Nokia N95 - best deals?

rachelandgromit

emweaver wrote: »

ouch thats a lot! do they charge u on ur monthly bill? so glad it didnt download now!

I'm not sure, bit dissapointed as I thought the voice activated thing was included, going back to o2 tomorrow to have a rant because he explained it would be like the TomTom, all ready to work and included in the price.

If he won't sort this out, he can have it back! After all, It will be within 24 hours of me purchasing it and other than that, not even used any of the other features, put it back in the box aftrer realising that! Think it was £40ish for 12 month and other different subscription prices 1 week, 3 years and I've forgotton the other, so you don't have to pay for 12 months, but seems stuped to pay for one week!

emweaver

how long did u charge ur ophones 4 1st time?

my battery is already dead!

Kerr_Avon_2

Okay, i finally found the N95 Maps guide I mentioned a few posts further up - took a while because I was sure it was linked to the N95 phone guide on the O2 site but I couldn't find the link - I think it's cos O2 have changed their phone guides pages so the link is gone (or moved).

Anyway, here is the link:
http://www.nokiao2.co.uk/html/N95_mapping.aspx

(it's on O2 page, but purely a user guide and not linked to the shop or anything, so hope it's OK to post).

[Here's a flashy, er... Flash version:
http://www.nokiao2.co.uk/index.aspx]

Of particular importance, in my opinion, is the section headed "Switching off GPRS map downloads" which will prevent you running up potentially high data transfer costs if you happen to activate your GPS in an area for which you have not pre-loaded a map.

Just to be clear, there is no fee for the maps themselves - the only danger that they will cost you money is if you download them using your phone's GPRS since they are quite big files and so, depending on what your network charges for data transfer, you could potentially run up a big bill downloading lots of maps direct to the phone.

The solution is to download them to your home PC, then upload them from there to you phone via the cable or a wireless connection.

emweaver wrote: »

ouch thats a lot! do they charge u on ur monthly bill? so glad it didnt download now!

I suspect you will be charged via your bill, but I also think most, if not all, the money will be passed on to the firm who operate the Maps service and software. It's probably how they make their money (along with licencing the software to people such as Nokia).

@rachelandgromit: I don't doubt that the sales person may have misled you, but to a large degree, I think he is correct that the N95's GPS is the same as the basic Tom-Tom functions.

All that is missing, to the best of my knowledge (I don't have my phone yet and have never used Tom-Tom) from the N95 is the vocal turn-by-turn navigation - which while nice, to be honest it is only really needed if you are driving and so can't focus on the screen.

You can still plot routes and journeys on the N95 for free. It will also search for places of interest for you (from museums and tourist attractions to restaurants).

Only the voice prompting is missing - that's what you pay the extra for.

There's also mention of a function that will recalculate your route automatically if you take a wrong turn. Not sure if the free service also does that automatically, but even if it doesn't, it should be easy enough to do manually if you find yourself in the wrong place and need to replot the route.

As for costs, from the above Nokiao2 page:

The licensing cost for downloading the turn-by-turn application to your handset will depend on how long you wish to use the service:
1 year: £36.39
3 years: £46.31

Not sure if the prices are the same for other networks but I'd imagine they probably are as this is probably set by the Maps provider, not nokia or the network.

If it's something you think would be useful, £15 a year isn't exactly extortionate!

@emweaver: Regarding battery usage, from what I've read, if you are making anything more than minimal use of the N95's advanced features (which seems to essentially mean doing ANYTHING beyond phone calls and texts!), then daily charging (or a spare battery) seems to be a requirement.

One of these days, I'll learn how to keep my posts short!!! :rolleyes:

johnk

peterstannard wrote: »

Just spoke to a helpful lad in customer care and and I'll be getting an unlock code in the next 48 hours at no cost. So far Vodafone have been great.

Peter, did you get unlock code within 48 hours?

peterstannard

johnk wrote: »

Peter, did you get unlock code within 48 hours?

3 days it took, and I had to ring up to get it when they promised it would be email to me. Can't complain that much seeing as I got it free.

marky_b_2

peterstannard wrote: »

3 days it took, and I had to ring up to get it when they promised it would be email to me. Can't complain that much seeing as I got it free.

They probably just hope that you are leaving them:D

hat-rack

Does anyone know of any good 12m deals for the N95 on T-Mobile? Looking to take advantage of their unlimited data plan. Would go with vodafone, if only it wasn't £2(!!!!!!) for every mb over the 120mb tariff!!!

sepulchre_2

So the 15mo half price deal with Vodaphone direct has finished, is anyone aware of any equally good deals to be had??

Kerr_Avon_2

sepulchre wrote: »

So the 15mo half price deal with Vodaphone direct has finished, is anyone aware of any equally good deals to be had??

Unlikely. That 15-month deal was HIGHLY unusual and far outstripped anything else on offer anywhere. It worked out at a total of only £283.50 over 18 months.

The best now seems to be the standard 6-month half price line rental with Vodafon (6 months@£13.50+12months@£27) IF you can get them to give you the handset for free (should be possible if you persevere, as that's what I got yesterday). That works out at £405 total over the 18 months, or an average of £22.50.

Talking of Vodafone...

The start of my experience with them hasn't been great, although to be fair it wasn't really their fault.

I had to pay extra for the delivery of the phone when I agreed the deal yesterday in order to guarantee morning delivery (before 12 noon), as I had to start work at 1.30pm. It meant paying £6.95 instead of £3.95.

The phone didn't arrive. So when I got into work I called up and spoke to a very nice assistant and explained and she checked and it turned out Parceline routed it to London instead of Glasgow(!).

She said she'd refund me the full delivery charge and the phone would arrive tomorrow. I said thanks but I also expect some sort of compensation for a morning off work waiting in for the delivery. She said, sorry about that, I understand, but it was Parceline's mistake not ours. I said, yes, but that's who your company deal with and I deal with your company, so if you have to compensate me, Vodafone can take it up with Parceline to get their compensation.

I then quickly added that I wasn't looking for anything huge, just some sort of gesture for my inconvenience in the form of a credit to my account or perhaps some equipment or extras for my phone.

She went away and came back and said all she could do was credit my account with £15, on top of the delivery refund. I thought about pushing it but decided not to push my luck and stir up bad feeling, so said that was fine.

So now my deal is down to about £21.50 a month!

We'll see if the phone arrives tomorrow...

sepulchre_2

OK thanks, I'll mull it over (read speak to wife)