N96 in my hand- any questions?

[Micky]

Have you been installing everything to phone memory, and not mass storage?

[Doc Tran]

One more podcast question:

Mobile Industry Review Show (Large M4V)

Will the N96 play back that one?

[pseudofinn]

Yes- Mobile Industry Review, of course! Plays flawlessly and looks fantastic.

[Gaz]

just worth noting for those that find the N96 running slow ............
every N96 I have seen that has ran slow has been when the user had a Micro SD card inserted.
The one I had from Nokia ran slow with the memory card in too but sped up very fast once it was taken out again.
I found the build quality to be way better than the N95 and alsoa little better than N95-2 !
The slider was really smooth and stiff with no wobble at all even once we had stripped it down a few times .
THe feel of the phone in the hand was not very pleasant as I found it to feel too wide and flat .
The numeric keypad was very awkward to use due to being so wide and flat when compared to the N95 or N82.
The camera when we test shot some photos did not impress me at all as the colours were very washed out when compared to N95-2 ,N82 and SE C902.
In the photo test we found the cameras scored as follows
1 - N82
2 - N95-2
3 - SE C902
4 - N96
5 - SE K850i

Music playback was superb as was video and the general menus and applications were very very fast , even on opening as long as the aforementioned Micro SD cards were not inserted !
The screen was very good and despite being the same it was more clear than on the N95-2 due to the reduced distance between the A Cover and the actual LCD on the N96 when compared to the N95-2
ASR worked flawlessly throughout test and the phone is an absolute joy to work on as an engineer .
sadly the covers are easily marked and although I do believe the mechanics will stand the test of time much better than N95 ,I do think it will start to look quite tatty after a short time if not really looked after .
My overall impression was very good but the feel of the device and the let down on the camera put me off enough to not get one and was not that sad when I had to return it to Nokia and go back to my N82 (which has impressed me so much it has now become my main phone over the N95-2)
The only issues we have seen so far have been :-
One phone had poorly fitting S60 keys (big gap and raised)
Micro SD slowing the handset down
And the usual housewives buying a device that is way above their knowledge and looking at me really confused when i asked them if they had sen the instruction or quick start guide in the box before replying " no where will I find those?"
There has so far been One Major and three minors softwares for the N96 so Nokia are really keeping on top of bugs so far

[pseudofinn]

Have to agree with you on the numeric pad. While I do actually like the width, or at least the feeling of width (not really much wider, is it?) and depth size- it does make it a bit awkward to text one handed quickly. Much more difficult than the N95, though that thing is a dream to T9 away on.

Key press bug is also annoying the out of me. Would like to see that fixed and some tweaks with the imaging.

[Gaz]

it is not actually that much wider but I think the flat back cover makes it feel even wider than it is
Hopefully when V3 major comes out it will fix that bug

[pseudofinn]

Right- while it's not actually much wider, I agree that there really is a perception of it being much wider than the N95. Despite this, I think it feels no where near as chunky as the N95 8GB did- though that might have a good bit to do with the fact that the 8 gigger resembled my beloved N95 much more than the N96...?

Other than the awkwardness of one handed texting with the N96 (which I hope I'll get used to yet- it's not really *bad*, just not as good as the classic N95.), it really does feel quite nice in the hand IMHO.

[Gaz]

I have to say it is much better built than the N95 and feels very solid too which makes a nice change for a dual slider

[torsen]

I popped into the nokia store in Regents Street last night last night to have a look, and they have a few on display to play with.

Everyone one of them had loose sliders with side play in them. I sat down and had a good play with the phone and it has a very slick interface, but other than than that lovely big onboard expandable memory it just doesn't have enough for me to 'upgrade' from my N95-2.

Shame really as I am running out of onboard storage memory and I need more than 8gb, I am going to need a replacement at least as good or better than my N95-2 soon :-( ...

[Doc Tran]

1 more podcast question:

G4tv podcasts playable?
G4 - Podcasts