Nokia N96: the five-minute fiddle

I had my hands on an N96 the other day for five minutes, and below you can find out what I thought of it (actually it was a little more than five minutes, but the 17-minute fiddle doesn’t sound as good…)

The point of this mini-mini-review is that users who try a device out immediately pre-/post-buying will have only had the same time as me to make a decision on if the device is for them or not. Given I’ve played with most every major mobile platform/device out there, I figure I might be able to shed some light on the killer points/faults of the N96 – so let’s get to it:

• build quality – yurgh, not great – feels light, and the back panel, is, er….lame! Very thin and flimsy!. I bet the whole device creaks after 3 months usage
• key layout – sucks – who on earth thought of whacking all those (multi-function) buttons on the facia needs a stern talking to! People’s fingers are not styluses – remember this!
• slide mechanism – nice
• S60 familiarity – good – if you’ve owned another S60 device, this one should be workable – some menus have changed though
• option-finding complexity – very high – some options are buried under 7 layers of menus – come on Nokia, learn the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) lesson!
• Speed – um, not great – this device feels slower than the N95-8GB – and if I remember correctly, DOES have a slower processor. Hmm.
• video playback – awesome – excellent quality and media handling

So in summary, would I buy one? Well I happen to know the battery is about the same size (in mAh) as the original N95, and smaller than N95-8GB – so on that count, it’s a no. On the basis of the screen, video handling, and slide mechanism, yes. Overall, if you’ve got another S60 device, you might find it hard to justify paying about £450 (SIM free). If you are coming from a feature-phone into S60 for the first time, I think this is (just about) the best device out there for that…

Overall rating: ambivalent – I could take it or leave it
Grade: B- (could do better)