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N96 - Worst phone ever made. |
iannicholson
Joined: Apr 22, 2009
Posts: 3
From: Sydney
PM |
I bought my N96 six months ago and is the worst phone I have EVER owned…
First of all, it is slow. VERY slow. My contacts list takes 15-20 seconds to load when selected - and I have the latest firmware available to me here in Australia (12.043).
The TV is useless. Like most places around the world, there is no-one transmitting DVB-H - at least, nobody does in Australia. Nokia make a big thing in their marketing here about a feature NOBODY can use, and are unlikely to in the life of this phone (unless they take it overseas).
Voice-dialling is pathetic. My old N80 was pretty good, but the N96 doesn't even PRETEND to understand me. Annoying, because I used this a LOT in the car on my N80.
The turn-by-turn GPS is not out-of-the-box. Here in Australia, you get a short free-trial and then you have to pay an additional $130/year to use it! Nowhere is THAT mentioned in their marketing! I tried the free-trial and it was useless - frequently crashing the phone and constantly gave wrong directions. The user interface is, quite frankly, terrible. I gave up and bought a dedicated sat-nav instead. At least that doesn’t disappear when a call comes in!
Bluetooth A2DP? Don’t even get me started! Put simply, IT DOESN’T WORK! The music suffers from the equivalent of a disk-skip every 10 seconds or so - the music isn’t constantly streamed. As good as useless. My $200 Parrot Party Bluetooth speaker unit is useless as a result (correction: everyone else in the office can connect with THEIR phones - SonyEricsson, LG, Samsung etc. - Me, with my ‘market leading Nokia’ phone that cost more than theirs PUT TOGETHER simply won’t stream the music cleanly and sounds horrible).
Nokia have short-changed their customers by supplying a phone with a grossly-underpowered processor. It simply is NOT fast enough to handle the features.
I have never regretted a purchase decision so badly as I did when buying the N96. For me, it was like waiting for Christmas only to find my new toy was smashed and broken upon opening it. Nokia’s customer service has been abysmal - TWO requests for service submitted via their own website - WITH confirmatory emails from them saying someone would get back to me in 72 hours, but so far, nothing. That was 5 months ago.
I guess they’re busy fighting all those other N96 fires. |
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Bonovox
Joined: Apr 13, 2008
Posts: > 500
PM |
Oh no sorry to hear that it was obviously a rushed out version of the old N95 8 gig but gone wrong. Thats not good. I have read somewhere too that the voice quality is poor too.
Phone?? What phone?? |
goldenface
Joined: Dec 17, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Liverpool City Centre
PM |
Jeez, that sounds horrible. 5 months for a reply? Thats ridiculous!
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gtr83
Joined: Sep 27, 2008
Posts: > 500
From: Indonesia
PM |
I guess there are no such thing as aftersales service in the mobile phone industry. If everyone has been saying SE's service is nonexistant, then why does the above story happen to a Nokia owner? Nokia is supposed to rule in the customer service department (according to some people here anyway...) |
>500
Joined: Jan 24, 2006
Posts: > 500
PM |
i really dont like it at all.
amongst others the biggest negative is the battery life.
and to me its just another n95 re-shelled. i much prefer the n95 8gb. not worth upgrading to from the 8gb imo (unless you need more memory of course)
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iannicholson
Joined: Apr 22, 2009
Posts: 3
From: Sydney
PM |
Well, five months have elapsed and STILL no reply!
I posted the same questions and issues I'd identified with the phone on the Nokia forum (there were about a dozen faults that I'd spotted back then!) - and got suspended from their website for "upsetting other customers"!
I paid as much for a phone as one would a laptop, and this is how I got treated!
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se_love
Joined: Nov 12, 2008
Posts: > 500
PM |
Love it. Nokia seems worse then Apple. I mean cause you made the other asses upset cause your Nokia wasn't perfect like how all Nokias are "supposed" to be?
Well then that just shows us that they are acting like dicks towards those who actually have problems and want their phones to seem perfect. Wow. |
Bonovox
Joined: Apr 13, 2008
Posts: > 500
PM |
I never bother with the manufacturers direct waste of time. Only ever rang SE once and the guy was miserable on the phone. Bet they get so many problems and complaints about phones they cant be bothered. Bad. The old N95 is far more stable now anyway.
Phone?? What phone?? |
anonymuser
Joined: Dec 17, 2002
Posts: > 500
PM |
Nice coincidence that their profits are down N96% this year - http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=184427
They've been far too complacent, the N95 was a solid little success but they needed to go much, much farther with its successor. The N97 is what they should have released last year, and even that looks old.
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Daedalus85
Joined: Apr 23, 2007
Posts: > 500
From: Suffolk, UK
PM, WWW
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On 2009-04-22 13:30:34, iannicholson wrote:
I bought my N96 six months ago and is the worst phone I have EVER owned…
I think most of us could have told you that when you bought it, but never mind....
My opinions on this forum are that of my own and not of the company I work for. |
gtr83
Joined: Sep 27, 2008
Posts: > 500
From: Indonesia
PM |
That's the point, dude - no point taking our cases to the manufacturer's customer service. They're pretty much bored people with nothing to do. I'd rather do a DIY, if I can. |
Tsepz_GP
Joined: Dec 27, 2006
Posts: > 500
From: Johannesburg, South Africa
PM |
A few months ago i had a go at my mates N96, and wasnt very impressed with it, my N81 felt like a tank next to it, the N96 has some serious light leakage everywhere, and UI speed was slower than my N81's, all your problems seem to be common N96 probs, softwarewise Nokia are releasing V20.045 soon which adds quite a few features and bug fixes to the N96 so if you want to you can wait a little longer otherwise id say sell it and get a N79, N85, E71 or wait for N86. Above comments: N96 is in NO WAY a N95 re shelled, if you knew ANYTHING about its hardware you'd know it contains a very powerful Video Accelerator, it can handle very high bit rates and frame rates, lol, a lot more than any SE on the market, unfortunetly NOKIA got a big head messed everything else up in the N96, its a device aimed at Mobile TV,Movies,Gaming and Music, its no way like a N95 IMO.Here in South Africa, Nokia give 2years free GPS Navigation, so i guess it depends on your region, would have been nice if they had advertised that. Rather go to your nearest Nokia store and demand a replacement.
Phone: iPhone 15 Pro Max Black Ti 512GB
Tablet: iPad Pro 11” 2020 Space Gray 256GB
Watch: Series 3 Nike Edition Space Gray
Droid: Huawei Mate 40 Pro 256GB |
Tsepz_GP
Joined: Dec 27, 2006
Posts: > 500
From: Johannesburg, South Africa
PM |
About customer service: i had sent my N81 in to get its flex ribbon replaced, Nokia were kind enough to completely replace the housing of the whole phone, when doing this they found that my slider was starting to scratch the keypad so they replaced my keypad and slider mechanism as well, when they were done they called me to say i can fetch it. So personaly i cant complain about their service.  very sorry to hear about your experience.
Phone: iPhone 15 Pro Max Black Ti 512GB
Tablet: iPad Pro 11” 2020 Space Gray 256GB
Watch: Series 3 Nike Edition Space Gray
Droid: Huawei Mate 40 Pro 256GB |
gtr83
Joined: Sep 27, 2008
Posts: > 500
From: Indonesia
PM |
@GUCCI.011
GUCCI, please. No one was comparing the N96 to any SE piece here. So if the hardware is that powerful, why is it so stupid? If it is that much of a media monster, why give it a crappy engine to go with? You said so yourself - its twin looks-wise (N81) can eat it any day. N96 IS an attempt to bite at N95 8GB's market to keep the latter's price in a stable range. It's what I would call a "hero" phone - even Nokia knows that it won't sell that well, but they still release it because they also know that Nokiaheads will buy it anyway. It sold like hotfrickincakes here among the rich guys and know what? Not even 1 month and I can see used units on the shelves of my local phoneshops.
If I have to give my own 2  cents, I still prefer a C702 even though it's leagues below. Give me an N96 for free and I'll sell it right away, scoring enough money to walk off with a used INNOV8 (and two spare batteries). |
anonymuser
Joined: Dec 17, 2002
Posts: > 500
PM |
All the media-monstery was presumably required by its DVB-H credentials, but it was very clear well before the phone's release that DVB-H was pretty much a dead duck, at least for now, so they would have done well to hold back and retool it IMO, take out some of that unused hardware and drop the price accordingly. A cheaper, cut-price "new" N95 for the masses would have probably attracted more interest.
[ This Message was edited by: Boinng on 2009-04-22 17:34 ] |
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Posted: 2009-04-22 13:30
