Nokia N96 Blog

One interesting choice that Nokia made with the N96 is the usage of dual LED flash instead of the Xenon flash as in N82. One reason why Nokia could have gone with such a design could be to keep the size of the device small. On the contrary, the advantage of dual LEDs is that one of them can be still ON while shooting video thus helping to shoot in low light conditions. The Nokia Blog has a interesting video which demonstrates how bright the N95 dual LEDs are. Click here to view it.

AAS has published a mega hands on review of a pre-production model of the Nokia N96. There are plenty of pictures and a lot of information about Nokia’s next flagship here. Some important points highlighted are:

• Excellent build quality, unlike the fragile-ness noted in the earlier versions of N95
• The camera is very similar to the one found on Nokia N95
• The 3.5 mm audio jack is now on the top of the device
• There is an additional lock key, which avoids crazy key sequences to unlock the device
•  The USB data transfer speed is 5 times that of Nokia N95
• Geo-tagging is now a standard feature on the camera
• Photos can be tagged for a ‘tag cloud’ view
• The FM radio now supports RDS
• The audio is processed by separate DSP, similar to Nokia N91, which means excellent sound quality
• Unlike N95, which used TI chips, the N96 uses ST Micro’s Nomadix platform
• The N96 does not have a graphics accelerator chip, which means game performance may not be upto par.

You can read the complete review here.

The following are the technical specifications of the Nokia N96 smart phone. This specification list is obtained from the Nokia NSeries website.

General

Operating Frequency

• WCDMA2100/900 (HSDPA) / EGSM900, GSM850/1800/1900 MHz (EGPRS)
• Automatic switching between bands and modes
• DVB-H Class C, 470-750 MHz

Dimensions

• Volume: 92 cc
• Weight: 125 g
• Length: 103 mm
• Width: 55 mm
• Depth: 18 mm, locally up to 20 mm

Memory Functions*

• 16GB internal flash memory, plus microSD memory card slot (hot swappable) for expandability and flexibility
• Approximate dynamic memory capacity indication with 16GB storage:
  • Video: 40 hours**
  • Music: 12,000 tracks***
• 128MB RAM, 256MB system memory (operating system plus dynamic user data area)

Read the rest of this entry »

Expansys UK is taking preorders for Nokia N96. They are non-committal about the date, so wait and watch game continues for the shipping date for this amazing machine.

When Nokia introduced the N95 in the market last year, it was praised by everyone as a revolutionary new device. That makes sense because the N95 was the first and the most practical all-in-one convergent device. It had GPS, a usable 5 megapixel camera, good sound quality, accelerated video and support for high speed 3G networks. For many people, it replaced the necessity of carrying multiple devices. Nokia also kept its end users happy by providing frequent firmware upgrades which fixed bugs and introduced new features. To top it all, Nokia also introduced the N95 8GB, which fixed many of the problems like battery life, RAM size and build quality issues which plagued the initial model.

The N96, which was announced recently, failed to match the excitement of the announcement of N95. This is understandable as most people expect a “revolutionary” device whenever a flagship product is launched. N96 provides marginal improvements (and disappointment in some aspects like the battery capacity) over its predecessor instead of adding anything new, except for the DVB-H capability. Even the DVB-H is not a new feature to the N Series as the N77 has offered this for more than a year now. All this put together has made the end users less enthusiastic about this new device.

The truth is, convergence has already hit the ceiling. Most mainstream entertainment including music, movies, gaming, browsing and photography are all available on any high end mobile device today. The new devices strive to improve the end users experience on these devices rather than introducing anything new. I think this is a trend that we will see for the next couple of years to come. I would call the year 2008 as the year of “mobile technology disappointment” as we are going to see more of such disappointments in the future.

One another thing to blame for the cold reception of Nokia N96 is the product naming. Had Nokia called this as the N95i or N95 16GB, the disappointments would have been lesser, thus turning the attention to the other demo of MWC, the S60 touch. By calling it the N96, Nokia changed or increased the end user expectations of this device.

Vaibhav Sharma of Symbian blog had a chance to play around with the Nokia N96 at the recently concluded MWC 2008. He was happy with the build quality and the improved data transfer speed while using the USB port. Like everyone else, he was disappointed by the puny battery and the lack of 3D acceleration. Read more of the review along with a video here.

Welcome to the N96 blog on Nokia Blogs. We will keep you updated on news about this great mobile phone on this blog. You can subscribe to our feed here. Thanks for visiting!