Nokia N96

Camera and Geotagging
There's no change in the 5MP camera. It's not any different from the one in the N95, which means it's pretty good.

It comes with an exhaustive set of functionalities, including scene modes such as Auto, Close-up, Portrait, Landscape, Sports, etc., with a convenient option to define your own scene mode where you control the white balance, flash options, EV compensation, contrast and sharpness. You can do on-the-fly geotagging, but that ideally requires a high speed connection. It can get really tiring with our current GPRS speeds; I think it makes more sense on a 3G network.

The colors are vibrant, and although the 5MP leads to some saturation, its all good for web purposes. Reds are near-accurate, but greens will still be a problem. You will have to take care since there isn't a lens cover, which makes it susceptible to scratches and dust even! The maximum resolution is 2592 x 1944. One thing I don't usually trust phone cameras with is video shooting capability, but this one actually impressed me thoroughly. It can shoot, in MP4 format, at up to 30fps at a resolution of 640 x 480.

Music and Video
The music player has not been given a boost, but it's been good in any case. It supports MP3, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+ and WMA. Including WAV would have taken things to a different level, especially now that the phone is capable of storing a lot more music. Why Nokia didn't include a one-touch music player button is beyond me, but there's still plenty about the player that prevents me from giving it a negative point for that oversight.

The 3.5mm jack meant I could use my Sennheiser HD415, and man, did they make me dance! Of course, it supports A2DP so you can fix yourself a meal of good music using some high-end sets. There's an 8-band EQ with the usual lot of presets.

The sound is pretty good, although the earphones are still tacky. I didn't like the plastic feel it gives to the songs. Lows seem to be hiding at the back of the sound scheme, with mids and highs dominating all the way. Nothing wrong with the player, its due to the earphones. It has stereo FM, with internet radio as an option. I'd suggest you try that in a wi-fi environment.

The video player could have done with some refreshing too. Natively it supports only 3GP and MP4 (scaled max QVGA on device, SDTV on TV-out, QCIF 30 fps in Realplayer). Also bundled is a list of music videos and a dump of Om Shanti Om, all encoded in the DRM format .DCF. A list of Hindi and English songs come ready to play, preinstalled.