[tomo28]

Can't decide between the 2 i know its personal opinion but all comments and votes will be greatly appreciated

[owain_thomas]

Hi

I'm writing this on my iPhone - something I could never have been bothered doing on my old n95. The iPhone is so much better at what it does well (Internet, email, proper media player) that the things that the n95 offers in exchange (gps, 3g) don't come near to making up for the poor screen, nasty input method, bad browser and very clunky interface.

Get an iPhone - you won't regret it.

[RobM]

What do you want the phone to do? What are your priorities? I've owned both, so I hope this is useful...

Both have the same storage... both have WiFi.... neither size presents a problem as the iPhone has a bigger footprint and is heavier, but the N95 8GB is thicker... the sound quality of both are on-par... those are the main things they have in common.

N95 8GB... The connectivity options of this are far, far superior to the iPhone. HSDPA makes web browsing very fast and it can be used as a modem for a laptop and if you're not in a HSDPA area, you still have 3G to fall back on. The web browser is as good as you'll find on any phone away from the iPhone. Bluetooth can be used for everything, including stereo audio, synchronising and data transfer. The screen is very good. Keypad is excellent which makes texting a breeze. Additional software is readily available and very well established. Battery life is just as good as the iPhone, if not a touch better (I'm getting 2-3 days out of the iPhone and got an easy 3 days out of the N95 8GB). The camera is very, very good and video recording quality is acceptable too.

iPhone... Terrible connectivity. Bluetooth cannot be used for anything more than handsfree kits, maximum data speed is via EDGE so browsing on the move is slow and much slower than the N95 8GB. WiFi shows the potential of the excellent Safari browser, which is superior to the browser on the N95 8GB by far. On-screen keypad takes some getting used to, but the auto-correcting dictionary makes life easier, if not as good as a physical keypad. Battery life is acceptable (see above comments). Sound quality is good, but bear in mind you'll need to buy an additional headphone adaptor if you want to use your own headphones (costs less than £10 though). The camera is poor, very poor. Almost acceptable if you only ever want to look at it on the screen itself, but otherwise poor. No video recording either. Also no MMS messaging, although I'm sure that will come in the future. The screen is awesome and combined with the user interface, it really brings this phone to life. It's the UI and the user experience you're buying into here. It is not the most technically advanced phone, period. But the UI, the way it works, the screen, the way you move around menus and move screen contents around is so far ahead of anything else it makes it a joy to use.

My advice.. think carefully about what you want your phone to do. If good connectivity, Bluetooth, fast browsing, a good camera etc etc are things you rely on or use a lot, you may struggle to get on with the iPhone.

If, however, you can live without the most advanced features, then the iPhone is so much more enjoyable to use and live with than anything else, you'll not regret buying one

[TerryUK]

I would say get an iphone, i have the N95 8GB and yes the features are good, but ask yourself, would you really use them all? The iPhone also looks amazing.

[tomo28]

thanks alot for all the info, well my last gen ipod battery is slowly going and lasting about an hour my phone is out dated and falling to bits, so i want a good mp3 player phone, a camera just to view on my phone mainly but will transfer to pc/ps3 sometimes as i go to alot of rock gigs and like to take photos and the odd video, like using the internet to check football scores, i think the maps will come in handy especially to pin point where i am in an emergency as my job is quite dangerous. Also i use the train everyday to get to work and i think the movie playback on the n95 is a nice touch am not sure if the iphone can do that. So maybe going towards the n95 at this point.

[RobM]

Originally Posted by tomo28

thanks alot for all the info, well my last gen ipod battery is slowly going and lasting about an hour my phone is out dated and falling to bits, so i want a good mp3 player phone, a camera just to view on my phone mainly but will transfer to pc/ps3 sometimes as i go to alot of rock gigs and like to take photos and the odd video, like using the internet to check football scores, i think the maps will come in handy especially to pin point where i am in an emergency as my job is quite dangerous. Also i use the train everyday to get to work and i think the movie playback on the n95 is a nice touch am not sure if the iphone can do that. So maybe going towards the n95 at this point.

The only thing from that list that could make the decision for you, is the fact you create videos on your phone. The iPhone cannot do this, the N95 8GB can.

Everything else listed, both can do and both do well. They do do some things in different ways though... for instance, transferring the pictures and movies you take from your laptop to phone can only be done via USB on the iPhone, but that's the quickest way anyway

The maps on the iPhone is very good, considering it's not GPS based. The N95 8GB does have GPS so will be much more accurate and, I believe, can give exact GPS locations which will be very handy in an emergency.

Media playback is very good on the N95 8GB, but looks better on the iPhone, in terms of screen size. It can play movies and it does so very well. The downside is it can only play movies that iTunes supports, whereas with the N95 8GB you can install Divx and other such codecs (many are supported natively) to watch anything you like. You just drag and drop straight onto the internal storage. With the iPhone, if iTunes cannot play the file you have no way of getting it onto the iPhone, so you'll have to find a way of converting films before you can play them.

HTH

[andykn]

My 2 cents.

I'm an N95 8GB fan and Rob's summary appears to be excellent.

I use the GPS in the car a lot, preferring not to have a separate GPS. I browse on the move rarely, just for the odd train time or footie score.

One argument is, if you/I had an iphone we'd use the internet on the move a lot more. You might want to check EDGE coverage where you go, browsing might not be so much fun without it.