Comments welcome if you've also tried to compare any of these contenders!

N82 is a disaster in photo quality. Now, after a couple of months after launching, I am happy for not throwing away 500 € on it. The presence of xenon is the single advantage over my old N73 because the 5MP resolution is totally fake. I can create the same 5MP photos with similar results starting from 3MP resolution and then digitally resizing on my PC.

I will wait just 2-3 months and if Nokia won't launch a real camera phone to beat the INNOV8 I will abandon media creation and join the dark side of multimedia consumer and communicator devices. I mean, HTC Touch HD...

Ah, I see the comments are still going wayward ;)

I posted that the 6220C would have been a good unit to test with, since its FP2, and rumoured to have a few tweaks.

Steve, I think the differences between your N82 shots and N95 shots are way to big. I find them much smaller. I did notice with the N95 that occasionally took lower quality images and video (compression wise). Background mail checks or needing a reboot to free extra memory seemed often the source. Perhaps the N82 has a similar problem? Was it in need of a reboot? I'll see if I can post some example pictures tonite.

No, I made sure I was comparing like with like. The N82 was on latest v30 firmware, on an empty device with nothing else installed or running.

Hi Steve... that was an excellent comparison. Would request if you can kindly do a comparison of the music player audio/sound quality of some the current high end phones like N82/N96/5320/I8510/I450/N95 8gb/N78 etc.

@Anindya: No, sorry, we've been round this loop. And my 47 year old ears aren't sensitive enough to tell the difference anyway!!

...and in non-smartphone news, Eldar at Mobile-Review.com has said that the upcoming SonyEricsson C905 can NOT beat the i8510 on camera quality.

So, arguably, the i8510 is THE best camera phone on the market!

I wounder if there are sometimes slight variations between each phone, i have seen tests between the n95 and n82 and some tests have the n82 as having better colours and some have the n95 being better

I hope so. I just ordered one. Should be here tmw :)

excellent post, steve! video-quality comparison between those models would also be quite interesting :)

Thanks for the comparison. Couple of things:

1.) It would be nice to see the 6220 Classic included, given it'll sell much more than the N82 (presumably) - but, is it fair to say the cameras on those two are basically the same in terms of picture and video quality?

2.) I saw a 6220 Classic review elsewhere that said the video on it was clearly upscaled, probably from 320 X 240, when the specs state that it should be recording in 640 X 480 (and yes I know about the different quality settings). It showed screen shots that showed straight diagonal lines (for example) on the 6220C video were much more blocky/jaggy than those on the N82, when the recording res is supposed to be the same.

Can anyone confirm that the 6220C does definitely record at 640 X 480, 30FPS and is not secretly upscaling?

Steve,

I know your article focuses on the image quality but I think it is worth a mention that the camera interface of the Samsung phones is way ahead of the simple, childish looking interface on the Nokia's. When I had my i8510 I felt like I was actually using a digital camera and not a phone. Nokia have fallen well behind other manufacturers with the camera interface and still have some work to do on noise reduction, maybe as well as Carl Zeiss they need to strike up a partnership with a camera manufacturer to bridge the gap.

But still falling short though - every single image on this review showed shortcomings.

So it is good to be the best of a bad bunch ;) (Yah, I'm trolling!)

It's been talked about in the past but I wonder if there is just too much compression used in Nokia's 5MPs camera phones. Image sizes vary from 500k to 1.5MB (mostly at the lower end of this scale). Perhaps that's why we get what you describe as "mushy" effect.

Innov8 Images vary from 2-3MB with much less compression.

Quote: So, arguably, the i8510 is THE best camera phone on the market!

____________________



Or put more accurately, the i8510 has the best phone camera on the market.

Steve,

is there any chance you could take the exact same shots (with the same conditions) with a 5MP digital camera? That would be a good indication on good (or bad) the cameras on phones really are.

I was not sure about that but I took a video sample with it (with a sample device in a supermarket) that I transfered with bluetooth on my phone and IT IS upscaled.

I tried to convert the video to 320x240 no differences in diagonals which were aliased. But it was this summer maybe now the firmware change that I don't know

(I setted the camera on the highest setting)

I bought a N82 because of that and I am happy with it :)


edit : I posted the video so you can see yourself in a rar file with a sample picture too, about 3mb http://www.megaupload.com/en/?d=NTPG6RHH, give me your advice

The N96 and N95 have different camera hardware. N96 has a smaller camera lens and shorter focal length. And why N73 was not included among the these phones? As far as I know N73 produces pictures with better quality than N93 because it also has larger camera lens than N93.

Steve, Is the camera of N95-8GB exactly the same as that of N95?

If the camera hardware is really the same between the N95 and N82, I find the difference hard to explain. Are the file sizes different? Actually, coulnd't Nokia easily change the compression quality in a firmware update for phones like the N95 and N82, now that storage is so cheap?
On that note (slightly off-topic now), what about initial focus for videos? That is not really a hardware related feature is it?

On video quality, my N82 performs really well....until I use the zoom option! The result is terrible. On my 6290 I never noticed such a large drop in quality. I always assumed digital zooming would work better for video than for still pictures, because the resolution is far below the capabilities of the sensor.
Or is it just my phone? I don't remember ever having read something about this.

I must agree - I would actually say that the N73 is a better camera than the N95. Maybe the images don't stand up to zooming in because of the resolution, but to me they just have something about them that th N95 couldn't live up to.

not doubting the credentials of innov8. Excellent camera phone and i have my eyes set on it when it is launched in india!
However, my point is, we buy a phone NOT ONLY for its camera credentials. But what ALL you can do with it. What all functions are present in your phone and how much of them are actually of use to you. I have n 82 and i do take lots of pics with it. Since my folks are not that technically sound, they have never complained about the pic quality and actually speaking, when i take a print out, it is very well detailed.
But i also use it for gps, internet, music, e mailing on profimail, and host of other activities. My HOLISTIC experience with my phone has been phenomenal and thats why, i did not feel the need to upgrade to n96 when it was launched.
But then, i do realise, covering them all in one post can be a tough ask.

First of all many thanks for your effort ! i would like to say that when we take a foto with our mobile devices we don't crop to the max. resoultion to see the details we view them on the pc full screen at max. and print with the known lenghts !!! I can see that they are all perfects didn't like your winner ino8** somethin! as it clearly takes different colors than normal and than the rest! i.e its fake colors ! second most of our shots are takin nighty at discos bars resturants so we need a descent flash and the n82 pictures of ur cute kids is clearly showing its muscles so i know and we know we all go to the perfect xenon n82!!!!!!!

IMHO, there's no way cameras mounted on phones can beat a dedicated camera. So I would have liked Nokia to just take away the camera in all their E-series phones and make them slimmer, lighter, or with a larger capacity battery.