Nokia N96 review

Nokia is taking no chances with the Indian release of its new multimedia flagship, the Nokia N96. The N96 comes bundled with a host of India-specific goodies including the entire Bollywood blockbuster flick Om Shanti Om, 50 music videos and pre-loaded GPS-ready Nokia Maps for India, Singapore and UAE.

So sad then that Nokia didn't spend just a little more of its time working on bug issues stored up in the N96's little silicon mind.

Just like the N80 years ago, the N95 and every other groundbreaking Nseries device from Nokia, software issues are rife. The Nokia N96 is slow where it should zoom past its competitors and this demonstrates that while Nokia may create the most feature-rich mobiles on the planet, they're not always as pleasing to use as competitors' models.

The accelerometer takes so long to adjust the screen from portrait to landscape that we ended up turning it off on our version. It's lucky you're given the option to do this because otherwise we'd probably have thrown the handset out of the window by now.

Applications take ages to load, and even hanging up after dialing a wrong number causes the N96 to pause infuriatingly.

Hopefully, these speed issues will be resolved soon with a firmware update because quirks aside, the N96 is a cracking handset.

The multimedia abilities are stunning, especially when coupled with a screen as crisp as the N96's; 16 million colours, 2.8-inch with a 240x320 pixel resolution.

The camera is way above average and with the upgrade to a dual-LED flash, snaps taken in dark conditions are always well-exposed, sometimes even overly so. There is also a video light feature to light up your full 30FPS masterpieces.

GPS has come a long way since the slow chipset on the Nokia N95, and this shows on the N96. Although it may not be as speedy as the Apple iPhone, it still manages to find a fix faster than its Nokia predecessors. Nokia Maps is an effective tool, but it's a shame you have to pay for turn-by-turn instructions because using the N96 as a SatNav would be a pleasure thanks to that screen. The phone includes a 3-month subscription to updated info on 8 cities across India (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi & NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Mumbai and Pune).

Storage space on the Nokia N96 can reach a whopping 24GB - but only if you expand it with an optional 8GB microSD card. Nokia claim that makes the N96 most capacious mobile device on the planet, and we agree for the moment. It's certainly enough to store 20 Bollywood movies or a battery-flattening 17 days of continuous music.

The N-Gage gaming platform is available on the N96, and this includes some game trials already installed. Our device featured Snakes Subsonic, Mile High Pinball, World Series of Poker, Tetris and Asphalt 3: Street Rules, which just need to be activated to become playable.

Unfortunately, we now come to more disappointing features, but this time it's the design that's causing us headaches. The plasticky casing feels quite cheap, especially when you begin to put the keypad to good use. It's hard to press the top row of number buttons too, because the slide doesn't open far enough and the buttons are too close to the top half of the handset.

The central four-way navigation key isn't touch sensitive like it was on the Nokia N81, although it does flash in a heart-beat style way if you like that sort of thing.

The Nokia menu shortcut button has been reinstated, which is a welcome comeback, giving you fast access to the menu. Hold it down and the open applications will be displayed. As all of the buttons are flush against the casing though, it's sometimes a little tricky to press them quickly.

Although our hopes of a super-charged Nokia Nseries device were sky high when the Nokia N96 was announced, firmware and hardware issues brought them down to earth. Multimedia features are among the best we've seen on a Nokia device though, with a full suite of N-Gage games, music, video, TV and camera facilities.

If it's multimedia you're after, we recommend you buy the Nokia N96, but only when the firmware is updated. We will revisit this review - and hopefully upgrade our verdict and rating - when Nokia tells us that the upgrade is live.