Fizwoz Blog

Mark Jaremko

At fizwoz, many interesting phones pass through our labs, but one of the more interesting ones to date is the Nokia N900 (Maemo).  This phone certainly has a lot going for it, with a touch user interface capable of challenging the iPhone.  That aside, a phone’s camera capability is something that we pay close attention to at fizwoz.  So how does the Nokia measure up?

In this first part of our two-part review, we’ll take a close look at the N900’s camera features and capabilities.  We’ll follow up in part two with a detailed comparison of the image quality of Nokia compared to our current benchmark, the Apple iPhone 3GS.  We love the iPhone’s clean and automatic camera app, but something the lack of any manual controls can be rather limiting.  How does the N900 compare?

Without even turning the phone on, it’s clear that the camera is no afterthought.  This phone is serious about its picture taking.  A dedicated Camera button on the top drops you directly into picture taking mode.  The sliding lens cover on the back is more reminiscent of a more serious point-and-shoot than a mere cell phone.  This ensures the lens and LED flash are clear and clean (one of the best ways to take better cell phone pictures is to make sure the lens is wiped clean before you shoot).  The Nokia sports a 5MPixel sensor with a Carl Zeiss 2.8 autofocus lens.  And like a real camera, a half press on the shutter engages the autofocus operation, quickly bringing the image on the screen into sharp focus.  The N900 can go from standby to full capture in under two seconds, just by sliding the lens cover to the open position.

Contrast this with the iPhone, which takes many taps, and at best, seven seconds to launch the camera app.  While the iPhone does not have a dedicated shutter button, nor a dedicated autofocus engage, it does constantly focus on the image in front of the camera, and does a rather good job of it.  Chances are, by the time you’re ready to take a photo, the iPhone will have already focused on what you’re about to shoot.

From the Camera app itself, the N900 gives you several touch areas in which to control the camera.

The N900 has enough camera control to rival any mid-tier point-and-shoot camera.

One nice feature that we liked about the main screen is that any custom setting that you might have enabled show up as small icons in the bottom left part of the screen.  This not only acts as a reminder that the camera is not on full auto mode, but also lets you tap on them to quickly change that setting.

The Camera Mode setting allows you to pick from four different shooting styles.  In our tests, Automatic did a reasonable job of switching the camera into the correct mode.

Macro mode managed to focus down to about 4” from the subject, a little further than the iPhone.  Where the N900 really shinned was indicating focus lock.  When the subject is in focus, the focus area turns green with a slight audible click.  The iPhone has no such confirmation.  The 3GS will tell you what it’s trying to focus on, but it might fail and still allow you to take an obviously blurry image.  This is rather frustrating when trying to take any macro photography, as you won’t know if you got the shot until you download the photo.  Not with the Nokia, you know before you take the shot if you have a focus lock or not.

Both Landscape and Action change how focus works.  You no longer see the camera hunt for the correct focus, as its now optimizing for either infinity focus in Landscape, or fast action shooting in the Action mode.

Action mode also sets the camera’s ISO setting to the top speed, ISO 400, to bump the shutter speed to the maximum speed.

In the Capture Settings menu, you have a host of custom controls to manually set the camera.

White balance gives you the standard set of preconfigured settings to pick from, although missing is any ability to set a custom white balance.  Still, this is a far cry from the iPhone which gives you nothing.  Having some White Balance setting is more important on a camera phone or point-and-shoot since these numbers are baked right into the JPG file that the camera creates.  With a high end DSLR, you can change this after the fact if you shoot RAW, but not so with JPG.

ISO gives you a set of options from 100 to 400, but the phone has a far greater range in Automatic.  We’ve seen recorded ISO values anywhere from 100 all the way to 800 during a night time shot.  The iPhone 3GS, on the other hand, automatically sets the ISO based on the image, with no manual settings and typical values are anywhere from 70 all the way to 1016, giving the iPhone a slightly greater theoretical sensitivity in low light environments.  However, the N900’s LED flash can make a far larger impact on image quality.

The LED Flash on the N900 can make a huge difference in low-light photography.  Common settings include On, Off, Automatic and Red eye.  In the Red Eye mode, the N900 will flash the LEDs three times before taking the actual photograph.  Unfortunately, the iPhone has not such flash.

Exposure setting, something very useful in a regular camera, allows you to change, in real-time, the exposure setting of the image.  You actually see the image in front of the camera get brighter or darker as you drag the slider to the left and right.  This is invaluable in cases where you’re shooting into the sun or into the shade.

As for exposure speed, the top exposure time for the N900 seems to be 1/1000 second, which should be fast enough for most action conditions.  The iPhone 3Gs seems to top out at around 1/623 second.

Finally, Resolution gives you two options, the standard 5 Megapixel default, or a lower resolution 3.5 Megapixel widescreen.  This option is a little puzzling, as the widescreen format doesn’t actually give you a wider photograph, it’s merely the 5 Megapixel photo with the top and bottom cropped off in order to fit the Nokia’s screen.  Still, this is a far cry from the iPhone’s 3.1 Megapixel sensor.

Finally, there is a General Settings area in the N900 which allows you to set your name, LCD review time and memory card location.

So how good is the quality of the N900 photo, and how well does it compare in the field to the iPhone?  We’ll take a close look in the second part of our review.