Good old Nokia - just when you think they've been out-shone by the latest from Sony Ericsson, or Samsung, or maybe even Motorola, they pull something out of their hat that makes you say "bloody hell, who would've thought it, I'd rather like one of those". The N95, due for an early 2007 release, is just one of those handsets; building on the success of WiFi-blessed smartphones like the N80, as well as music-phones such as the N73, it summons up a spec-sheet where not only are all the must-haves ticked, but the would-be-nice boxes too.

"Okay," I hear you cry, your voice dripping with scorn, "sell me this handset - what makes it so great?"Â Well, how about WiFi in b and g flavours, a full bevy of cellular data connections including HSDPA, EDGE and WCDMA, GPS navigation (with verbal directions as an option), a 5-megapixel digital camera (with Carl Zeiss optics) capable of shooting DVD quality video, a dedicated slide-out panel of transport controls for the onboard media player, all delivered via a 2.6-inch QVGA display capable of 3D graphics together with stereo speakers.

Not enough? Yet to be impressed? Could 160mb of on-board memory change your mind, expandable via hot-swappable microSD? What about the fact that the digital camera has autofocus, stabilisation, and can stream media via a TV-out connection or wirelessly over WLAN and UPnP? Bluetooth 2.0 with support for A2DP stereo audio, perhaps, or up to seven hours music playback from a full charge? How do built-in maps of 100 countries, together with 15 million Points of Interest grab you? Or a weight of just 120g and 215 hour standby or up to 210 minutes talk-time? If you're still shaking your head then you're a hard nut to crack.

Let's face it, though - you could slap a load of functionality in a glossy case and try selling it, but if the UI is shoddy then all you're going to be counting come the end of the tax year is returned handsets. Which is where Nokia's vast experience in designing user-friendly interfaces comes in; the N95 runs the well-established Symbian S60 OS, now in its 3rd edition, and with a growing catalogue of third-party appplications that I imagine are just dying to tap into the potential for GPS GeoTagging, high-speed connectivity and the rest.Â

Vincent shot these videos of the N95 in action - playing a high-quality film trailer and streaming video from a Tivo PVR - which go some way to illustrating just how Nokia envisage the handset fitting into your mobile life. With pre-production models scoring highly in early hands-on reviews, I'm very keen to play with the final release. It's been said before, but this could just be the device that lets you leave your Nano, GPS, camcorder and digital camera at home.