Nokia N96 review: Software

The Nokia Nseries line is notorious for its software problems. They are widely recognized as phones that "freeze and give problems" by most of my friends. I defend the Nseries as deep inside, they are powerful smartphones capable of replacing computers.

The N96, being a flagship smartphone, should demonstrate its computing capabilities better than any S60 phone in Nokia's portfolio, and most importantly, show that its software is the best of "them all", both in user friendliness, and possibilities. Unfortunately, it is exactly the opposite for a large part of the consumers, as visible by the complaints at the Nokia N96 Forum, a member of the PhoneReport communities.

The latest software/firmware version available is 11.101, although v12.035 can be arranged in the software "black market". The unit I received was running on v10.065, and when I tried to update its firmware, which is possible over-the-air, with an internet connection only (EDGE, 3G, HSDPA, WLAN,) it gave me a connection problem, no matter what connection I used.

As mentioned in the Design section of the review, the N96 comes with a battery that has 950mAh of capacity only, and in the retail package, you can find a car charger. This suggested that the N96 will have battery problems, but my suspicion was confirmed upon seeing a "Power Saver" mode that can be enabled. This mode is automatically activated when the device has 1 bar of battery, but can be manually controlled as well. The mode, just like in notebook computers, slows the processor down, and reduces the display backlight; these are the only changes visible, more may be included as well.

Nokia's role in energy saving can be noticed on the N96. Upon removing the charger pin from the phone, a prompt appears: "Unplug charger from power supply to save energy":

Before I even get to the applications, there is an option that is present in every single menu in the phone, even though it can be summoned from the Menu key. It's the "Show open apps." option:

One of the first functions that a user will conduct is transferring contacts, messages, and other content, from the previous phone, to the new one. The N96 has an application that does it, and if the secondary phone does not have the application, the N96 can send it. There is however, a problem: it does not work. I left the program trying to transfer my contacts, messages, calendar events, and data from my N95 to the N96 for hours, but it did not do it, although it worked with the E71 to the N95.

The N96 runs on the Symbian Operating System version 9.3, with S60 software platform version 3, with Feature Pack 2. The entire software review is detailed on the Nokia N78 review, which runs on the same platform, but we can detail some of the visible changes in this review section as well.

Transitions aren't on by default, they have to be manually switched on. These enhance the user experience as they make the device look futuristic and sleek, just like the iPhone's User Interface. However, they do slow down the phone, at a rate which is noticeable.

Transitions aren't the only function disabled at start, brightness is only set at 50% power, stereo widening and loudness are off, as well as auto-rotation. Brightness is probably only at half its power owing to the battery consumption, but auto-rotation, stereo widening, and loudness should all be enabled. Auto-rotation uses the accelerometer (motion sensor) inside the phone to rotate the display if the phone is placed in landscape mode; stereo widening increases the difference between both speakers to project a completely 2-channel experience; while loudness simply amplifies the frequencies in a way that can distort sound, but many users eventually enable it for louder output.

Slide settings are not included, therefore the user cannot set functions that the slide conducts, such as answering a call when the slider is open, for example. Such functions have to be conducted with a third-party application.

The Help file seems to be copied from a phone that has Xenon flash, such as the N82 or 6220 Classic. The Help page for "User-defined scene settings" says that "Xenon flash is not available in sequence and sports mode," which implies that it is available in other modes.

The movie included on the phone, Transformers for South Africa, is locked to the phone. Once one formats the phone, which erases all licences, the movie will not play, unless there is a phone backup that has been saved:

One detail not noticed on the S60 v3.2 software review was that contacts can be saved either to the phone memory, mass memory (16GB), or to the memory card, if present. What was noted in the previous software review, is that the Contacts application is an excellent replacement to your hard copy contact book, and your Computer-based address book.

There is little change in Messaging. Text messages can be broken down in email form, where the message itself is an attachment in text file, and Cc and Bcc can be added.

The application continues to be in-depth, organizing messages according to their distinction received messages, emails, drafts, sent, and reports. What is surprising is that after all these years, the application has the same basic feel to it, and the drafts folder still comes with 10 or so predefined messages. The email application however is improving from time to time, but Nokia encourages the use of the aftermarket Nokia Email program which has not only a better user interface, but built-in service provider settings, essential to non-expert users.

A recent addition to the Nseries portfolio in terms of software, was the speech function in Messaging, where a pre-installed voice actually reads the message. If English is not your home language, plenty of other languages are available to be downloaded for free, and with different gender voices. For an unknown reason, the Download! application automatically downloads all of them as you enter the Speech folder. Another advantage is that if you receive messages in different languages, Messaging possesses auto-detecting, but it does not understand SMS language.

Maps 2.0 is installed, which uses the Built-in GPS, network access (A-GPS), and Bluetooth GPS, or whichever is available, to calculate the phone's location in the world, and to demonstrate it in the map. Out of of the four map display modes, only two are working, as Satellite view is not retrieving the images from the server, which affects the Hybrid view as well, therefore only the installed or downloaded maps are visible. This particular program is also reviewed in detail at the Nokia N78 review.

Photos was the great addition to the S60 platform. On the N96, I was able to notice that the thumbnails next to the options, actually changed, a sign that lack of 3D hardware accelerator doesn't mean that processor power is low as well.

A smaller carousel, mini-map type, appears if images are moved at a very fast rate, to show where the current image is placed in the list - a useful graphic notice, besides the title of the image, and its number location in the list. The larger carousel becomes smaller in size to give a clearer view of the list.

Photos cannot be selected using the '#' key, only marked one by one, or all. When marking a specific photo, all the unmarked ones are greyed out. Yet another change in terms of user interface design, in the positive direction.

When viewing a single image, and suddenly changing photos quickly, the carousel reappears, which is quite useful, once again.

The Video Centre now gathers all video sources but the Mobile TV. Videos that haven't been watched yet are marked with a red asterisk at the top-left corner, and they can be watched from the start, or from the position where they were last stopped at.

Video Centre feeds have settings not only for the internet connection in use, but also for Parental Control, in case a wealthy parent affords to buy his child the not-so-affordable N96. The video feeds can be videos from a specific genre, podcasts, or news.

Mobile TV allows a user to play, record, and schedule TV over DVB-h, if available in the region. Like most countries, South Africa also does not have DVB-h services. Multichoice South Africa had trialled the DSTV mobile service few years ago, but the trial licence given by the Minister of Communications has expired, but the network still exists, and it was picked up by the N96, although it couldn't get entry into it. For this reason, I was not able to test Mobile TV.

SPmark, a widely used benchmark program for S60 phones, felt the difference in the absence of the 3D hardware accelerator, as it gave a final result of 770 only, unlike those high results of phones such as the N95, which do possess a 3D hardware accelerator, and score results over the 6000 mark.

NGage is installed on the N96, and at this stage, many games are available, although most are not tweaked to use a graphics accelerator. The N96 does not rotate the display in the NGage application unless a game is being played.

The very last application to notice is the Web browser. Flashlite 3 is installed, which allows the playback of YouTube videos, and many other Flash Videos. The Mini-map becomes irritating if you're used to Opera Mini, which has a much better size management system, so I turned it off.

Privacy options are a priority: cache, cookies, history, form data/password, can all be deleted at the touch of a button.

Zoom options are set in increments of 25, ranging from 50% to 125%, which is not broad. Images can be seen in separate, which means that they can be zoomed into, and text can also be set to use larger fonts, so the absence of high-range zooms isn't a problem.

If a website contains a feed, one can subscribe to it from the web browser itself, and these can be set to update automatically in a certain timeframe, or manually.

It is impossible not to notice that the N96's software is one of the best, if not the best, in the market. It is only the bugs that are part of the N96 itself, that damage its reputation, even though firmware updates are released often. The improvements thanks to Nokia's interaction with the end-user, in terms of forums and Beta Labs, is visible in every phone, but the promise of an unrivalled experience is not present.

For those who are patient, it is recommendable that such phones, most Nseries and perhaps even Eseries, be bought only after 3-4 months the official release, as at that time, most bugs will be fixed, and new features will be present.

The N96 is indeed a phone that can double as a business-centric device, and an entertainment phone. The price, when compared to the competition, isn't exactly very attractive, and the initial bugs further repel the user. If Nokia gets their act right, perhaps next year's flagship won't be such a disappointment to most users. I did not experience any bugs, but owing to the price, I do not advise the purchase of the phone.