Nokia's Clever Design That Created A Monster 

Hey thanks for the shout-out! Been really enjoying your videos over the past year or so. Please keep it up! 🍻

The N-Series was basically a true multimedia monster. Playing games on this phone with the N-Gage 2.0 is truly an eye opener for a mobile game

The N95 is probably the best ever phone made by Nokia. I remember my mom had one. How it has WLAN not only maked it good for 2007 standards, but also how this phone has a 5MP camera.

The Stephen Elop thing was an obvious episode of a corporate Trojan horse. He moved to Nokia from Microsoft and made the baffling and hugely risky decision to make them go all-in with Windows Mobile instead of going with Android or even developing Maemo/Meego further. When it inevitably failed, he sold Nokia to Microsoft for almost nothing, and took a job back with Microsoft again. It should have been illegal. And Nokia’s board should have seen it coming. Nokia today should be one of the “big three” with Samsung and Apple. It should be leading Europe’s tech sector. Stephen Elop made sure it wasn’t.

a couple of months ago, i brought my N95-1 to a school trip everyone was like ''how old is that??'' ''can it play snake?''... i took a lot of photos with it, and it shows how good the camera is, even today also i have a nokia phone collection, with 23 different models

Two things I can think of worth mentioning. 1. You could multitask and switch between/close apps by holding the left menu key (from memory). 2. Nokia had an experimental app that was actually a self hosted social page that ran on the phone. From memory it ran as a web server. Was AGES ago but might be worth trying to dig up as would probably make an interesting video.

I had one of these for years, even didn’t buy the first gen iPhone because it didn’t do half the things I could do on my N95, especially once you started installing third party software on it. You could even make wifi hotspots with it and tether your laptop over it using third party software. Pictures I took on that phone still hold up today.

Thanks for the great video! This was truly one of the most legendary smart devices ever made. I wanted one but I never was able to get the N95, years later I did get the N79, then the N97 mini, then the N8... And at one point I was daily-driving them all at once while everyone around was getting on the iPhone and Android train. I eventually used the Norton hack on all of them. The N97 mini is gone now sadly, but the N79 and N8 are still kicking. Keep up the great work!

This phone was able to make video calls even that long ago. Where as the first iphone didn't even have a front camera. It was indeed a game changing feature at that time.

I have an N95 8GB, and I must say its design still screams flagship even after all these years.

Nokia and their design team was ahead of its time.

I was a kid and i remember that the head designer of the N Series was an Argentine called Axel Meyer. In an interview he said that under his team he had many professionals in many areas. If i remember correctly, he said that the idea of using an LED in a previous phone as a lantern came from an English anthropologist in his team. That wasn't common like it's today. Just a fun fact.

I've been looking at old Nokia Nseries stuff for the past week and here you are dropping this. I wanted N95 so much as a kid. You're one of my favorite retro ytubers. Thank you for sharing!

Opera Mini was the best mobile browser back in those days. My first digital pictures and videos was taken in a Nokia N95.

A nice trip down the memory lane. That Snakes game is amazing even today. I had an N95 briefly at the time, while replacing the phone body for a boss, well, only bosses could afford it back then. I had an N73, and Symbian became usable by everyone only with 6120 Classic, which was fast and small enough to win the hearts of IT people, who had preferred S40 before.

This is my own credo as an end user: keep the code base minimal. The AV being the entry point is a classic still valid today.

It can also play N-GAGE, GBA, J2ME and SYMBIAN apps/games. And supported app store before iOS. It was smartest feature phone and multimedia powerhouse of its time. Also really underrated device in retro gaming community.

When I saw the video cover, I thought you were going to show the program I'm working on for the Nokia N95. It's a modeling, animation, and rendering program based on Blender for Nokia. To this day, the most impressive thing I've seen is Quake 3 Arena running on the N95 with a Bluetooth mouse and TV output

Elop was a Microsoft executive right?

This was my most favorite and memorable phone. Someone ended up buying me a Nokia N97 phone at some point as a gift when I had this one and I felt bad that I couldn't switch because it felt like a downgrade. I used the GPS of the phone to find the office building of a job I ended up getting driving from Abu Dhabi to Sharjah. The entire phone was a joy to use.

I worked on the graphics acceleration for this phone, and that glitzy 3D menu when you slide out the media keys. This phone was a beast, with amazing graphics power for the time; I wish the Nokia engineers could have had free rein to push what it could do.

I sometimes feel like Janus is making magnificent commercials for stuff they don't sell anymore.

The quality of that Composite Video Out from that phone is surprisingly good!

Unfortunately, Nokia did cave to mobile carriers' demands to remove or disable WiFi in certain phones. I had the E62 for a while. It was the North American version of the E61 (exclusive to Cingular and Rogers.) It was GSM/GPRS/EDGE-only, without the rest-of-world 3G capabilities of the E61, and it lacked the E61's WiFi radio. The Rogers supplied version even excluded the USB data cable normally included with the E61. I probably would have kept the E62 as my daily smartphone for longer than I did, but the lack of WiFi and the extortionate data rates in Canada at the time meant that I leapt to the iPhone 3G and what seemed like a stunningly cheap $90/6GB monthly plan when it was introduced.

As far as Symbian based Nokia phones, I've had: Nokia 3650 (with it's weird circular keyboard layout - get that one for review), 6630 (the successor of 3650 design, and first Symbian Nokia to have 16 bit 44kHz audio native), Nokia 6680 (The first with selfie and video calling front camera), then, N95 (wow was the phone great! I've laughed to the Iphone, with it's abysmal 2G EDGE connectivity - I was using 3G phones for years before Iphone got announced, and now had 3.5G (HSDPA) phone while iPhone had 2G only, lack of video recording - we had VGA 30fps, no GPS - hahaha, and no real apps (first two versions of the iPhone OS supported only so called "web apps", while on Symbian we had real apps!)), and finally I had Nokia N82 (the first Symbian Nokia with Xenon flash, I had xenon flash in my phone!). Then I moved to the "dark side" - Android - HTC Desire, and was blown away by Amoled screens, but disappointed with abysmal camera quality).

I had one of these when I was serving in Finnish Defense forces. Couldn't have asked for better phone. Durable, long battery life, good communications even in the forest in middle of nowhere. I had it on my 24/7 no matter the weather or exercise.

Ah, the N95! I had the 8 GB version, and it was a BEAST. Feature-wise it was FAR ahead of the first iPhones, but both hardware and software were clumsy as hell. The app compatibility issues were made even worse by the carriers. Without a central app store, they had absolute control over what got on their customer's phones. I vividly remember wanting some Gameloft games that WERE available for the N95, but not on MY carrier. The solution? I learned how to hack the phone, of course. 😅 When I switched to Android (a Motorola CLIQ) a few years later, I was shocked at how many features I took for granted on the N95 were missing. Especially games and advanced camera features. I was playing God of War, Asphalt 2, Skyforce, and taking panoramic photos on my N95 way before Android users were able to do the same.

feeling nostalgia for opera mini

I love how continue in full screen just removes the title bar and menu and doesnt change the size of the video due to the aspect ratio ;)

What a great video, thank you! IIRC, the N95 was tagged the first phone to be praised by journalists/reporters as they used to gather video news. Did the N95 also include a FM transmitter with RDS to listen to your MP3 files on the car stereo?

Try Nokia Xpress Music 5730, a slide media focused phone that runs Symbian S60 V.3 if i'm not mistaken. As the Xpress Music was a booming and ahead of it's era, worth to reviewing it. If you decided to review this phone, please pin my comment. I guarantee that you would like that phone.

I had 7650 followed by 6600. 7650 was iconic in a way it was the first s60 with built-in camera, truly ahead of it's time. 6600 brought improvements in every aspect, from form factor to expandable memory to more customizable OS (themes, etc)

I loved my N95 . It was love at first sight . I bought it day one , used it for over 3 years . I still have it after all those years .

Never had the N95 (as I was just in 5th grade at the time), but I had two Symbian OS phones- Nokia 6600 and Nokia X6 '09. I remember playing tons of games as a kid including SkyForce as well. Red Faction, Puyo Pop, Frozen Bubble, Railrider, Rayman 3 were some of my favorites. Watching this video today helps me remember how I dreamt about getting this phone and wishing I was older that year to be able to buy one myself. I think Nokia N95 was the GOAT. It was Nokia's peak. Sadly, when one thing reaches its peak, there's no other way but to go down.

I had the black N95, it was awesome and one of the reasons I could not get that excited about iPhone. Nokia had other pretty cool N-series devices too. N90 that came before N95 had so high resolution, that the display was almost retina level at 259 ppi. Let that sink in. It was 2005, retina debuted with iPhone 4 in 2010. It took a long time before I saw another display that crips. The later released N95 nor iPhone came even close.

Woah, this brought back so many memories! When I moved out from my parents house in 2008 to another city 300 kilometers away, I actually used my N95 as navigation system in the car. The first night I spent in my new flat, I actually watched "No Country for Old Men" on my N95, as I didn't have a TV back then. It was such a great phone and I still have all the photos and videos I made with it back in the day.

Blocking installs of unsigned applixations is why I prefer Sony Ericsson. They can run whatever you throw onto it, no matter whether it's signed.

I used Nokia N70 Music Edition for 6 years. I loved it some much. The feature i liked most was it supported both symbian and java apps. Searching and installing cracked version apps from 3rd party websites was fun. Installing themes to change the look was so easy which today's android phones lack.

I had one for work. It had a built in sip / VoIP client. It was setup with my direct dial phone number back in the office. Such a tactile phone - the build felt so nice in the hand and the slide was addictive 😁

This was my first smart phone. I went to the launch party Nokia had in Melbourne. I worked for Vodafone at the time. Its wifi hotspot was mind blowing.

That black cat is beautiful :) My version of N95 is not in the best shape, but works fine, has a generic firmware, and its battery is still working.

4:32 That "Made in Finland" reads and feels premium. Good old days.

Owned this phone back in 2008 to 2010. Had a very bad OS in the beginning. Laggy, slow and unstable. Late 2008 Nokia released an update which really improved the software quality. The functionality was a big plus at the time but tbh it was also a brick in your pocket. Unfortunately, the double slide functionality wasn’t very practical when walking around having the phone in your pocket. It was always sliding and activating functions. I later replaced it with be Nokia C7 and loved its flat design.

My mom wasn't a techy person. When she brought home a brand spanking new N95 as her phone i was really surprised. I had only read about it in tech-oriented publications. After a while i became extremely interested in the N82, as it was one of the only phones with a "real" xenon flash. And was small and portable enough to be pocketable. Never got the chance to get one, but i still think it looks great.

My biggest complain with the N95 8GB, back in the day, was that it probably had the slowest flash memory I have ever seen in my life, period. Also, it lacked FP2, the system was kinda sluggish compared to other FP2 devices, like the 6120 Classic, which is as snappy as it gets.

I love my Nokia n95 it was so ahead of its time I was watching RU-vid’s and movies years before people could

.sisx games were cool, but N-Gage 2.0 had all the kids in my class going nuts. I will never not miss the media buttons, they need to make a comeback. I had the 8GB model which was a humongous amount of storage back then

Debranding the N95 is pretty easy, all you have to do is change the product code to a unbranded one using nemesis service suite then flash the firmware using phoenix service software, you also get some performance improvements and auto rotate once you update, I've done this on many Symbian phones. I've got an N95 myself in brown and it's a very cool phone

I had quite a few Nokia and non-Nokia Symbian phones: Nokia 9300, E90, N97, Sony Ericsson P910i, P1i, and W950i just to name a few that I remember.

I still have my black N95 8GB and it still works. It was bought on launch day and used for 2 years without any issues

9:23 this game was just amazing for its time. The graphics was unique, going from squares to hexagon levels were really a challenge back when I was a kid. I used to play this game in my aunt’s phone but I don’t remember the Nokia model. It was similar to the n95 except the dpad had this joystick instead of buttons

Sliders and flip phones are just simply cool and that will always be the case for me at least. I think I mentioned it before but there was this one phone that flipped the normal way with the normal numpad and then it could also flip landscape and the e-ink buttons changed to a full keyboard. I knew someone in HS with that phone and it was just cool. I also had the flip up phone (like the LG Wing) and I was the only one I saw in school with it. It really is a shame that the TV out died from phones, although I do know that the 30 pin dock connector iPhones might have had that since it was more ipod than not in the beggining. Plus, there existed some phones later like the Moto Droid that had dedicated micro-HDMI ports. And these days USB-C could achieve this if the vendor chooses so. It is unfortunate how carriers forced functionality to be locked out of phones back then. BT was so neutered it was crazy. Good thing PocketPC and Palm OS based phones could skirt around those limitations via software. And restrictions like this is part of what kills gadgets dead. I know from experience it was a massive problem for the PS Vita. Also, what is funny is that there is a Palm operation environment called Styletap that has a Symbian version. That would certainly enable more apps to be used~ Wow, it is wild to see Nokia trying to claim Apple's iPhone would be a "nice" product as late as 2009!!! You see, when the first one came out, I could kinda see them saying such a thing then as the Original iPhone with the Original OS had zero 3rd party app support, only what came on the phone. (it didn't stay like that long ofc) but by 2009 it should have been exceedingly obvious that hte iPhone was a behemoth that was only getting better with every new phone (back then especially) Also, I remember being most interested in the Nokia Internet Tablets at that time since I already had some PDAs to handle applications and a PSP/NDS for games.

God I miss the N Series. Those were the best phones Nokia had ever made.

Still one of the best phones I've ever owned. I kept mine for years, then when I did finally upgrade, I kept it for another few years to use as a dedicated sat nav.

On this device you can easily play games like Doom or Duke Nukem 3D or all kinds of emulators. There was also an app for assigning the multimedia keys, so that you could control the games perfectly even in landscape format! The camera was way ahead of its time... I sold the device on eBay almost 10 years later for still over €350.

i had an e63 and subsequently upgraded to a e73 that i used all the way back until 2015. love the full physical keyboard, perfect for touch-typing under the desk at school.

N 95 love that phone, no issue at all, works great in 5 years 😊😊 0:20

I used to work in Nokia factory in Finland, in N95 assembly line. They used the name ”Aalto” (=wave) for that phone in the factory.

Anybody here who had Nokia 6600...?

I will never forget the Nokia N95, for 2 reasons.. 1. I wanted it immediately on launch.. I got it on contract, Even though i was only a college student with extremely limited income.... 2. My mother used to work at a Nokia factory, As night staff... And one night she was working, there was a robbery, and she was held at gun point....

I still can't accept the fall of Nokia. They were true Royalty.

Now that you mention symbian, you made me remember of a older phone I had, a Sendo X, hell of a smartphone for its time

Such a good video! Very well done. Like time travel! Keep making these 👍🏼

I still have 3 of those on my collection. All still working like new (obviously I bought new batteries)

It really infuriates me that at their end of life support, they don't just open source all the code, schematics, etc. If they don't want to maintain the devices anymore, let us.

A great video about the N95, they truly were the earliest smart phones of the day.

3:10 Not only by Qualcomm, but also by the MediaTek and Samsung Exynos chipsets.

2:40 got me bopping, such an amazing movie and song

I had a Nokia 5320 which ran on a later S60v3 edition and had a 369MHz CPU as well as 128MB of RAM. Jailbroke it using HelloOX and installed a lot of games and emulators on it, and also Opera Mini. It wasn't as fancy as the N95 but it did the job well for me.

The firm I was working for at the time supplied me with this phone, and a “Nokia pen” that worked with special encrypted paper that would allow me to send hand written surveys to insurance companies using the phones signal and Bluetooth instantly to the head offices email box. It was so advanced at the time and the phone’s camera was really impressive. Cool video 🤩☺️✌️

Speaking of horror games, anyone remember 7 days salvation?

That video out function was a lifesaver for the times my screen stopped working/I broke it.

HAL9000 on line again! Thank you for a new video!

I missed out on this one but I did have the N900. It fulfilled my dreams of a tiny micro computer. And it also had that dope-ass analog video out that the N95 did.

Still have it in my drawer. Went through the 3 screens replacement and 2 batteries. 8G version have had a glass screen protector if I remember correctly.

I miss typing blind with those alphanumeric keys😂

I used an old Nokia 6600 first which truly an amazing phone at the time. It was my first smartphone which was handed down to me by my dad. Later on, I got a Nokia N79 which was such a major step up. I remember installing ROMPatcher and N-Gage 2.0 games. The phone served me well for many years, probably failed only once. I have it with me till today, restored it back to its former glory last year.

Nokia N73, flashed the rom with a multimedia edition, installed unicode fonts supporting my alphabet, and was working perfectly for 4 years, just usual signs of ware , switched to Galaxy Note in 2012

Have used this beauty for 4 years. It was far ahead of rivals in terms of specs.

Love the irony you show of using Norton

i remember having a presentation at school, plugging in my phone to the tv and nobody believed me, the video was coming from the phone

Even with these innovations they died . Too much Stubbornness is not good.

Your videos are very informative in terms of covering these legacy devices in depth like describing their operating systems, apps, behaviours etc.. You even highlighted things like signing certificate, which took me back to the memory lane when I used to do these myself :) I have backups intact and I still hold many of the Symbian/Maemo apps, cracks etc... Your videos are treasure for the future generations 😍

Not sure why but somehow symbian always rubbed me the wrong way - never found it particularly interesting, maybe at that point I was just spoiled by palm and everything it could do. The real monster that nokia created at that time was the N900 - that thing had anything and everything, friend had one and was doing half of IT admin work right from it.

As a Sony Ericsson user I never liked Nokias software, but their designs were pretty good. Good news you can still use it in 3G till the end of August.

Getting the 8GB version was a pinnacle for me back in the days, incredible phone

I too had a Sony Ericson K750i. It was realy cool with it's micro size and 2MP camera. The first I could use to capture number plates in the event of an accident. I had to ditch it because it would often switch off, and I was refused customer service for this common problem. I then bought the N95. I took macro photos of a clover flower on a foggy morning. Among the best photos I have taken. At last I had a decent camera with me all the time. That's why I use a Samsung Ultra now.

This was the absolute goat. It had literally everything. No compromises. I remember wanting this phone so bad, it was like techo magic.

The lens on that camera is still significantly better than any current smartphone camera.

A lot of Qualcomm processors actually have display out support, sometimes multiple screens at 4k depending on grade. Most manufacturers removes the video out cable internally to cut costs

I had the N95 8GB and I was so proud of it. It felt like an extension of the design of the 8800 but with smartphone capability. I remember being amazed by the smoothness of Nokia maps, an app that Nokia would try to show off in its competition with the iPhone. Sadly when it came to the phone's successor they made the N96 which felt like it had been made with Lego so I ended up looking at the new Xperia range, the X1 (windows mobile) and the X10 (android). I would have bought a Nokia but by the time they made the leap to touchscreen phones they ended up landing on the Windows phone I had given up on them entirely. I miss their wow factor and how excited I was when I got the N95 8GB

i had this in my hands before the first iPhone from my step father, i was playing asphalt 3d game i was blow away by the quality. I bough later the Nokia Pureview 808 which i have still to take pictures only, a fabulous phone i've kept 5 years in use and still using 12 years after.

My first experience was the N-Gage as a S60 device. I was back in school when it launched and we all got them, modded them and played multiplayer games on them in class!

I was hoping on a nokia video, i even wrote a comment on one of the previous videos saying this. You delivered with quality, once again. Great work. Loved the video. Keep it up ! Should we move on to early android phones with amazing custom kernels with gpu and cpu overclocking and the "fast charge" tweaks that make your battery bloat like a baloon in a few charges ? xD Good old rom flashing days

The N95 was legendary. The N82, and E71 was legendary also.

I still have a pristine N95 in a drawer somewhere. I loved it so much that I didn't want to sell it when I replaced it with the N8 after a year of use. The only reason I got the N8 was that the mobile phone industry was moving to the touch based interface, plus the N8 had the best cameras on a phone at the time (with a real xenon flash too!) In hind sight, though, I now realize that the N95 was the better phone to use.

Lent my N95 8gb to my mum and she never gave it back! Awesome phone. The 808 pureview was the best Symbian phone ever made. For the first time ever, they gave it plenty of ram, the best camera that has ever been on a phone, proper amazing xenon flash. Still got mine. While the camera is not now as good as a top end modern phone, I still find it takes better shots because of its form factor!

I bought it as soon as it was released. I had just got in to high school. It was a gift from my mom. This phone ruined smartphones in general for me for a long time. It literally had everything. It got me in to basic photography which would later pave the way for a career. It took the competition quite a few years to truly catch up to this.

I had an E50 and I LOVED IT. I changed everything I could from ROM to themes, etc. Wonderful times for sure.

always a new adventure when janus uploads a new video