N96 featuring a Xenon Flash after all?!

The N82 is the first Nseries device with a full Xenon flash which delivers very nice photos also in dark light conditions.

Because the flash is seen as a large advantage of the N82 compared to other Nseries devices and also other phone manufacturers now often build a Xenon flash into their phones, we all thought that it would also be part of upcoming new S60 devices.

At least the new N96 presented by Nokia at Mobile World Congress as the new Nseries flagship should have it - not a bit of it! Nokia used a dual LED with the excuse this would make illuminated video recording possible what would damage a Xenon flash.

Very disappointing for many users and another reason to skip the N96 as it doesn’t bring revolutionary new features apart from Feature Pack 2 which does also not bring much new to the S60 world and DVB-H which is still not supported in most countries.

However, a member of the “Esato” forum has information from a Nokia representative that Nokia will build a Xenon flash into the N96:

Ok, this isn’t official news, but it’s as official as I can get

Our Nokia rep, who think’s we’re great (:D) told me something intruiqing today.He’s said the N96 hasn’t been given the complete green light yet (I’m guessing Nokia wanted to get something that resembles the real thing out in time for MWC). And the delays are due to them adding (at the last minute) a Xenon flash, ala N82! Finally, an all in one phone with almost nothing (bar BlackBerry ;)) missing!From what I can tell of the marketing stuff he left for the N82, Xenon flashes seem to be Nokia’s next big push from now on, which is fine by me

This would be indeed great news which could make me reconsider my decision to not buy this phone.
Still I am not convinced of it. That would be unusual for Nokia and indeed a strange marketing step. Why should Nokia handle the announcements of its flagships like this? Suppress this important feature will just make people thinking early about buying a different phone.

Let’s hope this Nokia rep is a well informed person.

Source: JUSTAMP

Edit:

Today this picture occured, but it’s obviously a fake. Just an edited picture which was among the first one leaked: