Regarding the N96 check out the review on gsmarena.com, it gets slammed as basically a backward step from the N95.
I guess it depends what you want from your phone. If you want to make phone calls and fire off a few texts, any phone will be good enough but then you already knew that didn't you
. On the other hand, if you want HAL9000 or KITT in your hand, that is a different matter - at that end of the market whether it can make phone calls is almost irrelevant.