Camera Phones » Camera Phone Technology

Nokia To Swallow Symbian

Charlie — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 09:55:36 +0000

Nokia is to take back control of the Symbian operating system by April 2011, just 18 months from creating the non-profit organisation to develop the smartphone operating software.

The growth in popularity of other operating systems, especially Android, and the manufacturers, particularly Samsung and Sony Ericsson, abandoning Symbian in their favour are thought to be largely behind this move.

Whilst this probably means more Symbian mobiles from Nokia, it is yet to be seen if they will be competitive against Apple, Blackberry and Android.

Samsung Galaxy Tab Review

Charlie — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 16:05:50 +0000

The Samsung Galaxy Tab is a bit of many things. Samsung position it as a tablet device:

“small enough to fit in your hand, yet big enough to be packed with incredible entertainment and communications features”

But herein lies the problem for me; true the Galaxy Tab has a 7″ screen, but the iPad has 9.7 inch screen so already the Tab is smaller than its most obvious rival, and yet it is nearly 2 inches longer than the Galaxy S mobile phone. The Galaxy Tab is not small enough to be a phone so the question is , is it large enough to compete on the tablet scene?

The Tab runs on Android 2.2 and has all the Google features you would expect, including Google maps and navigation, with built-in GPS. Watch films in HD (the battery should be good for 7 hours of movies), read your favourite newspaper or download ebooks (and as an interesting comparison, the Galaxy Tab is very similar in size to the Amazon Kindle 3 although the Tab has a larger,colour, viewing screen.)

Where the large screen should realistically come into its own, and help the Tab score over the iPad is the built-in camera. The large screen could be a boon in editing you pictures, however the camera is of limited resolution at 3 Megapixels. There is a flash, and autofocus is built-in.

The touchscreen works well and there is WiFi built-in, and all in all the Galaxy Tab is a device that may appeal to some – particularly those who feel they don’t want to carry both a mobile phone and a tablet pc with them.

Sony’s new 16.4 megapixel cameraphone sensor

Charlie — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 08:36:11 +0000

Sony have announced that they will start manufacturig two new CMOS image sensors designed specifically for mobile phones to improve pictures particularly in low light conditions. These will form part of the Exmor R range and will be launched with two new lens modules to include the smallest and thinnest available for mobile phones.

The IMX081PQ is a type 1/2.8 back-illuminated CMOS image sensor which realizes 16.41 effective megapixel resolution, and adopts what is currently the industry’s smallest unit pixel size of 1.12μm.

The other sensor, the IMX105PQ is a type 1/3.2 back-illuminated CMOS image sensor which realizes 8.13 effective megapixel resolutions for higher sensitivity and adopts a unit pixel size of 1.4μm.

These are expected to start shipping from January 2011 for the 16.4 megapixel sensor, through to March and April 2011 for the 8.13 megapixel sensor and lens modules.

What does this mean for the consumer? Hopefully better resoluton cameraphones and smaller handsets. The sample image shows the improved quality from the 16.4 megapixel sensor compared with a 5 megapixel sensor.

Nokia N8 Review

Charlie — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:00:55 +0000

If you were just to compare specifications, the Nokia N8 is a mobile phone that should propel the N Series from Nokia to the top of the camera phone charts. Lets review those features and take a look at what the Nokia N8 has in store.

With a 12 megapixel camera and optics from Carl Zeiss, including a wide-angle lens and the ability to shoot in high-definition video (720p resolution) and connect via HDMI to your home theatre system with Dolby Digital Plus sound, the Nokia N8 looks to take multimedia phones to a new level.

If social networking is your thing, the Nokia N8 brings all of your favourite networking sites together, including Facebook and Twitter, straight to your home screen. Upload your photos and videos to Facebook as soon as you capture them on the phone, and keep in touch with your friends direct from your mobile.

Building on the succesful Widgets which made their debut in the N97 you can personalise your N8 to your hearts content. There are three individual home screens so your phone can look different when used at work, at home and one spare.

With the growth of the OVI resource portal, there are a large number of different applications that you can get to upgrade and improve your Nokia phone and although not at the level that iPhone users can expect this resource is becoming a valuable addition for Nokia owners.

In addition to the high-quality camera and video expect to find 16 GB of internal memory which can be expanded through micro-SD memory cards (up to a total of 32 GB) making a total possible memory of 48 GB. Llike television on your mobile? The Nokia N8 also includes on demand WebTV including channels from CNN and National Geographic, although not live TV, a feature hastily dropped by Nokia after the N96 because of the lack of support around the world. This adds an additional distraction from those long commutes as does the full featured music player including album art, playlists and the boast from Nokia that the N8 will store enough songs that you could listen to over two days worth of music without hearing the same song twice.

Connectivity includes Bluetooth, HDMI, a micro-USB connector, 3.5 mm AV connector for your headphones, FM radio and an FM transmitter. E-mail messaging is supported as you would expect as is browsing and internet capabilities which include Flash video support.

The user interface relies on a 3.5 inch high-resolution screen with 16.7 million colours and 640 x 360 pixels OLED capacitive touch screen. Differing from the N97, the touch screen is capacitive rather than resistive which means it should be easier to operate with just a finger thater than a stylus. There is an accelerometer (orientation sensor), compass and an ambient light sensor, all the things you’d expect from a high range N Series mobile phone.

GPS is included with integrated GPS and A-GPS receiver and OVI Maps with free car and pedestrian navigation will be included.

The Nokia N8 is also expected to ship with the new Symbian ^3 operating system which is still yet to be fully released by Nokia. Given the number of partners involved in the Symbian development system we would hope that this new release brings a lot of new features and stability to this rather aged OS.

See below for the Camera Phone Review Rating or comment and rate the Nokia N8.

Sony Ericsson Aino – 8.1 Megapixel Cameraphone

Charlie — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:19:00 +0000

Although the Sony Ericsson Satio is a phone where the specifications for the camera really shine through, the Sony Ericsson Aino still has impressive camera features not least the 8.1 megapixel resolution, with auto focus, flash and 16 x digital zoom.

There is touch focus through the main touch screen, face recognition and photo fix to enhance your photos.

There are additional sound features including Clear Bass and Stereo features to enhanced the quality of music through the bundled music player, and there is compatibility with A2DP Bluetooth headsets.

The PlayNow film, music and games download service is also included.

Other features include the slide out keypad, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS with Google Maps and full email support. The full colour touch screen has 432×240 pixels and incorporates auto rotate and animated wallpapers and for gamers there are dedicated gaming keys as well as the ability to connect remotely to your PSP 3. There is 55 MB on board memory which can be expanded with MicroSD memory cards.

Although slightly heavier than the Satio, The Sony Ericsson Aino is about 10% smaller in overall dimensions at 104.0 x 50.0 x 15.5 mm and has an estimated eight and a half hours talk time (300 hours standby).

Samsung i7410 | Camera Phone with pico projector

Charlie — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:41:49 +0000

At Camera phone review we first reported the possibility of pico projectors, small enough to fit inside your mobile phone back in July 2007.

Now it looks like they are becoming a reality with specialist electronics companies such as Texas Instruments now producing the technology on a commercial basis and with consumer products now available from Samsung and Nikon. Nikon have incorporated the device into a digital camera, the Coolpix S1000pj and Samsung included a projector in the W7900 smart phone launched for the South Korean market (expected to be badged as the Samsung i7410 in Europe).

Part of the problem to date has been managing the power requirements of the projector, to maintain overall battery life on the mobile phone, but with consumers unwilling to carry an additional piece of hardware around with them this is a hurdle that needs to be overcome if the technology is to go mass market. If projectors in camera phones was to expand as cameras in mobiles have done, the potential market is quoted as growing to 1 billion pico projectors a year by 2015.

Texas Instruments, whose DLP or Digital Light Processing technology is within the Samsung i7410 are optimistic about the prospects but they are not the only company in the marketplace. One thing is sure, that if this takes off, those people who love to have loud annoying conversations on their mobiles in public places (think train carriage) will now be able to inflict their choice of movie on to their unfortunate passengers as well

Sony Ericsson Satio – 12 megapixel cameraphone

Charlie — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:40:29 +0000

Camera phones generally seem to have been stuck in their ways recently, with resolutions on the most popular ranges stuck well below that of dedicated digital cameras.

Now with the release of the Satio camera phone from Sony Ericsson, a phone originally rumoured in February, there is a mainstream camera phone that has a huge 12.1 megapixel resolution, with the features you would expect in a digital camera. Unlike the Samsung SCH-W880, another 12 megapixel cameraphone recently announced, the Satio comes fully loaded with the functionality you would expect on a smart phone as well.

The 3.5″, 16:9 ratio (that’s wide screen!) touch screen provides the main viewfinder for the camera; there is auto focus, 16 x digital zoom, and a xenon flash built in, but in addition, Sony Ericsson have included image stabilisation to reduce the camera wobble, geo tagging so that you can identify where your picture was taken using the built in GPS, red eye reduction and image fix to enhance your photos.

In addition to face recognition there is a smile detection feature that will let the camera take the shot when your subject smiles! There is also a multi shot capability called BestPic, that will take 9 shots in a second, allowing you to then choose the best picture, great for moving pictures.

There is video capture and playback functionality, a radio, WiFi, Bluetooth and aGPS with map technology from Google maps.

The Sony Ericsson Satio is built around the Symbian operating system and includes a lot of the features that you will find on other Symbian phones, including the email platforms and Exchange mail options that are particularly important for business users.

The touch screen includes handwriting recognition and there is a document reader and editor included as well as an alarm clock, calculator and phone book. There is built in auto rotate – tilt the phone and the screen changes from landscape to picture and vice-a-versa. Silence an alarm or a call wit a wave of your hand over the camera lens.

When you want to relax, the Satio includes unlimited access to the “playnow arena” that will let you download and watch a variety of films for free or use the music player to listen to songs stored on the phone.

Available in three colours – red, black or silver, the Sony Ericsson Satio offers a feature packed camera phone.

How to destroy the Indestructible Mobile Phone?

Charlie — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:29:31 +0000

Following the release of the Motorola Barrage ‘indestructible mobile phone‘ it got the Camera Phone Review team wondering how indesructable is indestrucitble?

Obviously if you take a hammer to a mobile, or any electronic device, it is likely to fall apart quite quickly, certainly to stop working, but what if your mobile does break? Obviously there are the immediate problems of replacing your phone and getting the contacts information (you did back it up, didn’t you?) onto your new phone.

But what then – it is unlikely to be worth very much if it is broken, although you could possibly get something for it as spare parts, but there is still your private data on the memory. Just because you can’t get it does not mean someone else can’t.

So should you smash your mobile to make sure the data is gone for good? It will all depend on what you may have stored on there and how broken your device is – a broken screen may make the phone useless to you but perfectly accessable to someone who goes to the trouble of replacing the screen.

There are some mobile antivirus products that will let you remotely wipe data by sending an SMS to your phone. If you have such a product installed that might work. And the new Windows Mobile 6.5 also has a back up and a delete function that will allow you to wipe files from your mobile clearing the storage before you pass it on to someone else – but the phone does need to be working for these to work.

In summary what you do with your phone will depend on the data you have on your mobile and how damaged it is, but if nothing else, make sure you back up your data regularly, so you can get access to it, if something terrible should happen.

Windows Mobile 6.5 Launches

Charlie — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:17:12 +0000

Microsoft have released an updated version of the windows mobile platform, cunningly known as Windows Mobile 6.5.

Revolving around the familiar applications that you will see on your pc, including mobile versions of the Microsoft Office suite, and Internet Explorer, Microsoft hope that this release will help windows powered obiles claw back ground lost to Apple and the iPhone.

Another important feature is the integration of Outlook email, something that Blackberry have brought to the fore in any business mobile selection process.

Toshiba TG01 with Windows Mobile 6.5

The MyPhone feature allows free backup of your Windows Mobile device to the MyPhone website, and apeing Apple, there is an App like download store to get additional applications and widgets for your phone.

So where can you get Windows Mobile 6.5?

There are a range of new mobiles launching immediately with 6.5, including:

HTC Touch 2, LG GM750

Samsung Omnia Lite B7300

Samsung Omnia Pro B7610

Samsung Omnia II

and the Toshiba TG01, with a 1GHz processor the most powerful Windows Mobile device to date.

HTC Hero

Charlie — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:54:11 +0000

HTC are making a name for themselves by standing slightly aside from the crowd of other mobile manufacturers and the HTC Hero is a feature packed phone with a 5 megapixel phone. Receiving a whopping 9.9 out of 10 in the Freak Score at TestFreaks.co.uk, we felt it needed further investigation.

The first point to note is that the HTC Hero runs on Google’s Android mobile operating system, so for devout Symbian or Window Mobile lovers, there will be a step away from the familiar, but do not let that put you off. As with other products from Google, Android is a strong performer.

The HTC Hero has a 3.2” TFT-LCD touch sensitive screen with 320×480 pixels set into a case with a slight lip at the bottom. From the touch screen you can access most of the phone’s features, and there are four buttons and a trackball set below the screen to allow calls to be answered and ended, to access menus.

The great customisation features of the HTC Hero mean that you can change the display as you want and add elements or remove them as you want. Other features include a GPS receiver and digital compass, 3.5mm audio jack, 288MB RAM and a microSD card slot to expand the memory, Bluetooth and WiFi.

Getting to the picture taking element, there is a 5 megapixel camera with the lens slightly recessed into the case, and it has auto focus and a digital zoom. There is a significant omission however and that is because HTC have not included a flash in the Hero. Possibly this shows that HTC have focused their efforts on other features with this phone, as evidenced by the lack of flash, because the picture quality is slightly disappointing, but if you are looking for an everyday camera, you should still consider the HTC Hero because of the other features and packages now available.