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After spending around 2 and a half years using Sony Ericsson mobiles and having a bit of a bad experience with a Nokia N70, i was pretty much set in my ways that my next phone would be still part of the SE line up.

The thing is… my next phone had to have a bit of flare when it comes to the whole ‘mobile PC’ genre that mobiles seem to be entering into these days.

Now the gist i get from SE is that theres two markets… the Cybershot phones and the Walkman phones, and on my new unit i was hoping for… a good camera, the ability to be a good music player and perhaps use a Symbian system, so i could get to the point where, MP3 Player, PDA, Mobile and ‘daily use’ Camera can all be rolled into one gizmo instead of 4.

So far the Nokia N95 was looking like a good candidate, but after first of all reading and hearing reviews on the N95 about software and pathetic battery problems, things were not looking good. Then i got chance to have a go with an N95, and much to my horror, it bought back the memory’s of the N70, and in that case… the terrible build quality!

Seriously, i thought they were made from the same stuff that holds biscuits in a selection tin! Compared to the K800i i currently had, which i must admit, up until this point, was the best phone i ever had. Excellent quality, never had a software problem, easy to add apps and a good camera at the same time… only thing is, the technology of the K800i is now long in the tooth so it was starting to lack some ‘good’ new features and also it has a very poor music player… cue Cybershot and Walkman factions again.

The thing that did strike me with the N95 though was the fact it had an excellent camera, a dedicated music player system, ran on Symbian, built in WiFi and had the GPS sensor also fitted. So i know have the opportunity to replace 5 separate units (with the additional software of course).

So up till now the N95 is a top of my list, although I’m scared of it disintegrating when i try to use it.

Over the course of the next couple of days i started to do some research as regards new contracts to go with for the next 18months or so, and duly went along to the 3 website who Ive been with for a while now, and got the first glance of the new 8GB version of the N95.

Straight away the fact of the 8GB lump of memory tempted me, following with the re-shelled black casing and face-lifted buttons.

A quick search for some N95 8GB reviews soon brought my hopes up as-well as regards general quality, software and battery life, all of which now seem to be rectified.

So i made the jump and returned back to Nokia for the first time in 2 and a half years!

After owning the phone now for around 2 weeks, i can only say i am thoroughly impressed!

The music player and podcasting applications are excellent, coupled with the WiFi theres no need to connect to the PC via USB to load them into the memory. Just connect to the access point and pull them straight off the internet itself.

The GPS sensor is superb and the A-GPS function also seems to add a significant advantage when the GPS is first locking onto target satelites, with Nokia maps pretty much providing all you need in terms of sat nav, although i havnt fully had chance to try it out yet.

The other bonus is you can also add Google Maps mobile onto the phone, in which case the GPS sensor will also pinpoint you, and might i add, deadly accurate within 10m as long as you have a decent GPS signal!

Of course the downside to Google Maps is you need a half decent data connection to constantly pull down map data as theres no way you can ‘install’ so much information such as with Nokia Maps or other software packages, so its not always ideal and youll need a decent or unlimited download add-on as part of your contract.

The camera is also excellent, as its ideal for me to have such a thing at all times with the job i do, and carrying an additional device around is just a pain! OK so some will argue its not as good as an actual camera, but it does the job perfectly for what i need it for.

Im still fully getting used to everything the phone has to offer at the moment so cant fully comment on everything in great detail, but as mentioned the whole package is impressive, and this is before ive started to pile a few extra things into the unit!

So far ive found a few things that are a little clunky to get round, in which case ill document my solutions here on this website, but in most cases its actually regarding another service, such as emails.

Stay tuned…