Nokia N96 is a Nokia

Nokia

Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...

 smartphone

Smartphone

A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...

 in the Nseries range of products. It is the official successor to Nokia N95

Nokia N95

The Nokia N95 is a smartphone produced by Nokia as part of their Nseries line of portable devices. It was released in 2007. The N95 runs Symbian OS v9.2, with a S60 3rd Edition user interface. The phone has a two-way sliding mechanism, which can be used to access either media playback buttons or...

.

The handset was publicly announced at Mobile World Congress

Mobile World Congress

The GSMA Mobile World Congress is the combination of the world's largest exhibition for the mobile industry and a conference featuring prominent Chief Executives representing mobile operators, device manufacturers, technology providers, vendors and content owners from across the world...

 in Barcelona, February 2008, and started shipping in September 2008. Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific are the first locations to provide the handset for consumers. The American and Chinese versions were expected shortly thereafter. The general UK release date for the N96 was October 1, although London had a separate date of September 24 when the device went on sale exclusively at Nokia's flagship stores on Regent Street

Regent Street

Regent Street is one of the major shopping streets in London's West End, well known to tourists and Londoners alike, and famous for its Christmas illuminations...

 and at Terminal 5 (Heathrow airport).

Specification sheet

Feature	Specification
Form factor	Two-way slider
Operating System	Symbian OS v9.3, S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2
Screen	2.8" QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) LCD TFT display with up to 16 million colours, ambient light sensor and motion sensor
Size	103 x 55 x 18 mm
CPU	Dual ARM 9 264 MHz
Internal Dynamic Memory (RAM)	128 MB SDRAM SDRAM Synchronous dynamic random access memory is dynamic random access memory that is synchronized with the system bus. Classic DRAM has an asynchronous interface, which means that it responds as quickly as possible to changes in control inputs...
Internal Flash Memory	16 GB
Camera	5 megapixel camera(Auto Focus) with Dual LED flash, Carl Zeiss Optics: Tessar lens
Video recording	Yes, VGA (640×480) video capture of up to 30 frame/s
Graphics	Fully HW accelerated 3D (OpenGL ES OpenGL ES OpenGL for Embedded Systems is a subset of the OpenGL 3D graphics application programming interface designed for embedded systems such as mobile phones, PDAs, and video game consoles. OpenGL ES is managed by the not-for-profit technology consortium, the Khronos Group, Inc.- Versions :Several...  1.1, HW accelerated Java Java (programming language) Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...  3D)
Memory card slot	Yes, microSD/microSDHC
Bluetooth Bluetooth Bluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...	Yes, 2.0 + EDR
GPS	Integrated GPS with A-GPS
Wi-Fi	Yes
Infrared	No
Data cable support	Yes, USB 2.0 via Micro-USB port
Email	Yes (ActiveSync ActiveSync ActiveSync is a mobile data synchronization technology and protocol developed by Microsoft, originally released in 1996. There are two implementations of the technology: one which synchronizes data and information with handheld devices with a specific desktop computer , and another technology,... , POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP, with SSL/TLS)
Music player	Yes, Stereo speakers with 3D audio
Radio	Yes, Stereo FM Radio with RDS support
Video Player/editor	Yes
Polyphonic tones	Yes
Ringtones	Yes, MP3/AAC/AAC+/eAAC+/WMA/M4A, RealAudio
HF speakerphone	Yes, with 3.5 mm audio jack
Offline mode	Yes
Battery	Nokia Battery BL-5F (950 mAh)
Charge through USB-port?	Not possible (use 2.0 charging port instead)
Talk time	up to 160 / 230 min (WCDMA / GSM)
Standby time	up to 200 / 230 hrs (WCDMA / GSM)

Major differences between N95 8GB and N96

Additions:

• Dual-LED camera flash (single LED in the N95 8 GB)
• New audio DSP
• Longer music playback time (14 hrs) and video playback time (6 hrs)
• Windows Media WMV9 video codec added
• Hardware acceleration for video codecs for H.264 and WMV
• Mobile TV DVB-H
  DVB-H
  DVB-H is one of three prevalent mobile TV formats. It is a technical specification for bringing broadcast services to mobile handsets. DVB-H was formally adopted as ETSI standard EN 302 304 in November 2004. The DVB-H specification can be downloaded from the official DVB-H website...
  
   1.0 receiver built in - only with paid subscription
• S60
  S60 platform
  The S60 Platform is a software platform for mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. It was created by Nokia, who made the platform open source and contributed it to the Symbian Foundation. S60 has been used by mobile device manufacturers including Siemens mobile, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic...
  
   3rd Edition is upgraded from Feature Pack 1 to Feature Pack 2
• linu v88.0.12.0
• The Java ME engine is upgraded from MIDP 2.0 to MIDP 2.1
• User data is preserved when upgrading firmware (this feature is also present on the N95-2 as v21 installs UDP base files)
• Open C/C++ support
• New QuickOffice application opens all types of Microsoft Office
  Microsoft Office
  Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
  
   files
• New version of Nokia Video Centre (show & edit videos)
• New release of Nokia Experience software
• Micro 2.0 Hi-Speed USB (write 3 Mbit/s, read 4.1 Mbit/s - N95 8 GB use full-speed USB)
• MicroSD memory card slot (as in original N95, while N95 8 GB has no card slot)
• RSS 2.1 Reader
• FM radio upgraded with RDS
  Radio Data System
  Radio Data System, or RDS, is a communications protocol standard for embedding small amounts of digital information in conventional FM radio broadcasts. RDS standardises several types of information transmitted, including time, station identification and programme information.Radio Broadcast Data...
  
  
• N96 is a dual-band HSDPA (900 and 2100 MHz, while N95 was a single band 2100 MHz)
• No need to open the slide for optimal GPS reception
• Nokia N96 has VGA front camera (N95 8G has CIF)
• Video Flash lightguns
• Upgraded Bluetooth stereo audio
• FOTA (Firmware Over the Air)
• OMA E-mail Notification v1.0
• OMA Device Management v1.2
• OpenGL ES 1.1 plugin
• Dual Transfer Mode (MSC 11)
• Support SPP Bluetooth profiles

Negative:

• TV mode - not available
• Free sat nav - not available - Nokia advises that it is in the pipeline and they fully expect it to be made available, but will not say when it is available yet
• Nokia Music Headset HS-45, AD-54 Disposable headset with battery issue. Headset was first introduced with earlier Nokia N-series handsets. Battery life is 3 years. Many users experience limited if any useability before battery renders remote FUNCTION unusable, especially ones packaged with the later Nokia N96. Battery is replaceable, but is highly unrecommended due to access issues, hence the description 'DISPOSABLE'.

Issues are well documented on Nokia Forums, but not easily found.

• CPU: N96 has dual ARM9 264 MHz with no floating point instructions (N95 has dual ARM11 332 MHz with vector floating point)
• N96 has 8x image digital zoom and 4x video digital zoom (while N95 has 20x digital zoom and 8x video digital zoom). Although the benefits of this is debatable.
• Same battery as original N95 (950 mAh), but the N96 reportedly has a much better battery life using the same battery due to software improvements under Feature Pack 2 (Nokia N95 8GB has 1200 mAh)
• No hardware 3D graphics accelerator
• No infrared port
• N95 has lens cover and much more qualitative shutter (N95 8GB/N96 don't have this feature)
• No manually selected MMS messaging mode. If you write a long text message it will automatically select the MMS mode which could stop the recipient from receiving the message if they do not have MMS set up on their handset. (A Nokia USA employee stated that there is an update in the works to fix this very soon ) It's assumed that this automatic selection of MMS mode is due to Nokia's Smart Connectivity)
• VoIP 2.1 support for WLAN and Cellular. However, the built-in VoIP client from N95 which allowed the end-user to make internet calls directly without installing any additional software has been removed from N96. Nevertheless, the VoIP API still exists which can be used by software developers in their applications.
• The pencil button that is used to mark/unmark items and highlight text is not included. But this action can still be done however, by pressing and holding down the # key'.

External links

• Original Press Release, Americas Press Release
• N96 specifications from Nokia Europe