I’ve had my Nokia N95 for a few weeks now and my husband and I have been fighting over it. I don’t consider myself a picky person, so I was surprised that some small external differences on the handset from the N80i made such a huge difference. I like this phone better. It’s thinner, has a comfortable feel in the hand, and the button ergonomics work better. On the N80 I frequently make mistakes using the center scroll/selection button. Not the case on the N95. Other reveiws of this phone also point to the larger screen. First, I thought, “come on, it’s a screen on a PHONE. A few pixels either way isn’t going to make a difference”. Well, wrong again.

  N80i (left), N95 (right)

  N95 (left), N80i (right)

As for what’s going on inside the N95, a big improvement from my point of view is the ease of setting up a Wi-Fi connection. It took me just a few minutes this time to get connected through my home network.

That’s it for my initial thoughts, more later on calling with GizmoProject and EQO. But if you need more, check out this podcast with three Nokia reviewers here.

 

 

One appealing feature of PhoneGnome is that it can automatically detect when you are making a local call and when you are dialing long distance. However, local dialing in my area is 10-digits. In other words, I have to dial the area code then the number. In many other places, local calls are still the 7-digit number which poses no problem.

In my case, PhoneGnome thought that 10-digit local numbers were long distance and so placed the call using my Internet telephone service (I use Gizmo Project).

There’s an easy solution. Here’s what Televolution tech support had to say:

1. Log in to your PhoneGnome account.
2. Click Settings > Advanced Settings.
3. In Local Dialing Options, click the Custom button. DON’T change any other option on this page.
4. Click Save.

This did the trick. Tech support clarifies that sometimes PhoneGnome miss-detects a given number but usually this setup is adequate for the vast majority of users. If, after making this change, your PhoneGnome still doesn’t automatically detect local numbers, contact tech support for further instructions.Another way to force PhoneGnome to dial using the local telephone service is to dial ##, listen for a high-pitched dial tone, then dial the number.

Did you know that for the year 2006, “J” was the most popular letter of the alphabet? Okay, I made that up. I have no idea if it’s true, but three out of ten most popular baby names last year started with J….

I had a comment a few days ago from Eric C. wanting to know about Jaxtr, Jangl and JaJah. What’s the difference? What indeed! People (like me) are starting to ask questions like this because…who can remember what these guys do! They sort of sound alike, they’re in the same industry space, they appeal to the same type of folks. Eric then wanted to know how the Js relate to GrandCentral. Oiy!

Jaxtr:

• Provides a click-to-call widget (button) for social networking sites like MySpace, web sites, and blogs. Visitors to your page have the option to call you, send you a text message, or leave you a voice message. They don’t need a microphone or headset. They call you by entering their phone number in the widget, Jaxtr then provides a local number for them to dial.
• Free registration, then you buy jax credits to forward calls to your phone. 100 free credits per month.  You can send unlimited calls to voice mail for free and unlimited text messages for free. Calls to other Jaxtr users are also free.
• No software download required.
• Unique feature is Voiceblast. You can record your own message or greeting that’s played automatically or on mouse-click when a someone visits your web page. I’ve added my voiceblast to my About page here.
• Like Jangl, Jaxtr has privacy options that allow you and the person calling to hide your phone numbers or email addresses.
• Like GrandCentral, you can block incoming calls or forward calls based on caller ID. Unlike GrandCentral, Jaxtr does not give you a 10-digit phone number that can be dialed from any phone. People calling you are given a special 10-digit number they can use, but they must use the same phone every time. If they call from a different phone, Jaxtr provides a different number.
• I like it.

Jangl:

• Provides a click-to-call widget (let’s call this widget dialing) for social network sites, web sites and blogs that masks the incoming and outgoing numbers. It’s a way for people to make and receive calls without giving out phone numbers. I guess the advantage here is privacy. For example, you can post the Jangl widget on MySpace without revealing your personal phone number.
• When you register, you receive a Jangl ID that people use to call you. Someone enters your Jangl ID in the online widget, Jangl then gives them a special number to call you on a regular phone. Your number and the calling person’s number are never exchanged.
• Registration is free, then you pay per call based on telephone company charges.
• You can choose from several cool looking widgets
• Not really like GrandCentral at all, except in that they both have widget dialing (GrandCentral recently introduced web buttons).
• Sounds a lot like Jaxtr but I still found Jangl a bit confusing and not a lot of info or online support. I haven’t used it much.

JaJah

• Provides web-based dialing, or dialing from a web page, without a microphone or headset. All calls are made phone to phone, whether landline or mobile. This means the person you’re calling does not have to be connected to the internet.
• You log in to your Jajah account, enter your friend’s number, and click the CALL button. Your phone will ring, you pick up, then your friend’s phone will ring.
• No software download required.
• Other Jajah services and tools include conference calls, call scheduling, access to Jajah phone book from the web browser on your mobile phone, Jajah plugins for Google, Outlook, Mac OS X Address Book, Firefox, and Plaxo
• Registration is free, you get 5 minutes free calling anywhere, then you pay as you go. Calls to Jajah users are free.
• I have an account but haven’t used it.

I’ll leave TalkPlus, Talkster, and Talk-Now for another time….”Tango of the Ts” perhaps? 

I’m a bit slower than the other bloggers trying out the Nokia N80i, but that’s typical me. I like to process things a little.

Overall, there’s not much I don’t like about this phone. It’s got a good feel in my hand, not too small but not to heavy either. It takes better than expected pictures, and the video recorder is great for the kids’ spontaneous slapstick routines. The music player is a real bonus for me. I don’t bother with an mp3 player when I’m out and about because it means carrying around another gadget. But now that the player is in the phone, I’m really enjoying using it. I know these features aren’t unique, but the N80i implements them really well. One-button access to the camera, video and music player makes these features super easy to use.

However, I had a few hiccups during the setup. The first was installing GizmoVoIP, which I couldn’t find anywhere on the phone. It is supposed to be available from the Downloads folder but in my case it wasn’t there, at least at first. It only appeared after refreshing the list several times over the span of several hours.

The second problem I had was installing PC Suite, the Nokia driver software and applications for the PC. In my case the drivers did not install, despite many uninstall/reinstall combinations. No drivers means no way for laptop and phone to communicate, no way to download music to the phone from the PC, synchronise contact lists,  etc.

The error I received was: “There is no available connection type. The connection to phone cannot be established.”

Ultimately, my solution was to uninstall EVERYTHING Nokia N80 from the Control Panel/AddRemove Programs. This includes PC Suite AND the Nokia PC Connectivity package. For some reason, there were two PC Connectivity packages installed instead of one which probably caused all the grief. I then downloaded the most recent PC Suite from the support web site, and reinstalled.

The PC Suite on the CD that came with the phone was out of date but the autoupdater that updated the sofware when I installed the first time, clearly didn’t do a very good job. I think this is why I ended up with two sets of drivers that didn’t like living in the same house.

The third thing I did, and this is more of a user problem, is that I connected the cable to my laptop first, before popping in the CD. Predictably, the Found New Hardware wizard prompted me for the CD that contains the drivers. When I inserted the CD, of course nothing happened because PC Suite installs the applications and drivers all at once. But since I didn’t realize this at first and there wasn’t anything in the documentation, I spent a bit of time hunting through the packaging looking for another CD that I may have missed.

Who knows if many users have the same issue, but an easy fix would be for Nokia to add more accurate labeling and instructions to the CD itself.

Anyway, all is fine and dandy now.

I recently had someone comment on my "moving on" from Vonage. "Moving on to what, I may ask?" You may. It’s a good question. I find it time consuming trying to figure out what service best suits me. For consumers, looking into VOIP is like unraveling a ball of string. Before you know it, you’ve got a rat’s nest. With the Internet at your fingertips, it’s deceptively easy. Just start with Google, then click, click…click-click, then like, "Oh man, where am I?", Back button a couple of times. Then all the VOIP sites start looking the same, heck they all start sounding the same too… Here’s what I decided:

• I want a phone number in my local area code
• I prefer a softphone (point and click dialing from my PC). A handset with phone adaptor setup (like I had with Vonage) is handy, but not absolutely necessary in my case. Most of the time my work calls occur while I’m at my computer so a heaset/microphone setup works great.
• I want voicemail and call forwarding (very basic, nothing fancy)

The top two options I’m considering are: Virtual number call forwarded to a softphone: CallCentric.com offers BC phone numbers at $5.95 per month. I can call forward to my Gizmo softphone account and then use Gizmo to make and receive calls. Gizmo rates within Canada are pretty cheap. Of course, if Gizmo ever decides to offer Canadian area codes, THAT would be even easier. PhoneGnome: PhoneGnome is available through Voxilla.com. It is a pretty amazing, self-configuring, do-everything, product. VOIP calls are free, I keep my regular phone number, and I can use the PhoneGnome softphone (SoftGnome) or call forward to my Gizmo account. PhoneGnome also works with Skype. I can also make and receive Skype calls on a regular handset using the add-on product GnomeLink. Choices, choices…