Nokia N96 Review-Dominator by erazer007

Nokia N96 Review

Nokia N96

I thank WOM World for giving me this opportunity to review the N96. I will put the N96 to test and device whether it is truly a successor to the N95.The total number of words in this review come to more than 3000 words so this is my largest/longest and most in-depth review till date and I’m hoping you will like it. Please tell me your comments and suggestions. Also please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about anything.

Advantages

16 GB Memory with micro-SD card Slot

5 MP Camera with Autofocus and Dual-LED Flash

Good 2.8” Screen

Good Sliding Mechanism and Build Quality

S60 3^rd Edition FP2 with Lots of New Features

Kickstand, Navi-Wheel

Call Quality

Battery Life

Disadvantages

Bad Camera Shutter Key

Bad Position of Speakers

Slow Menus

Unboxing

The N96 comes in the typical N-Series boxing with a few visual differences. But the contents of the box are more than the typical N-Series style. On opening the box you can see the N96 below a plastic cover. On opening further, you find the Battery (BL-5F), Charger, Earphones, Remote Control, 8 GB card (In some regions), Car Charger, micro-USB cable, TV-Out cable, Manuals and Installation CD. The N96 also comes preloaded with a free Tetris game and Transformers movie.

Design, Materials and Build Quality

The N96 follows the current trend of the Nokia’s innovative Dual-Way sliders. The N96 resembles the N81 a lot and many may think of the N96 as a Dual-Way Sliding N81. Sliding the device upwards reveals the numeric keypad and sliding it downwards reveals the media keys. The sturdiness and feel of the slider mechanism has become better and also a spring sliding mechanism has been added. It enables you to push the slider a bit and it slides up fully without putting full force. This was absent on the N95 and it was one of its defects. The slider however still has some movement when closed just like in the N95.The gap between the two sliding portions is very minimal. Movement of the slider takes very little force and there are clicks when the slider slides into the position.

Nokia N96 Slide Closed

The material used on the handset is mainly plastic. The top portion and battery cover are made of glossy plastic and the sides are made of a different sort of plastic. Fingerprints collect on the glossy plastic battery cover and the plastic on the front especially on the screen where even the slightest touch never goes unnoticed. The fingerprints cannot be noticed when the screen is lit up. The area around the navigation keys is glossy plastic alright but it has some king of texture to it. You will only notice it when you swipe your fingers over it and this portion doesn’t collect fingerprints easily. All in all the N96 feels exactly like the N81 only being a bit wider and an extra slide added to it.

The battery cover creaks a bit here and there during usage however it’s nothing to be too afraid of. It also has similar wave patterns on it just like in the N82.

Nokia N96 Slide Open

The power key, 3.5mm jack and the sliding keypad lock key are situated at the top. The right side of the device has the volume up/down buttons and the camera shutter key. The left side has the micro-SD card slot. On the bottom of the device, you can find the charger socket, micro-USB connector and the microphone.

Around the camera lens unit is the kickstand for the device. Thought the stand keeps the device from falling and keeps the phone at a suitable angle for viewing, the phone is not very stable on it and wobbles when you press the keys or touch it.

N96 Back

Its dimensions are ok though it could have been less wide and when slider is open, the phone feels too long. If you are used to the N95 8GB or N95, you may find it easier to adjust to it. The phone feels way too light though it’s the same as the N95. It feels good in hand and as I said the only thing bad is that it’s a bit too light for my taste. There is only one colour option available and it comes in Black.

The device has good build quality overall.

Keys

There are tons of keys on the N96. Well let me first start with the keypad. The keypad is flat just like in the N81 but the keys are bigger thanks o the phone being wider and longer. It even bigger than the N95 keypad and this makes it suitable for people with big fingers too. The flat style of the keypad may not appeal to all but I found it comfortable. Don’t know why but I like this type of keypads.

N96 Keypad

The keys on the top sliding part i.e. the call, end, 5-way navigation, left, right selection keys etc. Due to the keys being flat, the call and end keys were difficult to press at time but there were no wrong presses. The left and right selection keys are just fine. The 5-way navigation pad is good and the navi-wheel with light increases its advantage. The media key is small but easily accessible and it’s the way it should be. The media keys around the D-pad are something which I feel is totally unnecessary since there is another set of media keys on the device already. The keys only take up more space and may also cause accidental presses. I am glad Nokia removed it in the Nokia N85.

Navigation Keys

On the top of the device are the power key and the sliding keypad lock key. Both these keys are good to use. On the right side of the device are the volume up/down key and camera shutter key. There is no problem with the volume key but the camera shutter key is quite difficult to press and hold especially for focusing and macro etc. I feel it should have been more raised rather than being recessed into the casing. The N95 camera shutter key is an example to follow. Also the lack of a gallery button does some bad as you have to keep going through the menu to check the photos/videos.

Media Keys On

On the other slider part, are the media keys. The media keys again are flat like the keypad. They only light up when the hone is on and the slider is open. These keys also double as the gaming keys in which the 2 central keys become gaming keys similar to the N81 keys which have round emblems on it.

Media Keys Off

Call Quality

I was greatly surprised to finally find an N-Series phone which could take on the E-Series in this respect. The earpiece on the N96 has the necessary loudness and very good clarity and there are no disturbances or hisses.

The other thing is the loudspeaker. It is really loud. I bet you can hear the person talking even if you are next to an exploding volcano. The loudspeaker is really loud, more than the N95, N82 or any N-Series I have tried till date and also there is no compromise in clarity.

The ringtones are loud enough to be heard almost everywhere. But I feel that the vibration is weaker than the N95 8GB and normal standards. I already failed to notice two calls when the phone was in silent and the vibration was on.

Screen

The N96 comes equipped with a 2.8” Screen with a resolution of 240*320. The screen looks bigger than the one on the N95 8GB. The screen functions just as in the N95 8GB and even sunlight legibility is very good.

Screen

The built in accelerometer provides auto-rotation which automatically changes the orientation of the screen according to the position of the handset. But the auto-rotation does not work as well as in the Nokia N95 8GB but I expect it to be fixed with some firmware updates.

Connectivity

Connectivity is no issue as you may already know by seeing that the N96 is claimed to be the N95 successor. Its connectivity features include GPRS, HSCSD, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA, Wi-Fi with UPnP technology, Bluetooth and micro-USB. It has improved on some of the features the N95 already has but the infrared port has been lost. This may affect some of the people who like to use their phone as remote controls through the infrared port.

Left Side with micro-SD Slot

The USB transfer rate has been improved tremendously from the N95 8GB on which it was dead slow. Web browsing experience is good as usual on the N-Series.

Memory

This is where the N96 has made the biggest leap compared to its predecessor, the N95. The N96 comes with 16GB of built-in memory and also it has a micro-SD slot. In the market, the current highest memory card available is 8/16 GB which gives the user a total of 24/32 GB of memory. The 32 GB cards are expected to hit the markets soon and the N96 has proved to run the card. So that means the total capacity comes to 48 GB. That’s quite a lot of memory for phone geeks and those who don’t need that much can use the 16 GB built-in memory, 256 MB of on-board memory and the bundled 8 GB memory card. It has 128 MB of RAM which helps a lot while multi-tasking, playing games etc.

Music

It plays most of the common formats such as Mp3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ and WMA. The Music Player is almost identical to the one found on the N95 8GB but it has some differences. There are 5 equalizer presets. You can create your own preset too. There are also visualizations. The navi-wheel facilitates near iPod click wheel like function which allows you to brose songs by moving your finger around the edge of the navi-wheel.

The 3.5mm music jack is located on the top of the device. It allows you to plug-in any headphone and listen. Though the position of the jack is good for listening when the phone is held vertically, when using it in landscape mode, the audio wire hits your hand and it makes it difficult to press the controls. In this position the N95 8GB jack would have been better. But if you want a jack which does not obstruct, it’s better to place it on the right side of the device where the music experience is not affected either in vertical or landscape mode.

Top Side with Speaker, Power Key, 3.5mm Jack and Keypad Lock Slider Key

The speakers are placed on the right-hand corners of the device. This again works perfect if the phone is in landscape mode. But in vertical position, our hands may cover the speaker on the bottom right. The speakers are louder but there is more distortion as compared to the N95 8GB but better than the speakers of the N95. A2DP is also supported so that music can be heard wirelessly through Bluetooth audio devices.

Right Side with Volume Up/Down and Camera Shutter Key

Since the N96 has media keys on the front of the device, it will allow you to control the music using those buttons and not the navi-pad. This is not a defect but it would have been better if even the navi-pad was given the controlling option. This can be fixed by a firmware update but whether Nokia will implement it is another question.

Video

N96 comes with the usual Real Player built-in. Video viewing experience is exactly the same as in the N95 8GB. But the keys light off so that the viewing experience becomes better. The kickstand makes watching videos easy especially long videos and movies. Otherwise you have to hold the phone in your hands or have to find something that can hold the phone upright. But the kickstand does not help when controlling the device as it wobbles when you touch it.

Kickstand

The N96 also comes with a DVB-H tuner which enables users to watch TV on the move. But seeing that it is available only at select locations, I don’t think it will do much use unless you live in one of those cities. The TV-Out function enables you to perform the functions of the N96 while watching on TV. This is good especially for sharing photos and videos with your friends. The N96 however does not have a 3D Graphics Accelerator. I don’t know if it affects video and movie watching but it definitely affects games.

Performance, Customization and UI

The N96 runs of S60 3^rd Edition Feature Pack 2 which is the latest S60 apart from the S60 5^th Edition on the 5800 XpressMusic. Even though it has 128 MB of built-in memory like in the N95 8GB, the menus are slow to load even when the menu transitions are switched off. But the applications nevertheless boot up quickly. The Feature Pack 2 is quite interesting with its features such as transitions etc.

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Till now I have tried three FP2 phones and as far as I know they have different sort of transitions. I do not know whether the transitions are theme based or not since the three devices had different themes pre-installed.

The standby mode can be customized in 3 ways, Horizontal Icon Bar, Blank Home Screen (Basic) and the new Vertical Navigation Screen which is pretty useful as it occupies very less space on the standby screen but provides all the functionality just as in the Horizontal Icon Bar as and when you need it. Another addition is in the Profiles where you can set a particular profile to last up to a desired time limit after which it will revert back to the General profile.

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Sleep Mode is also supported where the screen turn off and the mode is indicated by a glowing ring around the navigation pad. This can also be turned off using the Breathing option under Settings.

The gallery is different too. It is now the way I liked it to be i.e. images and videos separately but now when it became like that I am having a hard time adjusting to it. The Videos come in the Video Centre and the Gallery has been replaced by Photos folder and maybe that’s the reason for the removal of the gallery button. There is 3D view in the photo gallery and the navi-wheel functions here too. Both videos and pictures can be displayed together if necessary by selecting the all files option.

Camera

The N96 comes with a 5 Megapixel camera with Autofocus and Dual-LED flash. Another new feature of the camera is the geo-tagging of photos. What it does is basically records the location where you took your photos and videos and embeds them into the photo/video. It does not have a lens cover as in the N95 8GB. But its lens is somewhat more resistant to scratches because the ring surrounding the lens which also has the kickstand is raised, so when it’s placed on a surface, contact is not made with the surface and it stays clean. But fingerprints nevertheless are unavoidable. The smudges do create some impact if there are so many.

Camera Lens Unit

The focal length of the N96 camera lens has changed from the one on the N95/8GB which was 5.6 and now it’s 5.2. The camera quality seems reasonably good, almost identical to the N95/8GB. I will be describing it further in my future article in which three 5 MP phones have a battle. As I said, the camera shutter key is quite difficult to press and hold especially for focusing and macro etc. While trying to focus on a subject, you may accidently press the shutter key fully and take the photo. Also the pressing of the key may cause the phone to shake at times. It’s really tough to get used to. I feel it should have been more raised rather than being recessed into the casing. The N95 camera shutter key is an example to follow.

Here is one sample picture, the other smaple pictures can be viewed at 800*600 resolution through the gallery at the bottom of the page.

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The Dual-LED flash is a good implementation by Nokia. It does nearly the same trick as the Xenon flash while taking a lot less amount of power. The videos can be recorded at VGA resolution with a maximum of 30 FPS. Again the recording is identical to the N95 8GB. The camera software is exactly the same.

Battery Life

The battery life on the device amused me. It lasts longer than the original N95 and sometimes more than the N95 8GB too. This was one of the issues when Nokia released the N96. But the people from Nokia claimed that they have reduced the battery consumption of the device and hence it lasts longer even though it uses a BL-5F battery (950 mAH), same as in the N95. It does last 2 days easily with moderate usage.

Bottom Side with Charger Socket, Mic, micro-USB Socket and Speaker

Nokia claims the phone to have a standby time of up to 220 hrs and a talk-time of 3hrs 40 min. The claim made by Nokia is less than the ones made on the N95/8GB but the N96 does last longer in real life. It may be due to the new FP2, sleep mode etc which reduce battery consumption.

Conclusion

The N96 has made many improvements over the N95/8GB, coming with tons of storage memory, dual Led flash, FP2, navi-wheel, kickstand, good build quality, better sliding mechanism etc.

But still not all are things to be boasting about to your friends like you did at the time when the N95 was released. Also it has some defects too such as still lacking a lens cover, the menus are slower and the camera shutter key is bad.

So overall, I can say that Nokia have not managed to create a successor to the N95 but they have managed to take the N95 and pimp it. They then gave us the N96 which is definitely a major upgrade to the N95 and its worth getting one. It is also one of the best phones by Nokia in the market right now.

I nick name the N96 as “The Dominator”