Today we examine the imaging and video capabilities of the Nokia N96…

Even though it doesn’t have the insanely-bright Xenon flash that you get with an N82, the N96 still did a very respectable job in my informal 0 Lux test. Compare the image above to similar conditions for the N82 and N95 (both taken pre-cat).

Surprisingly though, for non-flash photography in ambient light the N96 washes out a lot of colour — at least using the default settings. Compare the rather unappetizing plate of Asian Legend fried dough balls with red bean paste on the left with the much more appealing dish to the right — the exact same plate shot with flash.

This is a bit of a head-scratcher, as even my lowly E71 is capable of reproducing more vivid colour in photos — of food at least. For more N96 pics have a look at my dedicated photo set on Flickr…

(My boy’s weekly grooming ritual…)

Switch to video mode and the camera delivers a very-nice VGA-quality file, ready for upload to YouTube (like the one above) or playback on your TV via the included RGB cable that plugs into the handset’s headphone jack.

I really wish Nokia’s Share online utility would support YouTube; in the meantime ShoZu is an excellent (and free) alternative. And there’s another reason you might prefer ShoZu: My installation of Share online has an annoying bug where everytime I try to upload a photo to Flickr I get a dupe of my Flickr account saved to my N96 for no apparent reason.

To sum up I can’t really recommend the N96’s camera over the those in the N82 and N95, unless you’re mostly shooting video and have an available DVB-H signal and/or iPlayer feed where you live.