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nokia n95: my review

hey mates
been a while since i last posted here. after my xda2, i've been using a mio a701. i was then given budget for a new office phone so what the heck i tried out the n95. here's a review after a month's worth of use:
1) battery - if you're a heavy user of bluetooth, wifi, internet, etc...then chances are you're going to charge this almost every night. the bat was okay and i think it could hold it's own for around 2-3 days. i did try out the media player and after like 2 hours of use the battery went down to almost half (from a full charge). i just ordered 2 extra batteries from ebay...good thing their cheap at 2.00usd each.
2) camera - one of the reasons i got this unit. excellent quality given that it's using carl-z optics. the 5 megapixel is quite good and the flash does work wonders. thing is, the camera can also drain the battery if used continuously. yup, the battery is the number one gripe for the n95. however, i was able to buy this little accessory while in hong kong:
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yup, it's a zoom lense. the package comes with a crystal case and from there you attach the lense holder at the back. you have to be careful before you stick it in. the surface comes with a special adhesive. you have to be careful you put the holder in the right position else you risk having an off-centered lense. once attached, the zoom lense slides into the grooves and there you go. i tested it myself and i must say i was impressed with the telescopic feature. you can then remove the zoom lense and keep it in the padded pouch. i was also able to buy a tripod which clamps the phone in place. regular camera tripods allow you to screw the cam on the holder. for the nokia, the tripod has a padded clamp which holds the unit in place.
3) speed - around 9 years ago i was using a nokia 8850 before i switched to ppc units. i'm still getting used to the fact that i have to use the keypad...and no more stylus for me to pull out. other than that the speed of the unit is quite good. applications start out fast. i tried opening several applications at once and it was able to cope without slowing down.
4) media player - i loaded my mp3s on the micro-sd...paired the unit with my r-35 itech headset and there you go...the a2dp works great. i also shut off the bt app and tried out the stereo speakers. although we're not talking b&o quality here the sound is quite good. i think the speakers have been set so as to prevent the speakers from blowing out. in other words, i cranked up the volume to the max and it showed no signs of distortion. it was loud enough to be heard but of course i would expect that the sound would be drowned out when you're in public (like in a bus or a crowd).
5) sliders - the dual slide system...in my opinion...is not as handy. sure it's an added feature..but when you slide it to the right the screen goes on landscape and simply opens up to the animated menu. this is the same menu which pops out when you press the right bigger button while in portrait mode. from there, you have press the central select button to activate the media player.
6) tv-out - the unit can be plugged into the tv and use the screen to display whatever you want. in this case i also loaded a 3gp file of the movie "happy feet"...and to be honest i was quite impressed. it was like having a mini-dvd player. you can also use the tv to display photos or whatever
7) gps - one of the reasons why i bought this unit....but i wasn't as impressed. if you're a hard core navigation user, then better stick to using ppc gps applications. here in thailand i've been using gps to get around as i'm not a native of this country. i've been using powermap v7 for my mio and i was always happy with it. for the n95, the application is called "maps". you then have to install "maploader" into your pc to enable you to download all the maps you need. the pro for this is the maps are free. the con is that you have to pay for navigation services. although the maps application can provide navigation, it will not give you voice directions. you have to pay for this feature...and it comes in plans. it's not a 1-time payment deal...when you pay it can be for 1 year, 2 years, etc.
paying involves connecting to the internet via your gprs /wifi or whatever method you use. although i'm honest in saying that i'm fortunate the company pays for my phone bill, if you're a regualr plan user this can be a burden.
another thing about the gps is that the antenna is on the bottom of the phone. you would have to tilt the unit around 45 degrees in order to get a signal. i would recommend that you switch to landsape mode so as to allow the antenna direct access to the sky.
getting a signal is okay if the sky is clear. while inside the car, i saw some delays and difficulties in getting a satelite signal. i bought an extra gps-receiver and that boosted the connection speed. although there are symbian gps applications like route66 or tomtom, unfortunately the maps are still limited.
don't get me wrong, i like the n95. however, i'm also keeping my mio as i use it for gps applications. overall it's a good phone and i see myself keeping this for quite some time. i was thinking of getting the ameo...but the size factor is what's keeping me from doing so.
cheers

Aftermarket Docks And Fun With Tasker / Smart Connect

I bought numerous docks off amazon. They all are coming from China so I figured I'd order a few from different places and see what happens. Estimated delivery on the first dock was end of October and I recieved it the 19th of Sept.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D7VDPQ0/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_6
I got two from these guys and they are awesome. Very basic and simple, but the phone seats nice and snuggly with a full Skinomi CF skin applied and SP on front. They come with a somewhat short cable. They do not have a weight inside to give them that sturdy heavy feel, but this doesnt bother me, gives them a cheap feel but when you think that a chunk of pot metal inside means nothing then it's easy to accept. I have a few more coming in due time but so far I am very happy with these. They come in Black, White, and Purple. I ordered two black. I keep one on the night side stand and one beside my recliner. I will update with photos if there is any interest and also update with other docks as they come trickling in.
So on to the what we do with them part. This all started when I read the DIY dock topic. I built one and boy did it suck. So I said screw it, $15 and I can have one. I just wanted to charge without having to pick at that dump little flap with my gorilla hands but once I got to realize the possibilities it went crazy from there. I originally started with Sonys built in Smart Connect app but quickly outgrew it within an hour as I expected more and more out of it so I went back to an app I havnt used in years, Tasker. Smart connect is decent if you want some basic to mid level routines executed though. I had it set to
When Docked Between 1800 to 0600=Turn on BT>Connect to BT speaker>Launch Lightening Bug app> lower phone and notification volumes>Brightness to 50%
At End=Read Time>Raise all volumes to Max>Brightness to 100%>BT Off
Plus other variations on the above based on times (which covered if I was docked at bed or by chair)
However the Lightening bug app still kept going which is annoying since there is no (as far as i know) kill option for the at end. Tasker can be simple or complex, depending how far you want to push it. Im playing with plugins now trying to get it to recognize the dock state. Thoughts? Anyone else get a bit nutty with automating routines? Is this being discussed elsewhere and I need to STFU and go away?
**Edited title since I have more to add after getting spun up on tasker last night.
So I know there are others far more versed in the ways of Tasker than I, but I havnt seen any real discussions. Here's what I set up last night.
My Profiles (Think of as conditions to be met that trigger tasks)
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And these are my tasks, or actions. When a Profile is met, such as phone docked, then the linked task will be executed.
So the profile Dock Night (obvious bad pun intended), named because I plan to set up other dock profiles for work based on either time or location or other variable. Dock Desk Dock is the condition that must me met. Dock Desk is what and the second Dock means in rather than out of the dock. When this profile is met it runs the Night Dock task, which is a series of predefined actions. Lets look at those.
This one is very simple one once you know where to look for all the right pieces. I had to download a plugin for Tasker called Locale Dock Condition that easily allows tasker to see and work with dock states.
When inserted into dock it will:
Lower notification volume (3/7) for those middle of the night emails and texts
Sets brightness to Auto
Speaks outloud text indicating its in dock mode, something i admittedly threw in just to hear it.
Turns on BT which inturn connects to my BT speaker by the bed.
Loads App that plays the sounds for night time and locks display on for clock.
All of this happens nearly instantly and is awesome for not having to do stuff constantly. I have others that when you turn the display on it snaps a picture giving me a album full of selfies but the occasional shot of someone looking at my phone, usually wife. And others for when the passcode is entered wrongly. 2 times it snaps severals pictures and auto uploads to drop box. 5 wrong attempts it begins recording audio for 15 minutes and this too will be uploaded to dropbox.

Is there a way to configure the forced auto rotation in dock mode to be turned off?
If the phones docked even if I have auto rotation turned off in settings it just ignores it and rotates anyway.

[Review] Inateck Bluetooth Speaker BSTP-20

Inateck Water Resistant Bluetooth Speaker BSTP-20
Overview
Hi all. So i’ve got my hands on another product from Inateck, this time ive got hold of a new water resistant (IPX5 rated) blutooth speaker.
Unboxing
The hub arrived in a small black, quite premium looking box with raised smooth music notes on the front. There are no details listed on the front other than the company logo.
So opening up the box im greeted with a very well packed, plastic wrapped speaker and a box containing the cable accessories.
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Hands on
Ok so the plastic wrap has been removed and its time to place with the device.
As soon as I remove it from the bag the first thing you notice is how rugged this feels, I mean really rugged! around the sides is a continuous piece of rubber like plastic which feels really solid but at the same time feels like it could take a good nock and not damage the speaker in any way. Straight away feels like this is the kind of speaker you could take outdoors, camping or to festivals and not have to worry about it getting damaged.
The whole front of the speaker is the grill made up of a mesh of small circles, around which is a fine orange line as a design feature.
On top there are 4 rubber buttons, power, phone connect / hangup, volume up and volume down. On the right hand side is a rubber cover protecting the Aux in and USB charging point, on the left side is a rubber wristband.
The back is home to a smooth layer of plastic which is perfect for attaching the rubber sucker which is included if you want to use this thing in the shower, which i intend to
Testing
Theres a couple of ways I plan on testing the speaker. firstly with my phone to play audio over bluetooth, next as a phone speaker / mic to make and receive calls, and finally to play music stored on my android wear watch directly over bluetooth to the speaker (not via the phone).
Setting up
I was amazed at how easy setup was. pairing with my Galaxy S4 was as simple as holding the power button on the speaker for a few seconds to put it in pairing move and scanning for it from my phone. It paired up fine and was immediately able to play audio to the speaker with no messing around.
There isnt much else to show, it just worked, soon as i went to play music it came out the speaker with a good level of sound. The speaker is rated at 3W max output and some of the bassier songs made it crackle a little but for its size it pack a good quality sound clear, crisp with some good level base packed in. when standing the speaker up the rubber surround acted as a grip to stop it moving at all on my desk during my base music test.
The volume goes pretty loud. playing a David Guetta song I managed to register about 100 dB which is pretty loud.
Next up is the test to make calls. Again really easy, went to make a call and it just defaulted to the speaker. Its worth mentioning that the speaker has a built in microphone so you can talk at it to hold phone conversations. Again the sound was crisp and the microphone had no trouble picking up normal voice down to a whisper.
Finally testing it direct from android wear. This I thought might be a challenge for the speaker as it would have to pair with a new device whilst my phone bluetooth was on.
But no problems here, it found and connected directly to the speaker. Putting music on android wear for playback without the phone around is a bit of a pain. Basically you have to upload songs to google play music, then download it to the phone and have a setting ticked to also download to android wear. Wear watches only have 4gb storage so this can be filled quickly with a big library. For the purpose of this review I uploaded a single song onto the watch and shutdown my phone.
With the phone connected the default is to play through the phone unless you stop it from doing so, then the option comes up to play through paired bluetooth device. Again once I’d finished faffing with the querks of Android wear it worked perfectly. The music played from the watch with no issues, stuttering at all.
This is a massive bonus as you have on your wrist a portable music player which will work with this speaker no problem. I enjoyed a shower with my watch and some music with the speaker suckered onto the bathroom wall (dont worry no pictures!) I really really like that this worked fine with the watch and this is a massive plus point for me as it opens up the versatility no end.
Positive points
+Rugged design
+Rubber surround
+IPX5 rated
+Can be used to make phone calls
+Good sound quality
+Goes really loud!
+Sucker included so can be stuck on bathroom walls
+Works well with more than one device
+Works well with Android Wear
+Funky design. I really like the look and feel of this.
+Rechargeable battery
+Really simple to use
Negative points
-High volume bass starts to crackle
Conclusions
Overall a very nice little product. I was really impressed with how well it worked, and it just worked. I gave it to my non-tech savvy girlfriend and she figured it out without the instructions! The build quality is great, I feel like I can take this camping and it will just survive and last. The sound output is really good, I’ve left music on during the review.
Score
My Score out of 5:
:good::good::good::good::good:
5 out of 5 - I cant really find much to fault with this.
Bottom Line
Very impressive little device, lgood sound quality and rugged.
Links
http://www.inateck.com/inateck-btsp-20-ipx5-water-resistant-bluetooth-speaker/

My DIY bike mount

I was finally able to work on building a bicycle mount for my Tab S (8.4) and I though I'd share it with the community. It isn't entirely finished but it is in working order. The tablet and speaker are held on by Velcro with a rating of 10 pounds. A metal strap placed around the handlebar stem and screwed into the back of the wood. I plan on adding sides and a top to provide some shade for the tablet while riding during the day. It'll get too hot in direct sun light. Once the sides are up, I'll be able to attach my phone there with Velcro as well. I will probably attach a flashlight and/or my green laser pointer to the top.
I'm also up for suggestions if any of you have some ideas for adding even more functionality!
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Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk

This is awesome please don't hit a tree while watching YouTube....

DBCAB said:
This is awesome please don't hit a tree while watching YouTube....
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Click to collapse
Definitely no video watching! LOL I use it just for music for now. If I take my bike with me when I move to Dallas, then I'll use it for Google Maps too.

tablet, for listening music? why didn't you just mount a full blown pc in the back for winamp..

hurdlejade said:
tablet, for listening music? why didn't you just mount a full blown pc in the back for winamp..
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Click to collapse
Unless I'm missing something; what you said makes no sense? If the main purpose of the tablet while riding a bike is only to listen to music, why would I want to carry around a PC?

I just use an ipod or somtimes my phone with a Bluetooth headset to listen to music while riding my bike. I just put the device in my pocket. A 8" tablet seems like overkill. Also for safety reasons I keep the volume low enough to hear traffic.
Sent from my SM-T800 using XDA-Developers mobile app

Eddie Hicks said:
I just use an ipod or somtimes my phone with a Bluetooth headset to listen to music while riding my bike. I just put the device in my pocket. A 8" tablet seems like overkill. Also for safety reasons I keep the volume low enough to hear traffic.
Sent from my SM-T800 using XDA-Developers mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well; as I stated in the OP, I was thinking about bringing my bike with to Dallas. If I had, then I would have been using it for navigation as well. My phone is POS and the bluetooth and GPS rarely ever work. Even if I could use my phone for navigation, it would be a pain in the ass to have to pull out of my pocket every time I needed to look at it and I wasn't about to spend money on a mount when I could build one for a fraction of the cost. Not to mention the battery drain on the phone if I were using navigation AND bluetooth at the same time.
I ended up not bringing my bike though so the whole project, if you want to call it that, has been scrapped. Now I just use the tablet's leather case and set it in the dash area just behind the steering wheel (Don't worry! I can still see all my needles) and connect it to the bluetooth speaker. Strictly for navigation when in the car. I'm hoping to get a new phone soon so I can stop using my tablet in these odd ways.

noxarcana said:
Well; as I stated in the OP, I was thinking about bringing my bike with to Dallas. If I had, then I would have been using it for navigation as well. My phone is POS and the bluetooth and GPS rarely ever work. Even if I could use my phone for navigation, it would be a pain in the ass to have to pull out of my pocket every time I needed to look at it and I wasn't about to spend money on a mount when I could build one for a fraction of the cost. Not to mention the battery drain on the phone if I were using navigation AND bluetooth at the same time.
I ended up not bringing my bike though so the whole project, if you want to call it that, has been scrapped. Now I just use the tablet's leather case and set it in the dash area just behind the steering wheel (Don't worry! I can still see all my needles) and connect it to the bluetooth speaker. Strictly for navigation when in the car. I'm hoping to get a new phone soon so I can stop using my tablet in these odd ways.
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I guess it makes sense when using it for navigation. I have a bracket on my Harley for my Galaxy S7 phone. I use the Waze app for navigation on occasion but I mostly use it to stream music to my bike's stereo system.

My favorite feature

Using the secondary display as and application switcher. I really hope LG expands on this.
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This second screen window allows you to switch back and forth between apps like a mini windows taskbar (Running applications).

Don't forget in nougat, if you double tap the recent app button, it switches to the last app that was used

McQueefus said:
Don't forget in nougat, if you double tap the recent app button, it switches to the last app that was used
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:-o
Learn something new every day! Thank you!

planetbeen said:
:-o
Learn something new every day! Thank you!
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Click to collapse
No problem:good:

Also, you can slide your thumb left and right on the LG keyboard spacebar to scroll through the words you just typed.
Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

The 4 way DAC, with a semi-decent connected headphone and listening to a local FLAC, at least 24\96, has made me grateful we evolved with 2 ears. Led Zeppelin (the 45 RPM version )with the V-Moda wireless (though connected with it's included braided cable) has opened music, that I know very well, in a wonderful manner.
I had the Sony MDR7506 at 63 ohms and it made the hair stand up. I've returned it and ordered the BeyerDynamic DT 770 PRO 250 Ohms Studio Headphones. High Definition music, and a headphone that triggers the DAC, will make every other phone, you have listened to, into a Hodor. My mobile phone music player history goes back to the Seimens SX66 (from 2004) and 20 or so other phones that could play locally stored music. This thing is a beast.

Good stuff!
Sent from my LG-H918 using Tapatalk

When I was considering the V20 I was like, ok it has good audio, but whatever. I focused more on the removable battery, screen size, second screen and overall specs.
After trying the DAC with my Audio Technica noise cancelling headphones I am like WOW! And that's with no special music, just regular mp3s. Is like that every instrument and voice is in the room next to you when the DAC is activated! I am glad that LG took the effort to develop a high quality feature. Now I don't mind that I paid the early adopter fee (usually after few months phones like these are much cheaper on eBay) of paying regular price.
My other favorite and more practical feature is the second screen. I was used to the LED of my Nexus 5 and was a little bit concerned about getting used to the second screen. That said I usually look at my phone from 1-2 feet anyway when I want to check for new notifications and in this context the second is much better because I can see the notification icons.
The second screen can be used to control your music as well!

haris163 said:
The second screen can be used to control your music as well!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only annoying thing about music player on second screen is that when playing music on lockscreen it doesn't stay on music player (it keeps going back to default screen). I have to keep swiping it back to music screen everytime I want to change a song.

This evening I went to a small recital to try and record in 24\192 again. My 2 previous shows had been disappointments with the result. It was mostly my fault but I took steps to correct my methods. Wow! I don't what the 2 auto modes are for but when I managed the gain and clipping in the manual mode, I got HD tracks that are worthy of commercial releases. One I got my fat fingers out of the way, and started sampling the results, between songs, this is my next favorite feature.
I also love the removable battery and SD card slot but I have had 3 LG phones before and trusted the engineering.

justthefacts said:
The only annoying thing about music player on second screen is that when playing music on lockscreen it doesn't stay on music player (it keeps going back to default screen). I have to keep swiping it back to music screen everytime I want to change a song.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If your headphones have controls (specifically an answer/disconnect button) you can double tap the answer button to skip to the next song.

dartinbout said:
The 4 way DAC, with a semi-decent connected headphone and listening to a local FLAC, at least 24\96, has made me grateful we evolved with 2 ears. Led Zeppelin (the 45 RPM version )with the V-Moda wireless (though connected with it's included braided cable) has opened music, that I know very well, in a wonderful manner.
I had the Sony MDR7506 at 63 ohms and it made the hair stand up. I've returned it and ordered the BeyerDynamic DT 770 PRO 250 Ohms Studio Headphones. High Definition music, and a headphone that triggers the DAC, will make every other phone, you have listened to, into a Hodor. My mobile phone music player history goes back to the Seimens SX66 (from 2004) and 20 or so other phones that could play locally stored music. This thing is a beast.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Enjoy those headphones. Not the most musical but still very good and great for critical listening.