Camera Phones Plaza

The Nokia N96 is the best featured mobile phone (non touch screen) from the Nokia portfolio. Its drawbacks: too expensive and small battery life. The average buyer isn't interested of too much sophistication; all he cares when choosing a phone is index and functionality. So why would an average consumer buy the N96 instead of N95 8 GB? The only logical answer would be because of the 6 index instead of 5. The Nokia policy is however close to the Apple policy. You see, since the 2007 release of the iPhone, Apple has just refreshed every year the same model. Well Nokia does the same thing. Maybe a little different because it also debuts new designs while the specs (somewhat upgraded) stay the same.

Until the release of N97, Nokia N96 was stuck with the flagship title. Basically we are waiting for the day when Nokia will have to reinvent it's flagship series due to lack of numbers (N98 and N99, the end). Until then let's see what the non touch screen flagship has to offer. Being the successor of the Nokia N95 8 GB, Nokia N96 has some king size spec list. It runs in 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 /1900 and in 3G Network HSDPA 900 / 2100 or HSDPA 850 / 1900. Visually, the N96 is very much like the Nokia N81 or N81 8 GB. Same black finish with glossy surfaces with a little bit of silver along the sides.



The dimensions are generous. The phone has a height of 103 mm, wide of 55 mm and deep of 18 mm with a weight of 125 g. The Nokia N96 has a large 2.8" display (TFT, 16 million colors) with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. Above the wide display it has the earpiece and the second digital camera for calls. Because this is not a new model we don't have a light sensor as well. The plastic used in its case is not really that good. The numeric keys are average in size and sit under flat plastic slabs. Once you've touched it you probably are shocked of what cheap quality plastic Nokia has put on a $700 phone. The back case of the phone creaks and the keypad seems very fragile. The 5 MP digital camera, 2592 x 1944 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics with autofocus, is complemented with LED flash. The video recording offered by this camera model is VGA quality with 30 frames per second. The camera is basically identical to the N95. You might experience some problems with camera activation but this is purely software bugs. Try to install the newest update there is for the N96.

It is now time for a shocking discovery; this high tech phone has only a 950 mAh Li-Ion BL 5F battery. To understand the horrible mistake Nokia has made is enough for me to say that the Nokia N95 8 GB had a 1050 mAh while the Samsung INNOV8 has a 1500 mAh. Keep the charger next to you because you will need it. The N96 has a rated battery life of 3.6 hours talk time and up to 220 hours standby time. For the Nokia N95 the standby time is about at 240 hours. In the 3G network the values are even lower, 192 hours in stand by and 2 hours 36 minutes in talk time. The worse battery explains why Nokia planted in the N96 a slower CPU (Dual ARM 9 264 MHz processor). The dual ARM9 264 MHz CPU from the N96 is a downgrade from the dual ARM 11 332 MHz from the old N95.



So not only the N96 is going to run out of battery life in less than one day, but it will also work slower than the N95 8 GB. Nokia N96 runs with the latest Symbian OS, the 9.3 with Series 60 3rd Edition. It comes preinstalled with Feature Pack 2. This way we have better visual and performance improvements. The new Active layout is one of the best features of the latest upgrade Pack. It's fully customizable therefore all your necessary applications are right in front of you. You can also change the shortcuts assigned to the new soft keys. The N96 is the first Nokia smartphone with 16 GB memory. The device has the memory sectioned (Disk C with 256 MB for the user data, messages, calendar events). The N96's RAM volume makes 128 MB. Once you start the phone you will be left with only 89 MB (almost the same with Nokia N95 8 GB). The actual memory you can use from the N96 is around 15 GB and you still get a card slot for any microSD you would like to use. The telephony feature from the N96 has no problems.



The call performances are comparable to what E71 has to offer. The connectivity department is highly represented in this phone by GPRS Class 32, 107 / 64.2 kbps, HSCSD, EDGE Class 32, 296 kbps, HSDPA with 3.6 Mbps, WiFi 802.11 b/g, uPnP technology, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP and microUSB v2.0. The N96's two loudspeakers are pretty average as far as their volume is concerned. The GPS performances are exactly the same form the E71. The multimedia features are well represented because this is a S60 phone. As an overall conclusion Nokia offers too little too late. So the main disadvantages of this model are: bad battery life, no camera lens, bad material quality, cheap looking keypad and much too expensive. The sales package contains besides the handset, Li-Ion battery (BL-5F), USB data cable (CA-101), TV cable (CA-75U), remote control and headphones (AD-54, HS-45), car charger (DC-4) and charger (AC-5).