Nokia N96 Review

The Nokia N96 is a powerful new smartphone from Nokia’s N series of devices. Its dimensions come in at 103 x 55 x 18 mm and weighs in at 125 grams. The TFT QVGA screen is 2.8 inches with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels and is capable of displaying over 16 million (24 bit) colors. The N96 is a dual slider which means it has two slide out portions. The first is the numerical keypad which slides out from the bottom. When held in landscape view, video controls slide out of the left (top when upright).

The N96 comes with a full featured 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Optics: Tessar lens. Camera features include auto-focus, auto-exposure, Dual-LED camera flash, video light, recording indicator and auto-focus assist light. There is a secondary VGA camera that can be used for video calls and conferencing as well as self portraits.

The Nokia N96 uses the Symbian OS v9.3, S60 3rd Edition OS and comes with 128 MB of RAM and 256 MB of ROM. It also has 16 GB of internal storage space which can be expanded with hot swappable microSD cards. To put it simply…that’s a lot of space. It’s powered by Dual ARM 9 264 MHz CPU’s. Its battery life is rated as having up to 3.66 hours of talk time and up to 220 hours on standby.

The Nokia N96 can also operate on these network frequencies – Quad Band GSM 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 and Dual Band UMTS 900 and 2100. It supports data transfer across HSDPA (up to 3.6Mbit/s enabled), WCDMA and GPRS/EGPRS powered networks. For further device connectivity the N96 has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g capabilities, a USB connection and Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP.

The N96 also comes with a built in GPS receiver and Assisted GPS (A-GPS) functionality. The integrated GPS receiver comes with pre installed maps through Nokia Maps software which allows for additional map downloads. Maps can also be downloaded through third party navigational software such as Tom Tom, CoPilot, Google Maps, Window’s Live Search, etc.

The N96 has several voice features such as Push to talk (PTT), text to speech, voice recorder, voice dial and voice commands. It also has a built in hands free speaker set up. As far as PIM (Personal Information Management) features, the N96 has all of the basics covered with contacts, calendar, printing options, to-do list etc. This includes document viewers for Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF files. It can support POP3, IMAP and SMTP protocols and can sync with Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes through your PC. SMS, MMS (multimedia messaging), and Instant Messaging are also supported as well. The N96 is also capable of downloading additional third party Java and Symbian applications. It also has support for widgets.

This mobile device comes with a built in music player and can play FM and internet radio. It supports audio playback in MP3, MP4, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA formats. It is capable of playing back video files as well as stream both audio and video. Actually, through its built in DVB-H receiver, you can watch live television broadcasts from the N96, complete with program guide, instant replay and even recording. You can also watch web based flash videos too. You can view any of these things on a larger screen with the N96’s TV-out port.

For those that need even more functionality beyond that of a normal mobile device, then the N96 Nokia N96 can give it to you. With its larger size and healthy suite of features, the N96 is simply everything you could need.

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