Product Listing

Nokia N96 - Revealed and Reviewed

By Seow Tein Hee - 26 Aug 2008

Performance

More Juice Required

Following through with all the jam packed features on this new generation device from Nokia, you would be definitely wondering on how the N96 manages to handle in the performance arena on a few aspects, which includes the audio quality, imaging reproduction on its 5-megapixel Carl Zeiss Tessar lens with dual LED flash, video playback frame rate, GPS satellite lock time and most important of all, battery performance with heavy usage. So here's a quick breakdown according to each category.

Audio quality, in truth, would be what you can expect from a multimedia device. It has the right amount of audio clarity on its highs and mids, but lows were slightly muffled on both the bundled earphones and its stereo speakers. Nonetheless, at the appropriate volume, music was definitely enjoyable, though we had hoped that there's more punch in the audio delivery in this aspect.

While the N96's camera function would be almost similar to its predecessor, the addition of a second LED flash would create better lighting conditions for night shots. Of course, if one were to wonder about the decision to use dual LED flash instead of Xenon flash, the answer would be very basic: battery performance, but hold your horses as we aren't done with the imaging quality analysis yet. In short, the colors reproduced on the N96's 5-megapixel camera is of average quality, without any bluish hue or warm colors to its delivered results. Of course, the N96 is still a camera phone at best, and resolution results were in the range of ten to eleven for both the horizontal and vertical readings. Choosing a fixed imaging subject, we took a few shots with the N96 and did manage to get some pretty pleasing results, probably good for on-the-fly imaging purposes, but you still won't get the kind of attention to details as seen on dedicated digital compact cameras.

A 1:1 crop of the test shots as taken with the N96. Click on the image for the full resolution.

Video playback on the N96 was for the most part smooth and uninterrupted, with no frame losses on a 28FPS video clip on the .MP4 format as tested on the N96. As a video recorder, the N96 manage to return video clips at frame rates of up to 30FPS, though in lower lighting environments, we didn't manage to get desirable results even with the aid of its dual LED flash. Moving onwards, we've mentioned earlier on that the N96 is no longer required to have its slider up for the GPS antenna to capture a decent satellite lock. On average, we managed to grab a satellite lock in under 30 seconds.

Now comes the possible deal breaker for many: the 950mAH battery. Like the very first version of the N95, it's successor suffers the same problem that plagued many over a year ago, that being the lack of a strong battery lifespan to fully utilize the myriad of features on the N96. We were surprised at Nokia's decision to use a less than 1000mAH battery for a power-hungry device such as the Nokia N96, We put the device to the test with a full load of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, adding in some routine cellular functions including voice calling and messaging, and the results: almost a day of usage with a full charge. Do note that with heavy usage of its music or even video playback, you would probably find the battery performance to see a sharp dip due to the power intensive requirements of the multimedia features. 

For those who are conscious about a device's battery performance, the N96 (left) would probably give you some cause for concern, and you might be more inclined to stick with the N95 8GB and its higher battery capacity. Interestingly, we swapped the batteries on both devices, and found the N96 unable to accomodate the N95 8GB's battery, thus making it possible that a thinner and lower powered battery is required in response to the thinner profile on the N96.

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