The fundamental design of the Apple iPhone has not changed since its release. It is a rectangular touch screen with a single physical button below, a handful of tiny buttons and data port scattered around the edges, a camera lens on the back, a headphone jack on top and that's that. Since its release, virtually every manufacturer has adopted the same essential design for their entire product range.
Nokia fought hard against that trend. Its first competitor against the iPhone was the N95. That was everything that the iPhone was not. No touch screen. Numeric physical keyboard. Slider form factor! Fat. Media transport controls. 5MP camera with flash. GPS. Card slot. 3G. Infrared port.
The N95 was announced a few months before the iPhone so it was not strictly a reaction to it. However, it was released after the iPhone had been announced and it looked like a defiant finger raised towards Apple. It had all the technology that the iPhone lacked and not a single concession to the quantum leap in user friendliness that the iPhone had taken.
Over the next 6 years, the iPhone ground remorselessly on through 5 iterations. The essential form factor and layout of controls and ports has barely changed once.
During that time, Nokia threw a range of different ideas at the market. The first follow up to the N95 was the N82, an old-fashioned candy bar phone but lighter than the iPhone and with the first xenon flash on a cameraphone. The N96 was a variation on the N95 theme but added DVB-H TV.
Apple either did not notice or simply refused to play the Nokia game. The iPhone 3g stayed with the 2MP camera, did not offer flash and could not shoot video. It added 3g but moved to a plastic construction that was utterly non-descript.
It took nearly a year for Nokia to come back with its answer: the twin flagship offering of the N86 and N97. The N82 was firmly in the N95 bloodline with an 8MP camera, loaded with multimedia options and resolutely no touch screen. The N97 had a slide out QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen. It was like nothing else on the market.
The iPhone 3GS bumped up the camera to 3.15MP. Not only did Apple not care about matching the 8MP of Nokia's flagship cameraphone, it was not even going to bother with the 5MP which had become standard on all of Nokia's mid-range phones.
Nearly a year after the release of the 3GS, Nokia released the Nokia N8. In my opinion the most well-rounded phone Nokia ever made, it was Nokia's first credible attempt at an all touch phone. It had a bewildering array of technology: USB to go; HDMI; DLNA; two charging methods. Physically, it may not have been everyone's idea of beauty but there was nothing remotely like it made by anyone. It said "OK we will do an all touch phone - but we will do it our way." It was built like a cold war submarine.
The iPhone 4 was announced and released (Apple having done away with the huge gaps between announcements and release that Nokia seemed to like) between the announcement and release of the N8. It represented the only significant change in the iPhone's form by the introduction of camera like metal detailing around the edge and glass back and front. It introduced the first 5MP camera to an iPhone, arguably the first serious camera on an iPhone.
Nokia took a year to respond with the N9, a solid virtually unbroken losenge of bright colour. This was a massive rejection of Apple's black glass and metal design ethos. It was universally recognised as a gorgeous design.
Straight after the N9 Apple launched the iPhone 4S, finally lifting the iPhone to the 8MP level and introducing Siri but otherwise making no significant changes.
The Lumia 800 that followed the iPhone 4S was not Nokia at its innovative best: it was essentially a re-run of the N9. Soon after, however, Nokia delivered what we now know was its last truly individualist product, the Pureview 808. The 808 said "Nyet!" to everything that went before. It was big and bulbous with no precursors. No hint of the iPhone's rectangles but not a follow up to the N8 or N9 either.
We now know that there was nothing really new to come from Nokia after the 808. All of its flagships since then have been variants on the N9.
Now that Nokia has been absorbed into Microsoft we can be fairly sure that really interesting form factors will not be coming out of Nokia again. Thanks Nokia for what has been.
Monday, 21 October 2013
The King is Dead; Long live the King!
I have been toying with getting a new smartphone and/or a new camera for months. My preference was to get a Nokia, with an Apple iPhone being my next favourite.
I love Nokia phones but I have had a long standing gripe against Nokia's treatment of the Symbian platform, even while it was still properly supported. Nokia would introduce brilliant technologies in their phones, then drop them in subsequent iterations.
My N86 had an app called Home Sharing. Home Sharing was a full-blown DLNA program. By full-blown I mean that it could be a server, a controller and a player. I could play media from my N86 on my DLNA TV. I could play music from my Windows Media PC on my N86. I could use an app on my 4th gen iPod Touch 64GB to play songs via the FM transmitter on my N86. When the N8 was released, it was plainly the successor flagshop to the N86. Its specs listed DLNA so I thought, being the later model, it will have an updated version of Home Sharing. Nope. Nothing. Eventually, DLNA Play To was released for the N8 which permitted playing media from the N8 on a DLNA player (eg TV) but all the other DLNA functionality was gone.
The first release of Symbian ^3 on the N8 (and maybe also Symbian Anna) had a WebDAV client built in. This permitted mapping web based storage to a drive letter on the N8. This could be Dropbox or even a local drive. That was gone when Belle was released.
The first release of Symbian ^3 on the N8 listed Pictbridge as one of its technologies. I have a portable Polaroid Pogo printer. This can print photos transmitted to it by Bluetooth or by a USB cable from a Pictbridge enabled device. Pictbridge is preferable because it is faster and less battery consuming. Yep, Pictbridge was removed from the N8 when Belle was introduced.
Still, even with Nokia's apparently deliberate program of successively deleting worthwhile features, the Nokia N8 with Belle installed remained my cameraphone for nearly three years. The main reasons for that were its superior camera (for a phone) its USB on the go implementation and its HDMI port. I could tolerate its clunky interface for the convenience of always being able to take a good photo and always being able to play digitally just about any media you care to name stored on just about any storage medium you care to name to just about any audio or video device yout care to name (but most days, music in flac files from a 1TB portable hard drive via HDMI to my car stereo via a hacked in SPDIF jack).
I looked closely at each new Nokia flagship release after the N8 to see if it could viably replace enough of its features to warrant the upgrade. The N9 did not cut it. Much lower resolution camera. No USB to go. No HDMI. No card slot. It did at least come with a 64GB version and (reportedly) TV-out via the 3.5 inch socket.
I was sorely tempted by the Pureview 808 but my concern was that its pixel binning implementation favoured an 8MP photo and reports suggested that given the right circumstances, the Nokia N8 would produce a better quality image. Also, the size and design of the 808 was a real turn off. Over time, I kind of regret not buying the 808 as soon as it came out. There is a really vibrant enthusiastic user community devoted to getting the most out of the 808 and some really top-notch photos have been taken using them. Near its theoretical end of life, there is now a hack to have it "bin down" to a 12MP image rather than 8MP.
The Lumia 800 and 900 had nothing for me. No USB to go, a mere 16GB of storage and no card slot. Much lower resolution camera. No HDMI.
The Lumia 920 introduced Pureview Phase 2, being optical image stabilisation but at what cost! 185g for a smartphone and still only 32GB of storage with no expansion. The Lumia 820 at least had a card slot but only the 8MP camera with no OIS.
The Lumia 928 and 925 at least addressed the size issue of the 920 but nothing else and the 925 had only the measly 16GB of storage again.
I had looked at all the Android options. It seems that probably all of the fancy technologies that I love in the N8 are available on Android, although I have not been able to confirm 100% that I can get HDMI output at the same time as having a hard drive connected. However, despite the vast array of options, the key truth seems to be that Android cameraphones have small sensors with small pixels that do not seriously compete with even the N8. Even Samsung's Galaxy Zoom with its comparatively massive optical zoom produces ordinary photos.
Before the 1020 was officially launched, GSMArena's specs listed it as having USB to go. This would have made it the first Windows Phone to have USB to go. I had high hopes. If it had USB to go, I would at least have a shot at playing my music digitally.
I have always had a bit of an affair with iOS. I had the first iPhone for about 2 weeks but ditched it because there was no Exchange implementation at the time. I then had an iPod touch 4th gen which I used for web browsing and internet enabled apps like Flipboard, which were not the N8's forte, to put it mildly. I also flirted with using the iPod as a phone by connecting it to a VOIP service via a Huawei 4g broadband modem, which worked surprisingly well. Also, at some point (which I have not been able to pin down), the 30-pin to HDMI adapter became available, which allowed digital output of media (music and video) via HDMI. Previously, getting digital music out of an iOS device was an expensive process requiring absurdly expensive products like the Wadia transport. With the HDMI adapter you can play music via HDMI and with a relatively inexpensive audio de-embedder (or use an expensive one if you prefer) get SPDIF digital sound playing.
When it was rumoured that the next iPhone might have a 12MP camera and come in a 128GB version I started to sit up and take notice. 128GB would go close to being a replacement for being able to attach a hard drive. A 12MP camera coupled with Apple's superior software would likely provide a camera with excellent image quality.
Also, the announcement by Sony of its two "lens cameras" raised the possibility of beefing up the camera side on an as needs basis.
So, for a brief halcyon gadget lovers fantasy period I was in a delirium of expectation. A 41MP Nokia with USB to go! Woot! An iPhone with 128GB, 12MP camera and an ancillary fallback of a real camera in a lens. Woot!
Nope. All of those options turned to ash in rapid succession.
First, once it was official, it became apparent that the only thing that the 1020 adds to the 920/925/928 mix is the Pureview Phase 1. The general consensus amongst reviewers is that the 1020 is a better rounded cameraphone than the Pureview 808, primarily because of the introduction of OIS but the Pureview 808, in the right circumstances, has better overall image quality. But on the 1020, no USB to go, no card slot, no HDMI, not even TV-out via the headphone. There is a 64GB version if you are Telefonica/O2 customer but whether you can unlock that for Australian use is not clear.
Second, the iPhone 5S had neither of the rumoured features, no 12MP camera and no 128GB version. Sure, the sensor is a beefed up size and from all reports it sounds like it is another big improvement but it is not the special cameraphone I have been looking for. Also, it is resolutely only iOS 7 and there is no jailbreak in sight for that so printing to the Pogo printer will be out.
Thirdly, reviews of the Sony lens cameras have started rolling in and they are a problematic solution. It seems you cannot save in RAW. You have only limited control over the shooting options via the smartphone. There is no flash and it does not utilise any existing flash on your smartphone. While nominally smaller, they seem bulkier than the "proper" cameras that they are based upon.
Finally, Microsoft bought Nokia. That pretty much dashed any hope that by some miracle Nokia would find a way through firmware updates to enable some miraculously hidden extra hardware features in the Lumia 1020.
With the flagship launch cycle for Nokia and Apple spent for now, any new developments are going to be a while away.
At the end of September I was about to go on a week's holiday in Sydney. When my family travel, we rely heavily on the internet for just in time planning. We travel around on public transport and choose our next activity based on research done during the next bus ride. This approach is partly dictated by the moods and stamina of the youngest member of our little gang, a four and a half year old. However, it is also partly because we can. That means we hammer the public transport apps and Google maps. I have barely got away with the Symbian versions on the Nokia N8 for our last few trips: given my wife's allegiance to her iPhone, I was copping it for being "the guy who did not buy IBM".
All of this crystallised in a decision just before we left: time for the N8 to retire as a phone. Since there is no acceptable cameraphone replacement, I decided to get the latest model of what is virtually universally reviewed as the best compact camera, the Sony RX100 II. I also collected from the general manager of my employer the spare iPhone 4 that has been sliding around in her bottom drawer for a couple of years.
The combo is a good one. The iPhone 4, despite its age, is a far better smartphone than the N8. It is easier to use and more reliable. It can do an OK photo but nothing you would want to print. It can control the RX100 II and copy photos from it wirelessly. The RX100 II is an excellent camera. It is a camera, with no concessions or compromises that I can see to its role of being a camera. For virtually all of our trip I kept the camera in my hand, attached by wrist strap and shot away with the same abandon as I used with the N8.
I only very rarely missed using the N8. That was when I had the iPhone in my hand to check our next move and a photo opportunity arose and I could not just shoot it with the iPhone like I would have with the N8. Still, the hugely improved image quality on the RX100 more than makes up for that.
For a phone in retirement, the N8 was kept very busy. I had an odd variety of SD cards kicking around and I seemed to fill them up very quickly on the RX100. I had to do a fair bit of shunting of image data around to free up space for more shots and to make sure that past photos were not lost. The N8 was very handy on the go (yes, indeed). I used a cheap SD card to micro SD adapter to copy old photos on to the N8's 16GB internal storage and then back onto a 64GB micro SD card I have. I copied a stack of photos on to my 1TB portable hard drive. It took a while but eventually I cleaned up the 64GB card sufficiently to put it in an adapter and into the RX100 II where it works just fine.
Now that the holiday is over, the N8 is still serving as my music player in the car, shuffling happily away at the same 1TB hard drive. My iPhone 4 is jailbroken. Because it is on iOS 6.1.3, the jailbreak is tethered which means that if I need to reboot it for any reason I need to reconnect it to a computer to make the jailbreak work again. That carries with it the risk that it will go into a reboot loop, and that is what happened once. I needed to make a call so the N8 was hauled into service as an IP phone using the same Huawei modem as I had used with my iPod.
I still regard the Nokia N8 as the king of cameraphones. For various reasons mine has retired from full time use as a phone. However, the amazing versatility of its other uses means that it is likely to be in use for at least months to come.
There is still a slim chance I will buy a Nokia 1020. If the 64GB version is confirmed as being able to be unlocked and if a Windows Phone app to control the RX100 II becomes available that may be anough to get it.
The final postscript to this little tale is that about two weeks after I bought my RX100 II, Panasonic announced its new compact camera the DMC-GM1. The specs say it is lighter than the RX100 II, has a larger sensor and has interchangeable lenses. It looks like the new king of compact cameras. I had wondered whether the weight spec is given sans lens, in which case, in practice it would be significantly heavier than the RX100 II. However, according to Panasonic's official specs, the weight of 274g includes the standard lens, so even with lens it is lighter than the RX100 II. It is smaller too, in every dimension except depth, where with the standard lens it is about 20mm bigger than the RX100 II. Other than that, on paper it seems like it will really give the RX100 II a run for its money because its micro four thirds sensor is significantly bigger than the RX100 II's one inch sensor. I cannot wait to see the hands on reviews and then I will have to think carefully about a quick on-sale of the RX100 II.
I love Nokia phones but I have had a long standing gripe against Nokia's treatment of the Symbian platform, even while it was still properly supported. Nokia would introduce brilliant technologies in their phones, then drop them in subsequent iterations.
My N86 had an app called Home Sharing. Home Sharing was a full-blown DLNA program. By full-blown I mean that it could be a server, a controller and a player. I could play media from my N86 on my DLNA TV. I could play music from my Windows Media PC on my N86. I could use an app on my 4th gen iPod Touch 64GB to play songs via the FM transmitter on my N86. When the N8 was released, it was plainly the successor flagshop to the N86. Its specs listed DLNA so I thought, being the later model, it will have an updated version of Home Sharing. Nope. Nothing. Eventually, DLNA Play To was released for the N8 which permitted playing media from the N8 on a DLNA player (eg TV) but all the other DLNA functionality was gone.
The first release of Symbian ^3 on the N8 (and maybe also Symbian Anna) had a WebDAV client built in. This permitted mapping web based storage to a drive letter on the N8. This could be Dropbox or even a local drive. That was gone when Belle was released.
The first release of Symbian ^3 on the N8 listed Pictbridge as one of its technologies. I have a portable Polaroid Pogo printer. This can print photos transmitted to it by Bluetooth or by a USB cable from a Pictbridge enabled device. Pictbridge is preferable because it is faster and less battery consuming. Yep, Pictbridge was removed from the N8 when Belle was introduced.
Still, even with Nokia's apparently deliberate program of successively deleting worthwhile features, the Nokia N8 with Belle installed remained my cameraphone for nearly three years. The main reasons for that were its superior camera (for a phone) its USB on the go implementation and its HDMI port. I could tolerate its clunky interface for the convenience of always being able to take a good photo and always being able to play digitally just about any media you care to name stored on just about any storage medium you care to name to just about any audio or video device yout care to name (but most days, music in flac files from a 1TB portable hard drive via HDMI to my car stereo via a hacked in SPDIF jack).
I looked closely at each new Nokia flagship release after the N8 to see if it could viably replace enough of its features to warrant the upgrade. The N9 did not cut it. Much lower resolution camera. No USB to go. No HDMI. No card slot. It did at least come with a 64GB version and (reportedly) TV-out via the 3.5 inch socket.
I was sorely tempted by the Pureview 808 but my concern was that its pixel binning implementation favoured an 8MP photo and reports suggested that given the right circumstances, the Nokia N8 would produce a better quality image. Also, the size and design of the 808 was a real turn off. Over time, I kind of regret not buying the 808 as soon as it came out. There is a really vibrant enthusiastic user community devoted to getting the most out of the 808 and some really top-notch photos have been taken using them. Near its theoretical end of life, there is now a hack to have it "bin down" to a 12MP image rather than 8MP.
The Lumia 800 and 900 had nothing for me. No USB to go, a mere 16GB of storage and no card slot. Much lower resolution camera. No HDMI.
The Lumia 920 introduced Pureview Phase 2, being optical image stabilisation but at what cost! 185g for a smartphone and still only 32GB of storage with no expansion. The Lumia 820 at least had a card slot but only the 8MP camera with no OIS.
The Lumia 928 and 925 at least addressed the size issue of the 920 but nothing else and the 925 had only the measly 16GB of storage again.
I had looked at all the Android options. It seems that probably all of the fancy technologies that I love in the N8 are available on Android, although I have not been able to confirm 100% that I can get HDMI output at the same time as having a hard drive connected. However, despite the vast array of options, the key truth seems to be that Android cameraphones have small sensors with small pixels that do not seriously compete with even the N8. Even Samsung's Galaxy Zoom with its comparatively massive optical zoom produces ordinary photos.
Before the 1020 was officially launched, GSMArena's specs listed it as having USB to go. This would have made it the first Windows Phone to have USB to go. I had high hopes. If it had USB to go, I would at least have a shot at playing my music digitally.
I have always had a bit of an affair with iOS. I had the first iPhone for about 2 weeks but ditched it because there was no Exchange implementation at the time. I then had an iPod touch 4th gen which I used for web browsing and internet enabled apps like Flipboard, which were not the N8's forte, to put it mildly. I also flirted with using the iPod as a phone by connecting it to a VOIP service via a Huawei 4g broadband modem, which worked surprisingly well. Also, at some point (which I have not been able to pin down), the 30-pin to HDMI adapter became available, which allowed digital output of media (music and video) via HDMI. Previously, getting digital music out of an iOS device was an expensive process requiring absurdly expensive products like the Wadia transport. With the HDMI adapter you can play music via HDMI and with a relatively inexpensive audio de-embedder (or use an expensive one if you prefer) get SPDIF digital sound playing.
When it was rumoured that the next iPhone might have a 12MP camera and come in a 128GB version I started to sit up and take notice. 128GB would go close to being a replacement for being able to attach a hard drive. A 12MP camera coupled with Apple's superior software would likely provide a camera with excellent image quality.
Also, the announcement by Sony of its two "lens cameras" raised the possibility of beefing up the camera side on an as needs basis.
So, for a brief halcyon gadget lovers fantasy period I was in a delirium of expectation. A 41MP Nokia with USB to go! Woot! An iPhone with 128GB, 12MP camera and an ancillary fallback of a real camera in a lens. Woot!
Nope. All of those options turned to ash in rapid succession.
First, once it was official, it became apparent that the only thing that the 1020 adds to the 920/925/928 mix is the Pureview Phase 1. The general consensus amongst reviewers is that the 1020 is a better rounded cameraphone than the Pureview 808, primarily because of the introduction of OIS but the Pureview 808, in the right circumstances, has better overall image quality. But on the 1020, no USB to go, no card slot, no HDMI, not even TV-out via the headphone. There is a 64GB version if you are Telefonica/O2 customer but whether you can unlock that for Australian use is not clear.
Second, the iPhone 5S had neither of the rumoured features, no 12MP camera and no 128GB version. Sure, the sensor is a beefed up size and from all reports it sounds like it is another big improvement but it is not the special cameraphone I have been looking for. Also, it is resolutely only iOS 7 and there is no jailbreak in sight for that so printing to the Pogo printer will be out.
Thirdly, reviews of the Sony lens cameras have started rolling in and they are a problematic solution. It seems you cannot save in RAW. You have only limited control over the shooting options via the smartphone. There is no flash and it does not utilise any existing flash on your smartphone. While nominally smaller, they seem bulkier than the "proper" cameras that they are based upon.
Finally, Microsoft bought Nokia. That pretty much dashed any hope that by some miracle Nokia would find a way through firmware updates to enable some miraculously hidden extra hardware features in the Lumia 1020.
With the flagship launch cycle for Nokia and Apple spent for now, any new developments are going to be a while away.
At the end of September I was about to go on a week's holiday in Sydney. When my family travel, we rely heavily on the internet for just in time planning. We travel around on public transport and choose our next activity based on research done during the next bus ride. This approach is partly dictated by the moods and stamina of the youngest member of our little gang, a four and a half year old. However, it is also partly because we can. That means we hammer the public transport apps and Google maps. I have barely got away with the Symbian versions on the Nokia N8 for our last few trips: given my wife's allegiance to her iPhone, I was copping it for being "the guy who did not buy IBM".
All of this crystallised in a decision just before we left: time for the N8 to retire as a phone. Since there is no acceptable cameraphone replacement, I decided to get the latest model of what is virtually universally reviewed as the best compact camera, the Sony RX100 II. I also collected from the general manager of my employer the spare iPhone 4 that has been sliding around in her bottom drawer for a couple of years.
The combo is a good one. The iPhone 4, despite its age, is a far better smartphone than the N8. It is easier to use and more reliable. It can do an OK photo but nothing you would want to print. It can control the RX100 II and copy photos from it wirelessly. The RX100 II is an excellent camera. It is a camera, with no concessions or compromises that I can see to its role of being a camera. For virtually all of our trip I kept the camera in my hand, attached by wrist strap and shot away with the same abandon as I used with the N8.
I only very rarely missed using the N8. That was when I had the iPhone in my hand to check our next move and a photo opportunity arose and I could not just shoot it with the iPhone like I would have with the N8. Still, the hugely improved image quality on the RX100 more than makes up for that.
For a phone in retirement, the N8 was kept very busy. I had an odd variety of SD cards kicking around and I seemed to fill them up very quickly on the RX100. I had to do a fair bit of shunting of image data around to free up space for more shots and to make sure that past photos were not lost. The N8 was very handy on the go (yes, indeed). I used a cheap SD card to micro SD adapter to copy old photos on to the N8's 16GB internal storage and then back onto a 64GB micro SD card I have. I copied a stack of photos on to my 1TB portable hard drive. It took a while but eventually I cleaned up the 64GB card sufficiently to put it in an adapter and into the RX100 II where it works just fine.
Now that the holiday is over, the N8 is still serving as my music player in the car, shuffling happily away at the same 1TB hard drive. My iPhone 4 is jailbroken. Because it is on iOS 6.1.3, the jailbreak is tethered which means that if I need to reboot it for any reason I need to reconnect it to a computer to make the jailbreak work again. That carries with it the risk that it will go into a reboot loop, and that is what happened once. I needed to make a call so the N8 was hauled into service as an IP phone using the same Huawei modem as I had used with my iPod.
I still regard the Nokia N8 as the king of cameraphones. For various reasons mine has retired from full time use as a phone. However, the amazing versatility of its other uses means that it is likely to be in use for at least months to come.
There is still a slim chance I will buy a Nokia 1020. If the 64GB version is confirmed as being able to be unlocked and if a Windows Phone app to control the RX100 II becomes available that may be anough to get it.
The final postscript to this little tale is that about two weeks after I bought my RX100 II, Panasonic announced its new compact camera the DMC-GM1. The specs say it is lighter than the RX100 II, has a larger sensor and has interchangeable lenses. It looks like the new king of compact cameras. I had wondered whether the weight spec is given sans lens, in which case, in practice it would be significantly heavier than the RX100 II. However, according to Panasonic's official specs, the weight of 274g includes the standard lens, so even with lens it is lighter than the RX100 II. It is smaller too, in every dimension except depth, where with the standard lens it is about 20mm bigger than the RX100 II. Other than that, on paper it seems like it will really give the RX100 II a run for its money because its micro four thirds sensor is significantly bigger than the RX100 II's one inch sensor. I cannot wait to see the hands on reviews and then I will have to think carefully about a quick on-sale of the RX100 II.
Monday, 26 August 2013
Sony Xperia Z1's sensor size beats pack but not leaders
The Sony Xperia Z1, previously known as the Honami, is reported to have a 1/2.3" sensor with a total of 20MP.
It seems it will have larger pixels than the current crop of 13MP Androids but if it is serious about being a better cameraphone those are not its competitors. By my calculation (using the formulae from my earlier post on sensor sizes) the Xperia Z1 will have pixels that are 65 millionths of an inch high and wide. That means it will have way smaller pixels than any of:
Sensor size and pixel size is not everything in any camera, let alone a cameraphone. Nor is megapixels. Apple's iPhone, which has consistently trailed the pack in megapixel count and has had the standard sized sensor of the time, has always consistently been ranked as a top, if not the top, performer for image quality. That is a tribute to Apple's system and software design.
So, the fact that Sony's new camera flagship may not have the numbers to suggest a great cameraphone does not mean it will not be a great cameraphone. However, years ago, Sony Ericsson was first to market with a 12MP cameraphone, the Idou/Satio. The Satio was physically a gorgeous phone. The slide to open lens protector looked and felt the business.
The photos did not live up to the promise and I sold mine on within two weeks of purchase. By contrast, my Nokia N8, now well into its third year of use, keeps producing good photos (and keeps playing music from a 1TB portable hard drive in my car).
I hope the Z1 will be the cameraphone that we have hoped for from Sony for years but I am not optimistic.
It seems it will have larger pixels than the current crop of 13MP Androids but if it is serious about being a better cameraphone those are not its competitors. By my calculation (using the formulae from my earlier post on sensor sizes) the Xperia Z1 will have pixels that are 65 millionths of an inch high and wide. That means it will have way smaller pixels than any of:
- Nokia N8 [109]
- HTC One [108]
- Nokia Pureview 808 [93]
- Nokia Lumia 920/928/925 [77]
- Nokia Lumia 1020 [75]
- Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom [75].
Sensor size and pixel size is not everything in any camera, let alone a cameraphone. Nor is megapixels. Apple's iPhone, which has consistently trailed the pack in megapixel count and has had the standard sized sensor of the time, has always consistently been ranked as a top, if not the top, performer for image quality. That is a tribute to Apple's system and software design.
So, the fact that Sony's new camera flagship may not have the numbers to suggest a great cameraphone does not mean it will not be a great cameraphone. However, years ago, Sony Ericsson was first to market with a 12MP cameraphone, the Idou/Satio. The Satio was physically a gorgeous phone. The slide to open lens protector looked and felt the business.
The photos did not live up to the promise and I sold mine on within two weeks of purchase. By contrast, my Nokia N8, now well into its third year of use, keeps producing good photos (and keeps playing music from a 1TB portable hard drive in my car).
I hope the Z1 will be the cameraphone that we have hoped for from Sony for years but I am not optimistic.
Monday, 12 August 2013
Sony DSC-QX10 and DSC-QX100 remind of the innovative Sony of old
I remember during the 70s and 80s Sony seemed to the company that always had the most interesting new gadgets.
The Walkman in all of its iterations was the flagship especially the version that was barely bigger than a cassette. The trouble with that product was that it easily got bent during use with the result that all of your music was susceptible to audible wow.
My cousin had a credit card sized FM radio which was astoundingly portable. The trouble with that product was that the battery life was never any good and it seemed you had to hold rock still to get a signal lock, which defeated the purpose of the portability.
Maybe the weirdest was a player for LP records that was not a turntable. Instead the records were placed in a vertical slot that rotated the records. I never used one of those so I do not know if it was any good. I assume not since there were only a few about and this was well before turntables were superseded by CD players.
Those products really established for me the image of Sony as a cutting edge adventurous manufacturer willing to use its technological might to get novel ideas into the market. I guess Apple must have learnt from Sony's mistakes that it is not just about getting novel ideas into the market, they also have to work. Apple, in fact, does not tend to do anything really new, it just puts existing ideas together better than anyone else.
The just leaked Sony DSC-QX10 and DSC-QX100 "lenses" remind me of that old Sony. They are really innovative and like nothing else on the market. It seems like a good solution to the cameraphone issue. You want a good camera and a good phone with you but you do not want to carry two full devices that have a lot of duplicated parts.
I am looking forward to seeing whether Sony has come up with really good products or whether there will be some flaw that means they will just be a quirky side note to gadget history.
The Walkman in all of its iterations was the flagship especially the version that was barely bigger than a cassette. The trouble with that product was that it easily got bent during use with the result that all of your music was susceptible to audible wow.
My cousin had a credit card sized FM radio which was astoundingly portable. The trouble with that product was that the battery life was never any good and it seemed you had to hold rock still to get a signal lock, which defeated the purpose of the portability.
Maybe the weirdest was a player for LP records that was not a turntable. Instead the records were placed in a vertical slot that rotated the records. I never used one of those so I do not know if it was any good. I assume not since there were only a few about and this was well before turntables were superseded by CD players.
Those products really established for me the image of Sony as a cutting edge adventurous manufacturer willing to use its technological might to get novel ideas into the market. I guess Apple must have learnt from Sony's mistakes that it is not just about getting novel ideas into the market, they also have to work. Apple, in fact, does not tend to do anything really new, it just puts existing ideas together better than anyone else.
The just leaked Sony DSC-QX10 and DSC-QX100 "lenses" remind me of that old Sony. They are really innovative and like nothing else on the market. It seems like a good solution to the cameraphone issue. You want a good camera and a good phone with you but you do not want to carry two full devices that have a lot of duplicated parts.
I am looking forward to seeing whether Sony has come up with really good products or whether there will be some flaw that means they will just be a quirky side note to gadget history.
Sunday, 11 August 2013
Cameraphones, sensor resolution and pixel size - N8 remains king
As I recall it, in April 2010 the Nokia N8 was the first cameraphone where sensor size was made a major selling point. The number of megapixels, 12MP, was a selling point too, but Nokia was not the first to make a 12MP cameraphone, that title went to the Sony Ericsson Satio. The Nokia N8 has a sensor which is 1/1.83 inches on the diagonal. That placed it squarely in competition with typical compact point and shoot cameras which even now typically have sensors of between about 1.7 and 1/2.3 inches. The N8 could not have as good lenses as a dedicated camera and did not have image stabilisation but given decent lighting and a steady hand, it was and is capable of taking an excellent high resolution photograph. It was at the time of release widely regarded as the king of cameraphones (but was always criticised as a smartphone).
Now, in August 2013, more than three years later, a lot seems to have changed in the cameraphone market.
First, Nokia has released five Pureview branded cameraphones in succession that it has marketed as the best cameraphone. In order of release (noting sensor size) they are the Symbian driven 808 (1/1.2 inch) and the four Lumia Windows Phones, 920, 928, 925 (all 1/3 inch) and 1020 (1/1.5 inch). The first and last of these have what we might call "Phase 1" Pureview technology, being an advanced pixel binning algorithm. The Windows Phones have what we might call "Phase 2" Pureview technology, being optical image stabilisation. The middle three phones have been reported as having the same Sony manufactured sensor as is found on most Android flagships, see below. On the face of it, the N8 has been deposed by its own kingmaker.
Secondly, Samsung has continued the development of its optical zoom equipped line of cameraphones. This line seems to have started in September 2009 (i.e. predating the N8) with the W880, which was a featurephone (i.e. the operating system did not permit installation of new software except perhaps via a Java engine) had a 12MP sensor and 3 times optical zoom. (We should not forget that Altek made a cameraphone with a similar design ethos called the Leo which looked fabulous on paper. In September 2010 it had a 14MP sensor, 3 times optical zoom and Android 2.1. It was derided in every review I read but it certainly looked the part.) What appears to be the latest iteration is the Galaxy S4 Zoom, with a 16MP sensor, 10 times optical zoom and full smartphone functionality via Android. The sensor is 1/2.33 inch.
Thirdly, the Android flagship standard camera unit is now a 13MP sensor, which some suggest is made for all manufacturers by Sony. Samsung Galaxy S4, Sony Xperia Z, Acer Padphone Infinity, Lenovo K900, LG G2 and Huawei Ascend P2 all have a 13MP sensor, which some report as 1/3 inches in size. Note that although it is reported as being the same sensor it has been suggested that the 920/925/928 sensor is actually 10% bigger although I do not see how that could be so.
Finally, perhaps the joker in the megapixel pack is the HTC One and its ultrapixel technology. The HTC One, according to gsmarena.com, has a 4MP sensor that is 1/3 inch. The logic for this development is twofold. First, cameraphones are more likely to be used where you do not have your dedicated camera, such as at the office during work hours, at home after hours, out at a bar after hours and so on, all typically low light environments, where bigger pixels are an advantage because each pixel can capture more light with less noise. Secondly, photos taken on a cameraphone are more likely to be shared via social media and messaging, so high resolution is less important. HTC, on the face of it, has taken an extreme novel position with a view to delivering a better photograph for the purposes of the user.
So, getting back to the N8, given all the foregoing developments, is there any argument for it still being king? I say, yes. Here is the argument.
The Nokia N8 was never going to beat cameras with better lenses or with optical image stabilisation in scenarios where a better lens and stabilisation is required. Its sensor only gave it an advantage where its lens could do as good a job as any camera (i.e. subject not too near and not too far), where there was decent light (i.e. basically outdoors with reasonable sun) and held steady (preferably sitting on a table). Given all of those conditions being matched (and let me be quite clear, those are not weird or exceptional conditions, they are the conditions in which I shoot most of the time) the Nokia N8 is still the king. The reason is simple. The Nokia N8 still has the best pixel number to pixel size mix. To understand why I say that, we need to look at the exact calcuations.
Now, in August 2013, more than three years later, a lot seems to have changed in the cameraphone market.
First, Nokia has released five Pureview branded cameraphones in succession that it has marketed as the best cameraphone. In order of release (noting sensor size) they are the Symbian driven 808 (1/1.2 inch) and the four Lumia Windows Phones, 920, 928, 925 (all 1/3 inch) and 1020 (1/1.5 inch). The first and last of these have what we might call "Phase 1" Pureview technology, being an advanced pixel binning algorithm. The Windows Phones have what we might call "Phase 2" Pureview technology, being optical image stabilisation. The middle three phones have been reported as having the same Sony manufactured sensor as is found on most Android flagships, see below. On the face of it, the N8 has been deposed by its own kingmaker.
Secondly, Samsung has continued the development of its optical zoom equipped line of cameraphones. This line seems to have started in September 2009 (i.e. predating the N8) with the W880, which was a featurephone (i.e. the operating system did not permit installation of new software except perhaps via a Java engine) had a 12MP sensor and 3 times optical zoom. (We should not forget that Altek made a cameraphone with a similar design ethos called the Leo which looked fabulous on paper. In September 2010 it had a 14MP sensor, 3 times optical zoom and Android 2.1. It was derided in every review I read but it certainly looked the part.) What appears to be the latest iteration is the Galaxy S4 Zoom, with a 16MP sensor, 10 times optical zoom and full smartphone functionality via Android. The sensor is 1/2.33 inch.
Thirdly, the Android flagship standard camera unit is now a 13MP sensor, which some suggest is made for all manufacturers by Sony. Samsung Galaxy S4, Sony Xperia Z, Acer Padphone Infinity, Lenovo K900, LG G2 and Huawei Ascend P2 all have a 13MP sensor, which some report as 1/3 inches in size. Note that although it is reported as being the same sensor it has been suggested that the 920/925/928 sensor is actually 10% bigger although I do not see how that could be so.
Finally, perhaps the joker in the megapixel pack is the HTC One and its ultrapixel technology. The HTC One, according to gsmarena.com, has a 4MP sensor that is 1/3 inch. The logic for this development is twofold. First, cameraphones are more likely to be used where you do not have your dedicated camera, such as at the office during work hours, at home after hours, out at a bar after hours and so on, all typically low light environments, where bigger pixels are an advantage because each pixel can capture more light with less noise. Secondly, photos taken on a cameraphone are more likely to be shared via social media and messaging, so high resolution is less important. HTC, on the face of it, has taken an extreme novel position with a view to delivering a better photograph for the purposes of the user.
So, getting back to the N8, given all the foregoing developments, is there any argument for it still being king? I say, yes. Here is the argument.
The Nokia N8 was never going to beat cameras with better lenses or with optical image stabilisation in scenarios where a better lens and stabilisation is required. Its sensor only gave it an advantage where its lens could do as good a job as any camera (i.e. subject not too near and not too far), where there was decent light (i.e. basically outdoors with reasonable sun) and held steady (preferably sitting on a table). Given all of those conditions being matched (and let me be quite clear, those are not weird or exceptional conditions, they are the conditions in which I shoot most of the time) the Nokia N8 is still the king. The reason is simple. The Nokia N8 still has the best pixel number to pixel size mix. To understand why I say that, we need to look at the exact calcuations.
A
|
B
|
C
|
D
|
E
|
F
|
G
|
H
|
I
|
J
|
||
| Phone | MP |
pixel area sq inches
|
Sensor size
|
diagonal inches
|
sensor w pixels
|
sensor h pixels
|
diagonal pixels
|
sensor w inches
|
sensor h inches
|
pixel width inches
|
pixel height inches
|
| N8 |
12
|
1.194E-08 |
1/1.83
|
0.5464481
|
4000
|
3000
|
5,000
|
0.44
|
0.33
|
0.000109
|
0.000109
|
HTC One
|
4
|
1.165E-08
|
1/3
|
0.3333333
|
2688
|
1520
|
3,088
|
0.29
|
0.16
|
0.000108
|
0.000108
|
808
|
38
|
8.684E-09
|
1/1.2
|
0.8333333
|
7152
|
5368
|
8,942
|
0.67
|
0.50
|
0.000093
|
0.000093
|
920/928/925
|
8.7
|
6.675E-09
|
1/3
|
0.3333333
|
3264
|
2448
|
4,080
|
0.27
|
0.20
|
0.000082
|
0.000082
|
1020
|
38
|
5.558E-09
|
1/1.5
|
0.6666667
|
7152
|
5368
|
8,942
|
0.53
|
0.40
|
0.000075
|
0.000075
|
GS4 zoom
|
16
|
5.552E-09
|
1/2.33
|
0.4291845
|
4608
|
3456
|
5,760
|
0.34
|
0.26
|
0.000075
|
0.000075
|
What those calculations show is that the Nokia N8 still has the biggest pixels of any cameraphone. Interestingly, the HTC One, which supposedly has large pixels as its big technological trump card, actually has smaller pixels than the Nokia N8. My calculations make some assumptions that may be unsafe. They assume that the proportions of the sensor (i.e. ratio of width to height) match the stated pixel width and height. I have interpolated the pixel size by calculating height and width in terms of inches (columns G and H) proportional to the stated pixel dimensions from gsmarena.com.
So, each pixel in the N8 should, in theory, be receiving the most light of any cameraphone. The newer phones have back side illumination (BSI) which is said to counteract that. I wonder whether BSI can double the amount of light because the pixels on the N8 are double the size of those on the 1020. So, on a reasonably well lit day, if you take the virtually identically composed photo with the N8 and the 1020, what will be the difference. The N8 will get more light per pixel, that is, it will be a less noisy photo. It will be a 12MP photo that you can print at a decent size, maybe A4, maybe more. The 1020 will have more detail in the 34MP photo because it has more pixels but the odds are that it will have more noise too. The 5MP photo shot on the 1020 at the same time will use pixel binning to reduce the noise but you will lose some resolution too and query whether you can print it at the same size.
This may not be a strong argument for the continuing reign of the N8 but it raises some interesting questions such as, why has no one made a cameraphone with bigger pixels than the N8 since? Clearly bigger sensors are possible so why not use these bigger sensors to give bigger pixels. It seems that since the N8 we have to have all (41MP but tiny pixels) or nothing (4MP and big but still not as big) pixels.
I would love to back up my theories with some shoot outs but I only have a Nokia N8 so I have no idea how well any of the others perform. Hopefully someone else will take up the challenge and do a proper comparison between the N8 and the newer cameraphones.
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