Nokia's N96 now shipping, finally

Hey, it's not September 15th yet! Nevertheless, Nokia's flagship N96 is now shipping in Europe for €550 before taxes and subsidies. Yes, the very same 5 megapixel, dual-sliding media powerhouse with 16GB of storage spotted all the way back in December of last year. By now you should be familiar with the specs, hands-ons, tear-downs, and reviews. Unless, perhaps, you stumbled upon us while looking for Ms Trudy's Crochet and Needlepoint, we know that Engadget Mobile's Magenta colors can be confusing.

[NightBlade @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:25AM]

Although I don't like Nokias in general, this one looks good. Better than the N95, anyways (even though it's got almost the same specs).
It's a pity they're reusing this design a tad too much.

Anyway, I'm going for SE's C905.

[ybd @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:17AM]

Yeah, I hate this design. Sure, it's extremely functional but something about it is a huge turnoff.

[Muhammed @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:39AM]

Somehow the design is getting boring, N81, N96, N85, I mean WTF?!!

[Mobius_1 @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:55AM]

I thinks it's a pretty slick and nice design, I mean, would you call any Aston Martin ugly because they all look very similar and "reused"?

I recently went from SE K800i to Nokia N76 coz a relative of mine moved on to bigger and better Nokias... It's a better music player IMO, especially with my new 8GB microsdhc card and 3.5mm jack, although the SE interface is slightly simpler and slicker, and camera is much nicer

[white_ultras @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:56AM]

AAPL is so safe, I mean, just give that Jobs sickess turnaround and we are going to the moon

[Macca @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:59AM]

Que the Apple retar-...

Shit, too late.

[Shahryar @ Sep 3rd 2008 6:36PM]

@Mobius_1

I have an N76 too. How do you like it? I'm getting sick of it and would love to replace it with something else - even an N96 - but I'm with T-mobile and need something compatible with its upcoming 3G bands.

[Imran @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:26AM]

Mm, probably get one when N95-1 speaker stops working completely.

[Kip HT @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:40AM]

Fap fap fap fap

Oooh. I wish I had the money to buy one :-(

[Macca @ Sep 4th 2008 5:31AM]

Ive heard of weird fap material, but an N96?

[digi @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:49AM]

I want one.

[go seki @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:50AM]

Pushed it out early because of the Samsung i8510 INNOV8 ??

Neither has a good enough screen - is there some limitation in Symbian s60 that restricts devices to QVGA ? - if so thats it for me and Symbian.

[L @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:57AM]

Actually, S60 has had support for higher resolutions for a long time - the E90 uses a 800x352 screen, the N80/E70/N90 used 416x352 screens. It's just sad that there's not much hardware that takes advantage of that at the moment - but that's about to change pretty soon ;-)

[Iain @ Sep 3rd 2008 6:06PM]

Pushed forward or not, it doesn't change the fact that Nokia's laziness has left the door open for Samsung to come along and trump them.
Who would go for the N96 over the INNOV8, seriously?

[Tom Robertson @ Sep 3rd 2008 7:50AM]

Would prefer to have to C905 though!

[Homeboy @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:00AM]

Last week I got a chance to play around with an N95 for the first time. On paper the phone is dope but in real life is mediocre to say the least. The GPS function isn't proper GPS and seem to require access to the internet. It's not of the same type as a Tomtom that you just turn it on it begins to kick off right away. When there was the internet capabilities, WiFi worked seamlessly but absolutely not rocket fast. Most enjoying was the screen size and the entire experience wasn't on a par with the HTC Touch or the iPhone. That's why I don't see any future in this phone, thankfully Nokia has dropped the price cause the N95 was close to €700 when it came out.

[L @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:08AM]

Um no, the N95 has "real" GPS that works without a net connection. And anyway - it's 1.5 years old and has little to do with the N96 in any case.

[Owen @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:12AM]

Bit of a holwer there Homeboy! It is a proper GPS it uses the internet connection to enhance its ability to get a lock,
i.e faster than a tomtom unit. Look at the wiki entry for AGPS

[TareX @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:01AM]

I see a huge screen which is:

Low-res
Non-touchable
Way overpriced.

But again the double slider is great for GBA/SNES gaming.

[Shahryar @ Sep 3rd 2008 6:34PM]

Any suggestions on where to get GBA/SNES gaming? I have an N76 right now and my wife uses an N82. Would love to do some games on there.

[holycow @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:12AM]

Any idea when this is coming to Rogers ?

[Cybergypsy @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:14AM]

Sticking with my B&O Serene.

[Fernando @ Sep 3rd 2008 9:14AM]

lol

[roole @ Sep 3rd 2008 9:38AM]

Post of the week!

[digi @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:22AM]

you cant get DVB-H in th UK. Meaning the mobile tv feature will be useless. very disappointing :(

[Muhammed @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:42AM]

No!! not the same design!! again!!

[aeth @ Sep 3rd 2008 9:09AM]

Better sticking with a design that works than risking millions of dollars.

[Pdexter @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:48AM]

If you dont need DVB-H dont buy this. Dont be fooled with the index number this is niche phone ment for video and in it's a bit over priced imo.

By far best 5mpx phone packet in the market currently is N85 that have had great reviews and actually packs better hardware and soft is more polished.

[avester @ Sep 3rd 2008 9:02AM]

But remember, that N85 lacks the 16gb of memory...

[Pdexter @ Sep 3rd 2008 9:20AM]

Ok i'm talking about reviews and obviously i havent had both of them in my hands, but N85 ships with 8GB card and 16GB cards are here already while 32GB is supposed to come out too.
N85 got biggest AMOLED screen ever used in a mobile phone and the screen wins N96's hands down(exept the size 2.6 vs 2.8).
N85 actually got better chipset in it and more mature than N96(http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/forum/showthread.php?p=389881). N85 is smaller every way and got better build quality.

N85 got 1200 mAh battery while N96 got 950 mAh and N85's AMOLED screen is supposed to save 30% of battery life compared to LCD.
And N85 does all this while it's actually lots of cheaper. So at least for me buying N96 over N85 if you dont need that DVB-H seems silly.

[Derek @ Sep 3rd 2008 12:34PM]

If you are just talking about the Camera I am sure N82 still holds the crown for the Camera part as it is still the only Nokia N series wil Xenon Flash and it still has the best camera review out there @_@

[Mark Anderson @ Sep 3rd 2008 2:24PM]

I agree - the N96 is a white elephant now the N85's out. Nokia got greedy and delayed it's launch so they could sell more N95 8GBs and now the Samsung i8510 is here and it's better. The very release of the N85 confirms that Nokia know they screwed up.

[Tyler @ Sep 3rd 2008 8:59AM]

YAWN, another crap phone from nokia.

[avester @ Sep 3rd 2008 9:04AM]

"Nokia's Indian division recently announced that its customers there would be able to snatch up N96s of their own starting in September, so it comes as no surprise that European carriers are starting to confirm September release windows, too. Dutch carrier KPN, specifically, has announced that the N96 will start to flow its way in just a few tantalizingly short weeks"

See what I did? I copypasted with my crap Nokia, try it with your iPhone.

[Pdexter @ Sep 3rd 2008 9:37AM]

Lol.
To be fair Nokia is missing flagship currently and for the next "N95" kind of super phone we are supposed to wait till 2009 February(that will have S60 5th edition).
Thought that many of here dont seem to get is that phones like N85 offers something that competiton dosent really have anything to say and here in Europe/Asia these WM slide out qwerty phones dont sell while S60 keypad smart phones and Samsung, SE feature phones are the expensive phones that sell. After all Europe and Asia is Nokia's markets where it sells, not NA.

Mobile-Review had good write up for this http://www.mobile-review.com/articles/2008/nokia-n85-n79-en.shtml
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the N85 will become of the market leaders and won't give up this position for a very long while. In fact, 2009 will be the year of the N85, for no other company can offer anything even remotely close to this mobile powerhouse." Eldar

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 3rd 2008 11:32AM]

Although it looks pretty solid, the N95 looked just as solid. I own(ed) an N95, but it felt so cheap. Powerful, but... cheap feeling. I certainly hope the N96 doesn't bear this similarity. Great phones otherwise.

[KilgoreTrout @ Sep 3rd 2008 2:52PM]

I have had an N95 and now I have got an N95 8gb since almost one year and I must say that I love(d) both; their only weak point being the bloated , unreliable and annoying PC suite, (telephone /pc syncronizing software).
But all those illogically positioned, ugly and cramped buttons on the N96 are a deal breaker for me.
After many years I'm gonna divorce from Nokia.
Next month here in Scandinavia will be available the Samsung Omnia and the HTC Dream; and before Xmas the Sony/Erickson X1 experia will show up too; and I'm definitely gonna buy the first one of those to become available.
That is unless the fabled Nokia "Tube" comes out to change my plans, but it seems that sitting on its laurels Nokia has got out of sync with the edge tech of cell phone market.
I'm surely sorry after all those years together...

[Operation Northwood @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:46PM]

The reason I don't buy this instead of Iphone is because the sound is horrible for music and the web browser makes me want to break it in 100 parts. It changes the web page to mobile way. I hate that. once I got used to safari in iPod touch, that's it.