Nokia N96 after a few days

I've had the opportunity to try using the Nokia N96 for a few days.

There are some nice new features
* Access point groups are now available - for example you can have multiple wifi APs and your 3G connection in an "internet" group. APs within the group have priority & seemless routing. A used connection is also checked for internet connectivity before it gets used. Very nice...
* BBC iPlayer really is a "killer" application for this phone, especially with the 16Gb internal & expandability via a card Slot. wifi downloads are very quick. iPlayer can eat this space though!
* The audio quality on headphones is very good, and the video is smooth
* The screen colours are better

However there's also some unforgiveable features
* Power Consumption is rotten. With fairly minimal use (a little app browsing. no audio/video. about 15 mins wifi), in a poor signal area, my N96 lasted from around 8am until 5pm before the battery was totally flat. This is with no apps running much of the time.
* The lack of VoIP client. This was a superb feature of the N80, and the N95. Hoping it was just the UI piece I checked out forum nokia. Sadly it really is the entire application that you'd need to rewrite. Details here -> http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/4d69416a-a312-489f-81d1-2fb9d03cbcd4/Developing_3rd_party_VoIP_clients_on_S60_platform_v1_0_en.pdf.html (forum nokia id needed)


I expect quite a bit of this to be addressed in a firmware update, but VoIP client? who knows. Fring just doesn't cut it. It's not integrated & consumes too much power.

Nokia must be MAD to have dropped this - one sure way to put off existing users.

Overally probably the most "disappointing" phone I've tried... It's not that it's bad, it's just those 2 "little" things that spoil what would otherwise be an excellent successor.

And finally a question. Despite all the negatives above, if you live in the southern counties and perhaps have a Nokia N85 you might like to swap (piece for piece, no cash) for my N96 please get in touch. I am seriously thinking about it. It may just be what you're after if the key features for you are TV, video, iplayer

Nokia N96 vs B95 8Gb - Initial Power Observations

Having just received a Nokia N96 I thought I'd take a look to see how power consumption differs from the Nokia N95 8Gb, especially given the potential concern over the small battery in the N96 (950 mAh) compared to the N95 8Gb (1200 mAh).

Firmware levels were v20 on the N95 8Gb, and v11.018 in the N96

Whilst I've tried to ensure no additional tasks are running, these are just initial measurements, all taken with the Nokia Energy Level profiler, and in OFFLINE mode.

State	N95	N96
screen off	0.02W	0.01W
screen on, backlight off	0.16W	0.10W
Screen on, backlight MINIMUM	0.22W	0.43W
Screen on, backlight MAXIMUM	0.41W	0.69W

Now I haven't looked at media streaming, connectivity, but this does throw out one significant issue

with the screen active the N96 sucks significantly more juice than the N95 8Gb

In fact this is significant enough to contact Nokia. Quite possibly it's related to the screen, perhaps the CPU is being run faster or similar, but as it stands this difference will massively comprimise battery life on the N96

-- Nigel.