Nokia’s N96: An all Grown Up N95?

Overview

In 2007, if you were looking for a super smart phone, then I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Nokia N95 was one of the top ones on your list. So when news broke from Nokia that the Nokia N96 was being released next month, I just couldn't wait to see whether this was a worthy contender to be added to our short list for the must-have smart phones for 2008. Face value, this slider smart phone has all the latest mobile technologies which you'd expect from a smartphone. With 16GB of internal memory, GPS for geo tagging your pics, 3G HSDPA technology for a fast highly efficient mobile device you'd be hard pressed to find many faults in this phone. And for those of you who like your phone to look good, it even has a new stylish glossy black finish.

Review

One thing I love about smart phones is their ability to include so many different stand- alone devices and the Nokia N96 definitely exceeds my expectations on this front. In addition to the camera, video camera, music player, GPS device and unlike it predecessor the N95, its biggest improvement, has to be its capacity. With a 16GB of internal flash memory and a microSD memory card slot with support for cards up to 8GB (so you could have 24GB of storage space just on your phone!!), this will mean that you'll never run out of space for photos, music, and games.

Talking of photos, Nokia has updated the Share Online function which enables the N96 to automatically ‘geo tag’ your photos (ability to let you put markers on your photos based on location) and upload them to Flickr. Also, the built-in GPS receiver works with the new Nokia Maps 2.0, which comes preloaded on the N96. The camera is pretty much the same as the N95, however with a few more tweaking from the Nokia it now has a more more powerful flash.

Included also under its exterior is a digital TV tuner (a DVB-H) live broadcasting, however this won’t really be that useful in the UK until the digital switch over. It also comes with a little kick stand in the back so you can set it on a table top for your TV viewing pleasure and the speakers of the phone are cleverly designed in such a way that they are intended for landscape-oriented use. Nokia promises that you’ll be able to watch 40 hours of video using the internal storage alone, and of course, you’ll need to charge the battery.

It also has the dual-sliding function again just like the N95, as well as sporting a pair of gaming keys on an extra slide panel that can be used for N-Gage games. The Nokia N96 supports video recording, playback & streaming which can be displayed & viewed perfectly in the large high colour display. You can record footage which can be stored, edited, shared and deleted, or simply played back on the 2.8" QVGA screen for your viewing pleasure.

You can check out the Nokia N96 Demonstration Site here

The Gaj-It Verdict

All-in-all, the Nokia N96 is a great, feature packed mobile handset, that's a BIG step forward from the old n95! with such things as mobile social networking (geo-tagging pics and uploading straight to Flickr) and high-speed full-function Internet browsing that few phones currently on the market are capable of competing with today. The things I'm concerned about, is the battery life and the flaky Symbian software on other NSeries Nokia’s. The 950 mAh battery in the Nokia N96 is the same as in N95, and we all remember the troubles the N95 had with battery life also the software problems have apparently also been fixed. However, that aside it certainly gets my vote as being on the shortlist for the must have smartphone of 2008, but whether I think it can go head to head with the likes of apples iphone 2.0 and the blackberry bold 9000 is another story. I'll have to wait for it's release next month to see"¦

Sources:

Nokia N96 Review at Mobile Express

Nokia N96 Review at Dial a phone

Full specs of Nokia N96 include:

* WCDMA2100/900 (HSDPA) / EGSM900, GSM850/1800/1900 MHz (EGPRS) connectivity
* DVB-H Class C, 470-750 MHz
* S60 3rd edition, FP2 UI
* 2.8" QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) LCD TFT display with up to 16 million colours
* 5 mega pixel camera with auto-focus and auto-exposure and a Carl Zeiss lens (which are amazing).
* Dual-LED camera flash, video light, recording indicator, auto-focus assist light
* Secondary VGA (640 x 480 pixels) camera for video calls
* Video capture in MPEG-4 up to VGA at 30 fps
* Digital Video Stabilization
* Built-in GPS/A-GPS
* WLAN – IEEE802.11 g/b
* Stereo FM radio (87.5-108MHz, 76-90MHz) with RDS
* Hi-Speed USB 2.0 with Micro USB type B interface
* 3.5mm stereo headset plug , TV-out support (PAL/NTSC)
* Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP stereo/EDR
* 950 mAh battery with up to 220 min talk, 220 hrs standby time, 5 hrs video, 14 hrs music or 4 hrs TV playback
* Dimensions: 103×55×18 mm
* Weight: 125 g

What do you think? leave a comment below :)