The folks at WOM World have kindly hooked me up with a Nokia N95, Nokia’s flagship smartphone multimedia computer, and I’ve been playing with it almost nonstop for the past few days. Although the N95 software is a bit rough around the edges(there were moments when the phone froze up or experienced severe visual tearing and “Out of memory” errors occasionally popped up), the hyper-connected N95 shone as an excellent hardware platform for the next generation of mobile computing. And, with a few free applications, I was able to make the N95 do some pretty amazing things.

The N95 is without a doubt the most connected smartphone out there. Aside from the usual menagerie of bands (850,1900,etc) and bluetooth, the N95 also has broadband-speed 3.5G HSDPA(useless to us US residents unfortunately), 802.11g Wifi, an integrated GPS(a first for a Symbian smartphone) and even an FM radio. Although the N95 is a fairly capable smartphone/rudimentary PDA in its own right, it truly shines when coupled with a high speed connection. Since cheap and ubiquitous 3G is quite a ways off for those of us in the US,I’ve been using the N95 coupled with a WiFi connection. WiFi hotspots are getting more and more common, and as free municipal WiFi begins to take off, it is not unreasonable to assume that soon we will all be getting online wirelessly wherever we are.
There have already been numerous excellent reviews of the N95, so I won’t bore you with another one. Instead, I’ve tried to look at how, using only existing hardware and software, it is possible to experience a glimpse into the future of mobile, pervasive communication. As one of the most advanced mobile devices to date, the N95 is certainly qualified to deliver such a glimpse. What is now cutting-edge will soon be mainstream. In the near future, we will:

read more | digg story