Nokia's N96 Smartphone Starts Shipping

Nokia has just announced that the "first shipments" of its N96 Nseries flagship have started, thus the handset should be available across Europe by the end of this week. The estimated retail price of the smartphone is of 550 Euros (around 450 GBP or 790 USD), taxes and subsidies aside.

 

Announced by Nokia seven months ago, back in February, the N96 is not just the most advanced Nseries device to date, but also one of the best-ever smartphones to run on Symbian S60. Sure, since the N96 was first presented, we've seen other new handsets that can easily compete with it (Samsung's 8 Megapixel Innov8, for example), but Nokia's new Nseries phone still remains one of the hottest mobile devices of 2008.

 

Built to resemble both the N81 and N95 models, the new N96 brings a dual-sliding design and a wide array of features. Among them, we must mention the 16GB internal memory, the 2.8 inch TFT 16 million color display, the DVB-H technology, the 5 Megapixel Carl Zeiss auto focus camera and the advanced Web and multimedia capabilities. Of course, like most of the latest Nseries handsets, Nokia N96 also brings Wi-Fi, GPS, HSDPA connectivity, email and full HTML browser.

 

Talking about the dual-sliding smartphone, Jonas Geust, vice president, Nokia Nseries, said, "The Nokia N96 is mobile entertainment at its best, a fitting flagship for our Nseries range. It defines convergence by blending phone and multimedia options seamlessly with the unique Nokia Nseries dual slider that makes discovering and sharing experiences easy. Watch live TV and video, take high quality photos and geotag them to specific locations or directly upload them online via the fast Internet connection – it is all about taking mobile entertainment and communication to the next level."

 

While Europe, India and the Middle East are getting the N96 this month, North America will probably receive it in October or even November (as Nokia has always launched its products later on that side of the world).