Nokia 808 PureView In the House : Initial Impressions !

Well, time is here where the wait is over, since February ! I've finally got my Nokia 808 PureView which for me, is the latest and the gratest True "old" Nokia, by that i mean it's probably the last iteration of what Nokia "was to be" and somewhat it's the Gap between that and what Nokia "will be" (New Nokia)...So the "old generation" Nokia Fan are gonna like it and probably have it, let me remind you just a few things :

The Nokia 808 PureView is a Nokia Belle Feature Pack 1 phone featuring few tweaks on UI with boosted performance running at 1.3Ghz CPU and 512 MB of RAM (for a Symbian this is Good, or even very good i'd say, anyway it's smooth "enough" on every operation and task).

- The phone features a 41 MP camera sensor with PureView Pro imaging technology with powerful Xenon flash, LED video light and 1080p Full HD video recording with 30Fps and up to 4x lossless zoom.  (Continuous Auto Focus and Touch Focus were been added to the menu too, it was time Nokia !)

- It is also the world’s first device to include Nokia Rich Recording, which combines a unique digital microphone technology and Nokia algorithms to record distortion-free stereo audio at levels of up to 140 dB.

- 4" AMOLED ClearBlack display and 2.5 D curved Corning® Gorilla® Glass

- Active Noise Cancellation 

- Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Headphone for playback

- NFC for easy sharing and pairing (and Secure NFC)

- HDMI micro

- Bluetooth 3.0

- DLNA Certification and UPnP

- USB OTG 1.3

- FM Transmitter

Plus other classical features we find on every high end Nokia device since the N95...yeah even  and the Stereo FM RDS Radio

So you got it, it's the most feature rich Nokia to date ! Tell me about a Nokia user that won't like that ! Not me anyway...

Anyway while waiting to publish my Head To Head vs Apple iPhone 4s, Nokia N8, N82 and eventually the N9, lets look at this beautiful (but Big and Heavy "169g") structure :

I got the white one because for me the black is lifeless and the bezel around the optic doesn't match with the "All Black" concept...

-> What i didn't like tough, and i should mention that on a more detailed take is that :

- The gallery application was heavily dumped ! For eg you can't multiple mark/select pictures for share/delete ,Long press should give more options other than tag, such as delete, mark...

- There's no 2mm charger connector, anymore...and USB charger is taking more time, especially with the 1400mA battery...ah, also, there's no "led charging" indicator so i have to check regularly to see if the device is charged yet or not...

- The events notification LED isn't bright and visually designed as on the N8...

- What i didn't like also is there's no Micro HDMI adapter, so the N8's one (mini HDMI) won't be compatible...

- It feels really big and heavy, every device you hold after playing with the 808 for 2 minutes will look much "handy", "sexier" and "thin" !! (N9, iPhone or event the N8).

- Also, the camera user interface while including some more advanced settings, is very complicated, to illustrate this situation :

--> I take my iPhone 4s, fire the camera On, take the picture, done ! It does it all ! with a single touch ! (Autofocus in macro mode mainly) !

--> with the 808, good luck to even get a proper closeup shot ! (don't worry, as you know, i have an N8, N9 among others and i know what i'm talking about) I was really upset when this happened yesterday, it's true that there's an automatic mode, even better, a scene mode, even geeky and advanced creative mode, but seriously, couldn't we do it in an easier way?

An example of the stunning DoF on a Macro Mode (after 6 tries, grrr) in pureview mode :

And a (max)Zoomed example of initial shot in pureview mode :

And Guess what ! The N8 is ashamed when it comes to the level of the details, an example? Why Not but Stay tuned the time i play with the device a little more ! ;)


Ps : This Preview was done by the iPhone 4s ;)

[Head To Head] Samsung Galaxy S II vs N8 Pictures Shots !

I don't know why i did this, but i was curious about how the best Android device on the planet will perform against the king of camera phones on the planet, namely (respectively), the Samsung Galaxy S2 and the one year old Nokia N8 !

Note : As usual i kept all settings on their default state, just pick the phone, point, shoot and upload !

So, enjoy the show ! Samsung Galaxy S2 followed by the Nokia N8

  Exposition time : 1/867sec, ISO : 40  

  Exposition time : 1/206sec, ISO : 105  

Well, i didn't know the sky was white, thanks Samsung for teaching me that ! Seriously, the Samsung has some issues to manage the exposition of the background, plus the color are more vivid but not necessarily naturals, this is the job of the N8, especially if we look at the right side on the palm tree, plus with the N8, there is no huge issue to tell that the background (sky) is actually blue ^^ however i must say that the results of the GS2 are more sharp (but don't be easily fooled as you'll see later on this test)

  Exposition time : 1/699sec, ISO : 40  

  Exposition time : 1/127sec, ISO : 100  

The same conclusion as above and i must say that this is the situation when all cameras fails and shows how good the exposition is tweaked for complex situations like this ^^

  Exposition time : 1/113sec, ISO : 64  

  Exposition time : 1/100sec, ISO : 113  

Now, you may say that results are the same between the two examples, i'll say yes and no, despite natural rendering on the N8, it manages brilliantly the low light condition seen on the left side of the picture, thanks to its large sensor, on the other side, the GS2 did a good job too ^^

But what if we crop the picture at 1:1 (100%)? Ha !!

Have i really to comment on that one? ;)

Exposition time : 1/100sec, ISO : 80

  Exposition time : 1/149sec, ISO : 105  

Not only great exposition of the foreground and the background, but also a great depth of field ! Of course i'm talking about the N8 !

  Exposition time : 1/33sec, ISO : 100  

  Exposition time : 1/50sec, ISO : 120  

What's really happened on that one? Ask Samsung engineers !

And what about flash on short distances?

  Exposition time : 1/20sec, ISO : 125  

  Exposition time : 1/50sec, ISO : 200  

The same results ! Samsung love to overexpose the rendering !

For distances further than 3-4 meters i'll let the Nokia N73 from 2006 handle that, better for everyone, right? ;)

Note : portrait pictures are disastrous, it loves make people faces reddish for some reasons... !

Bonus :

I have deliberatly set up the GS2 quality to "excellent/sharp" and let the N8 on medium sharpness settings,

also i've enabled "auto contrast" setting on the GS2 but all normal on the N8, let's see results :

Well, no success either, those are just artificial settings...

Ah i almost forget about close-up scenes :

With flash !

With maximum zoom we have something like this :

 

Yep, the N8 isn't really a great performer by default (im talking about shoot distance here) unless you use the intelligent zoom

But as you see, even if the GS2 results are more or less (artificially) sharp, but the N8 provide a great DoF and when flash is activated it manages the light brilliantly !

Last but not least, on maximum zoom on close up mode, the picture rendered by the N8 is still very exploitable when the result of the GS2 is just a kids toy...

So, all in all, the N8 does it all and does it amazingly, if we play with settings, you'll swear that's not coming from a "phone" !

Conclusion : I respect Samsung very much for their PIXON 12, and the OMNIA HD (i had both) but i can't say the same about this GS2, even (the much debated EDoF) model from Nokia can blow it and every mobile (All android models, All WP models at least) out of the water easily, you can see yourself how C7 and X7 perform against the N8 ;)