The Nokia N96 is a discontinued high-end mobile phone announced by Nokia on 11 February 2008 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as part of the Nseries line. The N96 runs Symbian OS v9.3 (S60 3rd Edition, FP2). It is compatible with the N-Gage 2.0 gaming platform and has a DVB-H TV tuner and AV output. Compared to the popular Nokia N95 8GB, the N96 has a doubled flash storage capacity (16 GB), dual LED flashes and a slimmer design. However, critics had negative views on the N96's battery life and user-unfriendliness and its downgraded CPU clock speed raised questions. It was one of 2008's most anticipated mobile phones, but its launch was delayed and it was only widely available from October 2008. It is thus considered a commercial failure. Critics stated that the Nokia N85 provided more new features at a significantly lower price.

Release

Shipments for the N96 began in September 2008. Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific were the first locations to provide the phone to consumers. The American and Chinese versions were expected shortly thereafter. In the US, the phone was sold for $900, which was seen as being too expensive. The general UK release date for the N96 was 1 October, although London had a separate date of 24 September, where the phone went on sale exclusively at Nokia's flagship stores on Regent Street and at Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport.

Differences from N95 8 GB

Additions: Removals:

In popular culture

In 2008, a video commercial advertising Nokia N96 Limited Edition Bruce Lee, became viral in the internet. The video, produced by the Beijing office of the J. Walter Thompson (JWT) agency and targeting a Chinese market, shows what looks like archival footage of Bruce Lee doing various tricks with nunchaku (playing table tennis, lighting a cigarette in another person's mouth and extinguishing thrown lighted matches mid-air). The video was specifically made like a never-seen-before footage of Bruce Lee (particularly, the ball in the video was digitally added in post-production ), which was later admitted by the JWT chief creative officer Polly Chu. The associated website shown in the commercial, nokia-lee.com.cn, has since then been taken over by pornographic content. The N96 also appears in Katy Perry's "Hot n Cold" music video.