iPhone 3G Vs. Nokia N96 – the ultimate specs comparison

Comparisons, iPhone, Mobile phones
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Concluding our iPhone 3G Week here at Tech Digest, I’ve whipped together a comparison of the iPhone 3G and Nokia N96. If you’re not tossing up between these two mobiles, why not check out our comparisons of the HTC Touch Diamond and BlackBerry Bold with Apple’s new handset?

Dimensions
Nokia N96: 103mm high, 55mm wide and 20mm thick, weighs 125g.
iPhone 3G: 115.5mm high, 62.1mm wide and 12.3mm thick, weighs 133g.

Display
Nokia N96: 2.8″ QVGA non-touch display.
iPhone 3G: 3.5″ multi-touch display.

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Operating System
Nokia N96: S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2.
iPhone 3G: The iPhone runs on OS X, which is Apple’s very own operating system.

Storage Capacity
Nokia N96: 16GB, plus a hot swappable microSD memory card slot.
iPhone 3G: 8GB and 16GB, with the latter available in both black and white.

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Camera
Nokia N96: 5.0-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and inbuilt flash, video is shot at 30fs at a 640 x 480 resolution.
iPhone 3G: 2.0-megapixel camera, with geo-tagging and third-party application integration.

Media Player
Nokia N96: The N96 plays MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA audio formats. Meanwhile, the video player can handle MPEG-4 and WMV9. A major bonus with the handset is the DVB-H capabilities, as it has an internal antenna.
iPhone 3G: The iPhone’s main thrill is indeed the iPod functionality, and with 8GB or 16GB options, that’s a lot of AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 1, 2, and 3), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV.

Video formats supported are H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 768 Kbps, 320 by 240 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats.

Connectivity
Nokia N96: 3G HSDPA, plus integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
iPhone 3G: 3G HSDPA, plus integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

GPS
Nokia N96: GPS and A-GPS, plus Nokia Maps application.
iPhone 3G: Assisted GPS

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Battery Life
Nokia N96: Close to four hours’ talk time, stand-by is 220 hours, video playback is five hours, music playback 14 hours.
iPhone 3G: Up to five hours of talk time using 3G, or 10 hours using 2G, standby is 300 hours, five hours of 3G internet use and six hours of Wi-Fi internet use, seven hours of video playback and up to 24 hours of audio playback.

Availability and Pricing
Nokia N96: Still unknown, however Play.com has revealed they’ll have it in stock on July 31st, for £599.
iPhone 3G: Out on July 11th, you can get it for free on £45 and £75 per month tariffs, or £99 on the £30 and £35 per month plans. With O2, of course.

Nokia
Apple

Related posts: Comparison of iPhone 3G with HTC Touch Diamond | Comparison of iPhone 3G with BlackBerry Bold 9000

Katherine Hannaford
For latest tech stories go to TechDigest.tv

23 comments

  • There is no doubt that the iphone is definitely better. They are the king of the phones. Its hard to compete with them. whistleblower procedures

  • Both phone are good, the better one is the one you have.
    iPhone camera is 2MP but think of the image size. Make an image in iPhone twice smaller area and you got 4MP camera. Nokia is 5MP but with which screen size. Enlarge the image with Nokia to image size of iPhone and you get actually around 1 (or even less) MegaPixels Nokia camera.
    iPhone has touch-the-screen keyboard and commands and no keyboard to repear.
    Battery of iPhone is with 300-400 charges. Even if only 200 charges, it can extend to 3 years, and comes time to get another phone (and might be with replaceaple battery iPhone).
    Typing text on iPhone is just so fast. The software is unbeatable.
    iPhene has no moving parts, unlike Nokia, which are potential repear.
    If want only one phone, get iPhone. If I wish and second phone N96 rather than any BlackBerry.
    Choch resistance. Lets jump from 9th floor with the phone and see which will survive. But you with Nokia jump first, I follow….

  • i sold my n95 8gb i had on payngo and got the n96 on contract i tested the i phone first and thought lovely lookin solid mobile with excellent features then i decided umm n96 as i compared them both and nokia rules take the 5mp camera compared to 2.0mp iphone camera then the bbciplayer ive been watching topgear spooks etc etc picture is top quality ive also downloaded many of my own movies and in fairness the screen is smaller but amazing with so many pixels compared to iphone only real downfall with n96 is dvb-h as uk has not yet got this so what point is an in built antena! iphone is better looking all day but is brittel wouldnt last in my job construction as its touch screen! but to nokia its still very sleek and stylish, both are top mobs but my opinion is nokia with 16gb mem also expandable upto 24gb were as i phone 8-16gb tops

  • Well all these reviews seem very different.

    Either way from my own personal experience both phones are of a decent build quality and seem to last much for par on battery life.

    As for the design and usablity, that is really a matter of taste. Sleek and cool, but a little clumsy or tasteful and smart, but a little boring.

    I leave it up to you…

  • iphone 3G is Foul and Bocus sai.

    Nokia N96 All the best mobile phone in the World.

    I Fuck USA

  • ANyone tried watching a movie on Nokia N96?

    for those who did didn’t you think the movie was a bit hard to follow on a small screen as that of the Nokia?

    thats why iPhone has a 3,5 inch screen, to watch movies without becomming crazy and bieng able to reed the subtitles

  • I have been faithfult to Nokia since the very 1st phones came out.. I was going to get the Nokia N96 and have gone for the Iphone 8gb 3G instead. This is absolutely brilliant and can hardly put it down. I had the Nokia N95, and thought it was great but compared to the iphone. it has style, great ease of use and original. The other phone companies will take a while to catch up with the innovative genius of apple. So if you drop the battery from a great height and it breaks… (who’s the sucker whoi decided to find oiut!) Secondly if you spent that much on a phone you will surely be insured and not be arsed about a 2nd battery, as my experience with a Nokia is flat battery in a couple of hours if that!! Also to Michael, just because Nokia have been making phones for years, and apple have not, does not mean they do not have an excellent idea of what needs to be on phones!! They have just taken all their ideas and gone straight to the top and overtaken a clearly lazy, uninnovative Nokia, who thinks a cool think to have on a phone is a barcode scanner… get a life. 😉
    Mr rob if I were you I would get an iphone, 16gb, maybe 8 isn’t enough for a good deal of music, functionality is key here here over N96 and ease of use.. Also next gen iphone after this one will be excellent I would think, as they will improve the mistakes of this release.

  • its hard to compare iphone with any mobile. Only few mfg’s are experence in the smartphone arena. Treo, BB & sonyerison. iphone is beyond smartphone. chk the amount of application you can get and develope on your own and yet to come.

  • To Michael Walker

    I have to correct you, the reviews facts are spot on and nothing less. We dont buy phones to drop it and see how much it can withstand, if that were the case, why dont we throw it in the pool and see how long it takes for the screen to go blank. With regards to the battery issue, When the review spoke about battery life, it means how long the battery lasts without needing another charge, thats what people look at when purchasing and maybe you should do that as well. The review is correct.

  • I have been a faithful Nokia user up until I have come across the Iphone. I had every, almost every Nokia from 6110 to the N95 and E51 at the same time. Nokia is good, but if it were the best(officially) then everyone would have it. The specs above are on the dot, it just depends on the individuals needs and wants. The Iphones interface is absolutely stunning, user friendly and original at the same time, which is hard to get nowdays, with the 3G coming, I think its gonna take a huge part of the market, good on you Apple for giving a good quality touch screen. To Martin, that which you mentioned are about the only good advantages over the Iphone listed in the comparison, but they still are advantages nevertheless, so it still comes down to Users opinion. But I have a Sony W300 13.6 mega pixel for my pictures, so even the Nokia doesnt come close.

  • I’ll take an iPhone 3G over any Nokia phone any day. It’s no gimmic. 🙂

    The usability and feature set of the iPhone are simply amazing. The device looks stunning and is a pleasure to use.

    I prefer to have fewer best of breed and easy to use features that work well instead of millions of features that are hard to use and poorly presented.

    The iPhone has solid features that work very well. Simply read about the features of the iPhone device at the following link:

    http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/phone.html

    …and you will understand why it is such a great hand held device.

    ciao

  • well no offence but this review’s facts are off, the I pohone has a few good points but the reality of it is its just a gimic and even the new 3g one cannot stand up to the N96, its just a simple fact that the nokia just out performs the Iphone, all you need to do is drop the N96 from 4 feet and drop the Iphone and see which still works, my friend had a bet and lost as his Iphone screwed up. Also on the Iphone you cannot change the battery, so if it breaks your phone is usless unless you pay 100’s to get it fixed, N96’s battery life might not be as good but for $10 you can buy another battery so you can just change them over, bottom line Mac have come a long way and the I phone is still cool, but overall PC and Windows have more experiance and features and overall are better than mac. Put it this way How long have NOkia been making phones ? how long have apple ?
    thanks guys

  • well it sucked, for example
    can you change the battery on iphone
    the camera of the nokia is super..and real flash
    you can do video on nokia 640×480 in 30fps
    nokia has protection for the lens
    and..do you need apples software for transfer files ?

    please nokia is soooo much better..
    you cant just do like you did..that is bad..
    stupid americans

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