Compared to the popular Nokia N95 8GB, the N96 has a doubled flash storage capacity (16GB), dual LED flashes and a slimmer design.[3] However, critics had negative views on the N96's battery life and user-unfriendliness[4] and its downgraded CPU clock speed raised questions.[5] It was one of 2008's most anticipated mobile phones, but its launch was delayed and it was only widely available from October 2008.[6][7] It is thus considered a commercial failure.[8] Critics stated that the Nokia N85 provided more new features at a significantly lower price.[9]
Release
Shipments for the N96 began in September 2008.[10] Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific were the first locations to provide the phone to consumers. The American and Chinese versions were expected shortly thereafter.[11] In the US, the phone was sold for $900, which was seen as being too expensive. The general UK release date for the N96 was 1 October, although London had a separate date of 24 September, where the phone went on sale exclusively at Nokia's flagship stores on Regent Street and at Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport.[12]
Differences from N95 8GB
Additions:
Dual-LED camera flash (single LED in N95 8GB)
New audio DSP
Longer music playback time (14 hrs) and video playback time (6 hrs)
Free sat-nav service – Nokia advised that this was in the pipeline and that they fully expected it to be made available, but did not say when it would be available[citation needed]
Support for Nokia Music Headset HS-45, AD-54
CPU: N96 has dual ARM9 264MHz with no floating point instructions, N95 has dual ARM11 332MHz with vector floating point
N96 has 8x image digital zoom and 4x video digital zoom while N95 has 20x image digital zoom and 8x video digital zoom, although the benefits of this are debatable
Same battery as original N95 (950 mAh), but reportedly has a much better battery life due to software improvements under Feature Pack 2[citation needed] - Nokia N95 8GB has 1200 mAh battery
No hardware 3D graphics accelerator
No infrared port
N95 has a lens cover and a high-quality shutter (both the N95 8GB and N96 do not have this feature)
No manually selected MMS messaging mode. If the user write a long text message, the N96 will automatically select the MMS mode which could stop recipients from receiving the message if they do not have MMS set up on their phones. A Nokia USA employee stated that there was an update in the works to fix this very soon.[citation needed] It is assumed that this automatic selection of MMS mode is due to Nokia's Smart Connectivity.
The built-in VoIP client from N95 which allowed the user to make Internet calls without installing any additional software was removed from N96. Nevertheless, the VoIP 2.1 API still exists which can be used by software developers in their applications.
The pencil key used to mark and unmark items and highlight text is not included, but this action can still be done by holding down the # key.
In popular culture
In 2008, a video commercial advertising Nokia N96 Limited Edition Bruce Lee, became viral in the internet. The video, produced by the Beijing office of the J. Walter Thompson (JWT) agency and targeting a Chinese market, shows what looks like archival footage of Bruce Lee doing various tricks with nunchaku (playing table tennis, lighting a cigarette in another person's mouth and extinguishing thrown lighted matches mid-air). The video was specifically made like a never-seen-before footage of Bruce Lee (particularly, the ball in the video was digitally added in post-production[13]), which was later admitted by the JWT chief creative officer Polly Chu.[13] The associated website shown in the commercial, nokia-lee.com.cn, has since then been taken over by pornographic content.
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