Nokia N95 with US 3G Support – Coming Soon!!

Om Teases us today with a taste from a recent meeting with Blake Krikorian, CEO of Sling Media and his proto Nokia N95 with US 3G! I’ve heard this was coming and actually thought it might be here this month, but this is the first proof it’s out there and getting ready for this market. An 8GB US 3G N95 is a VERY compelling product and one that even with the more complex S60 UI can take it to the iPhone.

I would have a hard time wanting to use my iPhone over the N95 on 3G. Let’s hope it also comes with more RAM to push this into a no contest launch!

“The conversation was lively, but what was most interesting was that Blake walked in with a Nokia N95 and started showing off the streams off his cable box. I was surprised because my N95 can barely stream audio on the herky-jerky EDGE. And here I was watching smooth video with perfect audio.

It was an early trial unit with the ability to support the U.S. flavor of 3G (HSPDA-High-Speed Downlink Packet Access), according to Blake. A few calls to well-placed sources after the taping confirmed that Nokia (NOK) has plans to release the U.S.-optimized N95 this September. That would be a good catalyst for U.S. sales for N95, because this is a device that shines on 3G networks. I took it along on a trip recently and found it quite useful.” [GigaOM ]

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11 Replies to “Nokia N95 with US 3G Support – Coming Soon!!”

  1. This is very exciting news. Does this mean we have to buy a new, spiffed up N95 or will it work with our current model?

  2. Unfortunately we’ll need to get a new phone. There’s no radio inside the current N95 (or any Nokia other than the N75) that supports US 3G frequencies…

  3. I was so excited to hear murmurs a few months ago that the N95 might be coming to T-Mobile, as I was a customer then. Unfortunately, the iPhone came out and now I’m obsessed. And while 3G is awsome, I rarely find myself using EDGE for data.

    Sitting at the car store (auto dealer) getting my oil changed, and BAM … free Wi-Fi. But yeah, his upcoming road trip may just blow.

  4. Seems this will now have 128MB of RAM which will fix my current issues with the device now. Add in 3G and it’s a winner. The iPhone still though beats the N95 in how it works which is infinitely more friendly – all software. The N95 has the better features — if you want to use them all.

  5. Which carriers will be rolling out HSDPA? It’s hard to keep track of the names of all the different standards. Also, will it be faster than Sprint’s upcoming WiMAX service?

    A quick search on Wikipedia tells me that HSDPA theoretically peaks at 14.4 Mbit/s and WiMAX is unclear — I see ranges from 10 – 70 Mbit/s.

  6. AT&T / Cingular has it now. TMO will eventually as well but on a totally different band – 1700 – just to keep is all lovely as we seem to do in the US.

    Different band = different phone.

    There are two flavors of HSPDA (of course right?) the one we have is 3.6MB but there’s an even faster version overseas that maxes out around 7MB! I’d take 1MB now and be happy to be honest over my EDGE action.

  7. So it sounds like mobile phone makers will have to make HSPDA phones with the various frequencies (i.e. 1700/1900/2100 MHz) to be compatible with all U.S. and European carriers.

    By different standards, I was referring to the names I keep seeing thrown around like UMTS, W-CDMA, TD-CDMA, HSPA, HSPDA, EDGE, etc. For a guy who’s not really into mobile tech, it seems a bit overwhelming keeping track of.

  8. Yup – The new N95 will not have the 2100 frequency anymore. Just the 850 / 1900 for the US. So if you go overseas your data will drop back to EDGE. Though it’s seriously expensive to roam with data anyway, you’d be better just using the wifi.

    As I understand it, all the 3G flavors are actually moving to a somewhat unified CDMA technology in which Qualcomm wins. But speed goes EDGE >UMTS > HSPDA

  9. Quick question: Is it true that T-Mobile’s 1700 Mhz data stream will be slower than AT&T’s 1900 Mhz network? I thought I read somewhere that T-mobile will only be capable of offering close to half the speed of AT&T’s network.

  10. No idea on the speed of the 1700…. Is TMO rolling out UMTS or HSPDA? HSPDA (What ATT is using) is faster than UMTS.

    I am VERY psyched about the US 3G device!!

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