As part of the invitation to spend a morning with the Nokia N8 (ok, quite a lot of N8s - in various colours and states of readiness) on Monday, I grabbed Damian Dinning, Nokia's imaging supremo, to chat about the device and specifically its media capture capabilities. See below for the video interview and accompanying notes - there are several interesting points which I hadn't appreciated before.
Read on in the full article.
Comments now fixed on this story, apologies for the original problems.
Ah - I was wondering why NOONE had commented!! 8-)
I'm beginning to see the N8 as primarily a media capture phone. Advanced (for a phone) still and video camera and sound recording along with onboard editing. Nothing else that has been revealed really stands out like those features.
The widgeting will also be very good, but the phone seems to be steered toward that media function.
Rafe wrote:Comments now fixed on this story, apologies for the original problems.
Can anyone tell me difference between Gorilla glass and reinforced one? What does mean "new AMOLED", anyone care to explain, in particular comparing to N86. How far pinch-to-zoom goes on image, 100% zoom, more? How much can you zoom-in that way?
Cheers,
Miki
miki69: know how to google???No seriously you should not need to ask...:icon14:🙄
My main question is about the capacitive screen...
Comments please, from those who wish to use this in environments where you are wearing gloves!!!!
Getting a call while you are 'washing up' , skiing, in medicine, etc....
Also accuracy of the touchscreen, for us guys who have 'thumbs for fingers!!!' :frown:
comnut wrote:miki69: know how to google???No seriously you should not need to ask...:icon14:🙄
Cheers,
Miki
The cameras on Nokia phones have been o.k ,an the N82 one of there best with the xenon flash,but Nokia let down the N86 camera mobile phone with the Small Screen an Weak Speakers on it,an also the buggy software on it,i had Three Nokia N86s in a week an all went faulty with the Keypad freezing an buggy software,Nokia as got to gets its Software more advanced before they can really get themselves back on Track,an seems so odd that a Top Mobile producer as lost it touch in the Top Smartphone market an did not take the Pressure from Apple more serious an now struggling itself
🙄🙄🙄🙄 I WISH peeps would be more specific!!!! you ask about the basic screen technology, that has **nothing** to do with any way how it is attached, or enclosed (the same as asking 'how is RGB better in new TVs'😉..
The only way is to ask nokia, or wait until it is out..
Unregistered wrote:The cameras on Nokia phones have been o.k ,an the N82 one of there best with the xenon flash,but Nokia let down the N86 camera mobile phone with the Small Screen an Weak Speakers on it,an also the buggy software on it,i had Three Nokia N86s in a week an all went faulty with the Keypad freezing an buggy software,Nokia as got to gets its Software more advanced before they can really get themselves back on Track,an seems so odd that a Top Mobile producer as lost it touch in the Top Smartphone market an did not take the Pressure from Apple more serious an now struggling itself
Well there's an original post. That's just what the internet needs, somebody with something new and different to say.
Unregistered wrote:The cameras on Nokia phones have been o.k ,an the N82 one of there best with the xenon flash,but Nokia let down the N86 camera mobile phone with the Small Screen an Weak Speakers on it,an also the buggy software on it,i had Three Nokia N86s in a week an all went faulty with the Keypad freezing an buggy software,Nokia as got to gets its Software more advanced before they can really get themselves back on Track,an seems so odd that a Top Mobile producer as lost it touch in the Top Smartphone market an did not take the Pressure from Apple more serious an now struggling itself
@comnut: my question was directed to those who actually have device and know about it (like Damian, Rafe maybe..). Didn't get that "peeps" part though....
Cheers,
Miki
Let's try and cover a few of these.
Display, it's much brighter than the display in N86, what else do you want/need to know? You'll need to try it for yourself to better understand this, no degree of explanation on my part can articulate the actual performance.
Re 2.8" display in N86, would have made it larger, wider and longer. We wanted to keep the compact size of the N86.
Same challenges with speakers. They're the sam as used in many Nseries handsets, but the cavity (air space) that the speaker driver sits in has the biggest effect. The more air space you provide the bigger the device, simple as that. As said we wanted to maintain the compact dimensions and therefore this was a trade-off. In the N8 we use a larger more powerful speaker but a single unit. It's also driven by a mini power amplifier to get the most we can from it in the space available.
Re inch to zoom. To clarify, in the camera the pinch gesture is used to switch between 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios in stills and in video it's used to switch between 16:9 720p HD video and 4:3 VGA video.
There is a double tap gesture to allow you to rapidly zoom from one end of the zoom range to the other. Pinch to zoom is used when viewing photos in the photos application.
atb
D
Thanks Damian, I was referring to your previous comment about N8 screen being more suitable for outdoor use comparing to N86, so my question was if there are some other imrpovements (eg. Super Amoled) or simple "brighter" settings makes it better for outdoor use..
Also about front cover (glass) is it same as in N86, reinforced/scratch resistant one? Don't know the difference to Gorilla glass.
Re pinch zoom, thanks for clarifying this
EDIT: 
Outdoor use is definitely better with N8, but (at least in this particular image) Samsung screen looks better.
Cheers,
Miki
Good work Miki!
N8 hands-on new (french):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuWVK81xB50&feature=player_embedded
at 4:10 phone becomes unresponsive for few secs :frown:
One can say not final SW yet, but looks kinda "already seen" before.
Cheers,
Miki
miki69 wrote:N8 hands-on new (french):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuWVK81xB50&feature=player_embeddedat 4:10 phone becomes unresponsive for few secs :frown:
One can say not final SW yet, but looks kinda "already seen" before.
Cheers,
Miki
It looked to me like it didn't respond to the touch, and the guy had to touch again.
'peeps' is ESL english for 'friendly people'...😃
'gorilla glass' is meant to be unscratchable, totally shatter proof - believe it when I see it...
miki69 wrote:N8 hands-on new (french):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuWVK81xB50&feature=player_embeddedat 4:10 phone becomes unresponsive for few secs :frown:
One can say not final SW yet, but looks kinda "already seen" before.
Cheers,
Miki
It's like in all symbian phones since 3rd edition, he opened the applications folder for the first time so it is loading content inside... If he opened the folder again it would be faster. But I still can't understand why can't they just use some method to solve this, maybe like in 2nd edition symbian phones where all subfolders were loaded the first time menu was opened. Or the best solution, to do this app listing while phone is booting up, it would lenghten the powering up time, but at least people wouldn't think the phone is "unresponsive".
Or I may be totally wrong about this, and it really is a bug 😃
Guys I would really urge you not to speculate on the various demos coming out from last weeks events. I appreciate that continuing to state that this is proto sw etc etc may seem like hiding behind a blanket disclaimer but this really is work in progress and the various teams are working very hard right now to make the N8 work really well for when it starts shipping. At which point you'll be able to measure the real performance against your own expectations, needs and desires and make your own minds up whether the N8 fits those.
atb D.
fair comment.... and please lookup old reviews of the 'before release' 5800, a very rough phone then, now very nice and mature... 😊
Well, I don't know if you recall lukpot's comment supported with screenshots about N86 gallery issue, having thumbnails reloaded every time after zoom-in/ autorotation, and those thumbs being pixelated or blank for some time... it was quite bad experience. For time being I can only speak of N86 performance, and even with latest v30 this doesn't seem to be fully solved as changing orientation in Gallery, while browsing images, completely breaks thumbs structure, followed with hangs... something I'll have to inspect closely before getting N8, as this is quite annoying to me, especially for imaging device.
Cheers,
Miki
N8 night shots 😊
Still proto FW
Link:
http://www.blog-n8.fr/actualites/des-photos-prises-par-le-nokia-n8-de-nuit-01132/
Cheers,
Miki
This is the first time I've seen the sensor size mentioned. 1/1.83 inches. That seems to be typical of a good compact. Sounds great.
But 12 megapixels from that looks odd to me. I've heard it mentioned that 8 megapixels is about the limit, and above that the image deteriorates.
This web page even argues that the limit is 6, but it seems to be from 2008, so have sensors got better since then?
The Canon PowerShot G11 is perhaps the best compact cameras, and Canon decreased the megapixels from the G10 from 14.7 to 10. (Both have a sensor size of 1/1.7, so a little bigger than the N8.)