Nokia N95 8GB is undoubtedly one of the most successful Nokia smartphones to ever land in North America; hence, mobile users will probably be happy to find out that its successor, the N96, has just been approved by the FCC and is now ready to be commercialized across the States.

Sure, the new smarpthone first needs to be officially released by Nokia, but this should happen pretty soon, maybe even before the end of August - as the Finnish company said this is the month when the handset hits the market.

Presented by Nokia at the beginning of 2008, together with another new Nseries handset (N78), Nokia N96 is taking all the good things of N95 8GB and bring them to a higher level. The full list of specs that N96 comes with is impressive: 16GB of internal memory (expandable up to 32GB), GPS, Wi-Fi, accelerometer, a 2.8 inch TFT display with 16 million colors and 240 x 320 pixels, a 5 Megapixel Carl Zeiss camera with auto focus, flash and video recording, full HTML browser, email and IM, Music and Video players, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, stereo FM radio with RDS, a 3.5mm headset jack, DVB-H TV receiver, TV out, quad-band GSM connectivity and dual-band HSDPA connectivity (850 / 2100 for North America).

The N96 has the same dual-slider form factor that the N95 8GB comes with, but it's both thinner and lighter, measuring 103 x 55 x 18 millimeters and weighing 125 grams.

There are no details to make us believe that the N96 will be released by a major US carrier; hence, the handset will probably be on sale via the Nokia flagship stores and the mobile retailers across the country (like the N78 is). If so, the N96 will be sold only unlocked; thus, its price will be quite a high one, probably of around $800 (540 Euros).