6 Months with the Nokia N96 : A Farewell

When the Nokia N96 was announced, everyone was euphoric. Here’s the device that’s supposed to succeed the mighty Nokia N95.

Oooo Shiny !

But the closer it got to releasing, the more specs were leaked, and the more people were slowly disappointed. A (comparatively) low capacity battery that couldnt possibly power that device very long, the same 5 Megapixel camera as the N95, and just a Dual Led Flash instead of a Xenon Flash ? “What were they thinking?” was the question on many people’s minds.

But inspite of its letdowns, the N96 still bought S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 which was supposed to be a huge improvement over Feature Pack 1, and it bought 16Gb of storage with it and also allowed microSD cards. Previously Nokia devices either had micro-SD support, or a large storage space but not both at one time.

It also had Digital-Tv support (DVB-H video/TV tech), which was supposed to be one of the main features of the device.

But did all these new features mean the N96 was a great successor to the good ol’ N95 ? Sadly no.

In theory it should have done very well. It had all (or most of) the great features of the Nokia N95, even improving slightly on it’s Dual Slider Form Factor, adding Several Media Keys to the Top Slider. It had the large 2.8″ QVGA Screen of the N95 8GB, and very loud Stereo Speakers for those Audio Moments.

But in actuality, this just wasnt enough. Atleast for me.

There are a variety of reasons the N96 just wasnt a great device in my eyes. You can check out our review to know more on that.

And after 6 months with it (I got the device in late November, it’s now verging on May), I’ve finally decided to let the N96 go. Why ?

Here’s why :

1. Slloooowww OS : The N96 probably has the most sluggish OS of any FP2 device I’ve used. Yet we’ve only seen ONE firmware update for the thing in these six months, which only marginally improved things. And even after that, the Feature Pack 2 OS on the N96 still misses out on some features which I noticed on the N85 (which runs the same OS). Isnt this supposed to be the Flagship Model ?

2. Bad Software Support : Out of the Apps launched at Nokia’s own BetaLabs, the N96 versions have always been delayed, or had some problem with it. This would be fine, except that these apps were also released on other FP2 devices like the N85, N79, etc.

3. The Battery : Inspite of Nokia saying that their improvements in FP2 were so very good enough that the N96 didnt need a huge battery, I still cant get my N96 to last longer than a Day on that measly little 950mah battery. For a power user like me, this just isnt cutting it.

You might wonder why I’ve held on to the device this long anyway. I’ve always said the N96 was a great piece of hardware, marred with terrible software. And I still stand by this. But after 6 months of waiting for some improvements, I’ve pretty much given up.

There are also a few other niggles with the N96 that many others usually say. “It’s too Big”, “It looks too much like the N81“, etc but none of these ever bothered me at all.

But because of the annoying software, I’ve finally decided to get rid of my N96. It never succeeded in replacing my aging N82 at all, and I really havent gotten much use of the thing to be quite honest.

Farewell ol’ Nokia N96, we hardly knew ye full potential. Mostly because of your terrible software.

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Author Description

Clinton Jeff

Clinton is currently based in New Delhi, India and is executive editor for UnleashThePhones. He is responsible for all editorial decisions, and covers all forms of Mobile things. Cj is addicted to caffeine, social media, and technology. Always up for a good conversation, you can reach him through the contact form, his website, on Google Plus or on Facebook or Twitter: Follow @clintonjeff

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