I bought this phone to replace and repair my husband's old Nokia 9500. I don't use it so i dont know serviceable or useful it is. I dislike the size... too big.
Virtually of no use, not even a battery
Verified purchase: Yes
y bay a nokia 9500 phone and ym very impresionat of theat...........................................................................................................................................................................................super ok
The Nokia 9500 experience is sometimes awesome and sometimes intensely irritating. Early firmware has maddening bugs, both the ROM firmware and the Nokia apps have to be upgraded, even a Nokia service center may only update one or the other making it worse. If you just want to make phonecalls, have the biggest qwerty keyboard of any phone to write text messages and never use any other feature it's awesome, at least until the audio from the earpiece starts cutting out. About every 6-12 months you need to remove a pressed metal cover and clean the sprung contacts for the earpiece. The metal cover can be fiddly to get back on. If you can do delicate soldering without wreaking it you can fix it permanently. If you want to easily run a few apps and browse the web you will be very frustrated unless you are a supergeek who can work around it's foibles and use an alternative web browser. The supergeeks who live in SSH sessions and want to be able to get on IRC everywhere they go love these things. 9500's are now 5-7 years old, original batteries are usually knackered. Just using it as a phone battery life is a decent 3-5 days. Sitting on IRC 4 hours with a good battery. The 'compatible' non-Nokia batteries on ebay are a fraction too large and are hard to get in and out. The Symbian operating system is clunky and outdated. There are very few third party apps that do anything useful. It's handy to be able to flip it open and write short text notes but the more notes you have on the desktop the slower it runs. The built in spreadsheet is usable for many basic tasks like organizing lists or doing a few calculations. Any app that uses the pointer is a chore to use because moving the four direction rocker is a pain. There is a VNC client available so you can remotely control a computer or hosted VM but the horrid rocker makes moving the mouse pointer around a pain. This phone only does GPRS (ie slow) data, no 3G. This is fine for SSH sessions but patience is needed for graphics heavy websites. The wifi is ok but selecting a specific access point is a bit clunky to do and 802.11b only. There is of course no Flash support, you can't watch youtube video's on it. If you carry the phone in a pocket without a case the paint rubs off in a couple of months. The little plastic clips that hold the front cover on break easily if you are rough with it. The aftermarket front covers on ebay usually don't quite fit properly. The nokia datasuite software is horribly bloated but you get get files on and off without it. It is usable as an mp3 player but the menus for selecting tracks are clunky and irritating. Pictures taken with the camera are poor compared to a proper camera, about typical for a 2004 era camera phone. The telephone part can be turned off but the computer part can only be rebooted by taking the battery out. If you play with it's advanced capabilities you will need to take the battery out sometimes which annoyingly requires manually setting the time and date. It can work with an optional external Tomtom bluetooth GPS but the software for the phone is supplied on a Tomtom MMC card so you loose satnav if you put a bigger MMC card. 1GB MMC cards usually work, 2GB cards sometimes work, larger cards probably won't work. It only accesses the MMC card when the back cover is on, (magnetic sensor), which sometimes confuses people. Satnav drains the battery quickly. Only geeks love the Nokia 9500.Read full review
Tried the 9200 series but it lacked bluetooth which this version has. OK it is large and heavy and not something to slip in your pocket. However what this lacks in size and weight it more than makes up with functionality. Great colour screen and full keyboard with Web,Messaging, Contents, Document browser, Calendar, plays music, etc etc plus a whole range of other software to buy to allow you to encrypt data, build databases and even read ebooks! Great for using with two hands and typing with thumbs makes it fast an intuitive to use. If I could afford the further nearly £400 I would look at the Nokia N90 but if you want pretty much everything the same for just over £200 then this is the phone for you. One warning when bidding on eBay. The first one I received did not state a German keyboard but the seller accepted the return and the next one I bought was just what I wanted a UK version keyboard. Takes mmc memory cards up to 512mb. Do not use 1GB card as it is too thick! I have used a bluetooth dongle on my laptop to sync between the phone and my laptop with no problems but DO make sure you get the up to date software - Nokia Smartsuite from the Nokia website if you are running Vista or you can get communication problems. What I think is really SMART is being able to communicate with my wireless network at home or about and being able to surf the net for free! Saved quite a bit of web surfing contract with the mobile phone company! I bought mine via eBay from http://www.infinitygrp.co.uk and can recommend them as I found no problem with the purchase or their speed in getting back to me and getting the phone out to me very quickly, thanks Guys!Read full review
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