N96, worth a gamble? (Nokia N96)

Member Name: sausages04

Product:	Nokia N96
Date:	12/09/09 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant camera and video quality, plenty of multi-media applications, 16GB of memory

Disadvantages: Very slow start up on applications, expensive, heavier and larger than other phones in this category

The camera is absolutely brilliant, I cannot speak any more highly of it, great images, brilliant picture quality, focus and zoom. The downside to it is that it can take a long time for the camera (and most other app's) to start up, it's quite frustrating. Many a time I have wanted to take a quick snap however by the time the camera's set up, the moment has been lost for the picture.

Applications are slow on this phone, and many times the phone has frozen on me whilst switching from app to app, a problem that led to me having to return the phone for a new one. (Nokia advised that a software update was due to resolve the issue)

On the plus side the sound quality is good having 2 side corner mounted speakers of high quality, a bonus when watching say BBC I Player or using the net. Saying this though, if you're using loudspeaker its no good, as you can just about make out what's being said and there is an odd echo.

Battery life is poor, especially if you forget to close an application down, as this continues to drain the battery. The phones a bit of hassle to use ergonomically when trying to send texts, although I could just have chubby fingers lol..! If you are someone who likes texting, look elsewhere, as this phone isn't ideally suited for texting.

A feature which initially attracted me was the 16gb memory, great if you like music, videos or are business minded and need to save documents etc.

Summary: There are better phones out there with similar if not better features, and quite possibly cost less

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