Nokia N96 review: King's new clothes
Every time Nokia Nseries numbering goes up a notch geeks are holding their breath. Well, geeks - including us - are no ordinary human beings, but in the case of Nokia N96 they'd been holding their breath since February...
- Cre8or
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No Xenon flash in the Samsung INNOV8 as mentioned in the first page of the review...
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- 2008-10-04 00:16
- fvAt
- AGC
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I sort of agree with the sentiments of all three of you below. But I have to admit, while I'm not that fond of the N81 style myself, I'm getting pretty tired of reading GSMarena's newest negative slants on it. Seriously, your team writes awesome reviews, I love everything about them, but it's true: by infusing them with your heightened objections to some aesthetic quality of a handset, the review is intrinsically more subjective. You're better than that, so why not write that way.
Cheers
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- 2008-10-04 00:05
- jUP3
- Deano
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Got one on contract from T-Mobile (£40 a month), and I'm still getting to grips with it, but never does the quality of the phone demand a £500 price tag... Creaky, light leaks from the case and the slider's not great...
DON'T buy it sim-free if you can help it!
BTW: sim-free on eBay is £300...
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- 2008-10-04 00:02
- 0BqL
- Kal
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> In reply to Bakhti @ 2008-10-03 22:49 from iVF4I don't quite agree with you.
Those who loved nokia for years, expected nokia to bring out something that they can claim to be the best are mostly offended, disappointed. The words and the emotions are natural and nothing surprising to me.
I don't know what those designers and marketing guys are doing at nokia but I can see many who are in fact not fond of this glossy plastic design. Moto stuck to their Razr design for years and we know where they are now. Everyone loved it in the beginning. That's a lesson enough. As a reviewing site, GSMarena should have their own opinion.
After n95 8Gb the market was expecting more from Nokia. But in reality Samsung actually released innvo8 with all those specs and a lot more, and Nokia failed to deliver on time. There isn't much that has been added on N5 8gb. You are right you live in a place where a true multimedia monster will never get to see the light with all it's feature in the market. Thats one reason why Nokia dosen't have a strong foothold in their. US carriers will never release a phone with built-in GPS, HSDPA, TV out, WiFi to begin with.
Had Nokia releas this much before Innvo8, it would be a whole different perspective to look at. Hence it's too little too late.
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- 2008-10-03 23:52
- 2SU0
- SE + Nokia Fan
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> In reply to Bakhti @ 2008-10-03 22:49 from iVF4Geeeeezzzz! Lighten Up Bakhti... No need for the statistical report, Duh!!
I'm not crazy about this N96 either. From all other 'better' Nokia designs, they picked N81 as the base for N96.
Sigh...
The keypad certainly look cheap and probably easily smudged as well.
I guess I'll be waiting for the 5800...
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- 2008-10-03 23:40
- i}dR
- Bakhti
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I'm a bit surprised by what seems to be a very subjective review of N96 -- GSMarena, you know better than this.
First off, even the very wording of the review seems to be as if Nokia personally offended GSMarena review team: "blatant insult", "gritting teeth" -- these are more appropriate for a letter to your ex-girlfriend who cheated on your with your best fried, but not when reviewing a device.
Secondly, Nokia is a $60 billion (as of today) business entity and it can afford to hire a decent marketing team, which analyzes the market sentiments and if N81 design didn't fly with consumers, they would ditch it. Even if the whole GSMarena team isn't fond of the design, it doesn't mean they have to be so vocal about it.
Thirdly, since when a 5mp device with 32 gigs of memory, 2.8 inch display and built-in wi-fi, gps is too little, too late? Well, I don't know much about where GSMarena people live, but in the North America, where I live, people still live with their 1.3 mp phones and Blackberry Curve with its 2mp camera and no 3g is still the king of the mobile world, so N96 is certainly not too late, nor it's too little. And honestly, I travel quite a lot and Europe is not that more advanced than North America (want to see advanced? go to Dubai or Japan) and I don't really see how N96 is "too little" for Europe either, so you GSMarena should be more careful with their wording.
That is not to say that N96 is a perfect device -- I'd yet to see a phone with a price tag of more than $500 that'd be perfect, if merely for its price -- but the fact is it is unique in terms of its dual-slider design, hefty storage capacity and media and connectivity capabilities (stereo bluetooth, video recording on Iphone, anyone?), certainly not a revolutionary device either (but who says Nokia's each N series device should be something revolutionary?), bug, which, again, is a very solid all-around performer for those who appreciate uniqueness.
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- 2008-10-03 22:49
- iVF4
- Kal
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Corrections:
1. Innov8 doesn't have "8 megapixel camera with xenon flash".
2. Since the review is written now, the author should know that N96 costs more than Innov8 right at this moment.
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- 2008-10-03 22:32
- 2SU0
- Adam
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There is no phone better than the NOKIA E71 at the moment. N96 is way too overpriced and has a very cheap look to it. There is nothing better than a stainless steel phone feel like the E71. I am sorry...I would never think of buying N96!
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- 2008-10-03 21:36
- k8XA
- ANURAG AGARWAL
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as i am having all the e series nokia mobile phone.
i buyed this nokia n96 , but not satisfied by the product as it hangs alot .., its slow in processing ...... small battery backup.
its better to buy iphone 3g instead of this giant
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- 2008-10-03 20:47
- v{SV
- sinners
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Its strange that no one talks about it still,through n95,n95 8gb and now the n96...the phone having all the features but when it comes down to practicality it just hard to believe that n series being so expensive phones 1.Do not have torch feature in them and 2.We can feed more than 2 or 3 phone number like land line for instance to contacts but we still do not have any means to know what number is the call coming from cause it does not show the number nor the icon changes for a land line phone..shame these basis and most needed features go unnoticed...
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- 2008-10-03 20:46
- ut55
- Anonymous
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N96 should be tagged "N82" because it is much more a N81 enhancement. Changes between the N95 8GB... not THAT much... I`ll not trade mine. What I did: N81 8GB>N95 8GB. I`s fair enough. Now N96 is gooood but for that price and features (I`ll never use tv reception) I am going to keep my very loved N95 8GB :D
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- 2008-10-03 20:06
- P43j
- Andy Burgin
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Nokia announced the N96 in Febuary getting everyone excited about it,but Why? as it took Nokia that long to get it released an then announce a much better mobile to get the N85 as the Quality of the N85 shows that the N96 can"t compete with it at all,so the N96 might end up being a lot of wasted time an money for Nokia an the price of the N85 is Cheaper as well,so the price of the N96 will drop down rapidly,glad the N85 as been announced by Nokia ,but when will it be made available by Nokia
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- 2008-10-03 19:55
- 3paG
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