Whilst we all await the arrival of the N96 in the shops, I have been pondering on the fate of the recently announced N85 and N79, compared closely with the N96.

The N85 is strikingly similar in looks to the N96, as can be seen below:

and the similarities do not end there. There is a 5 megapixel camera, N Gage gaming (10 games included) and dedicated gaming keys, wifi and GPS.

What it has that the N96 has not is an FM transmitter (quite cool) and an OLED screen, but it lacks the huge built in memory (although it will ship with an 8GB SD card.

Due to ship in October for €450.00, this could make some people dither over the N96, particularly the price concious.

The N79 is not quite so similar, at least not in terms of looks:

There is the 5 megapixel camera, the N Gage pre installed, the FM transmitter, wifi, GPS and Xpress on covers and a 4GB SD card.

To reflect the reduced capabilities, the N79 will retail for €350.00 and is expected to ship around the same time as the N85.

So will these offerings detract from the N96, or make it shine stronger? There are certainly enough similarities (how different will the operating software be? Very siilar I would have thought) that I feel it worth talking about both phones alongside the N96.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 5:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.