So I’ve just received an N96 from Nokia’s WOM World. I’ll be reporting in more detail over the next week or two; in the meantime here are my first impressions of this flagship device…

The Good:

Two Finnish innovations make setting up an unlocked Nokia device easier than ever before:

While Nokia Canada’s handy Configurator Service no longer seems to work it’s also no longer necessary — a handy wizard for Operator Settings is now included, at least on the N96. Firmware updates can now be downloaded and installed directly on the handset! Even better, the user’s installed apps and data are preserved through the process.

The Bad:

This one took me by surprise… It honestly feels like there’s some loose plastic film underneath the D-Pad of my handset. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with Nokia scrapping the navi-wheel functionality on this particular button or if it’s a production hiccup unique to my particular unit. Either way, if I paid the going price for a new N96 — about $1000 CAD last time I checked — I’d feel, well… I guess I’d feel like this.

The Ugly:

After two resets, a firmware update, another reset, a mass memory format and an erase & reinstall I am entirely unable to launch N-Gage on my N96. As far as know the two are compatible — see this mobile-ized N-Gage download page for proof — and there is also some evidence that other users are experiencing this problem. But if Nokia’s flagship multimedia device can’t run the company’s own in-house gaming platform it makes it pretty difficult for me not to give it a failing grade right out of the box.

Anybody out there have any ideas?