Nokia's N96 comes to Best Buy for upwards of $800
By Darren Murph 
posted Oct 30th 2008 10:43AM
posted Oct 30th 2008 10:43AM
[Via Boy Genius Report]
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This phone is a slow piece of shit that is practically the same as the N95 that came before it.
DO NOT BUY THIS CRAP.
Sorry, I have to agree here. The n96 is an incremental update over the n95. It has a better camera than the iPhone, but it is likely to get scratches and become useless, and Nokia will do nothing about it. Also, at least with iPhone, you will continue to get updates for your phone as they are available. With Nokia, it's game over once their newest shiny comes out (aside from very occasional handouts). And iPhone has a consistent interface, whereas n95 reinvents their own interface all the time, turning finding or using things into a guessing game. It's just clunky. And I'm saying all this as an n95 owner.
nokia is crap
NOKIA IS CRAP
all nokia users think they are movie directors(sic)
NOKIA IS CRAP
NOKIA IS CRAP
NOKIA IS CRAP
how cheap does the iphone look now? and it does a whole lot more, ie, itunes
and safari and email and .......
You do know that the unsubsidized iPhone 16GB costs around 700$ in most place, right?
And that this thing can do way more than the iPhone, from a business stand point at least.
Oh yah and I forgot the main arguments:
It has copy/paste, 5 megapixel camera WITH flash that also can take videos
It depends where you live.
The N96 is free on £30 pm contracts in the UK. The equivalent iPhone costs you £159 on a £30 pm contract.
By the way, the N96 syncs with iTunes too. And has uses the same web rendering engine as Safari. And does e-mail. Oh, and has copy and paste. :)
(Yes, I'm aware of the superior UI but it seems people want to talk about features)
Patriks7, what's the use of copy and paste when the damned thing restarts every 10 seconds? I want to take a picture, the phone restarts. I want to take a video, the phone hangs and I have to take the battery out.
I would not recommend this piece of shit to anyone.
nokia has nothing, i repeat, NOKIA HAS NOTHING,
NO user interface, its crap,
no music player, its crap,
no copy paste, its crap,
no web browser, its crap,
no email, its also crap ...etc etc,
nokia is just a phone filled with CRAP,
IT IS NOTHING.
apple has touch magic, program magic osx, hardware magic, and they make software that people don't even notice they are using.
everything else is ....yes....CRAP
"the phone hangs and I have to take the battery out."
Try doing that with your iPhone if it freezes..
(My point being that Nokia actually makes useful products for more business minded people.. not 14 year olds that need the latest Apple bling)
If it was a US version of the Touch HD, i would pinch at this price. Not for this POS.
Why the low rank? Not that i care, but i would appreciate any opinions as to why. $800 for this phone is just highway robbery.
Because you belong in the troll category.
Im a troll because i post an opinion that im sure others share about an overpriced product? Do you even know who you are talking to? Im no more a troll than you are a nokia fanboy. Oh shit. Now that i look at your previous comments... I am a troll. You win.
I would guess:
1) You went off topic
2) You called the N96 a "POS", presumably without using one first
I'm just guessing though.
@Aaron
Now your reasoning i can partially understand.
Binging up the other phone was only in relation to the price mentioned in the topic. Would you pay $800 for this phone? Do you know anyone that would and why they would do so? What phone would you rather spend $800 on?
You are correct in assuming that i have not picked up the N96, however i know the limitations of the OS and the hardware and based my POS comment on that.
I do not mind having 2 netbooks on both hand for the same price and using skype.
Total entertainment.
$800 for a QVGA phone must be a joke. And with so many touchscreen phones one the market, some with full keyboards and the same size as the N96, I really can't see a single reason for buying this.
First, that last line is gold. It's freakin' gold. xDDD
Okay, this phone is amazing and all and I LOVE phones as unhealthily as the next guy (at some sort of EngadgetMobile convention....yeah, I don't have this all figured out yet, but I think you can see where I'm going with this) HOWEVER $800-$900 for a cell phone is just absurd. One can get a decent computer, a used car or make a mortgage payment with that amount.
And while I'm on a roll sharing opinions, I love salami. There, I said it.
I agree, $900 for a cell phone? when will the recession hit the electronic market. People no longer have disposable income to spend, and if they do they sure aren't looking to get a phone that costs so much.
I can't stand all this apple fanboys. Geez, apple is not the only company that makes good phones. I have been using mac since the g3s. I've also owned an iphone. however, I now use a nokia e71 now. Previously I only owned numerous nokia phones. Symbian is a great os for cell phones, and it is definitely the choice for power users since there is so much add on and so much things you can do on the phone. 8800 is definitely not a high price for a phone with such good specs. Btw iphone's camera is only 2 pixels and apple has limit all the possibilities that the phone can do by restricting it. Both are great device and the price are about the same unlocked so stop dissing it.
Please! Symbian for power users? Symbian is about as customisable as a standard Sony Ericsson dumbphone. You want customisability and add-ons? Windows Mobile is the answer.
@ILoveApple:
Did you actually use an S60 phone before?? I'm pretty sure the answer is no, but you'd probably say yes just to avoid the embarrassment.
Hamza, I own a N96, do you?
I can't edit registry files in my N96. I can't put a custom ROM on it. I can't even delete the shitty default crap that Nokia sticks on it. I can't get change that stupid hands animation that I see everytime I turn on the phone. I can't install a bunch of themes I found on the internet because of some bullshit certificate error.
Understand now, sonny boy?
@iloveapple
u dont know how to install themes without getting certificate error :| !!!
USE GOOGLE
and whats wrong with the two hands ? u want to see boobs ? or some fruits
Maybe some of the stupid Nokia employees who made this product have decided to low rank anyone speaking badly of this shitty device. It wouldn't surprise me, those stupid Nokia employees have done it before and ended up being caught.
The name says it all.
That to me is way to expensive for a phone. A netbook with 3G, doesn't it cost around that much? I'd rather get that. That doesn't even have a QWERTY keyboard either does it, it's literally more of a multimedia phone. Sure it has a web browser, but how are you going to browser as fast as other QWERTY phone when you can't even type as fast as them.... I'd rather get one of the E series phones from Nokia, than that N series. Rahter get the N85 over that, essentially the same aren't they? Just the size of the screen?
This phone is a disappointment. The n95 was the most powerful phone on the market just a few months ago, and when you hear that nokia is updating their n series phones, you expect their 'beast' to get some massive improvements.
You get the same screen, you get the same camera, you get a slower processor, smaller battery, and nothing really got better. They could have at least thrown the n85 oled screen.. or the n82 xenon flash.
Is it corporate oversite? Look at the keypads. the n96 has a terrible keypad where functionality took a backseat to design.
I hope nokia eats it on this one.
The N95-8G is still more powerful than the N96 or even the better (IMO) N85.
After considering the options of N96, N85 or Samsung i8510 as my second phone I chose the N85.
OLED and a bigger battery won the day for me. We have DVB-H TV broadcasts but they are by no means out of "trial" so that feature of the N96 is redundant .. with a built in FM transmitter I can step into the car and have my tunes play directly on the cars radio. They left this out of the N96 ..
As you've seen from another story today Nokia don't necessarily make the best handset (Sharp 931 in Japan)- and they regard North American customers as living in a backwater as far as 3G service delivery is concerned .. ie they don't really care about the US+CA that much. Nokia will continue to sell ship-loads of these things in the markets that matter (to them)- Asia and Europe.
Oh and before you ask .. why didn't I go for the Samsung i8510 .. Well I considered it .. but the firmware isn't quite right yet .. I might yet spring for one in the New Year.
I hate how The N96 uses a slower processor than the N95. I know it's to save battery life, but the N95 (while one of the few phones I actually kept for more than a couple months) was already choppy enough just going through the menus. I thought that was the main thing the N96 was going to improve upon. Instead, it improves the N95 in areas that it didn't need to and actually "downgrades" the processor to one that's even slower (clockspeed-wise) than their mid range E-series? I don't get that at all.
I can do away with the TV receiver and the better camera and even the better screen for a faster processor and an iPhone like interface.
@ILoveApple,
It sounds like you aren't as technical minded as the average Nseries user, or that willing to figure how to optimize your N96. You also must not be used to buying superphones, which usually have a few niggles when they first come out. Sounds like you need to upgrade or reset your firmware.
I'd be more than glad to help you get your device running more smoothly. I'm a member of an elite S60 hacker group and online community called Symbian-Freak, and am experienced in modifying and troubleshooting powerful S60 devices. Hit my email at christexaport@sbcglobal.net for any advice. It does have more RAM, but I actually do agree with you, too. The N96 is a step down from the N95 8gb, and should've been better specced.
And S60 is the global favorite for power using smartphone users. They sell twice as many smartphones as anyone else. And its more user modifiable than any other OS, definitely WinMo. They'll tell you that. And everyone able to code with c++, Python, Mscript, Qt, Ruby, Flashlite, Java, Web2.0, etc. can create apps for it. No other platform has more developer flexibility. Of course you might think power users prefer the iPhone. (And they don't. At all. Ever. Period.)
By the way, YOU can't edit the registry. Not my fault. And I haven't seen any iPhone registry editors, either. And you CAN'T put custom ROMS on it, but you can put ROM patches and hack S60 firmware. My community has instructions to change the startup animation if you'd like. If you want to do geek tasks, start by using a search engine like Google. You can't sit like a Mac user and wait to be spoon fed. Fix your own plate. And if you can't cook, eat an Apple and hush. (just joking. Had to throw it in...) And for the certificate error, it either needs to be signed or the theme is outdated, created long ago before the current security model. Just adjust your date back about a year before installing.
@huh,
The camera is exposed, but worries of easily damaging the lens are unwarranted. Its scratch resistant, and a replacement outer lens is around $20. And on its worst day, it still takes DVD grade video and vivid enlargement quality photos that simply are in a league above anything Apple could ever dream about.
And firmware updates for premium S60 Nokia devices are super regular. In one year, the N95 firmware went from version 11 or something to version 30 today, adding things like On Demand Paging, Flash in Browser, Online Gaming, Flashlite3, etc. Where has the iPhone gone since its inception? They added 3G. Wow. Anything else? Nokia gives real updates you can feel.
I'm shocked so many find S60's two button and D-pad interface so hard to figure out. Maybe you shouldn't be trusted with more than one button. Probably use that joke one button Apple mouse, too, the confused little buggers...
Why does everyone not realize this device costs almost EXACTLY what the iPhone costs? Its just a testament to the overpriced, underachieving nature. Its only unique feature is iTunes support. That, to me, is its biggest handicap. We won't talk about the fact that you CAN sync the N96 with iTunes.
@macosx,
The music player is crap?? Why? Because it plays every audio format known to man, and has dedicated playback buttons? Or is it the DRM free music?
By the way, Nokia has copy/paste, the best REAL web experience, PUSH email, MMS...
@rock99rock,
The Nseries devices aren't just phones, but Symbian PC's. I don't even use Windows much anymore. Its a better option than a netbook. Many S60 users ditch their laptops for their devices. So the value is there. I didn't hear any overprice cries when the iPhone's unsubsidized price was released.
Don't be offended, but I laughed when I heard about hardware and OS limitations. S60 devices are the most open devices you can buy besides Android, and all hardware API's are open for third party development . What limitations do you mention? Are these device specific or OS limitations? What build version of S60 and device are you familiar with?
@derX,
I currently use the N95 8gb, and can tell you its a pretty decent computer in its own right. I use it as my primary computer, and its a beast. Until you actually extensively use one, you'll think its just a phone, and its far from that. ITS A COMPUTER, FOLKS!
@sdreamer,
I like the netbook comparison. I think if you use one, you'll understand why it belongs in the same category. But having better portability, battery life, and one handed operation put it in from for me. The rest is similar. And you and many users may prefer mini QWERTY, but tests have proven multiple times that Samsung/Nokia's patented iteration of T9 is far superior to QWERTY in speed, and with one less hand. Google to see for yourself. So QWERTY IS better, only most don't use the predictive text to make it worthwhile. I love the E71, but will run you under the table with my text entry speeds. I'm posting this using T9!
It is a multimedia smartphone, as opposed to a business phone lacking media rich features. And Nseries aren't the same as Eseries. The Eseries are more enterprise centered. The Nseries usually will need to download some of the Eseries enterprise specific features, but are way ahead in media CREATION and consumption. No devices offer better imaging, video format support, audio support, and special hardware for experiencing and sharing media.