Nokia N96 review: King's new clothes

Every time Nokia Nseries numbering goes up a notch geeks are holding their breath. Well, geeks - including us - are no ordinary human beings, but in the case of Nokia N96 they'd been holding their breath since February. The time this multimedia monster picked to actually hit the shelves must have made quite a few people fear it being already outdated.

Being a successor of the Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N96 has some king-size spec sheet to top and it can't be accused of not trying. There's FP2, double the built-in storage and DVB-H. The bloodline is strong but the crown is heavy and ancestral sins will be held against the heir twofold. The modest battery capacity and the downgraded CPU do raise some questions that need their answers. Join us for an out-and-out review of Nokia's latest top-of-the-shelf offer. Let's see if it has got the performance to walk in them shoes size N95.

Key features:

2.8" 16M-color TFT LCD display of QVGA resolution 
5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash and AF assist light 
Built-in DVB-H TV tuner 
Symbian OS 9.3 with S60 3.2 UI 
Dual ARM 9 264 MHz CPU and 128 MB of RAM 
3G with HSDPA support 
Quad-band GSM support 
Wi-Fi with UPnP technology 
Built-in GPS with A-GPS functionality and 3 months of free voice-guided navigation 
Dual slide design with dedicated gaming/audio keys 
Massive 16GB onboard storage 
microSD card slot with microSDHC support 
Built-in accelerometer for UI auto-rotation 
3.5 mm audio jack 
TV out 
Stereo FM Radio with RDS 
Car charger in the retail package 
VGA video recording at 30fps 
USB and Bluetooth v2.0 
One free N-gage game and Transformers movie preloaded 
Keypad locking slide key 
Main disadvantages:
Inadequate battery life 
No camera lens protection 
The @$$#% N81-inspired design 
No office document editing out of the box 
Doesn't charge via the USB port 
Dreadful camera key 
Cheap looking keypad 
Unreasonably hefty price tag 

Nokia N96 comes to top the Nokia multimedia portfolio, packing almost every single feature you can think of. It extends the functionality of its predecessor - Nokia N95 8GB with 16GB of internal memory, DVB-H TV receiver, and the latest version of the Symbian OS. There are also some more minor upgrades including music keys on the front panel, a kickstand (we love that one) for more comfortable video watching and dual-LED flash. On the negative side, the CPU has been tripped up but we are yet to see how this affects the performance.