N96, A Worthy Upgrade?

The N96 is expected to be out in Q3 at about 550€ unsubsidised. Now what that means is that the price of the current crop of Nseries will continue to fall till then on launch the N96 will be at least 100€ more expensive than any other Nseries on the market. Does it have enough to get the consumer to spent that little more? Lets have a look:

Advantages of the N96 over the N95:

1. 16GB of memory with an microSD slot.

Well there are two ways to look at this actually. 16GB built-in memory plus an additional 16GB microSD gives you a total of 32GB of storage space on your N96!! but here's the reality, who actually needs so much storage space? Perhaps some lunatic who uses the N96 as his hard drive. Frankly speaking, I currently have an 6GB microSD on my N95 with almost 700 songs now and yet I still have more than 2GB of free space. So for most users i would say that 16GB is a bit too much, but who knows!

2. DVB-H (Live television)

This technology was first introduced in the N77 if I'm not mistaken, and is currently very, very limited. Barely a few regions have it and as far as i know it's not even available in the US and UK yet.

3. Media keys, lots of them.

The N95 was great with the slide out media keys, but it also meant sliding the device all the way whenever we wanted to change a song, much too troublesome for some people. So Nokia has thrown in another set of media keys on the N96's D-pad. Some might say it's too cramped up, but hey, i say the more the merrier! (we have to wait the the device to be released before we have a confirmed opinion on how this turns out)

4. Dual LED

The N96 has a Dual LED, which is usable for video recording. Can come in really handy In our opinion.

Disadvantages over the N95:

1. Lacks a 3D Graphic Accelerator

Currently the pre-released version of n-gage games do not seem to be utilising this, but there are already other games that use this. Games such as Quake which utilises the N95's 3D graphic accelerator enable it to produce breath-taking graphics that was meant for a PC!

2. Smaller battery

When i talk about juice i'm referring to the N95-8GB. Nokia has created the N96 in a buffer and fatter casing, yet gone with a smaller battery, the one used in the N95-1? *Bad choice...* Sure, the N95-1's battery capacity was greatly increased with new firmware's improved power management, but how far can Nokia actually push the limits of power management on the N96? (again, we will have to wait and see)

3. Price

For Nokia to charge so much for a device that can do almost less than the N95 can? I don't think that's going to attract many buyers.

4. No lens cover

Nokia never learns do they? The lack of a lens cover on the N96 leaves the camera exposed and vulnerable to scratches and greasy fingerprints. For most users a stick-on lens protector is not an option because it degrades the image quality.

So, Who will get the N96?

That’s a tough question to answer specially when the device is not even out yet. Perhaps it may even be absurd to even try and characterise its prospective buyers but here’s my perspective nevertheless. The first category will be the people who have been waiting to get an Nseries flagship and have given the N95 series a skip. Second would be people owning the N95 classic but they would face a dilemma because of the battery and lack of 3D acceleration. Few N95 8GB owners would want to get the upgrade unless they are hardcore music freaks. If web browsing is important then the N96 will face the heat again as according to the product manager it will only do about 4hrs on Wifi!

The bottom line is that the battery has to deliver, otherwise it will be just another handset that came and went.

*edited from the symbianblog.com*