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A few weeks ago I posted about the Nokia N95 8GB trial I was offered by WOM World. I have had the Nokia N95 8GB for almost an entire weekend now, and here are my first impressions.

The first thing is that the N95 is considerably larger than my Motorola RAZR v3. It is not so large as to be cumbersome, especially considering the features that are packed into the package. So, let me tell you about the features I have used so far:

• 5 megapixel camera
• WLAN support
• Downloadable applications
• Multimedia player
• GPS

When you look at the phone when the slider is "closed", it looks very much like a standard point-and-shoot digital camera. It takes surprisingly good photos. Click on the thumbnail to the right to see the first photo I took with the N95 on a recent trip to Cabela’s. It works at least as well as any other point-and-shoot digital camera I have used, but it is certainly no replacement for a digital SLR camera. There is a secondary camera on the face of the phone, which also takes a decent photo. You can store your photos on the phone’s 8GB of memory, but you can also upload your photos directly to Flickr via your mobile data plan or WiFi.

In addition to still photography, both cameras can record videos at a decent frame rate (I’ll try to post a video later). Again, you can store the video on the phone, or upload it to one of the video partners, which I can’t remember right now (the phone is upstairs charging). You can also make video phone calls from your N95, if you have a USIM card and a network that supports video phone calls.

The WLAN support on the phone is pretty solid. You can set the phone to automatically search for WLAN networks at three different intervals and have it notify you when it finds a network. You can also have it search for WLAN networks on demand. Since I do not have a data plan for my cell phone, I have been using WLAN exclusively for all of my internet connectivity on the N95. One of the things that has bothered me is that I sometimes have to re-enter my WEP key (I still have devices that don’t support WPA) after returning to the house. I haven’t yet read through any of the documentation that came with the phone, so I don’t know why this is happening.

Using the my WLAN connection, I was able to download a few applications this weekend, including Gmail, Gmail for Domains, Amazon, and Flickr. I am trying to figure out which way works best to check my Gmail and ask-mark.com e-mail: the Google applications or the web browser. Something that has annoyed me with both the Google applications and the web browser is the need to login each time I open the application or web page. If I haven’t actually exited the applications or the browser (you can leave them running int he background), then I don’t have to login, but the applications continue to sit in memory and consume battery power when not closed. If someone knows how to remedy this problem, please post it in the comments below.

The multimedia player in the phone is capable of playing several audio and video formats. I don’t know how the playback quality compares to the iPod or Zune, but the demo videos that come with the phone aren’t too bad. You can play the video on the built-in screen, or output it to a TV using the included TV-out cable with RCA audio and video connectors. The audio for the video can be played through the stereo speakers or through a headset; however, you cannot simultaneously use both a headset and the TV-out cable because the use the same port.

I have not actually used the GPS yet, but it has built-in GPS support. I will play around with that later this week. I am interested in trying it out with the Workout application, which lets you track your progress as your workout and/or run.

So far I am enjoying my trial of the Nokia N95 8GB. There is a lot of stuff to play with on the phone, and I have only scratched the surface in a couple of days with the phone. Check back soon for more about the phone and what I think about it.