Nseries Urbanista Diaries

So, last Saturday afternoon, in the midst some “intense revision” a.k.a. DVD watching, I got interrupted whilst I answered a call from an unknown number.

I don’t normally answer those calls as they’re usually silly phone companies trying to make me “update” to the K850/Viewty. As it turns out, it’s Siobhan from WOMWorld. Hey Siobhan! We had a little chat about the N82 and how much I was pleased with this phone’s imaging capabilities.

Then the topic moved on to an email that Siobhan had sent, which had gone unnoticed being swamped by the rest of my mail, so reiterating the content of the mail, Siobhan told me details of this new Nseries Event where they would send some bloggers some place around the world, for two weeks, all expenses paid where they would use the N82 to document the whole event whilst navigating from A-B using, again, the N82. That call was an invite to this event. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAH!

It’s happening quite soon, January/February 2008. Big January exam times! I’m not so much fussed about the exams because I’ll have revised for them over the Christmas holidays only the mandatory assessed practicals which I will be missing. But this is a once in a lifetime opportunity! 2 weeks out of action from studies to use the N82 to its limits, scouring unfamiliar lands, haha, would make a good tech-reality TV show.

I’m hoping it’s not going to be too similar to the Duke of Edinburgh expeditions I went on. (I used the 7610 to capture memories of those feet killing times) Rain, mud, cows, cliff, full 80litre back-packs and the biggest yet most unhelpful map and compass ever. That would have been so different had I had had a GPS device then….no getting lost several times in a row. Haha!

Anyway, the point of the four bloggers will be that once dropped of at their particular world region, they’re going to be exploring that for the next two weeks and at the end of it, passing the baton so to speak to the next person. As to which initial destination each person will be going to is at this moment unknown, but every location seems to be open to the Nseries urbanista Diaries. Apparently our daily routes can be tracked with a sized down version of sports tracker for each person’s blog (I’m not sure it will work on this wordpress account though). You’ve most likely heard about the Nokia Sports tracker as it’s been available quite a while, if not you can read about and download the actual app here <click<<. Quite simple and easy to use.

Two other confirmed attendants are Devin Balentina from ‘the Nokia guide’, and Ms Jen from ‘Black Pheobe’. I wonder who the fourth person will be?!

Nokia World 2007

So next week, I will be going to Nokia World Amsterdam.

Everyone will be flying out on the Monday except for me since Monday is one of my busiest days this semester with lectures, tutorials, 3 hour assessed practicals and a big exam meaning I wouldn’t get back till about 8 pm. So I’ll be flying out Tuesday morning instead.

I’m not sure exactly what it entails but I hear from the grapevine that there’s going to be around 80 demonstration areas, Q & A sessions presumably with Nokia product manager and of course a chance to meet some new and old friends from the mobile world.

This week is sandwiched in with the biggest Pub Crawl of my UNI followed by the onslought of an identical schedule of the Monday (with  an even bigger weighting exam!). It would have been much better if my exams were the week after.

Stay tuned as I bring back news of Nokia World, hopefully, entirely using the N82. (Hmm, reminds me, I must download the Amsterdam Maps!)

Nokia N82 Sample video selection

Following on from the Winter Wonderland video, I thought I’d have to show you the N82 in other lighting conditions. Like I said in that post, of the videos I have, majority weren’t publishable due to several reasons, not meeting PG rating being the major one, haha.

Here are six samples, starting from Day lighting, moving on to extreme low lighting and finishing up with indoor lighting.

YouTube samples just allow you to see the content, the file on stage 6 is higher quality but still has been compressed and will not look as good as the original .mp4 file.

1. Bute Park on the bridge

YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zGHJ8STk5Is

Stage 6 (higher quality)
http://stage6.divx.com/user/MyNokiaBlog/video/1890350/Nokia-N82-Bute-Park,-Bridge-(Day)

Original File: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UHBV4R2Y

2. Bute Park, sample 2

YouTube http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0xhw1Uzqs

Original File: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=N5SK8GE3

3.Extreme Low Light (1) Apologize
YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yVBzkWFrwgs

In conjunction with the song, I apologize for the awful rowdy guy wrecking the song. Also, the white lighting artifacts popping up in this video and the next one aren’t in the original file.Original File: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6JEPS9A2Stage 6: http://stage6.divx.com/user/MyNokiaBlog/video/1890386/N82-Extreme-low-light-(1)-Apologize

4. Extreme Low Light (2) Bounce Dancers

YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RJzMWqxSwl4

Original File: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4M1VDV05

Stage 6: http://stage6.divx.com/user/MyNokiaBlog/video/1890420/N82-Extreme-low-light-(2)-Bounce-Dancers

5. Indoor lighting, close up: Worms

YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=P7tbMfmd7jY

Original FIle: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=N6AURVEM

Stage 6: http://stage6.divx.com/user/MyNokiaBlog/video/1890454/N82-indoor-lighting,-Close-Up,-Worms

6. Indoor lighting: Nerves

YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tUy52AbAKkE

Original: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0NVHFNMF

Stage 6: http://stage6.divx.com/user/MyNokiaBlog/video/1890488/N82-indoor-lighting,-Close-Up,-Nerve

 

Nokia N82 Winter Wonderland Video

Although the video taking ability of the N82 is rather impressive, able to handle low lighting and really loud audio whereas previous devices would appear either too dark or the sound is just tinny/beyond ear shattering, I haven’t taken as much videos as I have pictures. And the videos I have, well my friends are very much in a compromising situation in all of them as well as too much profanity.

Here is one of the first videos I took on the evening I received the N82.

YouTube (heavily compressed) http://youtube.com/watch?v=KIt0fbH-T_U

Stage 6, higher quality:http://stage6.divx.com/user/MyNokiaBlog/video/1887676/N82-(compressed)-Winter-Wonderland

Here’s a link to the original file: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6DO570V1

N82 on a Night out: Verdict – BRILLIANT!

Note: Everything was under, basically, pitch black conditions.

I didn’t expect it to do as well as it did, but the N82 is a class act on the club scene.

First – no pics came out blurry. It was a bit touch and go with the autofocus not locking sometimes, but out of the 200 pictures I took, NONE were fuzzed up to the point that you can’t even tell who’s in the picture (a common symptom of N95 and night clubs). Even those that my friends took. When viewed on a 1920 x 1200 pixel screen, it’s just scary to think this came from a phone as some of the skin tones produced are just extremely accurate. In fact, it has outperformed my old FujiFinepix F10, which, as a dedicated camera phone rarely reaches the 90% threshold of non-fuzzed pics which the N82 has somehow achieved.

Sharing the pics with my housemates – the feedback was that it is a hell of a good camera. Not just camera phone, but a camera. The flash is just powerful enough to light up the scene whilst still capturing extensive background that would otherwise be lost by a flash that’s too powerful. There are some usability issues, like, I feed the shutter is too far in to the left, and that there should be a function to show the picture for 1 second and then quickly be ready to capture a new one without pressing the shutter or “back” again.

I’m soaking wet right now as it rained on our way home…do you know how hard it is to flag a taxi down when there are 2000 other people trying to get it too?

Anyway…

What’s even better is that there’s still 4 bars on it. I’m just pleased beyond expectation.

It resolved so many of the failures of Nokia’s previous imaging king, the N95.

• The camera is quick to start up,

• The camera is quick to save,

• The camera is fast enough to capture spontaneous scenes,

• The camera is brilliant at low light settings!

I find that using Red-eye reduction to bring out the best pictures. It still leaves in some red eye, but the results are more often than not, crisp, vivid images.

Click to Enlarge

There’s so many photos for me to wade through, but the above should be good enough to give an example of the N82 in low light action. Directly above, is a spontaneous scene, just lifted the N82 over my head and framed one of my friends really well. These aren’t the best quality pics compared to the rest, but those – my friends would kill me if I put them up, hahaha! Some look so bad (in the, I didn’t know my face could look like that, bad) .

Shame not everyone was out this Saturday though! Would have been good to see them captured on the N82!

(Yes…I do have a big essay to do today, so I best get some sleep!)

– Oh – and I just looked at a video I took as well – that came out strangely well too, you could see fairly the same amount as you could with your own eyes, and sound is alright too….

…Ah…the realization that with the N82, users can genuinely not carry an extra camera with them on a night out like I used to. It takes good enough pictures, and has the stamina to match even the most demanding of users.

Nokia N82: Early Morning at the Park

This morning, I took out the N82 along with the N82 to the park so I could check it out during the day. Last night, the N82 showed some prowess when it came to its night/low light conditions. It is by far, the best Nokia phone for low lighting conditions. (More testing is going to be done on that tonight)

Results came out to be fairly similar for both the N95 and N82, some pictures the N82 would look more appealing, and others the N95. In most of the results, the N82 wins out for me as the pictures came out with consistently high detail.

The top picture will be from the N95 and the bottom from the N82. The full size pictures for both have been uploaded (only N82 clickable at the moment), and I will link to the original N95 sizes soon.

Nokia N82, Live Pics and Sample Pics.

Hey guys, would have gotten this to you on the Wednesday that the N82 got delivered, except I’m not living at home at the moment, so I’ve only just had my cousin bring it over to me this evening.

As soon as the box was passed to me, I whipped it out, stuck the battery in and started getting some pics.

(—It was a long day…and raining…I do look somewhat of a mess. That’s my cuz, she took the N82 to work and dropped it off to me on her way home.)

First stop was Carphone Warehouse…just to have some direct comparisons with the N82 and other phones, namely the iPhone.

Taken by N82

Taken By N82 (above) . . . There was a comparison shot with the K850 but that disappeared 😦

I decided to take the long walk home to pass by the Winter Wonderland park thing they’ve opened up next to the Museum at Cardiff. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the N82 was, not only with it’s Xenon Flash but generally no flash on nightmode.


Tonight of all nights, the internet decides to be a wonderplebb and is going as fast as snails on salt. It literally takes 10 minutes to load Google. Yes, google. (btw, It’s taking 2.5 hours at the moment to upload 3 pics-converting-to-VGA on photobucket : ( )

When my internet works, the rest of the pics will be uploaded, as will the videos taken of and by the N82.

Also stay tuned, as I’ll be seeing how much of an improvement the N82 is with it’s Xenon Flash when taking night pics of people as opposed to the N95 which just blurred your pictures to death (although I do love it when lighting is adequate)

More Samples: No Flash/Flash/N95 comparison

---

Tigger Macro Auto (No Flash)

Tigger Macro Forced Flash

Taken by the N95 (Click to enlarge)

Taken by the N82 (Click to enlarge)

__________________

Nokia N82 on trial…box left out in the rain by DHL man!

Hey guys,  haven’t posted in a while here.  Just been so busy lately, presentations, essays, exams and the like. In a few weeks though once I get on top of all that, I should be back to blogging.

Anyway, on to the subject of this post, I’ve been sent the infamous Nokia N82 to trial. It was sent to me yesterday. Unfortunately since no one was home to pick it up, it was left out in the rain by DHL. Fortunately it was just ignored by passers by and is safely at my house. I’d like to say how much I love it already but I haven’t even seen it myself for I’m away from home too. I only came back on the Tuesday to pick up my new lappy from Dell (Don’t get me started ranting with them…)

Odd story is, I didn’t even realize what WOMWorld had sent, I thought it was the N81…until I googled a pic to show a friend of mine what it was that DHL left outside my house and it kept coming up with the N82. Awesome!

I’ll be bringing you my thoughts and impressions on the N82…man I’m so psyched about it! Thanks WOMWorld!

Nokia Launch their Music service

Today Nokia has officially launched their music store service. I was really looking forward to trying it out, but there is just one thing letting it down for me, well, 2 things actually. First thing is that its only compatible with Windows computers. When will large companies like Nokia learn that there are Millions and Millions of their customers who use Macs. Its the most frustrating thing wanting to use a service but not being able to because they havent made the website “Compatible” with a mac. Its not really alot of ask for, and as so many people use macs now, it should really be done as standard.The windows issue isnt really that much of a problem, luckily im also running bootcamp on my macbook pro. I was just about to re-boot my macbook pro into windows, but then I spotted one more thing, that was even more disappointing. Here is it:*Currently Nokia Music Store is available on your compatible PC or on Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8GB and Nokia N95 8GB multimedia computers in the UK only.   Now, the reason this is so disappointing is that I was so eager to try this on my N95 and even on the N93i I am using from and now, unless I get my hands on a N95 8GB or N81, I cant use it! Im sure that nokia are going to change this very soon, but ive heard that it will require a firmware update. Why could they not have just made it an application that you download onto your S60 device I wonder?