Nokia N96 Review

By Dushan Delic

MyMobile Verdict

First Impressions

The Nokia N96’s predecessor, the N95, quickly became the company’s flagship smartphone and created its own army of fans. Now, it’s about time that a successor is released. Enter the shiny new N96.

Available only in black, the N96 is slightly chunkier than the N95. In terms of the materials and design layout, we couldn’t help but notice that the N96 borrows from the Nokia N81 in this department. Like the popular N95, the N96 is also a dual-slider with the keypad on the bottom drawer and video and multimedia controls at the top. The video controls are meant to be viewed horizontally, which explains the icons being embossed for that perspective.

The N96 sports 16GB of on-board memory that can be expanded with memory cards, a 2.8-inch screen displaying up to 16 million colours, GPS satellite navigation, 3G video-calling, multimedia features and a 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens with auto-focus. The expandable memory capability comes in the form of microSD or TransFlash cards, with the N96 accepting cards with up to 8GB in size and supporting the microSDHC standard. With the built-in 16GB of memory, this potentially allows the N96 to hold up to a staggering 24GB at any one time. There is no denying that in terms of gadgetry and features, the N96 delivers. However, at $1,699.00 it is very pricy. Unfortunately, the battery life is not that great and in this respect the N96 is a step down from its predecessor, as all its new features seem to deplete the battery much, much faster. Also, there are no truly amazing advancements in its Symbian operating system or its interface to take the N96 to that next level.  

Navigation

The N96’s main navigation is the directional pad (D-pad) in the centre of the control panel below the screen. Surrounding the D-pad are a whopping 11 buttons – dial and end keys, left and right soft keys, menu and clear keys, as well as the multimedia control keys. Sliding the screen up reveals the keypad, which has keys that are big enough to accommodate larger fingers. Sliding the screen down reveals the video control keys – such as previous, next, play, pause and stop buttons for convenient movie-watching. This is pretty much the tried-and-trusted Nokia dual-slider concept. The volume keys are on the right side, so they would have to be operated with the index finger while in-call, and the dedicated camera key, which also acts as a shutter release, is right next to it for easy operation.

The menus are standard Nokia templates, driven by the Symbian operating system interface. This means that there’s a slight lag when opening items/applications, but nothing out of the ordinary. Standby mode features an active screen layout showing the most important information and activities that are important to you, so you can bring all of your shortcuts and favourite applications to the fore. The built-in accelerometer allows you to automatically rotate your photos and certain applications from landscape to portrait modes, and vice versa. We noticed that the accelerometer works only on one side of the device, which means the auto-rotation function doesn’t follow you if you turn the device through 360 degrees. Nevertheless, this is a much welcomed addition to the N96 feature-set.

Calling & Messaging

The Nokia N96 is a quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900) with HSDPA support (900/2100). Video calling is supported and made very convenient with the dedicated secondary camera at the front of the device, above the screen. The phone book has virtually unlimited capacity, which means that you won’t be able to fill up your memory even if you intentionally tried (16GB worth of contact data is pretty much unheard of). The N96’s network reception and call quality is excellent, with calls sounding loud and clear to both parties. The built-in speakerphone performed exceptionally well, producing very good sound with no distortion. Voice dialling is featured for easy call management, and Bluetooth capability adds wireless talking on a range of Bluetooth standalone headsets and car kits. The only thing that causes concern is the battery, which is the same as the one used in the original N95 – delivering only 950 mAh. The 8GB version of the N95 had its battery upgraded to a 1,200 mAh model, so it is a big surprise to find that Nokia chose to load the N96 with all these new features, yet downgrade the battery to a lower-capacity model. In 3G areas (which now include most towns and cities in NZ) the N96 offers up to 160 minutes of quoted talk time, and up to 8 days of standby time.

With every possible messaging option built in, you can keep in touch by SMS, MMS and email. The N96 has automatic message-type selection in operation for SMS and MMS messages. You start out with an SMS and as soon as you add any multimedia file (photo, sound or video), the message type is automatically changed for you. Messaging on the N96 is a real breeze.

Multimedia

The N96’s audio and video features are great. The audio player was comprehensive, with playlist management tools, an equalizer and play controls. There’s a 3.5mm audio jack that allows your sound to be streamed to any stereo system that has an AUX input, greatly expanding the output quality of the built-in speakers.

The main audio formats supported are MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ and WMA, so you are covered for any eventuality. The video player supports many popular formats with great reproduction on the device. A real treat is the Audio/Video cable that is packaged with the N96. This allows you to stream your video through the device’s TV-Out feature to any TV set or display that supports an RCA input (this is the standard yellow-red-white cable that most of have everywhere in our homes). We exported the video to a 60-inch HDTV Plasma screen, and we must say it looked pretty good. The video on the N96 was not in HD format but the quality was really good, just slightly below normal DVD quality.

We liked the fact that all the required cables and tools were included in the packaging, enabling you to instantly enjoy all the N96’s multimedia features. Another nice touch is the very convenient flip-stand that flips out from around the camera lens at the back, enabling you to stand the device on any flat surface for comfortable video-watching. Since the N96 has enough memory and power to play feature-length movies, this is a small detail that will be loved by many users. We have to mention that you should be careful while pulling it out, as it does not appear to be one of the sturdiest parts of the device.

The 5MP camera features Carl Zeiss optics with auto-focus and LED mobile flash. The flash is an LED light so it is not as bright those on standard digital cameras, which use the Xenon flash. However, it is still very useful in the light-poor environments of the average house party. There are a lot of options and manual settings to play with to get the camera to perform to its fullest in certain situations. However, because of the camera’s sheer user-friendliness and the fact that you have 5 megapixels of imaging power with you everywhere you go, there is not much we can find fault with in this area.

Other Features

As GPS satellite navigation is the big thing nowadays, the N96 sports a GPS unit that’s supported by A-GPS maps to help you locate almost any business or place you are planning to visit. However, a data account is required for the maps to load with the AGPS. The same is true for subscribing to the GPS voice-navigation service if you wish to use it beyond the 3-month free trial period. GPS features are also built into other applications, such as the camera – meaning that every photo you take can be geo-tagged for easy sorting in your photo management software, which is very convenient.

In addition to the already mentioned microSD/TransFlash memory expansion slot, the N96 also features Wi-Fi network connectivity so that you can use it to browse the net at home or office, without having to worry about network data fees. The connection worked seamlessly with both 802.11 b and g standards, along with the UPnP support. Bluetooth with A2DP allows for stereo Bluetooth headsets or speakers to be connected for truly wireless enjoyment of the music features. The built-in DVB-H TV tuner allows for live television channels to be viewed on this device. However, as there are no content providers available in NZ, this is another one of those features that the device has – but which we unfortunately won’t be able to use.

Summary

In terms of features, the Nokia N96 is a beast. Sporting a great number of the advanced features that can be placed inside a mobile phone, it’s surprising to see that the N96 does not have the finishing touches to match. The plastic shell just felt too… cheap, for the lack of a better word. The slide just wasn’t as smooth as it could be, and since anyone would use the slide every time they want to use the phone, this is very important. And the buttons on the keypad weren’t as ‘clickable’ as they could have been. Don’t get us wrong – the N96 is a great device with a lot of features. We just expected it to be more refined, considering the status that Nokia assigns to it, as well as that very hefty price tag. Overall, the N96 is a phone for a user that looks for great functionality, but it’s not necessarily the ultimate device for the style-conscious.

MyMobile Verdict