Nokia N96

The N96 is an evolution of the dual slider design Nokia released with the N95 two years ago. However, compared to the initial N95, the N96 is not as thick, though it's wider. The slider is more taut, and there are fewer gaps in the build. This model has a 2.8 inch, QVGA screen. While not a touchscreen, it does offer striking color and a great balance between indoors viewing and outdoors needs.

The screen and buttons area can slide up to reveal the 12 key numeric keypad, or slide down to reveal the multimedia keys, which can double as game controllers with some N-Gage games.

Looking around the outside of this smart phone, the top has a 3.5 mm headset or TV-Out jack, and power and key lock buttons. The left side is pretty bare with just the covered microSD card slot.

The right side, on the other hand is fairly busy with stereo speakers on the top and bottom. the volume up and down buttons under the top speaker, and the camera button above the bottom speaker.

The rear of the N96 houses the Carl Zeiss and dual LED flash equipped, 5 megapixel digital camera. The single piece back panel covers the 950 mAh battery. The bottom of the N96 has the microUSB connector and the Nokia charging port.

Other features include :

• 16 GB of built in internal memory
• microSDHC card slot supporting up to 16 GB microSDHC cards
• VGA video camera for video calling in supported markets
• Quad band GSM, regional support for UMTS/HSDPA (the model have supports European 3G, though there is a North American 3G supported version)
• Accelerometer
• Built in GPS
• Wi-Fi 802.11b
• Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
• DVB-H digital TV tuner
  

Overall, the N96 contains more refined hardware features than its predecessor, and pushes the idea of a top of the line smart phone into more of a multimedia computer. The only downsides are a smaller battery than some other recent Nokia devices and some hardware that's unsupported in the U.S., such as the digital TV feature.