9 posts tagged “camera”
I took this picture while out and about a couple of days ago. Ignoring the main subject of the photo for just a moment, the quality of the photo is truly staggering. The vibrant colors, sharp details, and lack of detectable noise or tinting set this image apart from my E71 in very big ways. I fact, they're so good that I've begun to see the E75 as being just as competent as my N82, just lacking a couple of megapixels. (And the xenon flash, which I should note I liked to have but rarely used because of it's glaring effects.)
It is actually astonishing that a device like this has been made and targeted for the Business sector. It's true that this device doesn't exactly fit very well into the N-Series category, and neither is it boring enough to fit into the standard numbered category. But I mean c'mon, this device has got all the bases covered. 3.5mm jack, N-Gage, and accelerometers set one foot in the N-Series world. QWERTY keyboard, QuickOffice, and advanced email support put the other foot in the E-Series world. Remove all those things and what's left is a standard Nokia candybar handset, aka the numbered line of devices.
I chose my E71 because it offered me E-Series benefits with an eye-catching and sturdy design. But I've always wished it had the better camera and 3.5mm jack that the N's had. (And did I mention it's an AV-Out jack too?) It seems Nokia has finally built a device for me. Two actually... The E72 has many of the same upgrades (minus N-Gage). I suppose the only question remaining is... Which do I prefer more in terms of design? I think the answer to that question depends on how well I master the keyboard on the E75, something which I have recently made good progress towards.
(Composed on the Nokia E75.)
As I was sitting in the reading chair next to the window, waiting for the DHL delivery courier to arrive with my "gift" from Nokia, I started to fool around the the E75's camera. I was immediately impressed with the newly activated camera features as I mentioned in my previous post, but wanted to see if the camera quality had also been upped as well. Indoors, in a poorly lit environment, is never a fair environment to judge a camera's quality by, so I took a step outside and looked around for an interesting subject. Literally two feet from my door was this bottle-cap, sitting innocently on the ground.
I thought to myself, "Hmm... why not that? It's well illuminated, will give the macro a run for it's money, and see if the software will know exactly what I'm trying to focus in on. Plus, I really love macro shots...*click*"
The end result is here for your enjoyment. Noise levels are low, and the detail is actually amazingly good. Every scratch and ding on the cap is visible for inspection, as is the almost grotesque texture of the cement it rested on. Color balance seems suite good as well, showing none of the bluish-purple hue that an E71 occasionally lays on top of an otherwise perfect image. More test photos (and videos) to come soon!
I had decided to wander about and take pictures on Monday, since I had nothing to do and no place to stay. I wanted to geo-tag my pictures, but the Nokia E71 unfortunately hasn't implemented this well at all. So instead I decided to take a picture, then take a screenshot of the Nokia Maps application. The result is what you see here... I pasted the screenshot of my GPS location on top of each image.
Photo taken with the N82's Macro function. Pretty nice, I think, but there's a lot of artifacts in the image when you look at it close.
There's so much to be said about the N82. It's exactly what I wanted. It doesn't gather much attention from those I don't want it to (except the constant naggerers of "Is that another new phone?!"). But it also gets the attention of those who I possibly share interests with ("Oh wait, hang on, is that an N-Series? I've been tempted to get the N96 when it comes out..."). It's comfortable to use as a phone for long periods of time. It's size is perfect.
As a brief correction to my initial review... it's actually quite nice to use the keypad for text input. The keys look a bit odd... but really, they're a joy to use. Granted, the keys on my N93 were great... easy to use, easy to find in any situation. Large enough for anyone to use. But the N82's keys give you a unique typing experience. They feel... unique. I now know what Sony Ericsson was thinking with their K800i and K850i... it's a clever way to give a phone a more unique appearance and feel. After using them for quite some time, I'm now completely used to banging out bits of text with it. Big batches of text, when I know what I want to say, are still daunting to consider, but they're not actually bad at all to complete.
Now, the directional pad is slightly different. I at first thought that this was similar to my Palm LifeDrive of old... that there was a separate ring around a center button. But no... on the N82 they are connected. So not only does the ring move when you press a direction, but the center button moves a bit too. Figuring this out made it easier to toggle right when entering text... I have no idea why. But it did. So while a mistake press of the center button is still happening from time to time, it's happening less and less each day.
Also photos are a bit tricky. I've already caught a few pictures where the camera focused on the wrong object. That was kind of annoying. I'd say that it'd typically be okay just to press the shutter down all the way to start with, and leave the focus on... whatever it starts at. Because typically, if the object is a few feet away to really far away, this focus range will work just fine.
However, times I would definitely use the focus are close-ups. But the phone needs to be put into close-up mode. But then excellent macro pictures are easily within reach. I'll also touch on shutter-speed... I'm a bit disappointed to learn that it doesn't seem to be as easy to capture images in a high-speed mode as with the i-mobile 902. The i-mobile was also, quite possibly, better at focusing on objects. Maybe even better color representation. But the flash would wash everything out, and the focus took too long. The camera's UI, let alone the phone's UI, wasn't very good or speedy. So while that would be a better choice for one who was obsessed with image quality, the rest of the phone-related features really kills it for anyone else.
Here's the deal. I'm hoping to make about $1,000 over the next month or so. I've been "phone-sick" for the past few days because I really miss my Nokia N93- it was perfect. It was big, I'll admit, but it did everything. It did everything well. If only it had a longer battery life and a keyboard, I'd be willing to leave my laptop at home on my next big trip.
Here's the problem. I'm going to Greece for Spring Break. Now, the last time I took my computer on a long trip it paid itself off for all of the effort. Sort of. My mom held it hostage multiple days and the one day I was told to stay in the lobby all night instead of sleeping in the room, I didn't have it. I did have my trusty Nokia N93, but because I had been taking pictures and videos with it all day, it was down on battery power. And my AC charger was being held hostage up in the room as well.
I had enough battery left to check my email, send some emails, check the news and upload a few pictures. That sounds like a lot, but considering it took me only 10 minutes to do all of that, it really wasn't. I then turned off my phone to conserve what minimal battery power was left. Then I had to vie for use of the courtesy internet station the rest of the night.
I learned from that mistake, and now I have an AC charger for my new phone in two places- one at the beach, and one in Portland. Not quite the same as carrying it around with me, but I don't want to have to take care of a charger for a phone I probably will never have taken away.
But since that phone has been lost to me... because I was scammed by a buyer on eBay who was able to twist PayPal's Buyer Protection Policy in order to get a refund from me... I have since been working my way back up with phones. Just a review, here's the list of phones I've gone through:
- Motorola C131 (Prepaid in India)
- Motorola V180 (First "real" phone, on AT&T) (Beginning of first 2-year contract)
- Danger SideKick 2 (Never actually used this) (Craigslist)
- Blackberry 7210 (Craigslist)
- Sony Ericsson Z520a (Cingular) (Beginning of second 2-year contract)
- NEC L1 e949 (World's thinnest phone at time of purchase) (eBay)
- Nokia E62 (traded NEC L1 e949 + Dell Axim X51 for this) (Gave this to Dad) (Craigslist)
- Nokia N93 (Craigslist)
- i-Mobile 902 (eBay)
- Sony Ericsson W580i (AT&T) (Beginning of third 2-year contract)
See? I'm a bit of a mobile phone... maniac? I hope to study Industrial Design and one day put all of the knowledge I gain going through all of these phones (and more to come!). Still figuring out my own... design style, but I can tell it's developing. I've figured out how to quickly sketch my ideas out, and so that's really all that matters this early on in my pursuits.
Enough. Time to move on to the big question... which phone should be my next? Here are the runners:
- WiFi is a must. Honestly. I can't live without it anymore, and it's the only reason I'd leave my laptop at home.
- Bluetooth. For easy data transfers. And Bluetooth Tag!
- Camera. I tend to leave my camera at home unless I expect someone else to pick it up and take funny pictures.
- Quadband GSM. Preferably unlocked. Triband is just old these days.
- WiFi
- Bluetooth
- Camera
- Quadband
E90 Disadvantages
- Expensive. Try about $1,000 for a phone and see how your wallet feels.
- Big.
- Camera is only 3mp, compared to the other Nokias.
- No keyboard.
- Somewhat uninspired design.
- Poor battery life.
- Thick slider. I typically don't like sliders, however I do like the W580i I have now. But a dual slider? That's pushing it.
- No keyboard.
- Locked to AT&T.
- Poor camera quality.
- Bluetooth is crippled.
- Battery is not replaceable.
- Not original. Lots of people in the USA have this. Not so much overseas, but I live in the USA. So it's boring now.
Let's dig into advantages... because everybody always likes advantages.
E90 Advantages
- Good keyboard.
- GPS.
- Nice form factor. Rare.
- Unlocked.
- Xenon Flash.
- GPS.
- I like candybars. So this is a good design. Rare.
- Unlocked.
- Decent camera.
- Dual-slider. Good for multimedia. Rare.
- Unlocked.
- Touchscreen.
- Great browsing capabilities.
- Locally supported. Easy to get help.
- Well-thought design.
Here's the deal. If I end up saving up enough money, I'm going to have one easy decision set out to eliminate at least one phone. And here it is: Would I rather purchase two new devices to use, or just one? If just one, then the Nokia E90 will be it. If two, then the E90 gets ruled out because of it's price.
Now I like the iPhone. It's fun to play around with. However, as a phone, I think I'd rather have something else. So should I eliminate it and go for the iPod Touch? I already have an iPod I like, but an iTouch would be just as good as, say, the Nokia Internet tablet. But cheaper. And a seemingly better build for what I want to do.
Another question is my love affair with the Nokia N93. Do I risk springing for it's successor, the N93i, which I love to death but am horrified by it's reported short battery life? Video recording on that device was absolute bliss. Pictures were easy and fun to do as well. I don't like dealing with lens caps, but for that... I think it'd be worth it.
So now it's like this... if I make more than $1,000 (say, $1,500 hopefully) I'll spring for three devices. Yeah, that's right, I said three. I think I'll throw the E90 out of the picture. $1,000 for a phone I might damage or lose is just too much for me. So if I make $1,500, I'll get the Nokia N82/N95, a Nokia N93i, and an Apple iPod Touch.
+$300 Apple iPod Touch
+$560 Nokia N93i
+$560 Nokia N82
=================
$1,420 (w/o shipping charges)
--[ OR ]--
+$300 Apple iPod Touch
+$560 Nokia N93i
+$565 Nokia N95
=================
$1425 (w/o shipping charges)
Between the cost difference, and the reportedly short battery life of the N95, I think it's clear that the N82 would be the winner. It'd be a good camera to have at all times, while the N93i would be useful when I need a video camera. But something weird has come up. The Nokia N81. I'm going to read a review right now...
Oh no. I just found the LG KU990. May record video better than the N93i... however I like the features available in the N93i beyond just the camera... but being able to record video at 120fps @ full VGA resolution is so appealing... continuing to compare these...
Uh oh. Another phone has just entered the running. Samsung SGH-G800. 5mp, Xenon flash, but the real kicker- it has an internal optical zoom just like the N93i. BUT... no wifi. But it is a weird slider. Bit thicker than the N95, but it seems to be constructed of nearly all metal. I guess the question is... if I were to consider the N95, I'd consider this too.... NAH, after watching a video review, I'm deeming it out of the running. Laggy shutter, no WiFi, and it's a Samsung. So it's a bit... boring. That's why I got the W580i, because the other phone in it's class was a Samsung. That's why I got the i-Mobile 902, because the other phone competing against it was the Samsung SGH-G600, which really was a bit of a joke.
Enough dabble. Time to make a new post and continue.
