3GWeek - Asia’s Mobile News

It isn’t Nokia if not refresh its line up every month (even sometimes fortnightly). This moment, they are upgrading their Nseries, from series N7x to N9x. With the theme “The web. Now made by the hand”, Nokia Indonesia today announced the arrival of new N96, N85, and N79 in XXI Club, Djakarta Theater. The announcement was held in several countries around South East Asia, including Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand.

Let me discuss about N96 first. N85 and N79 will be written in different posts. The N96 comes to replace its successful predecessor, N95. To date, N95 (and its 8 GB variant) has been sold for 10 million units worldwide! What a great achievement made by the Finn manufacturer giant. N96 inherits the same spirit (also to continue the success) of top line of Nseries. The multimedia computer packed in one single handy device.

What’s new in this phone (compared to the previous)? What is obvious (from form factor) is the new black theme (which has been default theme from Nokia N81) and the dual slide design. The screen is still using 2.8 inch wide display with integrated 3D stereo speaker.

The phone has enormous 24 GB of memory in total (from 16 GB internal memory plus microSD card option)!! It can fit around 1000 CDs in one package! Also the device is able to view Digital TV (DVB-H) with standing clip to view the TV in more convenience way. Mr Goh Doh Hau, Head, Go To Market, Nokia Indonesia guaranteed that the battery life (BL-5F 950 mAh) lasts longer than the previous one to support all features.

For camera, the phone carries the same 5 megapixels Carl Zeiss Tessar camera, but this time it is supported with dual LED camera flash and video light? Why not Xenon Flash? Dual LED camera flash will guarantee longer light effect for video taking, compared to the at-the-moment-splash of Xenon Flash.

Mr Goh also stated that now Nokia is not only competing with other mobile manufacturer company, they also compete with Internet companies and electronic companies, since (in package) Nokia offers a great web browser (with great connectivity: HSDPA and WiFi), great GPS device, great gaming handheld, great music player, great camera snapper, not to mention great video taker. One important thing, they can convergence all of the features into one single sophisticated device, N96.

Some specification of Nokia N96:

• Dual band HSDPA and Quadband GSM
• Symbian S60 3rd edition, Feature Pack 2, Multimedia Menu
• 103×55x18 mm (with local depth up to 20 mm)
• 125 grams
• 2.8 inch QVGA screen with 16 million colors
• 16 GB internal memory, expandable with microSD slots (total 24 GB max)
• Video recording up to 30 fps and VGA resolution
• Up to 5 megapixels camera resolution with f2.8 aperture and 5.2 mm focal length
• Up to 150 minutes talk time for 3G and 229 minutes for GSM
• Up to 200 hours standby time (more than 8 days) for 3G and 220 hours (more than 9 days) for GSM
• WLAN IEEE 802.11b/g with UPnP support
• Micro-USB connector, Hi Speed USB 2.0
• DVB-H class C, 470 - 750 MHz
• FM Transmitter
• A-GPS receiver
• Location tagging ability
• Nokia Maps 2.0
• Radio with RDS and Internet Radio
• Standard 3.5 mm headset jack and TV-out support (PAL/NTSC)
• Email (SMTP, IMAP4, POP3), MMS, SMS
• Bluetooth wireless technology 2.0 with A2DP stereo audio, enhanced data rate (EDR)

Nokia N96 will be available in the market by this September with no price disclosed yet. Anything miss from this superb multimedia phone??