Nokia N96 Review

I had a chance over the last 10 days to review Nokia’s N96 for the tech section in one of the Indian Publications:

Here are my takes on the phone:

Good things that I like about the phone:
1.       Huge memory
2.       Quick application Install speeds
3.       Much better camera (thanks to the 5MP Sensor and 2 LED flashes)
4.       Ergonomics (two way slide, tactile feel, button placements)
5.       2.8” display
6.       Car Charger – a must have these days for folks on the go
7.       Dual Camera (though VGA) – A secondary camera which is good and is quite handy to take “self portraits”
8.       Personal GPS Device – Attach the Phone to the Deskboard of the car, connect it to the car charger and you have your own personal Navigation device which will guide you, “telling” you to take a left or a right at the next turn (Nokia Maps is really a great app to have)

Things that I dislike about the phone:
1.       Smudges on the screen – It’s a fingerprint magnet
2.       Slow application response once filled with data (I copied a 3 GB movie file on the phone – and it took me 40 seconds to open up the gallery )
3.       Startup time – it took me more than 30 seconds to turn on the phone post the initial configuration – the time increases as you install apps on it
4.       Average sound quality – with such a high price for the phone I would have expected a “premium” headphones along with the box
5.       Battery Life – significantly reduces as you start using the music/video player + camera (it lasted me 3 hours with continuous video/music play).
6.       Value for Money: Not a good value for money as a complete package – can be good if you think of it as a Avg Phone + avg Cam + Avg Music player

 

Update: Here’s it in the publication – Monday’s HT Cafe.

PS: The views of the phone were as “Hardik Shah, tech enthusiast” and not as a Microsoft guy