The Nokia N96 is a multimedia-focused smartphone released to the U.S. market in October 2008. The N96 runs the Symbian S60 operating system with Nokia's custom skin. Successor to the N95, the device boasts some advanced features, but it lacks a touch-screen and full QWERTY keyboard. The N96 was not adopted by any U.S. carrier, meaning buyers needed to purchase the device unlocked for a higher price than the typical smartphone ordered with a contract.
Hardware
The N96 was released after Nokia's powerhouse N95 and the two phones share the same form factor, camera and basic operating system. The N96 was introduced just as touch-screens and full QWERTY keyboards were becoming the norm in smartphones, so its lack of either was conspicuous. Its 2.8-inch screen displays 16 million colors at a resolution of 240-by-320 pixels. The phone has a 264 MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM and 16 GB of flash memory storage. It accepts microSD cards for up to 8 GB of additional storage.
Multimedia
The 5.0-megapixel camera on the N96 was designed though a partnership with Carl Zeiss, a respected German optics company that pioneered many advances in the field of lens design. It features dual-flash capability that was favorably received by reviewers at CNET, PC World and Phone Arena. For music listening, the N96 offers a 3.5 mm headset jack for use with standard headphones as well as stereo Bluetooth support for wireless enjoyment. The device also has dedicated music hardware controls, accessed by sliding the screen downward, and an FM radio. The N96 supports MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA music file formats only.
Operating System
Nokia's N96 runs on the Symbian S60 Feature Pack 2 operating system, a popular choice for smartphones from many manufacturers, especially in the European market. Like Google's Android, Symbian is open source, giving developers a good degree of freedom when working on new apps. S60 offers business-class features such as Microsoft Office document viewing and push email for real time message delivery supporting POP3 and IMAP accounts. As of March 2011, Symbian is still in development with Nokia as its chief proponent.
Connectivity
The N96 is a tri-band GSM phone and thus compatible with the AT&T and T-Mobile networks as of March 2011. When it was released, it did not support the correct frequency bands to work with T-Mobile's 3G data network, leaving users stuck with much slower data transfer speeds. AT&T users were able to successfully use 3G data. The device carries Wi-Fi and GPS receivers, and the latter includes support for turn-by-turn directions through third-party apps.
Tags: full QWERTY, March 2011, operating system, runs Symbian, with Nokia, with T-Mobile