It's very difficult to recreate the magic of an original product like the N95. The N96 reminds me heavily of Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), whose sequels couldn't successfully match the grandeur of the original story line. Nokia tried it with the N95 8GB, and although the enhanced space and battery life ensured it wasn't a failure, constant comparison with its predecessor forced a critical scrutiny from everyone.

The N96 intends to add more power to the glamor of N95's multimedia options by dishing out more storage space, packing in a few more functionalities, and clubbing all of it together to leverage its most popular and successful user interface. The first, and one of the most important deciding factors for anyone looking at the N96, would be the 16GB storage space. I think Nokia's decision to allow an external memory slot is a good move.

It had to happen sooner or later. With the iPhone getting the credit for this technological first, the only logical way to beat them at their own game was the option to upscale the storage memory. Frankly, I admire their guts. Why, you ask? It's mainly because processing speed takes a beating when you increase storage space, and it seems that's precisely what's happened. But more on that later. Let's discuss the contentious form factor for now!

Form Factor
You will agree that the N96 looks more like the N81 8GB than the N95 8GB. It could be assumed that Nokia simply ran out of design options, or (to give them the benefit of the doubt) its features required such a form factor. I would be inclined to place my bets on the former though. I'll refrain from giving any extra points for the design, since it offers nothing very new. Moreover, some much-appreciated features like the touch-sensitive nav-wheel is absent in the N96.

The handset is slightly bulky at 103 x 55 x 18 mm (versus 102 x 50 x 17.9 mm of the N81), but it weighs only 125g, a few grams lighter than the N95. The inclusion of a DVB-H receiver may account for the extra bulk, along with the memory hot swap slot to be found on the left.

This smartphone is a dual slider, which isn't as smooth as the N95. The effort required to push the face of the phone up and down is more of an encumbrance than a help. Also, the slide-up ends a little abruptly, causing the fat bulk of the underside of the face to come in the way of keys 1, 2 and 3. Anyone with fat fingers (like me) would have liked the top half of the phone to slide a tad higher to allow room to operate the first three keys easily.

The design may ape the N81, but it's pretty sleek. It accommodates a slightly wider display at 2.8 inches (up from the N81's 2.4 inches). The screen sports dimensions of 240 x 320 pixels with an ability to display 16M colors. The five-way pad is responsive and is encased within the multimedia keys. What is missing is a dedicated key to start the music player. You can, however, access it if it's running in the background by just pressing the play/pause key.

Looking at the external set of stereo speakers, one gets the impression it's meant to aid landscape viewing. They are both placed on the right side, one on top and the other at the bottom (when viewed at a portrait angle). For casual listening or watching a video clip when propped up on the kickstand (in landscape mode), the speakers are at just the right spot.

The kickstand is quite cool, and sits around the 5MP camera at the back. Another important addition to the old design is the existence of the dual LED flash lights. The N95 had only one. The lens cover is missing, which is a bad move.

On top is the 3.5mm jack, emphasizing the multimedia savvy nature of the phone, along with the cool keylock slider. There's a microUSB slot at the bottom, and also in the same spot is the charging jack. Volume keys and a dedicated camera button are on the right, between the two speakers.