At the right N96 N81 8GB, and at the left the N81 8GB N96. It’s not just the display that’s bigger, but there are few minor changes in cosmetics on the front. The keys are slightly separated, and the multimedia key is smaller. The navi-wheel is made thinner and higher so that it feels good to the finger.

Here it’s noticeable that the N81 8GB and N96 don’t differ much on thickness.

The N96 has a larger camera button, which is better for capturing and autofocus. Another change is the speaker placement. The N96 has a new speaker positioning, which is drives sound better if the phone is kept on the kickstand according to Matilla, and I truly agree with him.

The N96 has definitely a better keypad. Besides having wider keys, there are visual separations between them, and it’s much more “typeable” than the N81’s keypad. The slider itself feels like a mix between the N81’s and N95’s slider, not too rough, not too springy.

These pictures show the difference on the N96 camera when compared to the N818GB. They are both very similar, although the N96’s one is quite larger, as well as the dual flash. There are lines around the camera which supposedly are simple cosmetic details.

The memory card slot on the N96 is quite difficult to open without fingernails.

For some technical reason, the N96’s battery is placed laterally and not in a normal position such as the N81. It uses the BL-5F with 950mAH, same as the Nokia N95.

The above pictures show the N96 sitting on its kickstand.

The flash is quite intense, and stronger than any camera flash I have seen, besides Xenon flash. The LED gets quite hot, so I’m not sure if recording for long will damage any internal circuitry.

The glossy surface leaves a lot of marks, especially fingerprints.

The multimedia keys feel excellent as they are quite large, and there are two gaming buttons, one sitting with the Play button, and the other with the Stop button. There seems to be some light leaking from the sides, although I don’t know if this is on purpose.

The N95 8GBs multimedia keys are considerably smaller than the N96’s. The kickstand feels really useful, and we miss it on the N95. We have never noticed the kickstand feature, but now that we have it, it really seems useful for multimedia playback or other features. The N96 is very loud when it comes to music or video, possibly one of the loudest phones in the market. The video player can play the files from beginning or from where you left the video last time.

The N96’s camera and flash seem to be quite larger than the N95 8GB. The N95 has a round outline to it, while the N96 has an oval outline to it, where the kickstand resides.

The software installed was quiet weak, one of the devices wasn’t working, while all others would crash often. The navi-wheel had no functionality.

A new feature in both these phones was the task switcher option in all applications. Whenever you press the left soft key, you could call the task switcher.

The SPMark wouldn’t install, so I cannot get you a score, and I could take videos either as the video recording application would crash after two seconds of recording.

If you are interested in the comparison with other phones and N78 notes and pictures, head over to PhoneReport.