sliding screen. If only it were a smartphone.
You don’t get to be a smartphone by having some nifty features and a nice camera.
- Edit Documents
Being a smartphone is about being “smart” enough to make things easier on the user. Smartphones boost the user’s productivity by helping them shoot out quick emails, text messages, and even edit office documents. The Nokia N95 only gives you an “Office Document Viewer.” You get an email attached office document, you check it over, you try to edit a correction, frustration ensues… - Keyboard
And speaking of shooting out quick emails and SMS text messages, a smartphone should have a keyboard – not a keypad. Unless you like tapping furiously away at those arthritis-inducing number keys, there’s no reason why everyone shouldn’t want a full keyboard. Think about how much time you waste correcting T9’s text prediction. Forget T9, get QWERTY. - No Touchscreen
How many d-pad clicks does it take to get to the bottom of an email? Too many, if you don’t have a touchscreen. Viewing webpages is a joy with the Nokia N95’s browser and high-res screen, but navigating through them can be a trying experience – without a touchscreen. And don’t even think about trying to highlight and copy a line of text, you’ll be at it all day – without a touchscreen.
To be a smartphone you have to save time and make it easier to edit documents, reply to emails, and navigate webpages. The N95 has such an impressive feature set, it’s really too bad that Nokia left out the right ones. The lack of editor, keyboard, and touchscreen turn these tasks into such an exercise that you might as well just wait ’til you get back to your computer.
In the end, the Nokia N95 is a pretty cool phone, just don’t call it a smartphone.