Nokia 9500 Communicator
- Reviewer
- Stuart Miles
- Review Date
- 16 December 2004
- Manufacturer
- Nokia
- Price as reviewed
- £price dependent on contract
- Latest price
- compare
Reader review
User: Mike, Wales, UK
Date Posted: 11 September 2006
Review: It took some courage to "go completely digital" this year, but I did, and my 9500 handles all my contacts, appointments, tasks, plus lets me work on files on the fly: brilliant! And at less a risk than other solutions: I can back up the entire contents of the 9500 at any time. One word of caution: you should use the 9500's latest software and things can get a bit "hairy" if you sync with two separate PCs - you really need to be running the same release of Outlook on both. But once you're used to the various foibles, you won't look back. I can't understand how I ever did without it! When updating the 9500, I hope Nokia go for a lit keyboard, and a slightly better camera would be nice, but not essential.
Rating:
8 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Shree Iyer, Atlanta, GA
Date Posted: 12 January 2006
Review: Any decent feature rich Phone-PDA looks like a brick. This PDA-phone is feature rich and performs very well. I had a HP IPAQ 6300 before this and that is a brick with a stylus with an exposed screen for breaking risk. This phone works like a large flip phone and has a real QWERTY keyboard with Wi-Fi, GPRS, camera, laptop sync, symbian, compatability with MS Office etc...to name a few, this is as good as it gets. Highly recommended.
Rating:
9 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Borys D. Sawicki, Warsaw, Poland
Date Posted: 5 December 2005
Review: This is a very good phone. It gets the job done, works very well. Given that now you have Docs to Go from DataViz that allows you to work on MS-Word and Excel on the communicator without changes to even the most sophisticated formatting etc. It is almost as capable as a laptop (if you want, an external BT keyboard maybe attached). Huge RAM (32 MB) is a huge virtue here (I usually run a number of applications (Word, e-mail, dictionary, internet, PDF etc) and it did not fall below 9 MB of free RAM, which means that I do not have to close any application to continue working. I agree it could be a bit faster, but I understand that it is a compromise between speed and better consumption. I also like the design, unlike many others. Recapitulating, it is a great device which will make you truly mobile and will ease your life, but provided that you know how to make use of it and accept that it is a sort of a phone, not a laptop. Strongly recommend!
Rating:
9 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Faz, London, UK
Date Posted: 4 December 2005
Review: I got my 9500 a few months back, and I love it! Can't touch-type like I used to on the brick, aka the original Communicator 9000, but I guess that's the compromise for having a smaller QWERTY keyboard. I’m loving the WiFi, the transfers speeds are good, e.g. mp3 downloads, but rendering of web pages, especially complex pages with images enabled can be frustratingly slow at times. When I'm away from home and can't find a free WiFi hotspot I use the GPRS link to stay connected to the ICQ, MSN & Yahoo IM networks via AgileMessenger (one of several IM's available for the 9500). The camera quality is actually quite decent and better than I expected - as with all lower end cameras some good lighting really makes a difference! It’s pretty cool being able to send someone my ugly mug shot (via Yahoo IM, MMS, email) while chatting to them on Yahoo IM! I’m hardly in the office too where I don't want to be seen chit-chatting too much on the work PC, managers seem to turn a blind eye to those playing with their phones though! :) If you're thinking of getting a 9500 I would definitely invest in a good case to protect your investment! The best I found was the Trinity via eBay - Very well designed indeed, only letting itself down with the *mother* of clip positioned which just also happens to be placed in the worst conceivable place, right on the bottom stopping you laying it flat to type!! What were they thinking!! I swiftly removed this with a sharp knife, leaving hardly any scaring and now it's great! ;) Well, what else can I say? I think a lot of the current 9500 owners also had earlier Communicator models and thus will likely have a better appreciation of this and more realistic expectations. One gripe I do have though is the phone side interface can be quite sluggish compared to normal Nokia phones, especially noticeable when I want to do a speedy keypad unlock & enter security code. From what I've heard this seems to be due to Nokia emulating the phone side after they decided to have phone & PDA components running on the same CPU for this version of the Communicator. When most people initially see my 9500 they're usually somewhat taken back by the size "Blimey that's a big phone mate!" or "Is that one of those Communicators computer phone things" And once I unzip the case, open the beast up and reveal the gorgeous colour screen and keyboard and show them what it can do.. "Arrhh, it may be a bit of brick, but that's like having a miniature laptop wherever you are (with WiFi/GPRS/ and Camera too) very nice indeed!" :) This is certainly not for those who like their phones small or are expecting laptop speeds. But if you're after a grown up PDA which has matured over the years as the Communicator series has you can't go wrong with the 9500. In my opinion the Nokia 9500 eats the Sony Ericsson P910 for breakfast; I mean it hasn't even got a proper keyboard, just a silly stylus and a flipping numeric keypad that flips out! I've never actually seen anyone "write" anything reasonably quickly on a stylus. You’ve got to have a proper keyboard!!! :)<br><br> <br>Rio ProAirbrush Tanning System<br>Lydia<br>UK<br>I bought the Rio spray tanning system and was bitterly disappointed. The air that comes out of the compressor is very weak and as a result the tanning lotion is sprayed on to the skin in an uneven and blotchy way (if at all). The overall appearance of the system is very cheap and the parts that come with it are flimsy to say the least - especially considering that the whole product costs £79.99. I would recommend that no one bother wasting their time buying the item, I would have loved to give a good review, as I love beauty products...like many other women. However girls on this one, trust me, don’t waste your time! I would suggest that the positive reviews about Rio spray tanning that can be found on this site are either a result of the marketing department of Rio, or people who are very easily pleased.
Rating:
7 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Andy, Denmark
Date Posted: 8 October 2005
Review: I love my 9500. I don’t care that it looks like a brick, nor do I mind to been seen using it, in fact it awakes lots of admiration from my colleagues.
Rating:
3 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Matthew, London
Date Posted: 16 September 2005
Review: My client has a Nokia 9500 and has had a few problems with it. At first the message sync left duplicate messages on the server so he got a replacement with a software upgrade. (I think they still ship with old software) The above problem was resolved but now he cannot connect to any wireless networks yet he could before!!
Rating:
12 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Erick, Nice, France
Date Posted: 22 July 2005
Review: It’s the best PDA/phone around. It gets the job done. I don't care if it looks like a brick, I'd rather have this brick that gets the job done. I wish it could sync on my powermac g5 though.
Rating:
5 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: George, London, UK
Date Posted: 14 June 2005
Review: I got my NOKIA 9500 a couple days ago. My first impressions are that it's very slow; to open a spreadsheet of size under 100k it takes 3-5 minutes. I contacted Nokia for advice and was told that "it's a phone" and I shouldn’t expect any better results.
Rating:
10 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Phil, Virginia, USA
Date Posted: 3 June 2005
Review: I have the 9290 and love it and will be buying a 9500 as soon as the price drops a little more. Organization and easy to use is where it's at. The only complaint I have is that my service T-mobile doesn't support fax send/receive. In a prior review it was suggested that the communicator was not suited for the outdoors, I disagree. Mcguire-Nicholas has a rugged holster with an unbreakable belt clip and belt loop for absolute attachment. The communicator is perfectly secured under the Velcro flap. As a construction supervisor, I am always climbing through or on something and I would feel totally comfortable leaping down a 4-5 foot ledge wearing my communicator. Try that with a blackberry on a plastic clip. I read an expert reviewer say that they didn't want to be seen using one because it was brick looking. I find the communicator comfortable to grip with my clumsy man hands. Honestly I wouldn't want to be seen using a miniature "Zoolander" fashion-phone.
Rating:
7 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Ilovenokia, London
Date Posted: 13 May 2005
Review: In my opinion, this is quite simply the best phone/pda/little laptop/Psion successor that exists.
Rating:
10 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Arne, Darwin Australia
Date Posted: 1 February 2005
Review: I have the 9210 and am waiting for Nokia to put the new technology in the 9500. WIFI in the 9500 is using the old slow 11b not the current fast 11.g protocol.
Rating:
8 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Duncan, Melbourne, Australia
Date Posted: 31 January 2005
Review: It's a great phone. I had the 9210i then bought the 9500 as soon as it was released. It isn't just a phone, it's a small laptop. With automatic Bluetooth sync of my work and home Outlook calendars and task lists, a good sized keyboard for typing documents on the train, it really is all you need. I wouldn't be without it. It's stable, unlike the 9210, or 9210i, and the camera is handy. The memory is a good size, and convenient to transport files between different PCs. At meetings I can type minutes as we go, then email them to the participants before we finish. I wouldn't be without it; it's an essential business tool. Those who don't like the looks of it aren't in the market for a miniature laptop, which is what it is.
Rating:
8 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Bjorn, Bergen Norway
Date Posted: 24 January 2005
Review: I'm actually writing this from my Nokia Communicator 9500, in a comfortable sofa, using my WLAN connection. And that's somehow my main point. The 9500 has excellent applications and a well formed QWERTY keyboard that even fits my somewhat sluggish fingers. A quick brief among my colleagues shows that the folks using Communicator really use all the applications and tend to use them more effectively thanks to the keyboard. Imagine anyone writing a review like this using a small pin or neatly drawing every letter on the screen... I even installed a MSN client today, and my friends donít notice any difference. The phone isn't very well suited for outdoor activities though, so I would advise everyone to have another (smaller) model available for that use. I agree that the Nokia can be a bit slow in technical terms, but it makes you work faster.
Rating:
5 people have rated this review helpful
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