A couple of week’s back we switched the company phones over to Three Ireland and were given Nokia N96 handsets:
It looks quite attractive, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately it’s also the single worst phone I can remember owning.
While it may look quite good at first glance try putting in the battery and you’re hit by the first of many shortcomings. The plastic cover that Nokia used for the N96 feels cheap and nasty and I was almost afraid to apply pressure to it when closing the case, as I thought it might snap.
Of course you don’t take out batteries that often, do you?
Well with the N96’s terrible battery life you probably would, but even before you get to use the battery life you may, like me, end up having to remove the battery simply to get the phone to respond. Yes – it crashes a LOT!
While the N96 has one small saving grace – in that you can update the firmware “over the air” – the firmware is dire. Pity the new firmware doesn’t make it any more usable …
Even relatively simple operations are slow and the device seems to spend more time “thinking” than actually working.
I’d never claim to be a “power user” when it comes to mobile devices, but even I found the N96 to be a serious regression when compared to the N95 (damn fine phone!)
Nokia used to be a brand that produced good solid phones that were easy to use and reliable. I’ve been using them on and off for the last 9 years (give or take) and while some of them weren’t exactly exciting I don’t ever remember being this frustrated with a phone.
The Three network is 3G enabled, so disabling 3G is a bit silly, but it would appear to be about the only way to render the phone usable!
Fortunately the nice people in Three have swapped out the phones for us and I’m now the happy owner of a Nokia E71 (review to follow)
So if you’re offered a N96 I’d recommend you politely refuse, unless you’re just a sucker for punishment!
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Looking forward to the review of the e71. I currently have the e61i. A great phone, the wifi is moody though. Hopefully the e71 will be better.
Gordon
If I have time and energy over the weekend I’ll try to do a review of the e71
Michele
A friend of mine had similar bad experience with a N96… another interesting bug is that the mail client does not allow for that many characters in the username field, and since he has a bit longer mail address he was basically not able to use the phone for his email 🙂
Also, the problem with updating the firmware is that you will still be offered only firmwares approved by the operator that gave you the phone. So for instance for the bug above Nokia released an update quite quickly, but my friend could not use it because Three had not approved the new version yet (I have had a similar problem with my E51… TIM took almost a year to approve the latest firmware).
I have heard the N85 should be a much better phone than the N96, if you want to have a more media-oriented phone.
You were warned …
http://twitter.com/topgold/statuses/1027880634
http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2008/10/the_nokia_n96_face_the_task.html
E71 is a great phone you will like it
Version 12 of the firmware has improved things massively. Battery life still sucks, and the number pad isn’t the best, however the random crashes have stopped.
Niall.
Sounds like another phone rushed out for the Christmas market. Blackberry Storm anyone?
Yes, i confirm on previous comments:
1. Don’t buy an operator locked phone, updates will take much longer (if any) to come.
2. v12.043 is the business, much faster phone, almost not the same anymore, and no random crashes so far (and yes, had to take out the batteries a few times, especially when using the gps assisted navigation and it would just hang)
3. Depending on where you got it (ebay for me), you can get it at a fairly decent price. Had all the revisions before as well (n95, n95 8gb) and the n96 has a few features making it worth it. I think most of the bashing will go away once (yet another) firmware is released.