Nokia N86 8MP review: Lens wide open
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- Anonymous
- M3g
- 26 Jun 2009
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- bummy
- jDv
- 26 Jun 2009
Chad, 26 Jun 2009Come on gsm arena!!! where are the night pictures? how can ... moreYeah... we need more indoors and also low-light (parties) pictures!
How many people use their cellphone to take pictures of flowers :/
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- Chad
- PcR
- 26 Jun 2009
Come on gsm arena!!! where are the night pictures? how can we know if the "power led" can be useful?
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- Anonymous
- Mtr
- 26 Jun 2009
Anonymous, 25 Jun 2009no one is going to read that, and since you are not a profe... moreWell I've read it and I'm glad I did. People don't come here just to look at the pretty photos, y'know? And what's a "professional phone critic" anyway? Thanks to Nokia guy, please drop by more often ;-)
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- godzilla12
- vVx
- 26 Jun 2009
indoor picture comes great! the picture remains sharp & vibrant. but they should implant xenon instead so called "4th genaration" led flash! these led flash nowhere near the xenon where the lights wanted most!
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- Anonymous
- mxI
- 25 Jun 2009
Anonymous, 25 Jun 2009Firstly, it's important to note that 'perfect' image qualit... moreno one is going to read that, and since you are not a professional phone critic and whatnot (!) it means nothing.
sorry.
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- Anonymous
- MYk
- 25 Jun 2009
l, 25 Jun 2009Thanks nokia guy ! I really like your argumentation, and I ... moreThanks. Which country do you live in?
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- Anonymous
- MYk
- 25 Jun 2009
Andy Burgin, 25 Jun 2009Do go Crazy about the N86 as its a very unreliable phone i ... moreHi Andy, the speakers are placed along the long side of the product to give the best stereo separation possible. They are also best placed there if you are going to use the device in landscape orientation for watching movies, streamed TV, playing games, listening to music. Of course the active kick stand was also provided for handsfree viewing. So we considered landscape use to be more popular with this product.
Sorry to hear you're having problems, that really doesn't sound normal of course and have no reason to believe that this product will not be reliable. The manufacturing team in China are excellent and there really isn't any need to be concerned about manufacturing location. Atb
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- Nee
- w9J
- 25 Jun 2009
what INNOV 8 beats Nokia N86 in camera , WTF how could this happen .
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- Andy Burgin
- 3pH
- 25 Jun 2009
Do go Crazy about the N86 as its a very unreliable phone i have had Three N86 in 5 Days an Everyone as Gone Faulty,as the Main Centre Button just stuck an unable to text or do anything with the phone,the Menu button is o.k but the other main buttons are to Small,the Speakers are placed on one side instead of one either side so not very good sound from the Speakers as my N95 8gb gives more Stereo sound being on either side,O.k Nokia might have improved the slide on the N86,but the screens to small an the main buttons are very small,an watch out the N86 was made in China not Finland so thats Why i thinks its going to be a Very Big Mistake from Nokia an a Unreliable phone that will get the sales at Nokia down not Up
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- l
- DGC
- 25 Jun 2009
Anonymous, 25 Jun 2009Firstly, it's important to note that 'perfect' image qualit... moreThanks nokia guy ! I really like your argumentation, and I agree it is better to look best at full screen size. Do you happen to know when the white version be released ? I want to know how much I have to wait :)
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- Anonymous
- nF3
- 25 Jun 2009
Firstly, it's important to note that 'perfect' image quality does not exist. Even the largest and most expensive image capture device on the planet will have to make compromises somewhere. Granted the law’s of physics will be more on their side than ours, but let’s stick within the practical limitations of something designed to fit in your pocket for now…
We also need to bear in mind that image quality is extremely subjective. So, what I consider to be ideal will be different to someone else. A perfect example of this would be if I were to watch TV at a friends house. I may not completely agree with the way they have the color, contrast etc set. This is not to say they are right or wrong or they have anything wrong with their eyes or that their TV is better or worse than my own. It's simply a reflection of that we all have different preferences. This does however create quite a challenge to ensure we tune the various parameters according to what we believe reflects the tastes of 'most' potential purchasers.
How do we go about achieving this?
Firstly one way we go about this is to read reviews and comments such as this plus various forum and blogs to see what people like and don’t like. So of course even now I’m reading this review (and many others), considering could/should we improve the image quality even further?
Perhaps the most important part of this process is shooting various subjects and scenes with many different products including high-end digital cameras. In a controlled viewing environment we ask people to rate these images. They view the same images both in printed form as well as in electronic format. Of course when people view these they have no idea which devices are used so there are no attempts at 2nd guessing and no favoritism ☺
The next step is course the tuning itself.
This is a process, which takes many months. We shoot thousands of images and videos. At the last count it was well in excess of 15,000. Often side-by-side with various devices (which will remain nameless, before you ask), which we consider to provide a good benchmark. They include high-end camera phones as well as a few high-end compact digital cameras. We then need to analyze these and consider what changes we would make to the various parameters. After those changes are made we go out and shoot more test images. We repeat this for as long as it takes ☹
Before we can start the tuning we need to have an objective and a measure we’ll use when it comes to final decision making.
Generally we use the same and it did apply again to N86 8MP just as we did with products such as the N82, one that many have commented favorably suggesting we used the right decision guidelines.
Most people view images electronically (as well as prints of course) but majority today is electronic. The vast majority will view these images full screen, some may zoom in a little and possibly crop the image. We use various prints sizes when evaluating image quality. In the case of N86 8MP we printed up to 50x75cm, I think they look stunning BTW ☺
We know people prioritize color very highly when they look at their images/videos, assuming of course it’s in focus and well exposed. Even at a glance, especially if there is an obvious color object highly visible in the scene, color can look right or wrong without any need to enlarge the image. So from this you can infer that color reproduction is important. But unfortunately it’s not that simple. How most people remember color is often a little different to reality. For example, a picture of a red rose shot on a cloudy day will be remembered to be much more vivid than it actually was.
Our target therefore is to reproduce vibrant color, as often as we can which still feels/looks natural.
Hopefully still with me...
OK so far, but this creates a trade-off situation. As you apply color correction you are effectively amplifying the signal from the sensor. The result of this is an increase in noise. Solution: More noise reduction. Problem: Less sharpness. Solution: More edge enhancement perhaps? Problem: More noise. Solution…. See where this is going? And this is only the tuning of these parameters; there are many others we have to optimize too.
In the end we chose to, as I touched on earlier, to optimize for the fact that most people will view the images full screen or a bit larger using some degree of zoom. Whilst we analyze the images ourselves at 100% or greater and we know there will be people who will do the same in comparisons including test reviews, we decided that viewing at 100% e.g. 1 pixel of the image matches 1 pixel of the TV/PC monitor was not typical and therefore optimizing for this would lead to a less optimal image in a normal viewing situation, for the vast majority of purchasers.
Could we have tuned things differently? Sure. We could reduce noise for when viewing at 100%. To achieve this we would have needed to throttle back on the color correction. At this point that’s not something we would be happy with given we believe it’s importance.
What about the future?
Well it would be naïve to think any image capture device is perfect and of course that includes the N86 8MP, even if I do work for Nokia ;-)
We continue to investigate areas where we could improve and there will be some improvements coming in a future SW release later this year, (can’t say when at this stage). I’m hoping we’ll make the image quality even better as well as introduce one or two new features, which will also have a positive impact on image quality, so stay tuned. Whether this will change things for some people I can’t say as it will be down to you to decide, but of course I hope that we could make you happy and those who already enjoying the product I hope you’ll be even more delighted ☺
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- Anonymous
- nF3
- 25 Jun 2009
FOKIA, 25 Jun 2009too little too late.. My 8mp camera phone is almost 1 year... moreAnd because your 8mp phone came out first that makes it better, how?
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- Martin
- mSy
- 25 Jun 2009
Why waste time with this ugly phone, Nokia are on they way to loose a lot on the marked, Samsung, LG and HTC are up front.
Nokia where good in the old days before camera and color screens on phones.
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- Anonymous
- nbu
- 25 Jun 2009
[deleted post]Hi, can you gentlemen at GSMarena please do a photo comparison between the N82, Innov8, Pixon, C905 and LG Viewty Smart? Thank you very much. Love the review though.
Having C905 is unnecessary, since Satio (Idou) surpasses it in every single way. However, N86 should be added to the list as well, making it to the following: N82, N86, Innov8, Pixon12, Satio and Viewty Smart.
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- Anonymous
- PyN
- 25 Jun 2009
i hope soon nokia will provide a firmware update,thn it will sound better..
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- Hector
- Pwb
- 25 Jun 2009
I would like you to test the, as Nokia's people call it, "New Generation" Led Flash
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- Chad
- PcR
- 25 Jun 2009
Why don't u guys at gsm arena post night pictures with and without flash? we wanna see if theres improvement in that area and how well those "power leds" perform
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- NY
- PFg
- 25 Jun 2009
lesson learn,nokia...try not to take too long next time
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- Jackson Moore
- UFF
- 25 Jun 2009
This is a great, cutting edge mobile phone, if it was 2006.