At 12 megapixels, the Nokia N8′s camera phone really challenges the digital camera market for picture quality. While it’s not quite the first phone to have such a powerful camera, it is amongst the first wave, and there’s certainly an argument to suggest that it may be the best.
First glance may suggest that the raised area on the back of the phone is an ugly addition, but it is worth the payoff for the quality of camera that it allows for. It gives the camera sensor more space, and therefore permits a better, more accurate, focus than we expect from camera phones with their traditionally limited space.
The raised area also houses a Xenon flash, widely agreed to be much better than the last generation of LED flashes.Unfortunately, though, the Xenon flash is still not as good as the flashes on dedicated digital cameras, and while the Nokia N8 takes pictures that are indistinguishable from them in well-lit conditions, it does fall down slightly when it’s darker.This, though, is picking unnecessary holes, and one assumes that a better flash is simply the next step forward for the hardware.
The photos have realistic colour – they do not fall victim to the over saturation of the iPhone, for example – and the automatic flash helps here.Flash aside, the only other improvement that the Nokia needs to take into account is an image stabilizer. The images often lose focus, particularly when using the external shutter button.The video functionality isn’t quite so strong, 25 frames per second still leaves the recording jerky at times, and still has some way to go to catch up with the excellence of the camera.
While the Symbian software has its shortcomings, the in built photo software is more than up to the challenge, and the included 16GB memory space means that you should never have to think twice about taking a snap.
