Comparing Xenon Flash and dual LED - N8, N82, N900 Low Light Showdown - Part 2!

After two years, and much to the delight of Nokia euthusiasts, Nokia has finally brought back Xenon flash to its camera-centric phones. The only two other Nokia devices with Xenon are the N82 and 6220 classic.

As most people know, Xenon flash provides brighter and faster flash than dual LEDs which are popular for phones. Some reviewers have tried to say dual LEDs is a good compromise for phones but my comparison between the N82, N86, and N79 nicely showed off the ability of the N82's Xenon flash to light up a room and stop objects in motion and put the dual LED N86 to shame.

Nokia N8, Nokia N82, Nokia N900

It's been almost a year since my last review and Nokia has put out a lot of impressive devices so it's time to do another Xenon flash and dual LED showdown. This time I'm pitting the venerable N82 against Nokia's latest superstar, the N8, and the powerful N900.

According to Nokia program manager, Damian Dinning, the "N8 has virtually the same flash power as the N82" (source). So we should expect similar flash results from the N8 but, hopefully, better details with the N8's larger sensor and higher resolution.

The N900 did really well against the N82 in outdoor daylight shots but I have a strong feeling the dual LED is going to put the N900 out of the contest.

Finally, the N82, Nokia's night photo champion for a whole 2 years. Will it finally lose its crown to the sleek stylish N8? Let's find out!

Comparing dual LED to Xenon Flash - N82, N86 8MP, and N79 Low Light Showdown!

The Nokia N86 8MP (right) is positioned as Nokia's premiere imaging range of camera phones for 2009 and set to replace the venerable N82 (left). It is Nokia's first device to feature a wide-angle 8MP Carl Zeiss len camera with variable aperature and second generation dual-LED. Unfortunately, many N82 users bemoaned the absence of Xenon flash. Nokia responded with a slide show comparing the N86 8MP to N82 in low light which mainly focussed on when flash would be triggered when taking the photo of close stationary objects. Interestingly, they didn't address flash distance or moving objects in low light. Which I think are more important in real life situations such as taking photos of your friends at a bar or your children going trick or treating during Halloween.

Full review after the jump.

Phone	N82	N79	N86
Firmware	v31.0.016	v11.049	v20.115
Megapixels	5	5	8
Photo dimensions (pixels)	2592x1944	2592x1944	3264x2448
F number/Aperture	2.8/5.6	2.8/5.4	2.4-2.8/4.6
Flash type	Xenon	Dual-LED	Dual-LED

Flash Distance

All camera phones were set to auto mode with automatic flash in a room with no light. I placed 3 objects on the ground a meter apart from each other in front of the camera. The big boxes were 4 meters away and the wall was about 5 meters away.

N82	N86
ISO-800	ISO-460

N79	E71
ISO-1664

Canon SD850i
ISO-200

The N79 had to increase its ISO setting very high to brighten up the image which led to a lot of noise and a generally useless photo. The E71 was totally useless. Obviously the dedicated camera produced the brightest flash and clearest photo.

The N86 is a significant improvement over the N79 even though both use a dual-LED flash. I'm sure the larger sensor and improved LEDs helped the N86.

The N82 produced a much noiser photo compared to the N86 and the N82 needed a higher ISO setting to get a similar brightness to the N86. So just to see what would happen if I set the N82 to medium ISO to force it to use ISO-400.

ISO-400

N82	N86
ISO-400	ISO-460

With similar ISO settings, the N82 produces a definitely darker image, similar noise, and very similar details.

WINNER: N86 8GB

Photo capture of a moving object with flash

I used a metronome since it has a generally consistent speed, easily recognized by readers all around the world, and has various speed settings. I threw out all photos of the metromone arm at the very far right and very far left since the arm moves much slower at that point. I took 3 photos with each phone at each speed setting.

I found that each phone produced consistent image quality between the 3 photos taken. All camera phones captured photos between 100-200 ISO regardless of metronome speed. Now let's look at the detailed results.

Low speed (40 GRAVE)

Mid speed (72 ANDANTE)

 
High speed (120 ANIMATO)

The N79 and N86 produced similarly blurry photos of the metronome arm. Although the N86 sensor can take clearer photos of stationary objects, the sensor still can't get enough light in a short time to capture a still photo of the moving object.

It's no question that Xenon pays dividends with a clear photo of the metronome arm. As reported in many studies, Xenon produces more light at a specific object in a shorter amount of time than LED can. Which is why photos tend to be blurry in dimly lit environments when taken with current camera phones. Let's hope that either LED technology makes some significant improvements soon or Nokia switches back to Xenon for their next premiere imaging device.

WINNER: N82

Conclusion

Overall, the N86 surprised me by it's impressive flash distance that produced images of very little noise, even when compared to the N82's Xenon flash. But as predicted the N82 captured motion photos significantly better than the dual-LED equipped N86. Comparing the N86 to the N79, we saw an impressive improvement to the dual-LED and sensor technology that allowed the N86 to produce far superior distance photos. So it's a give and take with the N82 better at freezing motion while the N86 is better for distant stationary objects. I personally would prefer freezing motion for clearer photos while the flash distance is comparable. Until Nokia releases another Nseries with Xenon, the N86 is definitely a worthy device that gives the N82 quite a run.

Nokia N82: Two Years Review

Looking and functioning like new after two years of use and taking over 5000 photos and 70 videos.

After my year with the N82 review posted back in 2008, I'm here to review the N82 again for its second year.

The Nokia N82 has been out for a little over two years and cell phone trends have left this phone looking dated. It has a small screen, no touch screen, and no slide out QWERTY keyboard. I don't think there's any respectable cell phone reviewer/blogger that still uses this phone. But for me, the N82 still doesn't have a direct competitor.

Full review after the jump.

Two years ago, Nokia was faced with heavy competition from Sony Ericsson (SE) with their photo-centric Cybershot line of phones. To counter this, Nokia's flagship phone, the N95, was retooled into the body of a candy bar to compete directly with SE's 5MP camera phone, K790i. The N82 shared many of the same features of the N95 like integrated GPS, WiFi (802.11b/g), and 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics but it swapped out the LED flash with a Xenon flash to match the K790i's Xenon and Nokia had spent extra effort tuning the camera software for speed and quality. This instantly made the N82 Nokia's best camera phone and one of the best for night photos.


Xenon flash make photos taken in the dark look good.Xenon flash is the main thing that keeps me using the N82. Most phones these days are using dual LED flash which is a lot better than the single LEDs used back during the Nokia 6682 1MP days. But they don't come close to amount of lumens you get from Xenon. There are a few papers out on the Internet that show LED technology can potentially match Xenon for brightness but the amount of time needed to light up something to match Xenon would be a few seconds, which is too slow for action photos.

But Xenon is not the only camera strength for the N82. The photo algorithm used on the N82 for photo capture and JPEG compression goes neck and neck with the best current N-series camera phone, the N86. Images are sharp, noise is kept to a minimum, and blurring isn't used much. There's good reason why Nokia enthusiasts keep coming back for comparisons against the N82 when Nokia puts out a new camera phone.

Build Quality

After many dents, the N82 still keeps working.It has really held up well. I've dropped my N82 all over the place and on hard concrete and asphalt and the only thing that shows is the scratches and dents. It never shattered with battery or memory card popping out on any occasion I dropped it.

The N82 has not developed any new creaking since the first year and the D-pad still feels like new. The spring loaded camera lens cover feels a little less springy than last year but it could be dust getting in the way.

Dust

Dust goes into the front facing camera through the ear piece.The front facing camera has gotten about 1/4 covered with dust coming in from the ear piece. If you strongly tap your phone on one of its sides, the dust should drop to one side. The battery cover still leaks in some dust and so does the memory card cover but it hasn't gotten worst. Dust has not gotten under the display yet unlike my E71. I also haven't gotten too much dust into the 5MP camera yet so the lens cover is actually doing a great job

Software Remarks
I've only updated the firmware 3 times on my N82. My N82 is on the latest firmware V 31.0.016 as of this writing. I recall one time it crashed with Garmin running so crashes are very rare on the N82.

With the popularity of touch-based phones, the N82 operating system, S60 3rd edition, has taken a back seat to both S60 5th edition and Maemo. This means less developer focus and little software released on this platform. The multitude of phone operating systems in the market like Android, Windows Mobile, and iPhone hasn't helped S60 3rd edition either. Thankfully the software I need is already available to S60 3rd edition like:

• Office productivity - QuickOffice
• Navigation - Garmin XT/Nokia Maps
• Multimedia - Mobitubia/RealPlayer/Nokia Music
• Games - NGage (it's been discontinued but still some good games like Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil)/vBag (GameBoy Advanced emulator)/MobiPad (allows you to use your Wii controller with your N82) - I don't see why everyone is so excited by Maemo being able to play SNES games when older N95/N82 phones handled GBA games that are usually ports of SNES games.
• Browser - Nokia browser (I may need to switch to Opera as the built-in browser doesn't support all web sites or standards)

For me, the N82 has what I need for a smart phone even though it may not be the funnest phone (iPod/iPhone pun intended). But speaking of iPhone, I've been let down numerous times when I've tried to share photos with other people through Bluetooth only to find out their iPhone or Blackberry doesn't support Bluetooth OBEX (file transfer). Bluetooth OBEX has been implemented on phones since the SE T68i from 2002. iPhone 3.0 adds support to connecting to other iPhones however. Nokia definitely embraces industry standards and sharing a lot more than its competitors.


The Nokia N82 playing GameBoy Advanced games through vBag. Nseries Freescale phones could not run vBag at an acceptable framerate. It's even more fun hooking up the N82 to a TV and pairing a Wii controller to the N82 for some big screen gaming.

Unfortunately Nokia hasn't released a new firmware for the N82 since 2008 so I think Nokia has ended support for the N82.

Hardware Remarks
When the N82 was released, it was on the bleeding edge with many technologies that were just emerging. Even though the N82 is a two year old phone, it supports much of the features found on the latest smart phones like:

• 5MP camera with autofocus and macro
• integrated GPS
• WiFi (802.11b/g)
• WCDMA 3G (unfortunately only at 2100MHz for Europe/Japan and capped at 4MB/s)
• 3D graphics acceleration
• TV output
• Bluetooth
• 32GB microSDHC support
• 3D accelerometer (Motion sensor)
• MicroUSB

The only things I can think it misses are digital compass, touch screen, full QWERTY keyboard, and microUSB charging. There's no reason to look pass the N82 as a dated phone because it keeps up with the best in the market.

The N82's built-in GPS is also a lot faster at locking onto satellites than any of the Freescale powered Nokia phones that have been released. I don't have the patience to wait for GPS to warm up. And in difficult situations like New York City, the N82 could obtain a lock but Freescale powered phones like the E71 or N97 never got a lock.

One stand out feature that has kept the N82 without direct competitor is its Xenon flash.

Without Xenon, the N82 would not be the best Nokia camera phone. A bit of dust has got pass the lens cover and onto the lens.

Two main problems come from equipping a phone with Xenon flash is that the charge capacitor is large so the phone won't be thin and charging up the capacitor requires a lot of power so it kills battery life. These two drawbacks have swayed manufacturers to choose small low powered LEDs which don't produce nearly enough light in the short time it takes to capture a photos. Therefore LED flash usually produces photos with ghosting or blurring.

Photos in the dark (N97 to N82):


Dimly lit night mode with flash (N85 / N82)


Dual LED isn't even close to matching Xenon.

I little interesting fact, tummypoints.com, a restaurant review site, exclusively uses the N82 to capture their food and restaurant photos.

Battery Life
In my second year with the phone, it has been lasting me about 1.5 days with little use. With heavy camera usage, it barely lasts 3/4 of a day so I always need my car charger on road trips. If battery life gets worst I can buy a new battery unlike some other phones.

To Conclude
While a long term review of a phone might not be the most attention grabbing blog entry since everyone is excited for any N900, iPhone, or Android news, but a long term review tells you a lot about the quality of the manufacturer. Nokia spents considerable effort to ensure their phones are built to last and it shows with the N82. Nokia equips their Nseries phones with powerful features that keep their phones relevant for years. The combination of Xenon flash and great camera software make the Nokia N82 the premier camera phone with no direct competitors.

I'm looking forward to another year with my trusty N82 as my primary phone!

A little snipplet of the places I've taken my N82 in the second year:

Nokia Nseries and Eseries vs. iPhone: CPU and Battery Life

* Updated 09/09/2009 - Added iPhone 3GS, Nokia E72, N86, Nokia N900. Merged the many tables into one table.

* Updated 10/22/2008, 10/1/2008

After almost a year since the iPhone was announced and more than half a year since it was launched, the iPhone to some other phone comparisons have started to die down. So just to add some wood to the dying fire, I'm here to state:

Current Nokia smartphones can't match the general computing performance of the iPhone

CPU

Nokia N82/N95	Texas Instruments OMAP2420	330 MHz ARM1136 + 220 MHz TI TMS320C55xDSP + PowerVR MBX 2D/3D Graphics Accelerator + IVA
Nokia E71, E66, N79, N85	32bit Freescale MXC300	369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia N96	32bit STMicroelectronics Nomadik STn8815A12	264 MHz ARM926EJ-S
Apple iPhone	Samsung S5L8900	620MHz ARM1176JZF (downclocked to 412MHz)
Apple iPhone 3G	Samsung S5L8900	835MHz (downclocked to 412MHz)
Nokia N86, N97	32bit Freescale MXC300	434 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia E72	32bit Freescale MXC300	600 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia N900	Texas Instruments OMAP3430	600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 + PowerVR SGX graphics core + IVA 2+
Apple iPhone 3GS	Samsung S5PC100	600MHz ARM Cortex A8 + 100MHz PowerVR SGX 530 graphics core + VPU

Source: Semiconductor insights, Engadget, PDAdb.net
BoingBoing, iPhone 3G FCC filing

More after the jump.

From the configuration we can see that Nokia has placed a higher importance in call performance (probably from the inclusion of 3G video calling) with the use of a dedicated Digital Signal Processing (DSP) unit, namely the Texas Instruments 220 MHz TMS320C55xDSP).

Does the iPhone lag behind because it lacks a DSP?

No, not really.

In the following chart you will see the ARM1176 perform almost as good as the C55x:


Moreover you can see the ARM1136, found in the Nokia phones, perform almost as good as the ARM1176 with a similar clock speed. Too bad the iPhone packs a ARM1176 with almost double the clock speed.

Two is always better than one right? It could be if you're using both CPUs at the same time. With the flexibility of the Symbian S60 operating system on Nokia phones, you can initiate a video call while editing Microsoft Word/Excel documents in QuickOffice and seamlessly switch between them. The Apple iPhone hides the multitasking from the user and you don't have video calling so you will likely have the iPhone to your ear where you can't really do anything else simultanously. And that's when you realize 1 CPU on the iPhone is good enough if it could handle both DSP operations and general CPU usage as you rarely get to do both at the same time.

So when you're only using the general computing CPU, say for watching a video, the iPhone can process more frames and provide a snappier interface than the Nokia phones.

Battery

So here comes a drawback to the two processor set up on Nokia phones. They're power hungry compared to the iPhone since it has to power two CPUs. Even though each of them uses less power than the high clocked iPhone CPU, putting them together in a package creates a higher power usage situation since one is powering the UI while the other is handling cellular operations.

Now to add the nail to the coffin, Nokia has equipped their phones will less powerful batteries:

N95 - 950mAh
N82 - 1100mAh
N95 8GB - 1200mAh
iPhone/iPhone 3G - 1400mAh

Conclusion

The Nokia phones are equipped with a dedicated DSP CPU and a general ARM CPU while the iPhone makes due with a higher clocked general ARM CPU. The iPhone user interface doesn't emphasize the multitasking capability by hiding it from the user so a single processor design works well enough for it. Nokia equips their phones with two CPUs with one focussed on heavy DSP tasks like 3G calling while the other handles all other CPU tasks. The preferred design is based on how you use your phone. But with a more powerful battery and a single chip design, the iPhone will win in the battery life competition.

Reference:
Use a Microprocessor, a DSP, or Both?, BDti, 2007/04/04
DSP Design Line

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Update 10/1/2008
Nokia's latest S60 phones (E-series and N-series) have switched from the Texas Instrument dual core N82/N95 to a Freescale single core in the E66/E71/N79/N85. Oddly enough, a single chip design was used in the N96 like the iPhone. However, the Nokia N96 phone use an older ARMv5 instruction set architecture as opposed to the ARMv6 of the iPhone and other Nokia phones. The iPhone continues to overshadow the Nokias with a higher frequency.

Nokia E71, E66, N79, N85	32bit Freescale MXC300	369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia N96	32bit STMicroelectronics Nomadik STn8815A12	264 MHz ARM926EJ-S
Apple iPhone	Samsung S5L8900	620MHz ARM1176JZF (downclocked to 412MHz)
Apple iPhone 3G	Samsung S5L8900	835MHz (downclocked to 600MHz) ARM1176JZF + 100MHz PowerVR SGX 530 graphics core + VPU

Source: iPhone 3G FCC filing

My original article wrote about the benefits of having a CPU with DSP combination and Nokia continues this with most of their latest phones except the N96. The latest Nokia phones do not have the 3D graphics accelerator as the N82/N95. It's too bad Nokia didn't outfit all their N-series devices with 3D graphics accelerators so N-gage games can stand out from standard Java games. Nokia's switch from a dual core to a single core design and leaving out graphics acceleration will improve battery life.

Nokia continues to outfit their phones with smaller batteries:
E66 - 1000mAh
E71 - 1500mAh
N79 - 1200mAh
N85 - 1200mAh
N96 - 950mAh

It is surprising that Nokia's next flagship phone, the N96, has such a low frequency and uses a single chip design compared to other Nokia devices. Out of all the Nokia phones, only the E71 has a larger battery (1500mAh) compared to the iPhone. I think it was a bad decision for Nokia to include low powered phones (like the N73) as being N-gage compatible when they could've differentiated their N-gage games from other games if 3D hardware acceleration was part of the N-gage platform.

Source:
MXC300-30: 3G Single Core Modem Platform
ARM1136JF-S - ARM Processor
ARM926EJ-S - ARM Processor
ARM1176JZ(F)-S - ARM Processor

---

Update 10/22/2008 notes: Revised clock speed for iPhone 3G, mentioned downclocking for iPhone, revised to refer to 3D hardware acceleration

Additional note: The Nokia N96 does support DSP and hardware video acceleration for 2D/3D with its STn8815A12 chipset. Read more at STMicroelectronics. Oddly enough, the JBenchmark scores for the N96 in the 3D category do not come close to the N82/N95 which feature a separate chip for 3D acceleration. The benchmarks more closely resemble the N85 that does not have 3D hardware acceleration.

Source: Mobile88, Mobile Arsenal

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Update 09/09/2009
It's been almost a year since I updated this posting and things have only slightly changed with Nokia putting out Nseries and Eseries devices with a higher clock speed. Apple, not to let any competitor catch up, gave the iPhone 3GS a thorough updating with the new ARM Cortex A8.

Nokia N86, N97	32bit Freescale MXC300	434 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia E72	32bit Freescale MXC300	600 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia N900	Texas Instruments OMAP3430	600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 + PowerVR SGX graphics core + IVA 2+
Apple iPhone 3GS	Samsung S5PC100	600MHz ARM Cortex A8 + 100MHz PowerVR SGX 530 graphics core + VPU

Source: PDADB.net, Nokia N900

As I had suspected, the 32bit Freescale MXC300 used by Nokia in their Nseries and Eseries phones for the last year and a half had more capability than Nokia was using which explains the jump from 369MHz to 600MHz.

Since this post is about CPU to battery life I decided to look up the battery life of the Nokia E71 and E72 because they both use the same Freescale solution and same battery but the E72 uses a higher clock frequency.

Phone	E71	E72
Battery	BP-4L 1500 mAh	BP-4L 1500 mAh
Talk (GSM/WCDMA)	10h 30min/4h 30min	12h 30min/5h 42min
Standby (GSM/WCDMA)	17 days/20 days	20 days/24 days

Source: Nokia E71 Specifications, Nokia E72 Specifications

Very oddly, even though the E72 has a higher clock speed and same battery as the E71, the E72 has a much better life so there is much more to battery life than just CPU and battery capacity. Influences could be better firmware and hardware design.

Unfortunately, 600Mhz is the upper limit to the Freescale solution so Nokia had better find a better solution to keep up with their high-end competitors. I suspect Nokia will continue to use the Freescale solutions in their mid-tier devices, for its good balance of speed and battery life, well into 2011.

This is where Nokia's latest smartphone, the N900, comes in. The N900 discards the pathetic Freescale solutions and returns to the more powerful Texas Instrument solutions to provide the necessary speed to run today's applications and rich multimedia. This extra power puts it inline to compete with Apple's iPhone 3GS. If you don't believe me about how pathetic the Freescale solution is, try comparing the playability of Vampent vBagX on a E71 to the older N95.

The Nokia N900 will be a very exciting product for Nokia. I'm hoping to see a performance comparison between the N900 and the iPhone 3GS to see which will take the crown as the most powerful consumer smart phone.

Nokia N82: A Year in Review

Looking and functioning like new after one year of use and taking over 3200 photos

It was a year ago I bought my Nokia N82 to replace my dated Sony Ericsson W810i. The N82 had big shoes to fill because my W810i had served me well for almost a year and I took over 3600 photos with it. I loved the W810i 3.2MP camera but I felt really constrained with a non-Smartphone. I had tried the Nokia N95 but the slider felt cheap and I was very worried about scratching the exposed LCD. But I loved the 5MP camera, having WiFi to avoid data costs, and the S60 OS' flexibility. When the N82 was announced I knew I had to get the phone. It was everything the N95 was but in a more manageable size and candy bar format.

Although the N82 wasn't a North American (NAM) phone since it only had 2100 3G band, I couldn't wait for a NAM version - turns out I made the right decision since Nokia never released one. I was going to visit Japan that month so having 2100 3G would be useful there since they didn't support GSM. Plus, data costs in Canada were ridiculously expensive at the time (7MB for $40, 200MB for $100) so I wouldn't use NAM 3G even if I had it.

Build Quality

The D-pad still feels squishy and I still don't like the chicklet number keysIn my initial review, I mentioned the build quality of the N82 was solid. As with everything that age, like the floorboards of a house, it developed creaks. When I pinch the phone by the sides I can hear the slight creek. Pinching the phone by the top and bottom doesn't creek. The D-pad still makes a squishy sound like plastic ribbons touching each other. The initial looseness of the D-pad gave me the impression that it could just fall off from the rest of the keypad but that hasn't happened yet. I've dropped my phone a few times including one big drop and sliding along a few feet of pavement - that scratched up the back and sides but nothing really bad and the cream colored rear make hide scratches pretty well. The spring loaded camera shutter still has its spring. For the most part, the N82 works like it did a year ago. Amazing job Nokia!

Dust

Most dust gets under the battery coverThe left soft key has become softer to push than the right soft key. Dust has got into the front viewing camera. If I tap my phone hard enough I can move the dust around. Slight dust gets into the memory card slot. Dust gets into the battery compartment too. The exposed micro USB slot didn't accumulate as much dust as I'd imagine. That goes for the top ear piece. My old Sony Ericsson T616 had a big ear piece dust problem that once in a while I'd blast really loud music out of it so the sound pushes out the dust. I also haven't gotten too much dust into the 5MP camera yet so the shutter is actually doing a great job. The most important thing: thankfully dust hasn't gotten into the main display yet. I had a problem with dust getting under the screen on my Nokia 6682.

Software/Hardware Remarks
I've only updated the firmware twice on my N82. My N82 is still on V 20.0.062 as of this writing since I haven't run into any major problems with this firmware. My N82 has gone through the occasional crash and reboots that accompanies any technology. I want to remember the last time it crashed but I can't remember when so that's a good thing or I have a bad memory. The N82 did suffer a major hardware/software problem on one of my vacations where I took a lot of photos during the day and the Xenon flash stopped recharging. I'm not sure everyone notices this but every time you go back to the viewfinder the camera will charge the Xenon flash. Meaning that every time you start the camera or exit the menu in the camera application, it will charge the Xenon flash so that's why taking photos quickly kills your battery. Now when my Xenon flash stopped recharging the camera wouldn't show the viewfinder anymore, stopped allowing me to take photos, and just showed a black screen. I thought my N82's camera was a goner. My N82 was a EURO version so I wasn't looking forward to mailing it to Europe for servicing. Thankfully it started working again after avoiding the camera for a day. Since then the Xenon hasn't been a problem with just occasionally taken a little long to recharge between uses.


The multimedia key placement makes it easy to confuse as the capture keyUsability, I hated that multimedia key beside the camera button and I continue to hate it. But I don't hate it enough to keep running MagicKey in the background to remap that key. Surprisingly, not a lot of people accidentally hit the multimedia when I ask them to help take a photo of myself. But people who take our photos aren't accustomed to having auto focus on a camera phone so our photos usually come out unfocussed.

I really like the support for micro USB. It's a lot less fragile than the old pop port connector since the old CA-53 data cable had a hook on it.

I'd have to admit, I never used uPnP on my N82 before. I just don't have any other devices that support it.

The S60 web browser was really phenomenal when it came out. But it hasn't kept pace against competitors. It has fairly slow page rendering times and disappointing scores on the web compliance acid3 test.

[Updated 12/15/2008 11:03am] Battery Life
I totally forgot to mention the battery life! After a full year my BP-6MT is still keeping my N82 alive from 1.5 - 2 days. It wasn't a strong point in my initial review but at least it's not getting worst.

Life Changing

The 5MP takes amazing photos in the daylight and Xenon helps it take amazing photos in the darkThe 5MP auto focus camera has produced some impressive shots for me. It's much more convenient than taking a dedicated camera with me. I've taken over 3200 photos with my N82. At first I had troubles getting the photos settings just right for evening dinner shots without Xenon. Most of them turned out too dark or blurry. I needed my N82 to take indoor photos with little light since I review restaurants in my food blog. I wasn't fond of the large auto focus box since I was used to the small box and easier to focus W810i. But I got accustomed to it, which really meant I would give auto focus a number of tries before I gave up.

The GPS function that I just played around with on the N95 has become the killer feature for me. I am dependent on it for driving directions on all my trips. When I'm in an unfamiliar place and in a taxi/limo, I use it to make sure they're going the right way and not scamming me by going in circles. When I'm in the car, I've found parking lots and alternative routes that have saved me countless hours and money. Sometimes it's as simple as saving your car location in a huge parking lot before walking away so you can find your car later when it's dark. I would never consider buying another primary phone without GPS.

Speaking of saving money, it's obvious that built-in WiFi (802.11g) has saved me money by getting data to my phone without going over EDGE or 3G cell networks. It's also a lot faster than EDGE. I took advantage of WiFi when I was in Japan to check my e-mail without needing to carry my laptop. On a daily basis I use it to stream YouTube using MobiTube.

The N82 is still in my Life

Nokia E71 for e-mails and web browsing. Nokia N82 for everything elseMy N82 is still my primary phone for the most part. But I recently received a Nokia E71 as a birthday present and it has taken much of the spotlight for multimedia since its landscape orientation doesn't require me to rotate the phone and the full keyboard is a lot more convenient to type in URLs. I got the E71 primarily for synchronizing my e-mail with my company's exchange server. The security policies on the Exchange server prevent Mail for Exchange to work on any Nokia phone outside their E-series. I still rely on the N82 as my GPS because it locks onto satellites a lot faster and camera since its 5MP and Xenon can't be matched. I bought my N82 a year ago for $599 USD and never regretted paying a premium for it. It is a powerful phone with all the currently sought after features. That is impressive for a phone that was released over a year ago. If my N82 broke I would definitely pick up another N82 to replace it. The only question is which color? :)

A little snipplet of the places I've taken my N82:

Vampent vBagX Review: Gameboy Advance on your S60

http://www.vampent.com

While Nokia is trying to build creditibility to their N-gage mobile gaming platform, much of the portable gaming market was and continues to be held by dedicated gaming systems like Nintendo's DS and Sony's PSP. Just the number of top rate games available on one of these systems far outweigh all the games available on the S60. One way to quickly increase the number of top quality titles is bringing it onto the S60 through emulation.

The power of S60 phones have dramatically increased in the past few months and software like vBag make emulation of yesterday's dedicated portable gaming systems like the hugely popular Nintendo Gameboy Advance possible. With vBag your phone can play any number of games from the GBA's huge library of portable games. Imagine classic like Super Mario Advance 2, Super Mario Kart, and the Legend of Zelda on your phone:


It may sound impressive so find out if the claims are true that you can really get the GBA experience on your S60 phone by following the jump to read the full review...

For this post I will be reviewing vBagX x1.20 S60v3 on the most common Nokia S60 architectures:

Architecture	Details	Phones
32bit Freescale MXC300	369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP	E63, E66, E71, N78, N79, N81, N85
Texas Instruments OMAP2420	330 MHz ARM1136 + 220 MHz TI TMS320C55xDSP + PowerVR MBX 2D/3D Graphics Accelerator + IVA	N82, N95

I don't have all of these phones so I'll be testing on both a N82 and a E71 to cover both of these architectures on vBag 's performance. A SanDisk 8GB microSDHC class 4 on the N82 and a Nokia 2GB microSD on the E71 memory card were used during this review. vBag was installed on the memory card in both cases because all GBA ROMS (.gba) must be placed in \Data\Others\vBag\

Graphics
vBagX gives you the option to use Bitmap (software rendered) or Direct (hardware rendered) but Direct has never worked for me on either the N82, E71, or even other Vampent products on my 6682.

From my experiences, the E71 renders games exactly as they are on the GBA but some games do run into issues with sprites not appearing in the right spot (see compatibility).

Super Mario Kart Advance runs smoothly with all image layers on the Nokia N82

vBagX comfortably handles the portrait layout found on most S60 phones like the N82 and the landscape layout like the E71. It can also handle screen rotations but the rotation must be done before starting a game otherwise the rotation will cause a screen problem. You can also manually change the screen orientation under Graph > Size (you can rotate the screen 90 degrees left or right, keep it at original reolution or expand to fill the screen).

You do encounter some frame drops here and there even on the higher powered N82/N95. The E71 is more choppy. You can adjust how much frames (0-9) you're OK with vBagX skipping to keep a consistent game speed.

Sounds
vBagX supports full stereo audio on the GBA. However there is a very very minor lag in audio on the N82 but the audio was very out of sync on the E71 by about 0.5 seconds.

Performance
This is highly dependent on the model and firmware of your phone.

My E71 encountered choppy frame rate and lagged audio. There was no way I could play Street Fighter II the same way as I did on a GBA.

I didn't experience any of the lag with the dual core architecture of the N82. But there were a few dropped frames here and there in high speed games like Super Mario Kart. It was very playable but not as smooth as playing on a real Gameboy Advance.

Compatibility
There is currently a running thread of compatible games on Vampent's forum. Here is a list of games I've tested and played:
Super Mario Kart
Super Mario Advance 4 (Super Mario 3)
Super Mario Advance 2 (Super Mario World)
Contra Advance (Contra 3)
The Legend of Zelda - The Minish Cup
Final Fantasy Advance Tactics
Mario Pinball Land
Super Street Fighter II

All of them worked for me running on compatibilty mode 1. That's the scary but powerful thing. Vampent thought to add a compatibilty setting that goes from 1 to 3 (where 3 is slowest but closest compatibility with GBA) in vBagX so some games work in one setting but not others.

The single core architecture used in the Nokia E71 lends itself better to RPG games like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

Phone keypads for gaming
You're playing games designed for the GBA's keypad. First off you're losing out on the left (L) and right (R) buttons at the top of the GBA since no S60 phone features these. Secondly, the ring D-pad of most S60 phones don't lend themselves well to diagonal (ie. left-right) presses. Similar to the keyboard on computers, a certain combination of simulataneous key presses can register an error on the phone and thus ignoring the key press. It's annoying when you have to hold one key while tapping another like flying in Super Mario Advance 4.

If you can get past all those physical limitations, vBagX allows you to map any GBA key to almost any phone key. Unfortunately only the volume up/down media keys are currently supported for N95/N96.

I've frequently referred to vBag, vNes, or vBoy under the keypad sections in my reviews as these games were designed for the highly comfortable, high quality, and dedicated to gaming keypad of the Nintendo Gameboy Advance. More often than not, the keypads of a phone aren't built with gaming in mind so button placement is compromised and button quality isn't high on the priority of phone manufacturers. If you plan to game a lot on the road then I highly recommend bringing along a Wii-mote and downloading Mobipad so you can use the better Wii-mote controller for gaming.

Playing GBA games with a Wii-mote paired to your S60 phone via Bluetooth is a lot more enjoyable and comfortable

Overall
vBagX delivers high quality gaming to the S60 platform by giving users access to Gameboy Advance's library of games. Most of my Gameboy Advance games ran fine on vBag with an acceptable framerate, little to no graphical errors, and mostly synchronized audio playback. Since most games require quick reflexes and timing, you need to get either a N82 or any flavor of the N95 to fully enjoy vBagX. I highly recommend downloading the trial vBagX to your phone to test before purchasing it to ensure it runs your favorite games smoothly and you're confortable with the keypad on your phone. If you do decide to purchase vBagX, Vampent offers lifetime upgrades of the vBagX product and I've heard their customer service is really good.

Software rating: Highly Recommend

Which uses more power? WiFi or 3G?

I had that same question on my mind after Ziostilon posted that question on HowardForums. Fellow HoFo member jessi3k3 showed that WiFi consumes a little more energy than EDGE. Another HoFo member, RogerPodacter, brought up some good points to suggest that WiFi should consume less power than 3G because the cell towers are further away and it'd require more energy to move the same amount of data in longer distances. But an argument against that is WiFi was developed without mobile devices in mind so power consumption wasn't of the highest concern which is why Bluetooth was developed and that 3G is designed with mobile devices in mind so it should be optimized for limited power consumption.

So we ran Nokia Internet Radio at 128kbps and used Nokia Energy Profiler just to see for ourselves what really consumed more power...

802.11G with WPA-PSK (WiFi):

Test #1


Test #3

AT&T 3G:

Test #2


Test #4

From my test with Nokia Energy Profiler, it shows that 3G does consume more power than WiFi in streaming the 128kbps.

This is how I tested (so you can try it too):
I'm using the same Nokia E71-2 running firmware 100.07.76 for all the tests. I used a Linksys WRT54G with 802.11G WPA-PSK. According to this map of AT&T's 3G network from this summer, I'm in the blue area so I have strong 3G support. I wish I knew where the tower is so I could write a better post.

Software used:
Nokia Energy Profiler 1.1 (1-May-08)
Nokia Internet Radio 1.06 (or get it through Download! on your device)
Screenshot for Symbian OS (S60) 3.01 (just to take those pretty screenshots)

1. Open Energy Profiler
2. Turn on Internet Radio
3. Options > Settings
4. Set access point (if you change this value, you need to restart Internet Radio for the change to take effect)
5. Set all the bitrate to Best Quality (128kbps)
6. Choose a radio station and wait for it to finish buffering
7. Go to Energy Profiler and click Options > Start

I alternated tests between WiFi and 3G (which is why the screenshots go from Test 1, 3, 2, 4) to rule out the case that earlier runs might produce more favorable results than later tests and tested each connection more than once because one test is never enough.

This test really changed my perception that WiFi is a power hog. Even with the burden of WPA-PSK, WiFi consumed less power for me. HoFo member oddsocks gives a pretty good explanation on why 3G consumes just by the specs. I guess this explains why Steve Jobs of Apple added WiFi to the iPhone and complained about 3G chipsets not being ready for mobile devices.

Going beyond games with TV-out: Doing a Business Presentation

A useful yet not widely exploited feature of the Nokia N82 and N95 is the TV out functionality through the Nokia AV. You may have read about the impressiveness of connecting your phone to your TV to play some ngage games like Fifa 2008 but what else can you do with it? How about something productive, say give a presentation!

Wouldn't it be great to not need to lug around a 4+ pound laptop?


Most projectors offer the VGA input and the RCA input. Luckily some of Nokia's latest smartphones include Nokia's A/V plug offering RCA video and audio output. Before we go further, I'd like to mention that I found this set up to work best with simple presentations (no animation or embedded objects). As well, it's important to give this set up a couple tries before using it in an actual business presentation and I highly recommend bringing your laptop as a back up. We're pushing the S60 smartphone to the limits so there's bound to be technical glitches.

So let's get started with putting our presentation. What you'll need:

Hardware
N82/N95 (you'll need it for the TV out and faster processor)
Nokia Video Connectivity Cable (CA-75U)
Nintendo Wii controller

Software
Quickoffice 4.5.14.8+
mobiPad 1.0

Creating and Editing Presentations

It's best to start with a presentation template. Since I'm doing a business presentation, most companies already have a standard template available. Upload it to your phone and start editing it with QuickOffice. This is also gives you a great way to make those last minute quick changes to your slides.

With Quickoffice you can:
Insert images, textbox, and tables


For each of these elements you can perform the following:
- move
- resize
- resize evenly
- Rotate (only text and images and at any angle)
- Flip (only text and images)
- reorder
- properties
Color: fill color, line color, dash style, line weight
Position: Horizonal position, Vertical position, Width, Height, Tech anchor point

You also have the ability to change the order of slides and insert new slides.

Remote Control
Once you have your presentation complete and ready we should set up your wireless control. To set up the Nintendo Wii controller to control your phone while you're standing, turn on Bluetooth, open mobiPad, and click the red button under the battery cover on the Wii controller to sync the Wii controller with your phone. Once connected you will get a connected message.


Displaying the Presentation
We want to turn on screen rotation on the N82 so we can display it in landscape while on the N95 you can open the Media keys.
Go to Settings > General > Personalisation > Display > Rotate screen > Automatic


Now to open up the presentation in Quickoffice and click Options > Full Screen.


Connect the N82/N95 to the projector via the Nokia TV out cables (CA-75U).

Presto! You're ready to give a presentation with your phone while navigating your slides wirelessly.

Large text and simple shapes displayed well:


Displayed on the N82 screen


Displayed by the project

Small details don't show up so well:


Displayed on the N82 screen


Displayed by the projector

Conclusion
Creating my presentation on my N82 felt very cramped because of the low resolution and the limited movement with a d-pad. The lower resolution of the phone output was unacceptable so I had to resort back to a laptop for my actual presentation. For this instance the N82 couldn't do what I wanted but if I had bigger text and images I would consider giving my N82 another try at giving a presentation.

Here is what I found while putting together my presentation with my N82. Let me know if you've found anything else to add to this list:

Advantages:
Bluetooth remote to control your presentation
Look high tech giving a presentation
The N82/N92 have just enough power to move through each slide smoothly

Disadvantages
Not all Nokia phones support TV-out (not even the E-series phones support it)
The 320x240 pixel display makes TV-out look blocky. Avoid small graphics and text on presentations.
Powerpoint editing on S60 is not yet mature with limited functionality
Editing documents on the small display is frustrating
Does not support embedded objects

Nokia N82 Wins TIPA 2008 "Best Mobile Imaging Device in Europe" Award

We all knew the Nokia N82 was one of the best camera phones available on the market and now it's been seconded by Europe's largest photo and imaging press association, Technical Image Press Association (TIPA).



The Nokia N82 features a 5MP CMOS with a highspeed f/2.8 autofocus Carl Zeiss Tessar lens. To aid in night photos, the N82 is equipped with the brightest camera xenon flash. Although there are a number of other 5MP phones available on the market such as the Sony Ericsson K850 and LG KU990 Viewty, the N82 arguably wins in noise suppression and colour rendering. With the latest firmware (V 20.0.062), you can even geotag your photos.

You can find my review of the Nokia N82 here.

TIPA was founded in 1991 as an independent, non-profit association of European photo and imaging magazines. At present, TIPA includes 31 member magazines from twelve countries.

Source: Yahoo

Nokia N95, N82 Turn Off Camera Sound

Since there are a number of people out on the web searching for turning off camera sound or shutter sound, I thought I'd post an entry on how to do it.

First try changing your phone to silent mode. Try taking a photo with the camera. If that didn't work then your phone's regional firmware probably doesn't allow silencing or disabling the camera sound so you'll need to read below.

Note: I do not endorse this but if this makes you happier with your Nokia S60 then it's worth it.

Warning: This involves updating your phone firmware so it's a risky procedure. Updating your phone is at your own risk.

Pre-requisite:
- Installed Nokia Suite Software that came with your phone
- Installed European Nokia Software Updater
- Phone
- Nokia USB Cable

First Part: Changing the product code on your S60 phone

Warning: This first part voids your Nokia warranty

Update 10/06/2008: 1.0.38.14 fixes a bug that prevented NSS from comunicating with the new Nokia Connectivity Cable driver
Download Nemesis Service Suite Beta 1.0.38.12 1.0.38.14 from B-pheaks (NSS103812.exe, 6,629,190 bytes) (NSS103814.exe, 6,514,081 bytes)

Note: Updating Nokia Software Updater will override your USB drivers and prevent NSS from properly reading your Nokia phone. I would suggest using the European Nokia Software Updater 1.4.23. - fixed in NSS 1.0.38.14

1. Install NSS and restart computer


2. Connect your phone to the computer via USB cable and set to PC Suite mode.


3. Open nss software click on magnifying glass in top right.
   
   
   
   


4. Click phone info and scan your phone just to make sure its connected
   


5. To the right, click read to bring up your product data.
   


6. Write down your product code.


7. Change the product code one for EURO 1, 2, or 3 (see here for a listing of product codes for your S60 phone, I use EURO 3 - N82 RM-313 = 0551521) and check enable box then click on write.


8. You must reset the phone in NSS software. Click on tools tab then factory settings tab.
   
   


9. Check the full factory circle and click reset.


10. Restart your phone (I don't think this step is necessary but let's do it just in case)

Second Part: Update Phone Firmware

1. Update your phone as you normally do and remember never to turn off your computer or phone. And remember it's normal for the phone to blink a couple times. Don't do anything to it and don't run anything on your computer at the same time.

That's it! Try out your camera now.

I would suggest changing your phone's product code back to the original value using the first part of this, just in case.