Slave!
I have visit SonyEricsson (SE) at CeBIT, yesterday. Well, SE looks great
with all their nifty devices they offer. But, they are not as professional as I
wanted to seem them. Too much make-up. If you want to ask a more technical
question, then you have problems in finding someone who knows about it.
So, there a only a few thing I can tell.
The MemoryStick DUO (>=128MB):
The 128MB version is out in Asia and the US. For Europe the 128MB version
is "somewhat delayed", because of another run of 64MB MemoryStick DUOs
in Europe. There are a lot of people in Europe willing to buy the 64MB DUO
version, they told me. This is a political decision of Sony. Another question
was about the roadmap of the DUO (<= 1GB). Well, it is "likely" to see a 256MB
DUO to the end of the year. But having a 1GB DUO in the next 1� years is
very unlikely. The problem comes from the design of the DUO itself. Yes, the
DUO is small, but also only "single layered" compared to other MemorySticks,
like the PRO one. At CeBIT, I have only seen 64MB DUOs in action.
About the firmware update:
We will see the update in April. And I was told, that an increase in picture
quality (due to the update), for the camera, is a rumor! DAMN!
About the P800 itself:
Question to SE: Why is the contrast of the display not adjustable?
Answer: Isn't it?
2nd Answer: Is there any problem?
HAHA...
Most of the guy's from SE, at CeBIT, doesn't even recognize this problem.
They use the phone as it is.
Another question was about the maximum quality of the camera. Currently,
it is not possible to get the most out of it. And this is only a software issue!
Well, the problem (in my mind) is that all the pictures from the camera are always
jepg-compressed. Without compression the picture quality could be improved in
order of magnitudes. For example; If you have a picture (a scene) which
vary a lot in colors between neighboring pixels, then the jpeg-compression
algorithm isn't able to do much work on the picture. Hence, you get a much
better quality!
In general, if you use 'high' quality at 640x480 (on the P800), then the
average size of a picture is about 70KB. Now, if you take a picture of a
scene of many different colors you can get a picture of about 120KB in size.
The quality of such a picture is, at least, twice as good as in general.
The maximum storage size of a picture in 640x480 at 24bpp is 900KB, with
no compression at all. Better pictures are possible with the P800, if we would
have an option not to store pictures in jpeg, or, at least, have an option to
turn off compression for jpeg! This would result in a tremendous increase in
picture quality. Of course, your pictures also increase in storage size.
It would be very nice to have an option to adjust the compression ratio!
The three pre-defined options on the P800 are 'high', 'medium' and 'low'.
Why not have an option 'user defined'???
This is what I have explained to SE. There was only one (more technical)
guy (at CeBIT) from SE who could give me a "meaningful" answer. He has
said; "...you're right.". Then I've asked him if this would be changed in the
next update. Answer: "No". 😞
Well, I have my own explanation for this reason.
If you read the papers (esp. the white papers) of the P800, then you will
recognize, if it comes to the 'Integrated CommuniCam' (see: P800 WhitePaper,
January 2003, page 9), that the storage capacity is about 200 pictures at high
quality VGA (12MB of free memory). This implies that the average size of a
jpeg-compressed picture is about 60KB, in this setting. Now, if we could alter
the compression ratio (for increasing picture quality), the statement of
'approx. 200 pictures' would somewhat be overstated. If you could adjust the
compression to, say, 300KB on the average, then only 40 pictures are
possible (within 12MB of free memory). Now imagine yourself making an
advertisement, for the P800, to the public. It makes a big difference to say
"approx. 200 pictures" or "approx. 40 pictures".
Summary: Currently, we do not see the cam at its full potential! This sucks!
We could have a better picture quality by only adding a "zero" to the P800.
Hence, it would cost nothing to do this.
Any suggestion?
cu,
m i s s i l e
PS: Sorry for my poor english.