The Nokia N95 has already been hugely successful for Nokia, but the N95 8GB isn't simply a refresh with the upholstery refurbished and more memory installed. The increase in internal flash storage to 8GB is certainly the headline-grabbing upgrade for this model, but Nokia has also made other significant improvements to the phone.

These aren't just on the surface - although there are noticeable changes. Inside, Nokia has improved the software performance of this 3G HSDPA and Wi-Fi enabled Symbian S60 smartphone, with the internal GPS satellite navigation system updated and more fully integrated in this model too. Crucially, battery life has been enhanced by adding a higher capacity power pack - an essential upgrade for this pumped-up multimedia device that has enough memory to match an iPhone.

On the outside, the N95 8GB has been given a makeover, with a rather nifty black casing, replacing the silver look of the original. The next noticeable change is the display - it's been expanded in size from a 2.6-inch QVGA screen on the original to a 2.8-inch QVGA array.
This increase may not seem much, but side by side, the screen provides noticeably more viewing space. In a device that has a 5-megapixel camera, as well as excellent video playback facilities, a full web browser and the previously mentioned Sat Nav abilities, more screen inches mean a better all-round multimedia experience.

To demonstrate its video viewing finery, Nokia has included a full length movie - Spider-Man 3 - preloaded into the N95 8GB's memory. The smoothness of the playback and detail on the 16-million colour display are impressive, and you can even play the movie on your TV, using a supplied TV-Out AV cable. Of course, if superheroes aren't your thing, you can easily delete the movie file and use the freed-up memory for more tunes or other content.

The overall size of the N95 8GB hasn't changed from the original. Measuring 99(h) x 53(w) x 21(d) mm, and weighing a slightly heavier 128g it's still one big, chunky pocketful of phone. The implications for that larger display, though, are a proportionate scaling down in size of the navigation control button array below the screen. However, although smaller, the central navigation control D-pad and accompanying control keys are effectively no more difficult to press and use day-to-day than the original N95's.

With so many options to choose from in this smartphone's software, the menu navigation system is surprisingly easy to use, thanks to cleverly thought out quick access options on the phone's Active Standby screen, and a separate multimedia menu key. The Active Standby page provides user-configurable icons on top of the screen that can be set up for quick access to seven features or applications, plus there are indicator bars on standby for calendar entries, messages, a search option and WLAN status - allowing you to scan for Wi-Fi hotspots and activate a connection with a couple of button clicks.

The multimedia button - on the opposite side of the control panel to the S60 "squiggle"-marked key - pulls up a rotating carousel of content. You can view and spin through recent music, videos, image gallery, games, contacts, internet sites visited, and maps. A click takes you directly to the content you're after. Very slick and intuitive.

The two-way slider gadgetry is still as effective too. Slide the screen up and you get a lovely big numberpad with large, rounded easy-to-use keys; slide it down, and above the display you a set of controls for the music and media players appears. Also, this action automatically changes the orientation of the screen to landscape mode, so you can quickly get a full widescreen view, maximising the screen space.

There's a video-calling camera on the front, above the display, although the main 5-megapixel shooter is naturally on the back. The lens cover and sliding switch on the original N95 has been left off this design, which some people may welcome. It reduces the chance of accidentally switching on the camera in a pocket or bag, but the flipside is less protection for the lens. This once again uses high-quality Carl Zeiss optics, which Nokia builds into its higher-end cameraphones.

If you're after high-quality cameraphone shots, the N95 can certainly deliver. It has a responsive autofocus system that utilises a two-step shutter mechanism to help get the right subject sharply in focus. A macro mode is included too to facilitate close in shooting, and there are a range of shooting setting adjustments you can make to optimise the camera's performance, including exposure compensation, white balance adjustment, ISO light sensitivity, contrast, sharpness and so on.

An LED flash on the back panel helps illuminate low light shooting too, and the flash settings include a red-eye reduction mode for people shots.

The camera can be engaged by pressing a quick access button on the side of the phone, which becomes the camera capture button when its held in camera-like landscape mode. There's a digital zoom, operated by the volume rocker button, but no optical zoom, unlike the 5-megapixel Samsung G800 we tested recently.

It's possible to capture very detailed, well balanced, colourful shots with the N95's camera - you can see some examples of shots taken with the Nokia N95 8GB, ad more details about its camera capabilities, in our article "Nokia N95 8GB camera samples".

Video capture with the main camera is exceptional too - far better quality than on most cameraphones, with footage captured at maximum VGA (640x480 pixels) resolution at 30 frames per second, giving smooth playback that looks great on a PC screen, and fine even outputted on to a television set with the TV-Out cable.

The N95 8GB is set up for you to share camera content online, with standard upload options for Flickr and Vox when you take pics. Inside the phone, there's a Nokia Lifeblog function that arranges texts, other messages and images in timeline blog-style fashion, which you can sync to your PC and then store online too, if you like

With 8GB of internal memory though, you'll most likely to look first to stacking that memory with tracks. This is easy to do using a PC connected to the phone by the supplied USB lead, and Nokia Nseries PC Suite software or Windows Media Player 11, with which it will sync tracks and other media. Alternatively, it's possible too to drag and drop tracks into the flash storage, or zap tracks to the phone using Bluetooth. Copying over using a MicroSD card isn't an option, however, as one casualty of the boost in memory capacity has been the loss of a MicroSD card expansion slot.

Naturally, with high-speed 3G HSDPA and Wi-Fi onboard, over the air downloading of tracks straight to the phone are other, high-speed, options. As well as access to your mobile network operator's download service, the N95 8GB is one of the first Nokia handsets to be equipped with support for the Nokia Music Store download service. You can buy and download tracks straight to the phone using the application that's tucked away in the Music folder. Tracks cost 80p each, plus the cost of the data download.

The music player itself has a user-friendly interface that will be intuitive for anyone who's used an MP3 player, with tracks arranged in familiar categories - playlists, artists, albums, genres and composers. You can use the dedicated slider buttons when tracks are playing in the background too, which is handy.

The quality of the onboard music player is very impressive, traks come across with depth and dynamism, and with plenty of volume and bass too. You can get a decent performance from the supplied earphones, although Nokia has usefully included a 3.5mm standard headphone jack that allows you to plug in a pair of your own cans for an upgraded sonic experience (which we'd always recommend).

The loudspeaker set up, with stereo speakers on either side of the phone, can belt out tunes pretty loudly and unusually clearly (if bass-lite as usual). There's support for podcast downloads too within the music folder, plus an FM radio too.

Like the first N95, the N95 8GB features an integrated GPS receiver inside, but the new model also includes Assisted-GPS (A-GPS) technology to speed up user positioning and accuracy. When necessary, A-GPS uses network-based location information as well as satellite signals to help pinpoint the user's position. The N95 8GB also includes Nokia Maps software inside for location finding and map routing, using 2D and 3D mapping and thousands of points of interest.

But unlike the N95, which has to load new maps and information over the air via a mobile network as required, the N95 8GB is pre-loaded with maps for the whole of the UK and Ireland - another benefit of having that 8GB onboard This makes for an overall slicker and more integrated sat nav experience; it locks onto satellites quicker when first started and getting location or route information is far swifter. For turn-by-turn voice directions, though, you still have to subscribe to an upgraded version of the service, as you do if you want city guides and so on.

The lack of MicroSD card slot also makes loading up with a third-party Sat Nav application like Co-Pilot that much more difficult than simply slotting in a memory card. On balance though, we much prefer the N95 8GB upgrade.

The Nokia N95 8GB is also equipped for users to enjoy other online Nokia multimedia content and community sharing services under Nokia's nascent Ovi umbrella brand. Initially these include the Nokia Video Centre service - offering downloads and steaming from multiple video sources - and Nokia's newly revamped N-Gage mobile gaming platform.

The N-Gage software on the N95 8GB we tested was still pre-launch, allowing us to demo games only, with an option to download the full application when it becomes available. The demo games - FIFA 07 and Asphalt Street Rules 3 - were impressively rendered on the large screen, but N-Gage promises more than just good graphics; the interactive element and sharing is a key component of the proposition, so we'll have to wait and see how it performs when it's fully launched.

As a Symbian S60 smartphone, the N95 8GB comes with a generous set of out-of-the-box features and applications, plus the capability to download others to customise the phone's functionality to your own tastes. A full Nokia Web Browser, with its Mini Maps navgation tool, can give fast access to the full internet at high speed, and pages are usually well resolved (apart from Flash elements).

Email is supported, and you can download and view attachments using onboard Quickoffice, Adobe PDF viewer and Zip manager software. The N95 8GB is enabled for Bluetooth wireless keyboards too, so if you need to do plenty of email typing you could opt for one of these. You can also buy upgrades for the supplied Quickoffice software to enable editing and creating of documents on the phone too.

Nokia has also included a Download! tool for browsing a catalogue of free and paid for apps, games and other content for the device (here you can get more Spider-Man themed content free too). Among the free downloads currently available to bring onboard over the air are F-Secure Anti-Virus software, Yahoo! Go, WidSets widgets, Mail for Exchange push email support, and a Nokia Sports Tracker app that can interact with the GPS receiver to track your training performance. There's plenty of flexibility in this smartphone.

As you'd expect from a top-end Nokia S60 smartphone, there's a comprehensive suite of personal information management features already loaded into the phone - calendar, contacts, to do lists and notes amongst them - and these can be synced with a PC using Nokia PC Suite software. The N95 8GB is well connected - stereo Bluetooth, infrared and USB 2.0, UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) connectivity, plus over the air remote synchronisation are all supported.

The TV-Out cable can also be used to connect the device to show what's on the phone's screen in your living room - so you can watch picture slideshows, videos, games or even video calls as they're being made, on a regular TV set.

As mentioned at the top, Nokia has significantly reinforced the battery life of the updated N95 8GB to cope with its multimedia workload, with up to 40 per cent more standby time and 30 per cent more talktime.

The standby battery life quoted by Nokia has been boosted to up to 280 hours (the original N95's pack gave 200 hours on 3G or 225 on GSM), while talktime has increased to 210 minutes on 3G or 300 minutes on GSM networks (compared to a maximum 160 minutes and 240 minutes, respectively, on the N95). The phone performance of the N95 8GB is exemplary, too, with excellent sound quality and call holding in a variety of network conditions.

The N95 has been Nokia's heavyweight champion since its launch, with a wide array of top-class multimedia features, GPS inside and a high-quality camera and music player. Its latest firmware upgrades have addressed and updated some of the software issues with the original N95.

Despite retaining its chunky size, the N95 8GB, with its huge mobile storage capacity, upgraded display, improved GPS performance, enhanced software and extended battery life really moves the model up to an even more impressive level.

Nokia N95 8GB technical specifications.