REVIEW - Nokia N96

For years now, Nokia have been the frontrunners of the smartphone scene, and when you own a Nokia smartphone, it becomes clear why. You can't imagine going back to a normal phone, and when you do, the new phone feels plain, boring and featureless.

This is how it was for me. When the gaming keys were destroyed on my Nokia N81-8GB leaving a big gap in the casing where you can see the insides of the phone, as well as blinding bright lights which usually add a subtle backlight to the gaming buttons, I knew it was time to upgrade, so I went and bought a Samsung G600 and as nice as the phone was (as was the interface), it felt very boring. Poor java games, poor browser and poor functionality.

So, when I was looking to upgrade from this, I looked towards my old friend Nokia and after a bit of looking around, I took the plunge with their new flagship phone... The Nokia N96.

Section 1 - Hardware

The N96 is a beauty, a lovely glossy black finish, with an excellent 2.4" QVGA screen (which could've been a higher res really, come on nokia!)great for watching movies, with the help of the integrated kickstand on the back of the device which fits into place around the excellent 5 megapixel camera. The sides of the device are silver and the keypad is flush and looks great with the phone.

The left side of the phone features a micro SD memory card slot, to expand the internal memory of 16GB up to an iPhone crushing 48GB! On the right we have speakers at the top and bottom of the phone which seems odd until you put the device landscape making it stereo. On the face of the device is an excellent directional pad, surrounded by multimedia keys, a small silver multimedia key on the right of the directional pad, left and right soft keys and call and end call buttons.

It also features and extra set of multimedia keys when the two-way slider is slid down, and when slid upright, the number keys are revealed.

Section 2 - Interface

The UI for Symbian OS 9.3 (S60 3rd Edition) is as great as it's ever been, but now thanks to the accelerometer features a landscape mode. The landscape mode works very well rearranging web pages, menu's and the gallery effortlessly and is a welcome addition to the already excellent platform.

The menu's look great and the default themes that come with the phone work really well with the device and don't really need changing. However, if you are not happy and you'd prefer something else, then there's a mass of themes out there for you to download and applying them couldn't be easier.

The menus, although sometimes sluggish, are user friendly and easy to navigate. This phone shouldn't really give you any problems. A full screen wallpaper option would've been welcomed but it's no biggie! Especially, with the ease of creating themes on the device itself with third party applications.

Nokia's new N-Gage platform is also well presented and looks very appealing to the eye. You can chat with friends, download games and trials, and compare N-Gage points (which closely resemble microsoft's gamerscore system)

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Section 3 - Multimedia

The N96 was clearly built for multimedia, featuring a DVB(H) TV tuner for watching TV broadcasts on the go, 2 sets of mutimedia keys (one for portait, one for landscape) a kickstand around the camera for watching movies hands free and excellent quality music playback!

The quality of the 5 mega-pixel camera is great! It's no N82 or Cyber-shot quality camera but it does a great job. A xenon flash would've topped it off but sadly, only a typical LED flash.... But it's a dual LED flash and seems to do a great job in poorly lit areas. The camera well outshines the one of it's biggest market rivals, the iPhone 3G and the T-Mobile (HTC) G1.

Video capture could've been better. I mean, I know I migrated to Blu-Ray from DVD a while back but the DVD-like quality video capture doesnt seem so DVD like... But it is pretty damn good quality for a phone and is captured at VGA (640 x 480) resolution.

The N96 is overall excellent for multimedia. The DVB (H) broadcasts are not available in the UK so, to make up for it, Nokia have pre-installed the BBC iPlayer to the device... Video's from iPlayer can be either streamed or downloaded with a 7 day license key. Watching TV programmes on the device is great with the kickstand allowing you to just sit back and enjoy... However, if the kickstand is not enough for you... The N96 comes packaged with a TV out cable.

Music playback is crisp, clear and loud but can be a little tinny at times. This little annoyance is fixed by the 3.5mm headphones slot allowing you to plug in your fancy headphones for a great listening experience.

Section 4 - Gaming and Internet

Whether it's playing the latest N-Gage releases or running Genesis and SNES emulators, the N96 is a great phone for gaming, sporting a fantastic D-Pad and dedicated gaming keys that only light up during games, it's easy to use and rules out the awkwardness of the iPhone and G1's "virtual joypads". There's easily enough buttons to go around for the core games on the N-Gage platform, and for the more casual users... The typical A & B buttons... What more could you need...

The N96 also uses a fantastic web browser supporting flash, java, and whatever else you'd like to throw at it. Files are easily downloaded with the download manager and .zip files can be unpacked on the phone itself.

File sharing via Ovi, Flickr and more is also available out of the box as well as Mail for exchange.

Section 5 - Overview

So, it seems as though Nokia have done it again, it may not be as powerful as the N95-8GB yet it still packs a punch. The N96 is great for all of your needs, reading .pdf's on the go, browsing the web, handheld gaming, snapping high-quality 5 megapixel photos and and of course, calling and texting... Overall, the N96 is a truly fantastic phone!