Technically the installation isn't native, but it runs pretty convincingly through the Symbian version of DOSbox. The process only took developer Marcin-PRV one day, and he has intentions to move forward with other OSes because, well, that's what he does. In its current state, 3.1 on the N95 is sort of usable.

The OS renders at the correct resolution and in color, there appears to be cursor control, and apps launch and run like they should. Text input is limited to numbers, because 3.1 wasn't exactly designed with, you know, T9 compatibility in mind. The developer thinks he might also be able to replicate his experiment with Windows 95—the only holdup, he says, is the N95's low resolution. [OSNews via Engadget]

You actually have to look at Nokia's numbers, though, to understand why. The global smartphone leader by a huge margin, its marketshare shrank from 63.3 percent to just 43.6 percent. So, not only did it lose 20 percent of its grip, its marketshare fell below 50 percent for the first time in several years, according to Needham's chart. And, more to the point, its drop is roughly proportional with the iPhone's rise in the last quarter. In fact, the iPhone is the only reason smartphone growth did not slow overall. FWIW, RIM and Windows Mobile's marketshare stayed roughly constant, dipping slightly.

Even though it's not like the iPhone is stealing Nokia's users directly—many of the iPhone's are first-time "smartphone" owners in the US—it does make it painfully clear how unwise it is for Nokia to essentially forego certain segments of the market. Hey, guess who their flagship N97 precisely doesn't target? [Cult of Mac, AI]

The Price: Around $500—official price not announced yet.

The Verdict: It's good, but it's not $500 good, esp without a qwerty.

The E66 is the first number-pad cellphone I've used in 3 years that I wasn't afraid of. Calls on the phone are loud and clear both directions. Its thin form factor and grippy textured back make it enjoyable to hold and you can perform a decent amount of functions without sliding up the top. It has tons of features and it doesn't half-ass any of them. Like the N95, it's got a decent flash camera that takes sharp pictures and video, and has options comparable to most point-and-shoots. The Wi-Fi and 3G load fast in the browser, and GPS found my position when I was outside. (It didn't locate me inside, though, like some phones with assisted GPS.) OTA app downloading was painless and so was setting up my Gmail account.

Still, I have some beefs. Symbian doesn't feel very fast. Like many S60 devices, apps and options are buried deep in menus. The phone is too quick to auto-rotate between portrait and landscape modes, a feature that seemed pointless given the cramped real estate of the E66's 2.4" screen. Also, though there are third-party browsing options available that are probably much better, Nokia's built-in S60 browser sucks, plain and simple. It loads non-optimized pages in actual size so it's hard to navigate the screen, only allows for one page to be open at a time, and sorely needs touchscreen functions provided by other modern smartphone browsers.

I hate to mention it, but there's a touchscreen phone coming out in a few days on the same network that costs $300 less. This is the problem with a lot of unsubsidized phones. [Product Page]

In Manhattan, I loaded the National Geographic site on the N95's browser without Flash about 10 times. Each result was different, but the bulk came up in the 37-43 second range, even slower than Jobs' 33-second claim. Spotty reception could've been to blame, because the status indicator switched between 3G and 3.5G several times. Or that the local tower was being utilized; remember, 3G bandwidth is a shared resource. This stuff is hard to quantify without true side by side tests.

Over on the left coast, our intern John ran the test on his N95 too. The site loaded for him in 31 seconds without flash, and about 37 seconds with it turned on.

He also gave it a go with Opera Mini, and without flash the page loaded in an astounding 10.6 seconds, less than half the time advertised by the iPhone 3G. However, Opera works a bit differently than the default browser—it only loads optimized content filtered through their servers in Norway. But John was able to zoom in on any part of the page and see full image quality instantly, just like Mobile Safari.

What else is interesting is that the side by side EDGE/3G tests from iPhone to iPhone show a 2.4x increase in speed. But Apple uses the Lonely Planet website for benchmarking, according to the iPhone 3G website. So, despite the tests on stage at WWDC, were they showing numbers for Lonely Planet? I doubt it, but I'm also confused as to why they'd switch up metrics. (The fine print is here.)

So what's the answer? Well, we're not entirely sure. Jobs' test results look kosher, but the implied winner here is Opera Mini. Progressive loading in half the time of Safari? Sign me up. But when it comes to the speed of the stock browser on a Nokia N95 using 3G, let us know if you've had better results.

[iPhone 3G FAQ, Nokia N95 Review]

Additional reporting by John Herrman

Nokia N95 8GB Navigates to a Store Near You

Power-packed multimedia computer ships with six months of free navigation
in the United States

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., March 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — The wait is over
— the Nokia N95 8GB has arrived on American shores. Packed with portable
entertainment features and high-speed HSDPA connectivity on 850/1900 MHz
networks in the Americas, the Nokia N95 8GB is now shipping to select
locations across the United States — and with six months of free
navigation service included with Nokia Maps.

The new Nokia N95 8GB brings the worlds of mobility and entertainment
together with its stunning 2.8 inch QVGA screen with support for up to 16
million colors, eight gigabytes of built-in memory, Assisted GPS (A-GPS)
for improved location access, and enhanced battery power. Nokia N95 8GB
owners in the US can also enjoy the benefits of free turn-by-turn
directions and voice guidance in Nokia Maps for six months.

"We're excited to now offer this all-in-one powerhouse of a multimedia
computer in the United States," said Bill Plummer, vice president, Nokia
Americas. "With the added ultra-fast connectivity of HSDPA, the Nokia N95
8GB delivers on the promise of a multimedia computer in one sleek and
compact package."

This attractive package boasts one of the industry's strongest feature
sets — in addition to eight gigabytes of built-in memory, the Nokia N95
8GB includes a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, built-in A-GPS,
Wi-Fi, HSDPA and an innovative two-way slide for easy access to both
telephony and multimedia functions. The sleek gloss black N95 8GB has a
luminous 2.8" (240 x 320) QVGA display, so watching videos, browsing the
Internet or viewing maps is a real pleasure. With its expanded memory, the
N95 8GB offers up to 20 hours of video* or up to 6000 songs**.

Now with A-GPS, Nokia N95 8GB owners can quickly navigate to their
locations using Nokia Maps faster and access maps for over 150 countries,
including a selection of preloaded US state maps. The Nokia N95 8GB will
also support Nokia Share Online 3.0, available via Nokia Download!,
enabling users to upload photos and videos with just one click straight to
Share on Ovi, Flickr or Vox.

At an estimated price of $749, the Nokia N95 8GB will be available
through Nokia Nseries retailers across the United States, such as the Nokia
Flagship stores in New York City and Chicago, as well as many online
e-tailers.

* Capacity based on H.264 750-Kbps video at 320 x 249 resolution,
combined with 128- Kbps audio. Capacity is half of this with H.264 1.5
Mbps video at 640 x 480 resolution, combined with 128-Kbps audio (near
DVD quality).
** Capacity based on 3 minutes, 45 seconds per song with 48 Kbps eAAC+
(M4A) encoding on the Nokia Music Manager

Notes to Editors

For full technical specifications, visit http://www.nseries.com/N958GB
For high res images, visit http://www.nokia.com/press/photos and select the
product model from the devices list.

About Nokia Nseries

Nokia Nseries is a range of high performance multimedia computers that
delivers unparalleled mobile multimedia experiences by combining the latest
technologies with stylish design and ease of use. With Nokia Nseries
products, consumers can use a single device to enjoy entertainment, access
information and to capture and share pictures and videos, on the go at any
time.

About Nokia

Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and
growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. Nokia
makes a wide range of mobile devices and provides people with experiences
in music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games and business
mobility through these devices. Nokia also provides equipment, solutions
and services for communications networks.

SOURCE Nokia

The data sent back from each test car logged the vehicle's speed and location via an on board N95 handset, this information was then sent to a central control station, which in turn relayed the relevant travel alerts. Nokia are quick to point out that their technology has an economical benefit over similar systems, mainly because it relies solely on technology people already own. Given the soon-to-be ubiquitous nature of GPS enabled cellphones, we would have to agree with Nokia's observation. Rest your privacy woes aside; the information sent will be completely anonymous. Nokia seem to be making a big effort in this field, and it certainly sounds like a win, win to us—go ahead and checkout the video at CNet. [CNet]

The size is also new with the N96 being slightly longer and wider but .07 of an inch thinner than the N95. A release date is obviously still unknown and since these specs are on the German Nokia site they could change when the N96 finally hits the states. [Nokia via IntoMobile]

The Spin A viewer unfamiliar with the N95 8GB might be forgiven for walking away from this ad unaware that the device is, indeed, a phone, rather than Nokia's souped-up answer to the Archos 605. Yeah, there's a brief shot of the keypad at the end, but the hype's exclusively about the media capabilities ("Play movies/play games/play music" sayeth the copy). So goes Nokia's strategy to get the N95 8GB to filter down to non-geeks— the early adopters went ga-ga over the third-party apps, but the next tier of consumers (Nokia hopes) will be dazzled by the audio, video and N-Gage games. Oh, and note the lack of speaking parts for the actors. Nokia must be going for that vaunted all-in-one international approach—you can be sure that voice-over artists from Malaysia to Mexico will be enlisted to tailor the spot for their home markets. (In fact, here's an edited version in Italian.)

Counterspin Tough to see how Nokia is going to capture mainstream hearts and minds without offering a serious price reduction on the N95 8GB. Remember, Apple slashed the iPhone's price pretty early on, despite (debatedly) gangbuster sales to early adopters; the company knew it had to ratchet down the cost-of-entry to reach the fat part of the consumer bell curve. Nokia seems oddly confident that quality alone will convince a new class of consumers to buy the N95 8GB, an assumption that doesn't seem justified given the legitimate gripes about the phone's shortcomings (most notably the lack of a QWERTY keyboard). All due respect to the company for its policy of openness toward application developers, but built-in basics are going to be more important to the majority of users.

Mission Accomplished? It's a little hard to tell what Nokia has in mind for the N95 8GB this year, as the company prepares to go full-bore in North America. Based on its past ads trumpeting the N95 8GB's third-party apps—ads which were explicit swipes at Apple—Nokia would seem to have the iPhone in its sights. But then why the accent on multimedia instead of productivity tools? What wowed so many people about the iPhone was the ability to access the (*groan*) "real Internet." The N95 8GB can do likewise, and it even works with Flash. Nokia is going to have to do a much better job of highlighting those features, because few people will want to drop nearly eight hundred bucks on a glorified Archos 605 (which retails for well south of $350). Still, all the handsome hype in the world may not be able to mainstream the N95 8GB—the lack of a QWERTY combined with the lack of a touchscreen is very 2005. (If only this video wasn't a hoax...)

Hype-O-Meter 4 (out of 10). A gorgeous and clever ad in many ways, but a puzzling message for a $779 phone looking to break beyond the monied geek elite.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired, a columnist for Slate, and author of the forthcoming Now the Hell Will Start. His Hype Sheet column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

Read more Hype Sheet

If a North American 8GB N95 is in the works, one would assume it would offer 3G wireless over US bands like its 4GB counterpart. But if Nokia really wanted to excite me, they would offer an N95 with a touchscreen and a QWERTY/SureType keyboard. [The Nokia Guide via Boy Genius Report]