Nokia N96 – First Impressions
I unboxed the Nokia N96 a couple of days ago, and the first thing I noticed were the seeming downfalls:
Battery restriction, I have 2 BL-6F batteries for my N95-3, though the battery fits and powers the N96 just fine, the 1200mAh battery is simply too large (slightly) for the back plate to fit properly. The BL-5F is the 950mAh battery for the N-series N96, comes in the box with it. Funny thing is – side-by-side the N96 with the BL-5F battery outlasts the N95-3 with the BL-6F plopped in; but just barely. That has a lot to do with a “slower” processor” installation, but honestly, I’m beginning to think the OS upgrade is either more efficient, or I’m just delusional – the N96 is a faster experience over my N95-3 by far.
Smooth Keypad. I saw it, and I sank. The keys for both the numeric keypad and the media keypad are flush, flat and glossy, which to me meant “less tactile keyboard” and for me, that’s not a good thing. Again, Nokia is smarter than my impressions. After using the new keypad for about 30 minutes, I quickly realized that it wasn’t only awesome, but I was able to type more accurately and faster. Who would’a thunk it?
Lack of Gallery “Quick Access” key. This one was a give and take. On the N95-3 I use the Gallery key often, more often than I’d like to in-fact. So, the introduction of the magic silver button next to the jog-pad on the front-face led me to find that not only were there massive improvements with accessing media from the N95 to the N96, but now? It’s less likely I’ll find my phone randomly in some “viewing photo” state when I want to make a call. Awesome.
Non-standard USB port. In my opinion, this is simply FAIL. Looking at the physical space alloted for plugs on the handset, I can see why Nokia did it, it just wouldn’t fit, simple. But still – now I have to make sure I don’t lose the cable it came with, and I need to ensure I have it on me… That is, if I’m not interacting with PC Suite via Bluetooth, which I do most (if not “nearly all”) of the time. It’s just principle, as to why I don’t agree with this change. [Update from @docwho76 via Twitter – Okay, I just need to get off my ass and buy new mini USB cables… This is awesomesauce.)
Even though the downsides aren’t really downsides, and I actually consider them improvements – as far as I’m concerned, the outright upsides are plenty. Here’s a short-list:
Additional LED Flash – Video Flash. For anyone that’s recorded something at night via video, you’ll know that not having a light is usually a crappy way to start. Well? Problem solved, not only is there a light for video, but there are two LED’s on the back of this thing. People ask “why not Xenon?”, simple. LED’s don’t die. Xenon has a bad habit of simply “not working” from time to time, even in cars. It’s really rare, but why take the chance? These LED’s already are powerful enough to blind people, trust me, my friends have complained about it plenty enough already and it’s only been a couple of days.
Nokia Maps. The GPS on the N96 is smoking fast, and extremely accurate. I’m a fan of the satellite view, much like you get with Google Maps, but the thing that gets me is – “Walking Distance, Coffee Shops” search. The novelty factor is, I found out I’m only 890 yards from Java Jones, which is 9 blocks from where I’m sitting, 172 yards from It’s a Grind, where I’ll be heading in a few minutes. But the step-by-step, turn-by-turn voice navigation via Bluetooth to your ear is what’s making me most happy. I had this feature on the N95-3, but this time, I have a British woman telling me the directions, not some Disney “remain seated please” voice rambling about.
Internet Radio – Resident. What an AWESOME surprise. Pandora is one thing, and I enjoy it, awesome. But having Radio 1 from the UK in my ear across the globe while I’m cruising around town is simply awesome. There a loads and loads of Internet Radio stations available on the N96, and for free.
24 Gigabytes (GB) of Storage. With 16GB in the phone, and 8GB on a removable microSD card, I really kinda feel spoiled.
The list of stuff tucked into the N96 is pretty long, I’ll keep it as short as possible, but not really.
- Video Feeds & Video Ring tones
- Live TV – operator support required (AT&T, since you only listen to Apple, have Steve Jobs put this feature on the iPhone so you can catch up to the rest of the world)
- Video Teleconferencing – operator support required (Again, AT&T… scream at your buddy Jobs, I’d like these features to be enabled on your network, I’m assuming the iPhone will have to do this before you let the rest of us enjoy these features we already have available to us)
- Share Online with Nokia Ovi, Flickr, Vox and then some
- Email support
- MMS support
- SMS support
- Front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera on the slide as well as the 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss optics camera on the rear.
- Kick-stand for propping phone up while you watch stuff.
- Keypad-lock switch! Which is actually a lot better than have it auto-lock on the N95-3, lemme tell ya.
- Stereo speakers
- Memory slot
- Dual-sliding layout do-dad. (Slide one way, you got a number pad, slide the other way, you have a media player, FTW)
- Did I mention 24GB of memory to abuse?
- Nice, large screen (same as the N95-4, but I have the N95-3. I wanted to keep the expandable memory slot option, but now – I can have both a large screen and more memory. Rock!)
- Nokia Vine installed by default
I could say more… and will say more later.
