Nokia n96 n-gage gaming phone

The size of the Nokia N96 cell phone is slightly bigger than Nokia N The Nokia N96 is equipped with a 2. The screen displays sharp and colorful images. At the top of the front panel, there are pinhole VGA camera and earpiece. Below it, there are the basic navigation keys, five-way d-pad, and hidden multimedia playback controls that light up when in use.

Sliding up the phone will reveal the standard dial keys. The right side of the phone features top and bottom corner stereo speakers, a volume controller under the top speaker, and a camera button just above the bottom speaker. At the left side of the phone is where the covered microSDHC card slot resided.

On the top side, it has the 3. The bottom side of the phone, it has the micro-USB data connector port and the 2mm Nokia pin charging port. The backside of the Nokia N96 is equipped with a single piece of glossy dark plastic back panel cover. With all the high-end hardware in the Nokia N96, it still can perform well as a telephone device.

The phone is powered by Symbian S60 Feature Pack 2 version 3. It provides better power and wireless connection management. The Nokia N96 user interface remains the same as its previous predecessors. The voice quality is the usual high Nokia standard.

The phone functions can be access and navigate easily because of the user-friendly interface. Elsewhere the N96 improves in the admittedly few areas where the N81 was weakest — the camera has been bumped up to a five-megapixel auto-focus variant with Carl Zeiss optics and as you might expect, picture quality is reassuringly decent close-up photos are especially good.

With such a wealth of storage space it's unsurprising to see Nokia really pushing the N96 as a music player, and it certainly doesn't disappoint in this regard. Granted, the media player interface isn't anywhere near as swish as that seen on the iPhone, but the inclusion of a standard 3. The phone is also fully geared-up to take part in Nokia's majestic N-Gage revolution. With Apple's iPhone soaking up many mobile gamers with its Apps Store service and Google's Android Marketplace slowly but surely starting to pick up speed, N-Gage has been unfairly pushed out of the limelight somewhat — which is a real shame, because as a gaming platform it arguably works better than its mobile rivals.

The worryingly downbeat nature of N-Gage's current fortunes is made even harder to comprehend when you load up a game on the N No mobile manufacturer has made as much of an effort to cater for portable gaming as Nokia. The N81 had dedicated gaming keys but here the company goes one better; the aforementioned dual slider mechanism not only reveals the keypad but also slides downwards to expose an additional quartet of buttons which can be used for both music playback and more importantly interactive entertainment.

Couple this with an excellent D-pad and you have a phone that is deadly serious about being seen as a pure gaming thoroughbred.

Granted, the games themselves don't possess the visual opulence of the premier iPhone titles but they're certainly a step up from the usual Java-based crowd. Lamentably, the N96 does showcase some irksome shortcomings.

Most annoying is the battery life, which we found to be even worse than that seen in the N95 — and it was hardly as if that particular phone was capable of going the distance in terms of stamina.

If you wish to make use of the N96's numerous advanced features and let's be honest, you're hardly going to pony up the cash for a phone like this and not use the abilities it's been blessed with then you it would be wise to carry the charger and possibly even a spare battery around with you at all times.

Nokia N96 all over. It also sports an optical joystick, which rocks for browsing. The Innov8 however is slightly more expensive than N96 and it lacks the complimentary stuff Nokia Maps, 3 months of voice navigation, a free N-gage game and the Transformers movie.

For people on a tighter budget the Nokia N95 8GB might seem an option. The dual-LED flash isn't exactly the major upgrade to go on about.

In addition, the looks of Nokia N95 8GB are way more our type. You know, we do believe something has went terribly wrong with the N81 design - and even worse, it's now reproducing itself ready to take on the world. Nokia N95 8GB. If you aren't a die-hard Symbian fan you might be lured away to Windows Mobile. We doubt it there will be many to convert to WinMo but all those all-rounders are still worth mentioning. The Windows Mobile lot.

Finally, if DVB-H is your main reason to go for Nokia N96, there are a few phones that support it without costing an arm and a leg. In addition, the KB features a larger 3-inch screen, which - even if not exactly widescreen telly - still counts. Nokia N77 has also been around for quite a while, but hardly got really noticed.