Experiencing Nokia N96 excitement

Review:

Preamble:
Yes, the expectation was high and African continent was not excluded and it came to pass that last quarter saw the continental launch of Nokia N96 in the region.

For Nigeria, a continuously growing telecommunications and precisely the fastest mobile market cannot be over-emphasized.

As a mobile device, Nokia N96 is a tool never to regret having it around, especially when one finds him or her self in the ever changing mobile world like we live in today.

Although the first attempt was to go to the preloaded demo to showcase the values embedded in the device, which ended up being cranky, making it imperfect to run, hence discouraging. But determined to see it all, it was easy to understand that the demo came with good intention, though the cracks could be from the number of copies conducted at a given time, according to experts.

Optimizing PIM:
Nevertheless, it was easy to switch between another compatible phone, mostly of Nokia model with N96, culminating that in less than three minutes after connection was paired, it switched 873 contacts, 58 calendar entries, 114 text messages, 23 Multimedia Service (MMS), 2 notes, 17 bookmarks without any hassles or further prompts. This gave credence to the claim of its data transfer application ability for the transmission of Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) information from other compatible Nokia devices.

PIM is a collection of multicast routing protocols, each optimized for a different environment. There are two main PIM protocols, namely the PIM Sparse Mode and PIM Dense Mode. A third PIM protocol, Bi-directional PIM, is less widely used.

However, this PIM innovation is a plus, as it made it comfortable to transfer details from an old phone, for instance, to a new one; which most of the time is the challenge and majorly why most people are very adamant to change their mobile handsets, unless it got bad eventually and become technically unrepairable or stolen.

Local synchronization:
These much was actualized via local synchronization of the two phones for contacts and calendar among other data, even as it is viable with a compatible Personal Computer (PC) using compatible connection. But one must be wary of where the information is emanating, whether from the old phone to the new one or vice versa, but it is advisable to dwell more in terms of exercising with the new phone than the old one, so as not to loose data due to erroneous attempt.

N96, therefore, was able to notify on the number of contacts switched, as nothing was changed in the contacts, thus encouraging and could be a marketing instrument for the model.

Basically, on inserting of any new Subscriber Identification Module (SIM), the N96 handset would ask if you would like the new SIM contact to be displayed in the contact and if the user decided on the negative, the choice becomes no.

The camera:
For the N96 camera, it seems difficult to find and operate compared to N82. In N96 you have to press the camera button and hold; hence overriding every thing about the phone, which initially takes the user to the camera mode and another press and hold then amounts to capturing of images. This, to an extent of someone who wants an easy and quick capture, is unarguably slow.

But for quicker actions, users have to navigate through the standard depending on individual settings, may be from the front displayed menu; discover the camera and then capture, which still entails press and hold until it snaps.

N96 dangles 5 megapixel with 2 pixels of the secondary camera based on Carl Zeiss Optics: Tessar lens, the auto-focus, and exposure pave the way for dual-Light-Emitting Diode (LED) camera flash, video light, recording indicator, auto-focus assist light and so on.

Multimedia:
Interestingly, from the front row button of multimedia; television (tv), video, live, my videos, video feeds, directory, last watched are simply enticing and therefore could be easily accessed.

With the C drive reflecting the phone memory worth 56.2 Megabytes (Mb), the E drive which is the removable Mass memory is valued to be 13.7 Gigabyte (Gb), N96 offers rotatory screens like most high-end NSeries, especially the popular Nigerian check-check phone, the N82.

Although the mobile TV could have been exciting as well, but due to most Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) operators are yet to make such service available, it thereby proved difficult currently to connect, especially when operators are not at home with the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB).

But then, individual could watch video on it very clearly and is exciting to have the inbuilt video clips otherwise known as Video on Demand (VoD), which in fact could be self recorded when busy to be watched later either at home or still on the move.

Car charger:
The car charger refer to in Nokia parlance as Mobile Charger DC-4 is handy in a situation like Lagos-Nigeria where power supply is still epileptic and as a mobile executive, getting home late to discover there was no electricity supply could be a hard stress.

Typically, when you realize one has to be on the move the following morning and there is no hope for the public power to be restored before then and even if, how long would you charge the battery before returning to traffic once again.

So, with your N96 car charger compatible, one could easily put it on and connected to the handy while on the move, so that by the time you get to the destination, your phone must have charged enough in a daily traffic that spans not less than four hours.

Bluetooth Speakers:
The Nokia Bluetooth Speakers MD-7W, are compatible with N96 and offer the room for users to enjoy high-quality stereo sound wirelessly. They also deliver optimized Third Dimension (3D) sound, thus providing a stereo-wide experience, and dynamic bass control for a strong bass performance.

To enjoy this feature, one has to attach the speakers magnetically for convenient portability of which power and battery life could be viewed through the LED indicator.

Additionally, its Bluetooth connection was one hand. Although, it’s transfer of data to a laptop appeared slower than that of N82; That is, if the Bluetooth transfer of data could complete in thirty (30) seconds on N82, it takes N96 about 50 seconds to accomplish.

While the headset connection creates some difficulties in linking up, making it vulnerable to compete with like of other high-end Bluetooth results among competition, like Sony Ericsson.

Voice command:
One thing that distinguishes Nokia Nseries, especially the N96 is the quality of its voice command. Although at first, one has to really undergo checks on the voice recognition otherwise it could always ask you ‘if you mean Kem’ when you asked for ‘Nkem’.

Therefore it is relevant to note that the voice command needs a neutral English speaker to conducted the voice over that is finally inputted into the models, otherwise it would become endless ‘if you mean …” Or, may be, engaging voice experts from various regions of the world to encourage and stimulate the use of Voice command, which is very important for those who prefer hands-free usage most of the times.

Easy WLAN:
There was a hot debate going on and yours sincerely was at the highbrow Victoria Island in Lagos, precisely at the Civic Centre, and needed to be online while waiting for a meeting to take off, it was not difficult to discover the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) in that vicinity, as it propelled the move to sign-on and was part of the debate. Hence encouraging for mobile people and for those who still want to be connected to the global village no matter where they are.

Last line:
Above all, it is a tool to buy, if you really need to be mobile.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D