Vlog: Nokia N96 Battery Life Explained by Product Manager

February 15th, 2008 • Mark Guim • Filed Under •

The most concerning issue on the Nokia N96 is the small 950mah battery. We all know this battery performed poorly on the original Nokia N95 so why did Nokia decide to use it again with the Nokia N96. I was able to talk to the manager at Mobile World Congress and get his answer on video.

The Nokia N96 product manager says that bigger battery means bigger device. It was more important to keep the device comfortable to hold. He also claims that software optimizations were attributed to the Nokia N96 to make it more efficient. Take a look at the video below.

Other video format: Mobile

We all have to wait and see if what he is telling us is true. I wanted to throw my original Nokia N95 with the 950mah battery in the garbage every day after hearing the low battery warning. Nokia, don’t make me remember those days.

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There are 1 articles linking to this post

  1. Nseries WOM World » Blog Archive » N96 hands-on and battery life

There are 22 comments so far. »

  1. Joe on 15 February 2008:

    N96 NAM will have the bigger battery :-D

    Reply to this comment

  2. Mark Guim on 15 February 2008:

    Haha.. after the N96 32gb gets released.

    Reply to this comment

  3. Al on 17 February 2008:

    I would rather have a larger device than sacrifice battery capacity.

    Reply to this comment

  4. Joe on 17 February 2008:

    Yeah how much thicker is the N95-3 than the N95-1? I’m sure it’s negligible

    Reply to this comment

  5. JKE on 18 February 2008:

    Excuse me, but what is this Product Manager talking about? Imho, most N95,96,81 etc customers ARE heavy users and did in fact go for these N-series devices instead of a 6300 or 6280 just because of all these functionalities. So 20-30% heavy users only? No way!

    Why can’t they just come out and admit that most devices were given a short battery life or the typical Nokia related water damage sensibility to promote the sale of even more devices or accessories?

    Reply to this comment

  6. Andy Burgin on 18 February 2008:

    Nokia realised that the software they first release on the N95 was draining the battery quickly now with the software upgraded to V.20.0.015 the menu layout as changed an the battery now last 2 days as before it was annoying charging the mobile everyday,so they have learnt from the N95 mistake,but lets see a review first before the battery gets itself a good rating an praise

    Reply to this comment

  7. amanda bowden on 15 March 2008:

    has had this nokia n95 for 3 weeks!!! and is already on the 2nd 1 how bad is this phone putting it out so we the consumer test it for them to get kinks out then update to the n95 8gb sort the battery out!!!

    Reply to this comment

  8. chen on 18 March 2008:

    hello, i wanted to know…is it possible to put a BL 6F battery on the N96?

    Reply to this comment

  9. Sebastian on 19 March 2008:

    hi, i have a question. which cellphone do u think is the best now on sale? The nokia n96? and another question is if u have any information about the Nokia N98.
    Thanks.
    Sebastian from argentina

    Reply to this comment

  10. Sebastian on 19 March 2008:

    another question. sorry
    it’s true that the N96 will have touchscreen and more capacity?,people here says that this is just to fight with the iphone

    Reply to this comment

  11. devil_kw@hotmail.com on 14 April 2008:

    We, the users actually dont really mind if the device is slightly larger…
    as what joe had mentioned, the difference is more likely negligible..
    so, nokia plz do something about it.
    i am currently using n95-1 and i am quite pissed off by the weak battery.

    Reply to this comment

  12. Michael on 21 May 2008:

    Bullocks…

    The Nokia N96 will be no better than the N95. I suspect in reality it´ll be worse.

    Which is sad, because I love my N95, except for its battery life.

    Go to europe.nokia.com select products and do a comparison on the N95, N95 8GB and the N96.

    Talk time:
    N96: 2,5/3.67 hrs (GSM/WCDMA)
    N95: 3,5 hrs
    N95: 8GB 5/3,5hrs (GSM/WCDMA)

    So, does he want to revise his statement?

    I don´t get this, my Nokia old 6150(cooler big brother of the 6110) that I had 11 years ago had 1350mAh battery and was a friggin awesome thing. I even still use that brick as a backup phone.

    So what´s the stigma against a little bigger battery?

    Reply to this comment

  13. Nigel Jones on 18 June 2008:

    The “specs” on the nokia website are inconsistent so I wouldn’t hold them too much (as an example it lists the N95 8Gb as having a memory card slot!)

    The N96 8Gb has the larger battery, and in v20 of the firmware introduced demand page loading & other OS improvements to improve power consumption further (especially in real phone use for browsing, music etc rather than just standby).

    The question is whether
    a) Nokia deemed these improvements sufficient to go back to the improved weight/size of the smaller battery, and offering comparable battery with the N95 8Gb *when launched*
    OR
    b) There are further significant improvements specific to the N96 that nearly, or more than offset the smaller battery size even above the N95 GB.

    I’m going to ask Nokia myself - this is so important to me.

    Reply to this comment

  14. Robin Ridge on 27 June 2008:

    N95, N95 8GB, N96; Battery life is clearly important. Making more effecient use of the battery as indicated in the video clip is a sensible approach and i hope they have been successful in real terms. How ever a bigger battery is an obvious move and an oversized battery should be available from Nokia even if it raises the weight, spoils the form and makes the phone bigger, and why, because Nokia’s customers want it!

    Reply to this comment

  15. Nigel Jones on 28 June 2008:

    Couldn’t agree more with Robin.

    Reply to this comment

  16. shakeel on 7 August 2008:

    is the battery life on the n96 any better than the battery life on the n95. i currently have the n95 the normal edition 1 and if i am to say play music on it for a while the battery becomes dead within a very short period of time.
    so if i was to buy the n96 would i still have this problem
    write back asap
    thanks

    Reply to this comment

  17. Bruno on 27 August 2008:

    My experience with N95 and previous nokia phones.

    Nokia batteries are just between the worst in battery life among the cellphone makers.
    And it seems nokia just does not want to improve there batteries. as they also make market selling more batteries replacing the old ones.
    And it gets damm hot when using Nokia Maps

    In term of battery life ..ther’s no better than Sony-Erickson cellphones.

    Reply to this comment

  18. Alan Doyle on 9 September 2008:

    Having had a N95 8gb for the best part of a year now (Nov ‘07) - in fairness to nokia, they did address the battery comsumption. The original BIOS was woeful - but I think the firware upgrades have sorted out a lot of the comsumption issues.

    I *REALLY* don’t get though why nokia themselves don’t get more into the customization market. It’s clear that a significant percentage of the market (myself and I guess ourselves included) would sacrifice form factor over battery capacity. Why can’t they come up with a “clip on” 1000 mAhr additional battery or something. (Yes, I know about things like http://energizer.com/products/energi-to-go/Pages/ipod-cell-phone-charger.aspx but I’d like to see something built onto the phone)

    Reply to this comment

  19. Khalifa on 25 September 2008:

    He’s a liar, it sucks!

    http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=175457

    I wish I never upgraded.

    http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/discussions/board/message?board.id=smartphones&thread.id=106116&view=by_date_ascending&page=2

    Reply to this comment

  20. Louie on 10 October 2008:

    I have the N96 and love the phone…but am really annoyed with battery life; I had the N70 previously which the battery lasted fine; the N96 flashes battery low everyday; I can not pair it with my car’s handsfree or my headset because bluetooth on drains the battery at an unbelievable pace; not good enough Nokia; this phone needs a bigger battery; what’s the purpose of this great phone when you can not power it on as the battery drains before you can finish your phone call; very disappointing.

    Reply to this comment

    metti on 14 October 2008

    hmm i know the batery life is shit in nokia n96 but the nokia n95 8gb the batery life much good end i know the best phone is nokia 95 8gb bye…

    Reply to this comment

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