Nokia N96

The impending arrival of the 3G iPhone on our shores is making me excited about mobile devices again! That, and the rather inexplicable issues I’ve been facing withe my trusty E90. The E90 is probably the only device I’ve ever owned that has received all software required by me in a matter of a week after I received the phone. No additions or removal of anything else. That’s how well it is able to meet my requirements. The past two weeks have seen spontaneous reboots, failures in receiving calls and most notably, a complete wipe of all data on the device. Not a lot of fun. Thankfully, all my important data is backed up and a restore is not that big a deal. Nonetheless somewhat irritating. Maybe the software is degrading as part of an evil ploy to make me spend money on the next best thing…

By the way, the Nokia firmware updater program has spontaneously decided that it is not able to run on Vista anymore. A rather strange twist, seeing as the version I had prior to upgrading ran without a hitch. I know there’s an E90 firmware upgrade available. Just can’t get to it.

 I had a Nokia N95 for a while, but that was too little business and too much phone. Some very annoying issues with that device, to be sure. The N95’s successor, the N96 does have a lot going for it in the looks and specifications department, though. Pretty much the same dual-slide design, the N96 does the requisite media playback and Internet access. There’s WLAN, HSDPA and USB connectivity and a lot of memory. Additional micro-SD cards can up the total storage capacity to almost 24GB!

Though of little use to us right now, the inclusion of a DVB-H receiver is nice to have. The phone integrates a stand to ensure wobble-free viewing and ensuring no one has to let go of the popcorn and Coke. A 5MP camera, on of the best in the industry in my opinion and integrated GPS round out this nifty package.

If the stability of the device has improved and memory management is no longer an issue, this is a compelling device. Probably, it will be available sometime after August of this year.