Pictures of the new Nokia N96, Nokia N95 replacement

Nokia have released a photos of the planned Nokia N96, the replacement to their extremely successful Nokia N95.

As these photos show, it retains the dual slider function and gains a very slick looking black glossy design.



Whilst it does not have a touchscreen, a feature many Nokia fans were hoping for, it does feature a 2.8in QVGA display, 3G connectivity, WiFi, a 5MP camera with autofocus, Carl Zeiss lens and LED flash, integrated GPS, UPnP support and a massive 16GB of onboard memory plus microSD slot.

Something totally new is the support for DVH-B mobile TV broadcasts. Think Freeview over the air for your mobile. It also has a TV-out cable so I'm imagining the option to plug your N96 into a hotel TV to watch DVH-B broadcasts. Nice.

With a suggested release date of Q3 2008, even allowing for slippages, this should be on your Xmas 2008 wish list.

Thanks to Trusted Reviews for the info and pics.

3G iPhone Coming in 2008

My view has always been it is not worth buying the iPhone until they bring out a 3G model. Anyone who has got used to 3G speeds and browsing the net on something like the Nokia N95 would find going back to 2G on the iPhone the same as dropping broadband in favour of dial up.

Now iPhone fans will always respond, "yeah but its got Wifi for fast surfing" which is all well and good when you are sitting on an unsecured Wifi network but in reality these days more and more are locked down so you end up paying more money to use an ISPs cloud. Or more often than not, you give up and go back to using your telecoms internet.

So, in my case, I use a Nokia N95 on T-Mobile with their "unlimited" Web 'n' Walk package. It works well, I'm nearly always on 3G and just don't need to search for Wifi connections. If I went to a 2G iPhone it would kill me... even though the iPhone does really appeal to me.

I'm relieved then that the CEO of AT&T Randall Stephenson says, "You'll have it next year". He wouldn't be drawn on prices, saying that this would be set by Apple but I doubt it would be anymore expensive than the original iPhone at launch, which was $599.

So that is something to look forward to then although by the time we get it in Europe will Nokia have superseeded the N95 with something even better?