Nokia N96 Review

Still remember the Nokia powerful N95 handset? Once has been knows as the best equipped phone one years ago by many reviewer? And after one year later, Nokia has released another powerful handset, which aims to stand up to the level of popularity that N95 once enjoyed. Indeed, the Nokia N96 is the updated version of N95 with added more functionality and redesign the appearance of the phone.

One of the most attractive features in N96 would be the DVB-H tuner for mobile digital TV, which allowed user to subscribe to and download TV programs, or stream them if in a robust web connection area. To let you enjoy watch TV on the handset, N96 also comes with an alarm clock can be set beforehand to make you aware of a favorite show starting. Beside that the fragments of shows can be automatically saved in the MPEG4 format. Also a parental control option is available with certain channels can be optionally locked with a password. Obviously the N96 is more powerful then the TV at your home. However, the downside of the DVB-H tuner is availability depends on the region and country.

The 5MP camera also will not disappoint the users just like what N95 did. They both have the same camera’s specs. However, there is a new feature in N96 that joining of imaging and GPS, this manifests itself in the ability to Geo Tag photos. When enabled the N96 will store the location of the cameras as it takes a picture, this enables the desktop imaging applications or the online version to show your snaps on a map.

For the music player, the sound quality is very good. But it is best with a headset and we can configure which of our ears is weaker and on that side the music will be louder. Also it has features a SMS reader which can read out messages loud, unfortunately the reader can recognized English only. We used to be disappointed by N95 that it is not come with FM radio, but not anymore in N96 because the handset was come with a FM radio. The built-in FM radio can work in two modes; there is a Visual version which requires this service to be available in the given region, and there is an Internet Radio, which doesn’t receive broadcast via the headset, but from the Internet. There is no RDS feature in any of them, but when choosing the first one (Visual) the handset can download the list of available radio stations at our location, so we don’t have to manually tune it.

The Nokia N96 is come with an astonishing 16 Gb of onboard and 8 Gb of replaceable flash storage, which is very huge storage capacity. It’s reasonable since the phone is more dedicated to the multimedia functionality. And Nokia promises that you’ll be able to watch 40 hours of video using the internal storage alone, of course the battery life is another matter. The phone can record videos in VGA resolution and they can be played back full-screen, landscape mode. In the Video central we can use streaming technology to watch movies from the web.

Overall Nokia N96 is a quality phone, features a lot of cool functionalities. It is obviously an all-in-one solution, and the improved feature set and DVB-H reception will certainly attract new users as well as upgraders from the N95. The model has already started selling for 550 euros.