Life with N95-8GB

Its been close to 6 months since I got myself the beautiful beast called the N95 8GB. Ever since, I have been one happy Nokia customer and a very proud owner of N95 8GB. The other day a friend asked me if I would advice him to go ahead and get himself a N95 8GB. I stopped him and told him not to waste money on something he won’t utilize fully. I told him, if he was a power-user like me, then he can go get it. But just to take and make calls, N95 8GB would be a criminal waste.

Well, what do I mean when I say power-user? This means that I use the power of the device to the maximum extent and explore all possible feature list and make the phone an integral part of my lifestyle.

As a business phone, I use it to read short PDFs while on travel. I edit and read word documents and excel sheets. I don’t carry PowerPoint presentations in a USB drive anymore. Instead I use the phone to store it as I can edit it on the move. If there is any blue-tooth enabled projector, then I can directly project my presentations from my mobile. I use it to organise my events, reminders and birthdays. I wear a watch but, I always check time and date with my mobile as I can cross check my clients/on-site timings as well with world time.

I record meetings with Dictaphone and use it later to make minutes. I record conversations with call center agents to keep them on the hook. All my calls are automatically recorded and this is quite handy.

I check mails and send emails. I chat with friends via regular IMs and with colleagues via official IM installed on my mobile.

I have both scientific and normal calculators installed in my mobile and its very handy. I don’t pay my service provider for the answering machine. Instead I have an application that manages my voice-mails efficiently.

I use Google maps(mobile version) to locate a destination or to get the driving directions. Nokia map’s GPS is fun to explore and I sometime GeoTag my photos to tag them the location on which that particular photo was clicked.

I read RSS feeds using Mobile feed aggregators and use emTube to watch youtube videos when I am totally bored. I block unwanted calls and SMS and also backup SMS to an online server automatically.

I use the phone inbuilt voice recognition time to read me the time when I am half awake. It also reads me the name of the caller when there is an incoming call. It reads me the just-received SMS while I am driving.

I am able to protect my privacy by selectively hiding and password protecting photos, videos, text message, call logs, etc…

I also use the counter to count certain iterations. Very useful when I am in temple to do 108 rounds or chants. Bluetooth/IR to share stuff with other phones. BlueJack to play pranks.

Instant Age calculator is very useful for mathematically challenged guys like me and the Group creator automatically groups my contact list on set criteria.

Applications like smarttorch enable to use my mobile as an ad-hoc torch light. I also edit photos )photofix) on the move and share them online(shareOnline 2.0). ActiveNotes helps me in making note of certain lists. I tweet using the mobile widsets. Create my own widsets and integrate a handful of sites using widsets. Facebook, VOX, and flickr applications gets me mobile and social.

Endless list of accelerometer applications are always handy. I shake my mobile to show me an incoming message(ShakeSMS). Shake it lock/unlock(ShakeLock). RotateMe is used to automatically adjust the orientation of my phone.

Google search application is very handy to help me search the web and IRCTCMobile application lets me book tickets over mobile and also check my ticket status. ICICI bank’s mobile appication lets me check my account status.

I edit music using mobile and I also set the phone to start certain application at set time. Like it starts my Radio automatically every day at 6:30am.

Extreme applications like Inclinometer tells me if I have parked my car on a plane or inclined surface. ActivityMonitor help me keep track of my workouts and calories count on a regular basis.

Apart from these, I use the phone for regular use like listening to Music, Radio (both FM and Online Radio), organising the music tracks, pod-casts, watch full length movies, short video clips and play a lot of games (I keep changing my games list regularly).

Camera is one thing which I can’t live with. I don’t miss my digital camera now. In-fact I have gifted it to my sibling. From clicking the number plate of the vehicle which bumped me, to events photography (like office bday parties) my Mobile’s camera does a very neat job.

I use the phone’s TV out cable to connect to my TV and watch movies on a bigger screen when I am at home. And ofcourse I use the WAP/GPRS to browse and when I find a wifi hotspot, my N95 is very useful to jack me into the net.

I want to keep this post short and many other features private. So I stop here.

Well, now that I have defined the word power-user. The reason for this post is not to showcase my capabilities. None of these applications translate my capabilities. They translate the power of user communities and developer communities. Modern day devices are futuristically designed to accommodate more features and support 3rd party applications.

So if you are willing to explore the geek’s world and tap the full functionality of a device, go for it. Else stay with a device that caters to your need. Owning a geeky device is not show-off. Real show-off is when you are able to display the features of the device you own. So spend wisely.