Nokia N96

Following the success of the hugely popular N95, the Nokia N96 takes the next steps in the "Mobile Computer" tagline that Nokia is trying so hard to get into common usage for its N-Series models. The first difference to note with the N96 is the huge leap in on-board storage, taking the 8GB of the second release N95 up to a whopping 16GB to rival the iPhone. In keeping with before the phone features an excellent 5 Megapixel Carl-Zeiss camera with full VGA (640 x 480) 30 frames per second video, Auto-Focus, Night Mode, Macro Mode and now Image Stabilisation and Geotagging for recording the exact location in the world of your photos using the GPS system.

The Nokia N96 has another big feature in the form of DVB-H mobile TV support. Backed mainly by O2 in the UK, and trial-run by 400 O2 customers in Oxford, the DVB-H standard last year got the go-ahead from Ofcom with the frequency band it uses to become available this year in 2008. The Oxford trial saw channels such as BBC One, Two & News 24, ITV 1 & 2, Channel 4, Five available, along with a selection of extras including British Eurosport, CNN, Discovery, MTV, Cartoon Network and more. When DVB-H becomes available in the UK, owners of the Nokia N96 will be able to watch many TV channels on the move, and as a standard now officially endorsed by the EU, hopefully many other countries also. As for how much people will watch TV on their mobiles remains to be seen, but the studies have been promising, suggesting that around a third of viewing is done in the home even where access to a much larger screen is available.

For stored entertainment, the Nokia N96 has plenty of storage space for music and video with 16GB internal storage, but also the MicroSD expansion slot allows for even more storage with extra cards, and a handy way to share your larger files without waiting for Bluetooth. Music can be used in MP3 and Media Player format, or through the FM Radio which now features RDS, and video is via MPEG standards, and the Video Out allows you to plug into your TV and watch on a big screen.

As the N96 is touted as a Mobile Computer, Nokia have included the standard Office File-type support of Excel, Powerpoint, Word and PDF, along with HSDPA 3G data-rate standards and 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi wireless networking, Bluetooth and USB for connectivity.

All in all, the Nokia N96 is a fully featured phone that takes the success of the previous N95 and brings it up to date to be a leader in 2008. Not likely to be the cheapest of phones for a while yet, the sheer feature set of the Nokia N96 will however keep the most demanding user happy for a long time to go.