The behemoth that is World Mobile Congress (formerly 3GSM) is nearly upon us, it would be rude of me not to take a stab at what Nokia might to be releasing next week. First up, here’s the device that I think they will unleash on Monday. The Nokia N96.

The Nokia N96 made it’s first unscheduled appearance at the end of 2007, it looks a lot like the offspring of the N95 and N81. Not a bad thing.

Not much is known about this Nseries device, but here are a few things it might include...

DiVX and full frame H.264 playback (anamorphic support please!)

Higher resolution screen (480 x 320 seems possible)

New dual slide key arrangement (a single touch sensitive strip)

8GB of internal memory plus Micro SD slot

Dual LED flash (particularly useful for video illumination)

If the price is keen, the N96 could be a huge success for Nokia.

Now on to a device which I’d love to see launched next week, but there’s probably more chance of Nokia buying Yahoo! Enter the Nokia N99.

Notice anything odd about these so called preproduction illustrations? It seems to me that these are photoshopped photographs made to look like illustrations, meaning that actual unit exists and is probably not that far from launch.

Based on these 'illustrations' and other published rumours, what might we expect the N99 to include? Clearly the form factor suggests that this is the successor to the mighty N93, as such we would expect it to feature all the goodness of the N95 plus...

DiVX and full frame H.264 playback

VGA resolution screen (At last!)

16GB of internal memory plus Micro SD slot

Powerful flash system, for both stills and video (LED + Xenon?)

Dual microphones (perhaps even with pseudo surround sound capture?)

Much improved MP4 video capture (perhaps using H.264?)

6 or 8MP sensor (6 is more than enough)

3 or 5X optical zoom (please let it be 5X!!)

Optical image stabilisation

Continuous auto-focus

Too big to go truly mass market, but oozing with more creative potential than any other Nokia before it, the N99 could be the last truly legendary non touch screen Nseries device. I want one!

EDIT: 'Life moves by pretty fast..." it seems that specs for the N96 have been leaked sometime in the last few hours. Surely this is 'go' for WMC! Not too impressed by that nasty little battery though.

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