 "Could have been a lot more..." | 2009-10-17 |
| - Reviewed By karyyk |
I really, REALLY wanted to like the Nokia N96. My Samsung i320 is getting a bit long in the tooth, and I thought this would be a perfect replacement. With the feature-list, how could it not be? Advanced multimedia capabilities? Check. Speedy web browsing? Check. WiFi? Check. High-resolution camera (for a phone)? Check. 3G compatibility? Check. 16GB of storage? Check. FM Radio?!? Check! The N96 would seemingly have it all. Unfortunately, a few glaring oversights and performance issues have left me feeling cold.
The first thing that I couldn't help but notice was the Symbian OS. It's slow and dated at this point, especially when you compare it to some of the newer offerings from Apple, Google (Android) and even Microsoft (yeah, my i320, an older Windows smartphone runs rings around this, sadly). This phone is just SLOW. Accessing data is slow, the layout of the OS is SLOW (as in counterproductive, having to press several things to get to a menu option that should be accessible in two), and generally it just kind of stutters along regardless of what you throw at it. I don't know if this is the fault of poorly written code or if the thing is just way too grandiose for the hardware spec of the phone, but it basically makes using the phone a repeated trial.
As far as the hardware itself goes, it looks impressive enough, nice and shiny, although the feel is a little cheaper than you'd expect a $500 device to feel. The screen is nice and the interface buttons feel pretty good (it's just a shame the phone doesn't respond a bit more quickly when you press them).
Pictures are another area that are supposed to be a strong point for this phone (high resolution for a cell phone), but again, slow-down and sloppy layout hinder its usefulness. The photos look good enough, but don't expect this thing to be point and shoot ready. It's going to take a few seconds for it to become ready, and then getting your picture where you want it to be is another one of those patience-builders.
Basically I think the N96 is just a case of Nokia being way too aggressive with its feature-set in order to compete with the aforementioned mobile platforms. The feature list is very impressive, but the implementation and performance is so mediocre that the phone is hard to recommend. That mediocre performance coupled with a price tag that's higher than a lot of the competition means the N96 will more than likely end up as an also-ran rather than a stand-out. |
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 "the processor is tooooo slow" | 2009-08-18 |
| - Reviewed By User: A32WY3RGFMW9O1 |
| I don't understand why the manufacturer want to produce such a fancy cell without enough competence. The functions of the cell are great, but the speed of the cell cannot take them. |
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 "great phone..awesome features" | 2009-08-18 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2JJCDX6MJWOVI |
| beautiful phone..great cool features... and an excellent product from nokia for the people who are tired of touchscreen devices.... |
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 "Nokia N96 - A Bitter Disappointment!" | 2009-08-09 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3NE72B8V313MU |
If I could give this phone zero stars, I would. I just upgraded from my trusty N80 to an N96 and I cannot begin to tell you how bitterly disappointed I am with this phone.
Two years on, Nokia have once again been able to take 10 steps forward and 25 steps back. Here are my findings so far...
1) The speed. This phone is slow. Believe it or not, but it actually seems slower than the N80. I did not think this would be possible. Selecting my Contacts can take anywhere from 20-40 seconds to load. I'm sorry, but that is JUST unacceptable!
2) Voice dialling. ABYSMAL! The N80 would work in almost any situation. The N96 demands complete background silence to even BEGIN to come close. Nokia - go back to the drawing board. This feature, which to me, a busy rep on the road (in the car) is VITAL AND IT DOES NOT WORK! When you hold down the right function button, it SOMETIMES registers it MOSTLY does not. When it does, it plays the little bleep, but then 3-4 seconds AFTER does the prompt come up on the screen telling you to speak. What kind of **bleep** is this? By the time the prompt comes up, you've already said the name, but the phone missed it! WHY NOT PLAY THE BEEPS WHEN THE PHONE IS READY TO LISTEN?!?!!? This is proof that this phone was tested by idiots or school-leavers without a clue. Or both.
3) My TomTom software will not install. Well, it says it installs, but does not put an icon anywhere for me to find it. If I'm paying $1000+ for a phone that supposedly has GPS, I do NOT expect to have to pay MORE to be able to use it. Once again, Nokia, you are **bleeping** customers off.
4) The headset. I want a NORMAL headset. One earpiece. Microphone close to my mouth so PEOPLE CAN HEAR ME. Not some trendy stereo thing with a microphone that is at my WAIST when I'm driving. USELESS NOKIA, USELESS!!
5) DVB-H. Nokia make a big point in the marketing of this phone, but guess what? NOBODY USES IT! No-one transmits DVB-H and so a flip out cup holder would be more useful on this phone.
6) Phone Switch. This is allegedly a function that allows you to transfer all you settings from your old phone to the new phone. Guess what? It doesn't work. Not at all. Nope. USELESS!
7) The slide. My old N80 used to hang up the call when you closed the slide. Not so the N96. In fact, it just keeps the call going. Is this a feature you can set/adjust? I don't know. The manual doesn't say.
8) Auto-rotate. This feature is as bad as it is annoying. Nokia have obviously gone with a cheap mercury gravity switch rather than use acceleration detectors, which this feature, when turned on, annoying rotates the screen if you accidently hold the phone the wrong way. Because the processor is so abysmally SLOW in this phone, it takes ages to rotate and re-orient the screen again after. Sometimes, it takes a VERY long time for it to realise you're actually holding the phone upright again. Back to the drawing board, Nokia.
9) Navi-Wheel. It's in the MENU but not on the PHONE! Obviously a feature they DID test and realised it was so bad, they took it out. Well, almost.
10) Speakers. Horrible and tinny. Even the N80 sounds louder and bolder with a lot more bass.
11) Barely a day goes by when my phone doesn't crash, hang or reboot itself. Using a 3rd party Bluetooth headset can cause BIG problems. Nokia phones do NOT like non-Nokia bluetooth devices.
12) A2DP Bluetooth stereo audio. It's listed as a feature, but I challenge ANYONE to get it to work properly. The music skips every 10 seconds like a badly scratched CD. Doesn't seem to matter what kind of device you use.
I think it is utterly disgraceful that Nokia pushes this phone on to unsuspecting customers and expect them to do their testing for them. Right now, for two pins I'd send this piece of **bleep** right back and go with an Apple iPhone (which was offered to me in the first place by Optus), but foolishly, I kept my brand loyalty and stuck with Nokia.
"Get a firmware upgrade", I hear you say? I'd love to, but I can't! Because I bought my phone through Optus here in Australia, I cannot download a firmware update because Optus (according to Nokia's website) hasn't approved it. Upon calling Optus and going through numerous people in their Engineers Department, nobody knows anything about that! Nokia hasn't told them!
Why can't they create firmware that is still upgradeable for all other intents and purposes (basic OS, built-in applications specific to the phone)? Why do THOSE (essential) features require the approval of the network operator before they can be installed? It's just ridiculous.
That's like telling me that Microsoft Windows Update ought to be approved by my ISP in case it causes my modem/router to stop working. I'm afraid that argument is as wafer thin as my patience with Nokia.
I've been a software developer at all levels for 25+ years, and led huge teams of developers. This is a classic example of getting kids fresh out of college working on a major project, with very VERY poor user acceptance testing or quality control.
Hard-core, irrefutable evidence of that is that the menu of my N96 allows me to make changes to the setting of a Navi-Wheel, where no Navi-Wheel exists - it was pulled just before the phone went into production. I'm sorry, but that is totally inexcusable.
This phone was simply not tested prior to being shipped to customers.
The N96 represents the worse-case scenario in any poorly-managed development product. It's obvious there was great miscommunication between the hardware developers and the software developers (who no doubt developed the software on a virtualised N96/S60 platform), and those developers were most likely young, inexperienced programmers working on their first major project, who were no doubt pushed to the limit to reach an unreasonable deadline.
I'm afraid this product bears all the hallmarks that very situation.
POSTSCRIPT: I sent this list of problems to Nokia Customer Support via a form on their website - TWICE. On each occasion, I got an automated reply thanking me and that someone would get back to me in 48 hours. I never heard anything. I then posted this list on their public forums and got SUSPENDED from the site for 'upsetting other customers'.
Is it any wonder Nokia experienced a 96% drop in profits last year when they treat customers like this?
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| "Another powerful multimedia device from Nokia" | 2009-07-01 |
| - Reviewed By User: AZLD6FYVL5FNQ |
Nokia has, technologically speaking, taken us to the Moon, when they introduced the N95 into the cellphone market. The phone is packed with so many multimedia and communication features it left almost no room for improvements. Well almost anyway. It also made me wonder what Nokia is going to come up with next for their flagship model.
The answer arrived around a year after the announcement of N95, although sadly, with the N96, Nokia didn't exactly taken us to Mars. Other than the way they look, I find it very difficult to tell the N95 and the N96 apart since the N96 is essentially an N95 under a different packaging.
For most cellphone users, it is very easy to overlook the added DVB-H receiver in the N96, which is only useful in countries where there's DVB-H broadcast. Considering the fact that this device uses the same battery as the N95, you may not want to use it to watch live TV so much as you may not have enough power left at the end of the day to make calls with it.
Also, the A-GPS feature found on the N96 is no different from the A-GPS that can be found on the N95 (with the updated software), but fortunately, the GPS receiver on the N96 is so much more sensitive than the N95's (like the N82 or the E71), so under normal conditions, it usually takes less than 20 seconds for the phone to pin-point exactly where you are.
The interface and graphic user interface of the N96 looks a bit like those of the N82, but with a few added layouts. Although not particularly useful, they do add to the appeal of the N96, if you do not find a rotating menu layout confusing to use. The accelerometer can be annoying if you are texting while laying down, as the screen tends to rotate while you type. Therefore, i usually keep the auto-rotate feature off.
Another thing to note about the N96 is that the screen turns off completely in standby mode, unlike the N95 or many of the other N series models. This feature can be a little annoying to some people as they will not be able to tell if there has been a missed call or there is a text message waiting to be read without activating the screen.
The built-in 16GB flash drive of the N96 is, oddly enough, a separate drive on the device. If you look at the harddrive directory of the N96, with a memory card loaded in the device, you will see a C drive, an E drive and an F drive. The C drive has about 61 MB of free space, which I suggest you leave alone because that's what the N96's operating system uses. The E drive is the 16GB flash drive, and the F drive is whatever memory card you put into the device. The N96 accepts 16GB MicroSD cards, therefore you can potentially end up with a device that stores as much data as a 32GB ipod touch.
However, this device is, even with a dual-processor architecture, somewhat of a slow device. If you load your phone up with over 4000 mp4 tracks (which you can take directly from your itunes library, which is great), it can take up to a few hours for the device to load the information of the songs into the music library. The situation is the same for every E series and N series I have used, which I guess is why Ipods and Iphones are still selling like hot cakes out there. All the video files you can play on Ipod plays on the N96 too, in case anyone is wondering.
File transfer speed is quite impressive compared to earlier N series models, as the N96's USB port now supports full-speed USD 2.0.
The 5.0 Megapixel camera is useful but not great, the JPEG compression leaves the files at around 700-900 Kb each, with enough compression artifacts to keep you from printing the pictures beyond A3 size. The Dual LED flash is more powerful than the N95, but falls behind N82's xenon flash. The video recording feature is the same as the N95, at 640x480 pixels and 30fps. Not bad considering that most phones still offer 320x240 pixels.
The GPS, DVB-H and WiFi antennas are located in the back cover, and there is a tiny little spring loaded connector that sticks out from the back of the phone to connect it to the antennas. Therefore, it would be wise to keep the connector clean and keep the back cover from becoming damaged.
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Expedited Available
