Phone.

Oct 09, 2014 104 Replies

My trusty old Nokia N95 is giving up the ghost. Doesn't appear to be the battery - which is original.



I'm on PAYG so will have to pay full price for a replacement.



I'd like a new one with at least as good a stills camera and also an FM radio. The rest I assume will be ok with any modern phone.



I've got a 'thing' against Apple products.


Moto G? Camera's OK and the radio works. Was £90 seems to be a bit more now.

+1 (despite not really liking smartphones)

Moto G battery life on standby with a few calls is well over a week - though considerably less if you enable it as a wifi hotspot or run animated games. Screen is clear and sound is pretty good.

Needs headphones plugged in to be an FM radio.

Looked at some reviews and they seems a bit lukewarm about the camera. I probably use that more than the phone. Needing headphones for the radio is fine.

That's the trouble with questions like this. You never really know what the expectations are. For my use the camera is perfectly fine. I.e. the odd snapshot or record if I don't have a proper camera with me. It's got a fixed, fairly wide focal length lens, lots of pixels and some compression artifacts but it seems to take reasonbly well exposed not terribly over sharpened or over saturated pictures.

Some ofhe Nokia Lumia phones get rave reviews of their cameras, and seem reasonably priced.

Carphone Warehouse sold me an unlocked Samsung PAYG phone at a very reasonable price when I produced an old PAYG Sim. I avoided the £10 charge for a new PAYG SIM.

...

Looks like you can still get new ones via Amazon. Priced 150 to 200 quid.

Or:

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will sell you a grade A refurbished N95 for 90 quid.

And look on the bright side, you've already got a spare battery :-)

I've never dealt with

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Did get a new Nokia 3110 from an Amazon re-seller for a friend who managed to drive over his existing one. This was a few months ago. So far the replacement Nokia has avoided car tyres...

Although the N95 was very good in its day, I'd like something that improves on its weaker points. For example, it won't work on BT Fone - no software. And a touch screen keypad would be easier to use than its small keys.

Perhaps I should start from the other end since it may seem I want something cheap.

What phone has as good a stills camera as the N95?

On the Nokias, you need the headphones plugged in as they are also the FM aerial, but you don't have to listen through them.

Which is why I use digital (iPlayer) and don't need any form of headphones.

I bought my better half a Motorola Moto G SIM-free from Amazon. Not expensive, seems to meet your needs.

Battery life better than my Samsung Galaxy S2. The Moto E

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is cheaper still, and still pretty good, it seems:

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In message , Bill Taylor writes

I've got a Moto G 4G - camera the same as the G I assume, I'd agree that the camera is a bit so so, certainly compared to quite a lot of other smartphone cameras (though maybe not at it's price level? - it's one of the things it's easy to trim on the budget). But as you say, it depends on expectations. I've no idea what photos from the camera on the N95 are like.

I can send you some sample pics if you want dave.

Didn't know it had an FM radio though, not something I ever really use.

my daughter has a Nokia Lumia 1020 fantastic camera but windows os you did not make any preference to the operating system ;(

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*If* you have reliable 4G coverage, Dave might have but if he is anywhere near a place where people congregate the words "reliable" and "fast" won't apply whilst the people are present.

Surprised Dave doesn't want DAB rather than FM. B-)

I'm not clear if using 4G is free? I'm on PAYG, as I simply don't use my mobile much as a phone.

Battery consumption, obviously.

I suppose the N95 is a smart phone of a sort, and I do use some of those facilities occasionally - but I'm not the typical modern phone user.

But I thought I emphasised that I do want decent camera performance - and the Moto G appears to be distinctly average in this respect.

I'm not really worried about how I get a live radio feed. But obviously FM is free. I don't want to pay for it on PAYG.

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

No, it's charged in the same way as3G mobile access is

>

Not sure I've ever used that either - is it free?

Entirely dependant on your tarrif.

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