N81 also didnt have the pencil key...

it came with 950mAh battery?? so can it stand at least 1day moderate/heavy usage??
even n95 8gb came 1200mAh battery n n81 with 1050mAh

maybe becoz its proto model oni...nway, if this a real n96, too bad..the design is good but too much similiar with n81,,thus no design "tersendiri" for the new flagship model...

hope they added xenon n give better battery capacity 

8mp is too fast move for a phone camera IMO. i guess they will take it step by step. the next camera phone level should be 7MP 1st.

First, let's don't jump into conclusion so fast whether or not there is any improvement between N95 8G and N96. What you see is only on paper, you haven't use the phone yet, so let's just be fair to all parties. Of cause we consumer want everything the best, VGA resolution display, 8 MP camera, etc...but we must also think from the design n application engineers point of view, to include so much into such a small form factor is already incredible, so don't push it. Although we can always argue that those are not our problem and since we consumers are the one who is paying the $$$, they should find a way to deliver what the consumer required. But hey, they didn't really put a gun at our head to ask us buy their product either right? 

If you read my post previously, you probably already know that the N96 might be using a new processor which is different from N95/N95 8G/N82. N95/N95 8G/N82 are using Texas Instruments OMAP2420 processor while the new N96 might be using STMicroelectronics Nomadik STn8815 processor. I do a bit digging into these two processors and found out the following differences:

OMAP2420                    
CPU: ARM1136 at 330MHz
Power Management: TWL92230
Camera Processor: DM290

STn8815
CPU: ARM926EJ at 393MHz
Power Management: STw481x
Camera Processor: unknown
From above comparison, I am quite sure there will be some performance differences in term of battery life time and camera and imaging performance. But whether or not it will be better I cannot tell. We Just have to wait and see.