Nokia 9500 Communicator - Silver (Unlocked) Smartphone

Initial setup is fairly standard for a Nokia with no surprises. The menu structure on the front face is about what we have come to expect from Nokia and in general easy to navigate.

I had looked at the measurements online and even so was surprised at how large it was and the weight is substantial.

I have found that the 9500 reception drops considerably or all together when entering many buildings. If your area has poor reception for most phones I would suspect the 9500 may simply not work for you at all. Battery life is not so good. I generally have to recharge daily but given the use I put this phone through this is to be expected.

Im a writer and the inspiration to write does not always come when Im sitting at my PC. The 9500 has a full word processor including many of the basic functions we have come to rely on for creating documents.

Typing on the keyboard takes some getting used to. With a little practice you will be typing fast enough. The keys themselves are just large enough to not have too many double key hits. They do have a slight click as they are pressed and this is nice for knowing you hit the key. A set of hot keys at the top are quite useful and there is one user definable one.

The keyboard rocker joystick for navigating around is a bit tricky. Its a round 4 way button that allows up down left and right movement. This works fine. However to select something such as an icon, menu item or hyper link you press it down. This often causes it to move in an unwanted direction just before selecting the item causing you to select a different item.

The inside screen is really big and bright. Even outside in bright sunlight I have had no issues seeing the screen clearly. I have noticed no reflections at all on it.

Leaving the phone on the car dashboard I can easily talk and hear without issue using the speaker phone. Most people report they can hear me clearly from about 3 feet from the phone with no echo or odd background noise.

Using a wireless LAN you can access the internet. A normal web page took about 25 seconds on the phone. I downloaded a Symbian based FTP program and Im able to access my servers quickly. It took about 15 mins to upload a 10 meg file and about 10 to download a 11 meg file.

Its easy to use the voice recorder on the phone to record your friends saying something funny and then attach that to their contact card as the ring tone for them. I now know exactly who is calling without even looking at the phone.

Adequate would be the best way to describe the digital camera and Video cam. Even on the highest settings the pictures are washed out and unclear. The zoom and brightness and contrast settings can help but not all that much. Taking pictures from the phone to PC and switching them to black and white improved them immensely. The video image is a bit pixilated especially when there is fast movement but the sound was very clear.

The phone can be used as an MP3 player but the sound quality from the speaker is tinny and flat. Through the headset however it is very good so as a iPod type player it works well.

The real movie player is very good giving a smooth clear playback of your movie files. Again I would go with stereo headphones over the speaker. Load a full movie onto one MMC card and play it right of the card.

All in all I have been very satisfied with the Nokia 9500. I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to be able to write full format documents on the go without a laptop.

I've had the phone for 4 months and I switch the SIM card from a Nokia 6230 to the 9500 due to the size of the phone. The phone has great voice reception and speakerphone but buy this phone for the Internet access. This phone can access real web pages not just mobile web pages. I use it on the T-mobile network in Phoenix. With GPRS enter the page put the phone down for a couple of minutes and a full page appears. When EDGE is available the page pops up quickly. The phone does not have an EDGE ID so its always a surprise when I get the fast speed. The WiFi works great,its very fast and the screen is great. If you only want e-mail access get a Treo or a Blackberry. If you want the Internet on the go this is a great phone. The one negative is the phone does not have a vibrate option. I love to read Yahoo news on the 9500.

I bought it new online more than a year ago and payed $700 for it. The vender claimed it works on 800/1900 in the US. In fact it does NOT operate in the 800 band. I had both Cingular and T-mobile DATA accounts, and I switched the SIM cards back and forth to see how it worked all across the USA. I drive coast to coast in a truck, and have loads of time to glance at the phone display, checking the signal strength or seeing the name of a different carrier displayed, such as Conestoga,Viaero, or Union Tel. Oddly enough, the lack of 800 band reception seemed to make very little difference. Most places I went were covered. Since I also have an unlocked Sierra Wireless aircard 775, I would also use both SIM cards in that, which works pretty well with EDGE. My 9500 is slower than the aircard, although it does receive WIFI, which of course is faster. By the way, the Nokia 9300 gets both 850/1900, but not WIFI. I see that Cingular offers theb 9300 at an affordable price AND you,ll get the benefit of their technical support if it is not working the way you think it should be working. By the way, an interesting thing I noticed with the 9500: You can use a scan function to see which GSM carriers are available in the area. When using the T-mobile simcard, the names of any other 1900 GSM carriers within receiving range would be displayed by name. You could then query that carrier to see if you were authorized to roam on them. In some cases, I had the choice of more than one roaming carrier to manually choose from. When attempting this with the Cingular SIMcard, all names on the list would say either Cingular or Roam. It would even read Cingular in areas or states were there is clearly NO cingular coverage.

This phone is an excellent replacement for an ultra-portable laptop.
Since it has WiFi access and a large enough screen to view web pages, I don't need to pull out my big laptop in order to check the weather in Phoenix or make sure my flight is on-time.
The only thing that bothers me is the thickness. I don't mind how long the phone is (or wide). I think those are appropriate. I wish that the phone was THINNER though. If you are looking for something small and sleek, this might not be the phone for you. If you want internet/wifi access anywhere easily, and don't mind a bulkier phone, this is perfect.
All the applications work great, Symbian is awesome. Thanks Nokia.

This is as good as it gets. It's the best PDA. WI-FI, GPRS, Beam (IR), speakerphone, bluetooth among many other feature. Excellent keys inside and outside (full size keyboard). Very easy to type. Phone keys (external) are also goood.
Things I wish for - Slightly smaller size or better shape but I like the clam idea. Vibration battery and T9 (predictive) text for SMS. The browser works great for most part, except on few web sites only.
I had a HP IPAQ before this and this is night and day as compared to ther HP IPAQ. Everything that phone was not, this phone is. More stable, no touch screen to mess with, stability etc...
I switch SIM cards, whenever I go abroad and it just works flawlessly aboard also. Signal strength is great as compared to every phone I have owned before. Bluetooth has worked great.
Good phone but please be aware of the size.