Nokia N96 review
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Nokia N96 is the most expensive and powerful model in the whole Nokia portfolio. It can’t stand up to the level of popularity that N95 once enjoyed, though, but still serves a formidable expansion of the model range upwards. The device looks interesting in terms of the availability of DVB-H digital TV and strikingly high specifications. It comes with an astonishing 16 Gb of onboard and 8 Gb of replaceable flash storage, and has a pronounced focus on the video aspect. Even the form factor and bundled kick-stand suggest this model being a TV-phone, let alone the numerous hardware specifications specially fitted to this cause. The STMicroelectronics chipset offers its video-relevant powers at a cost, though: it doesn’t do as well in the rest of Performance tests. We can’t say N96 lags in the menus, yet a certain delay can be felt, it’s a bit slower than N78 and N85. A high audio quality, a large screen and a spacious storage make N96 a perfect Multimedia player and a possible replacement for a number of Nokia N96 users. The price is going to be comparable to the starting price of N95 8GB, namely around 550 euros. N95 will slowly phase out of the market, making way for the new flagship (it’s currently out of production). That’s how the company divided the niche originally occupied by N95 8GB in two: one model sticks to the same price bar, the other (N85) sells at a lower price and plays a big part on the mass market, nominally featuring slightly lower specifications.
Nokia N96 is the company’s video flagship. That means that all the optimizations introduced into the model support solely that cause, the accent on mobile TV and video. N85 is more versatile and thus is going to win more popularity, but it can’t beat N96 in terms of video recording and playback, as well as in the musical department. Next comes a DVB-H digital TV module, so we get the best multimedia handset on the whole market which is going to stay so for quite a while on.
Design and Ergonomics
The company have been following a very monotonous design template as far as their multimedia smartphones are concerned, yet it can’t be called an unsuccessful one. The closest thing in appearance to the N96 is a N81, while N85 looks more elegant due to the rounded angles, a different plastic of a better quality. The overall size of the handset is rather modest, only making 103x55x18 mm, but the handset doesn’t give the hand a comfortable feel because of the width and the thickness, N85 openly wins the contest. On the other hand, it isn’t even nearly as bulky as Samsung i8510, the Korean flagship handset is really huge in an open state, the size being its chief weakest point.
The handset size was
reduced at the price of a reduced keyboard piece length, which made it
a bit less comfortable in operation; nevertheless it doesn’t raise any
negative emotions. N96 is all black save for the silver-colored side
pieces. No other colors are available.
Let’s make a note
about the devices’ design. According to the company representatives’
exclusive statements made especially for smape.com, the current design
trend visible in N81, N85, N96 is not going to change with the future
models, reserving the use of metal to Eseries gadgets only. It’s up to
you to see if this is good or bad… Nokia aren’t going to change their
ways as long as their current ways bring enough profit.
A two-position
volume slider is located on the right edge, neighbored by a camera
launch / shoot button. The only detail to be housed on the left edge of
the handset is a microSD flash card slot, protected with a flap. The
stereo speakers are shifted on one side, just like in Nokia N85. A
variety of audio tweaks and special effects are available in the
settings. We didn’t spot any audible difference no matter what
combination of these settings we used.
The keyboard block
slider sits on the top edge. It always jumps back to its initial
position after being slid to the side. That’s a very handy addition to
the recent models by the company. The other elements housed on the top
edge are a power button and a 3.5 mm standard audio jack. The bottom
edge is where a slim charger slot and a microUSB slot find a play to
stay. By the way, Nokia n95 doesn’t have a separate charger slot.
The back surface of
Nokia N96 is smooth and glossy, hence vulnerable to physical damage.
Worn spots and scratches are less noticeable against a thin-striped
background texture. The camera lens resides on the back panel,
neighbored by a double LED flash. The back panel is fully replaceable,
just like in N78 and N79, yet there is no option for alternately
colored additional panel. You will find a 950 mAh battery resting
beneath.
Screen
The screen of Nokia N96
is identical to the screen N96 8GB, featuring the largest diagonal
among all Nokias – 2.8’’, TFT, some of the best screen quality around.
Compare this one to the screen of Nokia N85, powered by the AM-OLED
technology. N85 is notable for much more vivid colors, yet the palette
is more natural with N96, also the latter seems to display a better
behavior in direct sunlight, bringing about less annoying glare. We
can’t really say that the screen of N96 is worse than the N85 screen,
it’s just in a way different.
The screen of
Samsung i8510 isn’t as good, the colors are less natural and it’s also
less resistant to the sunlight. Traditionally, the model comes with a
luminance sensor meant to auto-adjust the brightness levels depending
on the environmental lighting. This sensor can be switched off in the
settings.
Controls and Keyboard
The block of controls
is remarkable for the use of dedicated media buttons, unlike N85 those
are operable outside the player mode. You can use them to switch tracks
or start/stop playback at any moment in any menu, which is immensely
handy. The buttons aren’t of the touch kind, they are mechanical and
very responsive, bringing no trouble at all.
A Navi Wheel is
traditionally available, remaining active in all menus and lists. The
sensitive area of the wheel is limited to a thin limbo running along
the perimeter of the navigation element. Moving your finger clockwise
or counter-clockwise allows for rapid playlist browsing in a
corresponding direction. The light indicator sits right in the center
of the Navi Wheel and can be easily turned off. It doesn’t carry out
any special functions like a message or a call reminder, a feature
still available on some older Nokia models.
In addition to the
dedicated media buttons located around the navigation button, an extra
set of controls are found on the moving aprt of the slider. The
functions and corresponding button markings change depending on the
current mode: in the player mode, those turn into four rewinding and
switch buttons. In games, only two buttons remain active.
The numerical
keyboard is made from a solid piece of plastic; the buttons are very
flat, yet have a great feedback and pose no practical inconvenience.
The large size of the buttons eliminates the possibility of stray
keystrokes. The keyboard backlight is of a bright white color, visible
in any environment.
Battery
Nokia N96 is equipped
with a relatively old battery, the same with the original Nokia N95.
It’s a BL-5F unit sporting a 950 mAh power output capacity. The choice
is easily explainable: no higher capacity batteries were available when
the development of N96 started, save for a few samples too big to fit
into the battery bay. The existing battery is on a comparable size
scale with the newer BL-5K battery (1200 mAh, used by Nokia N85), but
is a bit smaller. Neither BL-5K nor BL-6F can fit into the battery bay
of N96. Nevertheless, the smartphone can keep running for a long time
regardless of the relatively low battery capacity, it can run longer
than N95, and makes world records in media recording or playback modes.
Not only Feature Pack 2 contributes to this, but mainly the
power-saving STMicroelectronics chipset.
| Model name | Nokia N85 | Nokia N95 8GB | Nokia N96 |
| Duty cycle | 3,5 days | 2 days | 2,5 days |
| Multimedia cycle, video (3GP) | 5:28 | 5:09 | 5:20 |
| Multimedia cycle, audio (MP3) | 26:45 | 10:27 | 18:45 |
| GPS | 4:10 | 3:41 | 3:48 |
Connectivity
The availability of
Wi-Fi also means the availability of the WLAN Wizard application, which
essentially is a simple program intended to help the user to arrange
network connections in a semi-automatic mode. There are but a few
options, once a network is detected the user is prompted to submit a
number of settings. Network filtering is available, the security
standards include WEP, WPA and WPA2. The scanning period during which
WLAN networks are searched and detected is also adjustable in the
options.
The USB version is
2.0, the Mass Storage mode is fully supported, the user is free to
choose from Mass Storage, PC Suite, Image Print or Media Player on
establishing a phone-to-PC connection. Both the memory card and onboard
memory storage are accessible from the PC. During Mass Storage
sessions, the phone doesn't go offline, you can still use its potential
to the full.
According to the specifications sheet, the Bluetooth version used by the device is 2.0 + EDR, supporting the following profiles:
? A2DP
? Audio/Video Remote Control
? Basic Imaging
? Dial-up Networking
? File Transfer
? Generic Access
? Generic Object Exchange
? Handsfree
? Headset
? HID
? Object Push
? SIM Access
? Serial Port
A2DP support
allows for a wireless headset to be used with the device; the settings
include the network visibility period and the list of blocked devices.
The Home Media
application allows for interaction between the phone and various
devices supporting the UnPNP technology. It has seen some serious
improvements from earlier versions used in N95 and N93. If the only
option available in the initial version was the one allowing to share
content stored on the device, now the smartphone can play content
opened from remote source. We tested this functionality both on a
phone-to-PC bundle and between two different phones as well
(N82-to-N95), and found no problems at all. After adjusting all the
necessary settings in the Gallery, the 'broadcast over home network'
options became available, letting browse and play the content stored on
remote devices.
Hardware platform
The hardware platform
of Nokia N96 is totally different form the chipset used in N85 and
other Nokias. The new hardware platform is a Nomadics STn8815 chip by
STMicroelectronics. This fact caused a great amount of arguments, for
some people had recklessly put an equation mark between N85 and N96,
wasting their breath about the same hardware lying in the base of the
two handsets. Nokia N85 uses the regular hardware same with N78 and
N81. Theoretically possessing better characteristics than TI OMAP 2520,
the new chipset pays back with a lower power consumption, high sound
quality (out of the box, we don’t regard the possible use of additional
dedicated sound processing chips) and better video processing
algorithms.
The most effort
was invested into making the battery life longer. It’s about the time
to dismiss the fear that the low-capacity battery used in Nokia N96
(950 mAh) won’t be enough for comfortable operation. Actually, the
device can run longer than most TI OMAP solutions, the advantage
becoming increasingly obvious during video and music playback. STn8815
is optimized for minimal energy consumption; it will automatically drop
the CPU frequency to a level sufficient for normal functioning of an
application but not a notch above. It also makes an extensive use of
smart accelerators and divided calculation techniques to drop the load
on the CPU. Inactive chipset components are automatically powered off
until a need arises to put them back online, the CPU stays in a
power-saving mode as long as possible. Code execution efficiency was
maximized through numerous optimizations as well.
STMicroelectronics Nomadics STn8815 specs sheet
The tests reveal a
frequency of 264 MHz for the CPU, though at times it jumped up to 334
Mhz (ARM926EJ core), being no different form TI solutions. No
perceptible difference in performance rates from OMAP 2420 could be
detected. The only possible downside is the lack of a 3D graphics
accelerator. Nevertheless, 3D acceleration also suffered a minimal
support in such models as N95 and N82 (it wasn't even available in the
N-Gage games) and Samsung i550 / i560 didn't use 3D acceleration at
all, so you can't blame STn8815 for not making use of it.
| Model | Nokia N85 | Nokia N82 | Nokia N96 |
| Jbenchmark 1.0.1 Score | 3232 | 5311 | 2796 |
| Text | 891 | 1419 | 710 |
| 2D Shapes | 900 | 1303 | 682 |
| 3D Shapes | 562 | 640 | 394 |
| Fill Rate | 369 | 336 | 224 |
| Animation | 510 | 1613 | 786 |
| Jbenchmark 2.0.1 Score | 548 | 568 | 358 |
| Image Manipulations | 244 | 410 | 182 |
| Text | 595 | 710 | 409 |
| Sprites | 470 | 520 | 365 |
| 3D Transform | 1249 | 817 | 539 |
| User Interface | 576 | 476 | 398 |
| Jbenchmark 3D HQ | 195 | 973 | 155 |
| Jbenchmark 3D LQ | 380 | 1018 | 283 |
| Triangles ps | 43343 | 48330 | 34234 |
| KTexels ps | 3254 | 6393 | 2795 |
| Jbenchmark HD Gaming Score | 166 (5.5 fps) | 91 (3.0 fps) | 127 (4.2 fps) |
| Smooth triangles | 110145 | 44190 | 68590 |
| Textured triangles | 82240 | 27310 | 56325 |
| Fill rate, KTexels | 2289 | 1107 | 2635 |
As seen from the
test score, N96 displays a lower performance than N85 and a much worse
one than N95 basing off OMAP 2420. The lack of a 3D accelerator is
blatant in the JBenchmark 3D test. N96 lags behind in other tests as
well. The gap may be accounted for by the use of a newly developed
platform, while N85 employs a platform which has been through a long
evolution of improvements and optimizations shared by Nokia N78 and N81
models.
Regardless of
the difference in hardware, N85 and N96 have a comparable audio
quality, maybe N96 is but a little notch better. N96 is second in audio
quality after Samsung i8510 INNOV8. The difference is very marginal,
though, and won’t be spotted by the majority of customers. Combined
цшер
The audio
quality of N96 has been discussed before, proven to be one of the best
among the currently available solution, and absolutely unmatched in the
whole range of S60 Nokia phones. The sound is better than with N78 or
N79, the handset has a more realistic sounding even in comparison with
N85, though the difference is too little to matter for the majority.
This combined with a convenient system of controls (two sets of
dedicated media buttons, an optimal arrangement of slots) makes N96 one
of the best multimedia devices available from today’s market. Nokia N85
only wins in the battery charge contest in playback mode. Samsung i8510
is the ultimate music smartphone, it’s audio quality is unchallengeable
by any other model so far. It’s going to remain the best solution for a
year or so. On the other hand, it doesn’t make such a huge gap in
quality as to make a critical selling point, and is actually going to
be left unnoticed by the majority of people choosing between N96, N85
and i8510. Though the overall usage experience distinctly differs;
i8510 has its audio socket located on a side edge, that’s very annoying
when you’re about to put it in your pocket with headset plugged in. No
dedicated media controls are available, you have always to get back
into the player menu to switch tracks. N96 has a whole two set of
dedicated media controls. The maximum playback cycle is roughly the
same for both – about 18 hours.
An
accelerometer is available, automatically rotating the desktop
depending on the physical position of the smartphone in space, in a
manner fully analogous to N85, N82 and similar models. It can be turned
off in the options.
Memory
Once the device has
booted, the remaining amount of free memory available to the user is 90
Mb; the total RAM size equals to 128 Mb, which is quite an adequate
score for a modern smartphone. Heap Size and Jar Size for Java
applications are unlimited.
The onboard
storage is divided into two unequal parts: the disk labeled C: is 128
Mb large, of which about 70 are free and the rest occupied by system
files, - this is the place where all the contact and PIM records are
stored. The disk labeled D: is where the various multimedia files are
kept. You can safely format it without causing any damage to the
operating system, just take it for a dumb file container. The D: disk
is 16 Gb large. With such a huge storage massive onboard, it would be
interesting to look at the data transfer speeds:
? from flash card to onboard memory and vice versa: – 2,7 Mb/s
? to flash card in the Mass Storage mode: 2,4 Mb/s
? to onboard memory in the Mass Storage mode (write): 2,7 Mb/s
? from onboard memory in the Mass Storage mode (read): 3,9 Mb/s
As you see, the
copy/write speeds are pretty high, beating the previous generation
solutions like N81 8GB, N95 8GB and other, and stays on a level with
Nokia N85 and Samsung i8510.
Software
Nokia N96 bases off the
S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 platform. A comprehensive review of the
base functionality provided by the said platform is already available
in a separate article on our site, so there’s no sense in duplicating
the sentences in this one. The preinstalled service clients include an
online music store, Share on OVI and so on – nothing overly surprising
at all.
The only profile
feature to be given special attention in this article section is the
digital TV. The model supports the DVB-H standard and offers an
exhaustive channel list; an alarm clock can be set beforehand to make
you aware of a favorite show starting. Fragments of shows can be
automatically saved in the MPEG4 format; certain channels can be
optionally locked with a password, - a parental control option is in.
As claimed by the manufacturer, Nokia N96 can stand a five hours’
continuous cycle until a full battery charge is drowned to zero, but we
weren’t able to prove that fact, for DVB-H broadcasting is something
currently unavailable in Russia.
The Video Center
application has preserved its default functionality, serving as an
efficient search, access, download and playback mobile engine. Up to 15
various video services are currently available on the model, including
Reuters, Unicef and Stupid Video feeds. In the upcoming weeks, YouTube
video downloading is going to be made possible (a beta version is
currently available). A Wi-Fi connection provides maximum comfort for
using this services, unfortunately there are no 3G networks currently
available in Russia. A certain degree of usability is still there even
if you got only a GPRS/EDGE connection. Partial download is supported.
A variety of options
are available, including file protection from accidental deletion,
parental lock for inappropriate content, thumbnails for video files and
so on. The service is a success, sporting an intuitive and easy
interface. Every detail was thoroughly worked out: e.g. if you open a
clip which you have been previously watching but didn’t finish, you
will be prompted either to go on watching from the place where you
stopped or start watching from the very beginning again. The list of
services is going to expand soon, since the device supports literally
anything compatible with RSS video 2.0.
Multimedia
The player interface
looks quite standard, exposing almost no difference from Nokia N85 or
N78; the same interface is used by all latest devices basing off S60v3
Feature Pack 3. The extra controls come in handy, both the buttons
around the navigation button and the extra buttons on the upper half of
the slider are used for rewinding, playing and pausing. Here we have a
huge advantage over Samsung i8510 which isn't equipped with any extra
player buttons, a flaw which is hardly compensated by the unmatched
audio quality provided by this model.
The player settings
include five equalizer presets with the opportunity of creating an
unlimited number of user profiles. Also there are settings allowing to
tweak balance, enhanced stereo sound, bass boost, reverberation.
Different miscellaneous options are available: sorting by performer,
album, genre and so on, as well as auto repeat and play random. The
Album Arts feature is present, meaning that you can associate an album
cover artwork with the selected tracks. Similar to Nokia N95, the
playback can be accompanied with visualization FX though it degrades
the battery charge. The Music menu item now has a brand new sub-item
titled Nokia Music Store which will be discussed further.
The audio quality of
N96 has been discussed before, proven to be one of the best among the
currently available solution, and absolutely unmatched in the whole
range of S60 Nokia phones. The sound is better than with N78 or N79,
the handset has a more realistic sounding even in comparison with N85,
though the difference is too little to matter for the majority. This
combined with a convenient system of controls (two sets of dedicated
media buttons, an optimal arrangement of slots) makes N96 one of the
best multimedia devices available from today’s market. Nokia N85 only
wins in the battery charge contest in playback mode. Samsung i8510 is
the ultimate music smartphone, it’s audio quality is unchallengeable by
any other model so far. It’s going to remain the best solution for a
year or so. On the other hand, it doesn’t make such a huge gap in
quality as to make a critical selling point, and is actually going to
be left unnoticed by the majority of people choosing between N96, N85
and i8510. Though the overall usage experience distinctly differs;
i8510 has its audio socket located on a side edge, that’s very annoying
when you’re about to put it in your pocket with headset plugged in. No
dedicated media controls are available, you have always to get back
into the player menu to switch tracks. N96 has a whole two set of
dedicated media controls. The maximum playback cycle is roughly the
same for both – about 18 hours.
Nokia N96
employs two radio services, Visual Radio and Internat Radio, Visual
Radio supports certain visual features like Album Arts, while Internet
Radio is what you would want to use to listen to the radio through the
web, as the names imply. The latter service is widely used in regions
with developed Wi-Fi and 3G networks.
Similar to the
majority of upcoming multimedia solutions by Nokia, a full Nokia Music
Store support is included in this one. Simultaneously with the N-Gage
announce, Nokia have presented an web service devoted to downloadable
mp3 content dubbed Nokia Music Store, its base containing over 1 000
000 tracks by different performers, the price of a track is €1 , the
price of an album – starting from €10 , a monthly subscription to
downloadable content PC synchronization – €10. The price is quite
standard for most European offers of such kind, time will tell how
successful the project will be. The menu was expanded with an item
titled "Pass to the music store", that automatically redirecting you to
the corresponding address www.music.nokia.com. The list of offered
features is extensive, including a full-blown song search, access to
ratings and statistics, planned downloads list, sample listening, PC
synchronization via Windows Media Player.
Camera
The handset is equipped
with a camera powered by Carl Zeiss optics, the flash is a double LED
unit, slightly weaker than most xenon flashes in terms of quality and
reach range, e.g. in comparison with N82. Also the flash acts as a
backlight to back up auto-focusing, allowing to focus on an object even
in darkness.
The N96 camera
characteristics are as follows: lens aperture 1:2.8; focal distance 5.2
(vs. a 5.6 in Nokia N9). The latter parameter doesn’t affect the actual
photo quality, the difference entirely depends on the firmware used to
control the shooting routine.
N96 is the Finns’
flagship model, offering the highest functionality around. In this way
or another, it will inevitable end up in a comparison to Samsung i8510
INNOV8. The characteristics of the two are comparable in all
departments… save for camera – Samsung comes with a 8 Mp unit. We have
already made a number of techy comparisons pitting i8510 against other
handsets, and it proved that the Samsung model has the best camera on
the market for the time being. The following photo samples look more
convincing than bare words, just see how INNO8 beats anything else:
Macro shooting samples:
Nokia N96 / Samsung i8510 INNOV8
Ultramacro shooting photo samples:
Nokia N96 / Samsung i8510 INNOV8
Landscape shooting photo samples:
Nokia N96 / Samsung i8510 INNOV8
In the shooting
mode, the volume controls act as zoom controls (a 20x digital zoom is
available). The camera application takes but a few seconds to launch, a
few status indicators are shown in the viewfinder window (current
resolution, remaining number of shots, storage location), neighboring a
quick settings bar (which can be optionally hidden; you can also
rearrange its elements in a custom order)
The main settings include:
The picture size is selectable from a following list:
? 0,3М (640x480),
? 0,8М (800x600),
? 1,3М (1280x960),
? 2М (1600x1200),
? 3М (2048x1536),
? 5М (2592x1944)
In the same
menu, you can switch on and off the geo tagging feature which adds a
time and location stamp to a picture when it’s taken. That’s a very
handy feature allowing to sort your photos in geographical or
chronological order, which makes sorting many times easier.
The other parameters
are the default photo/video filename, the add to album option, the
customizable shutter sound (4 variants) and the storage location (you
can’t set a specific folder though, basically choosing between the
onboard and flash card storage spaces; Series 40 phones let you specify
a folder and it’s hardly explainable why this was disabled in an
all-in-one smartphone).
Videos also support
geo tags, the maximum resolution for a video is 640x480 but a couple of
lower resolutions are also available; the videos are recorded at 30
fps. Image stabilization is supported; it’s also possible to turn off
sound recording. The video quality is almost identical for N96, N95,
N82 and similar models, actually one of the best camera implementations
on the market.
Imaging settings come in a larger variety, the model is actually one of the best around in this aspect. A list follows:
? Switch to video mode
? Shooting mode selection (auto, custom, macro, portrait, nighttime, nighttime portrait, landscape, sports)
? Flash controls (auto, on/off, red eye filter)
? Timer (2, 10, 20 seconds)
? Multiple shot (a shot per 10, 30 seconds, 1, 5, 10, 30 minute)
? Exposure correction (from -2.0 to 2.0)
? White balance (auto, sunny, cloudy, glowlamp, fluorescent lamp)
? Effects (sepia, negative, black and white, increased transparency)
? ISO setting
? Sharpness level (Hard results in an unnaturally crisp image)
? Contrast level (20-notch scale)
? Brightness level (10-notch scale)
Drawing a final
line, we’d like to mention that Nokia N96 comes with a fairly good
come, no worse than N95 and that makes a neat feature for an all-in-one
solution with a special focus on multimedia capabilities.
Editor's opinion
The Conclusion on Nokia
N96 is actually very simple. That’s not the best solution around as far
as the price/functionality ration is concerned. N96 is obviously an
all-in-one solution, but doesn’t stand up to the level of N95 or N85.
Nokia N96 concentrates on a narrow circle of typical tasks: video
playback and recording, mobile TV and music. In the rest of the
aspects, the device isn’t as advanced or balanced as Nokia N85, a fact
not to be neglected.
On the other
hand, it’s hard to look up a better solution for performing the tasks
that N96 has a focus on. The model has already started selling for 550
euros(RM3,338), and makes a better deal in comparison with N98 8GB (which costs
but a bit less). A higher niche is occupied by Samsung’s i8510 INNOV8
flagship. The price gap between i8510 and N96 isn’t big enough to
matter for a person with enough money and determination to buy an
expensive and maximally functional smartphone. An ultra high quality 8
Mp camera is its only, yet a formidable, advantage making it a
benchmark to the future phones. N96 on the other hand offers advanced
digital TV capabilities, but we are inclined to view i8510 as a better
deal.
A price difference of one hundred euros makes the choice less obvious, so if Nokia manage to bring the price down to this or even a lower level, N96 has all chances for becoming a mass product of sorts, until the next multimedia flagship arrives in mid-2009.
