As much as it pained me to sign a three year mobile contract when I’ve been without one for so long, I finally made the switch from my Nokia N82 to the iPhone 3GS.

Apple’s interface runs rings around the S60. I think even the most hardcore Nokia fan would concede that point. But where the iPhone falls flat for me is photo quality. I took the attached photo at night under low light, and the phone took forever to focus. Without a dedicated night photography setting like the N82′s, I imagine I’ll primarily shoot in sunny or bright overcast conditions. I don’t miss the flash at all (yet) because I thought the flash on the Nokia usually resulted in blown-out highlights.

I still am a great fan of Nokia phones; I hope to continue participating in the WOMWorld blogger relations program. The N86 looks like a powerhouse. But until Nokia either makes significant changes to the S60 software, I’m going to stick with my iPhone, limited feature set and all.

My Nokia N82, the phone that I gave such a glowing review to a few months ago, is becoming an albatross around my neck. Let me count the ways:

• Applications quit with no warning and no feedback to tell you what went wrong;
• The phone has become increasingly sluggish of late and I can’t find a reason for it;
• My phone company won’t give me an affordable data plan — unless I buy an iPhone;
• Despite my best efforts, I still can’t post to this blog from my N82;

But the number one main reason is outlined in this photo.

I don’t feel I can continue to justify this phone. I want to like it, I do, but right now I look at it and all I can see is unrealized potential.

After watching this promotional video for the Nokia N82, I understand why Ms. Jen makes a distinction between creators and consumers. I also understand why, in its current incarnation, an iPhone just isn’t for me.

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

According to Black Web 2.0, Spike Lee has partnered with Nokia to make what is being called “the world’s first social film”, comprised of videos and photos made entirely with cell phone footage.

The film’s central theme is humanity, and how music helps to tell the human story. Over the course of the production, contributors will be asked to interpret three separate acts. You can submit clips and photos between now and August 21. Lee will then select the winning contribution and direct the film through the Nokia Productions website.

Nokia is doing some pretty interesting things around driving consumer loyalty and our increasingly mobile lifestyle. I wish I could participate, but being that the contest seems to be open to US residents only, I’ll have to sit (and pout) on the sidelines to see how this contest shakes out.

After testing the N82 for WOMWorld and thoroughly falling in love with it, I decided to purchase one when the much hated Treo finally bit the dust a while back. I have a Hong Kong version of the phone, which provides no shortage of amusement as I keep finding music files in Chinese hiding in unlikely places on the phone. 
Last week I decided to leave my D300 at home and only use the N82′s onboard 5-megapixel camera as my primary camera. I haven’t shot with a point and shoot camera in quite a while (well, since I tested the N82 a few months ago), and it’ll take some getting used to before I can start turning out shots like Ms. Jen’s Urbanista Diaries: Best of Mumbai shots.  Still, here’s a small sampling of shots I took with the N82 last week. 

Tomorrow will be a sad day in these parts, because tomorrow is the day I pack the N82 back into its box and send it back to the folks at WOM World.

To say that this phone has changed how I view mobile technology would be an understatement.
I expected to use the N82′s camera heavily over the last two weeks, and as the photos attest, I lived up to that expectation. What I didn’t expect was the way in which the N82 freed me from the burden of feeling like I had to create art-with-a-capital-A in every single photo. Snapping quick shots was fun again, and I had the added bonus of being able to upload photos and video from nearly everywhere. Immediacy has its benefits.
I wasn’t terribly pleased with the tiny, pill-shaped raised buttons on the N82′s dial pad; I found that I ended up using my thumbnail to press the keys because there wasn’t enough positive response from the phone when I used the pad of my thumb to make calls, compose text messages, or to navigate through the N82′s menus. The button design gives the (visual) impression that they would require quite a bit of force to commit the selection; even when I found that this wasn’t the case, I still ended up using my thumbnail on the keys. I even ended up with a painful split thumbnail, which was one of the more unpleasant consequences. I would prefer larger, recessed keys, but this is purely a personal preference.
The N82′s manual was laughable. Don’t get me wrong, it was quite extensive, but it wasn’t indexed in a way that I found intuitive. I found that I had different terms for items — like “sending a message”, for example — while Nokia used other terminology. If you’re selling a phone whose major selling point is a 5 megapixel camera, I would expect to see “Taking a picture” as a sub-heading of “Camera” in the index. Interestingly enough, there is a stand-alone entry for “recording a video” in the index.
Phone calls were clear and completely undistorted which was a welcome change from the phone on my Treo 650. I didn’t have the opportunity to use the included hands-free kit, nor did I use the speakerphone, but the N82 is more than adequate for someone whose telephone needs are pretty basic.
Other than the camera, the feature I relied on the most was the N82′s wireless capabilities. I was reluctant to use my provider’s data network to send files because of Canada’s exorbitant data rates, but because of the N82′s WLAN settings, I didn’t have to worry about what my phone bill would look like at the end of the month. I loved having this choice, and this feature one that sold me on the N82 in the final tally.
I really, really don’t want to send this phone back. I wish it were available in Canada right now, because I know that my own blogging and picture sharing habits would drastically change because of this tool. I’ve said before that the N82 would never take the place of my MacBook or my DSLR, but that is beside the point. If you’re in the market for a new phone and you’re a hardcore lifeblogger, you should definitely add the Nokia N82 to your short list.

I’d be hard pressed to say that Nokia has missed the mark with the N82′s camera after results like this. This (unedited) photo was taken using the N82′s night setting. It managed to capture the greens of the trees and even though the snow looks a little gray, it isn’t terrible.

By the by, Ms. Jen and I were having an interesting conversation (or so I thought) about photography, post-processing, and where to draw the line between photographic illustration and photography. I think we both made valid points about how technology places constraints on our work, and how many of these constraints are self-selecting. I’m not completely enamored of the constraints imposed when I choose to shoot with the N82, but I don’t pooh-pooh them either.
I was re-reading Susan Sontag’s On Photography over the winter holidays, and something about the discussion I was having with Ms. Jen reminded me of this passage:

Photography implies that we know about the world if we accept it as the camera records it. But this is the opposite of understanding, which starts from not accepting the world as it looks. All possibility of understanding is rooted in the ability to say no.

There’s something in those words that soothes my post-modernist soul. We all bring different things, different viewpoints, different constraints to the table. But no one person’s point of view is greater than my own. It also isn’t less important than my own — it simply is. We don’t have to accept the world as we record it, and we don’t have to accept the technological constraints that are imposed by the tools we choose. Whether that should be called photography or something else is a question that I’ve not fully resolved in my own mind.

Ms. Jen told me that the N82′s low light performance was very good, but it wasn’t until I tried it myself that I could appreciate it.

These photos were taken at Raincity Grill using the N82′s Night mode:

(Yes, we actually like to dress nicely for evenings out.)

I was stunned when I saw these photos full-sized. The quality is comparable to my Canon Powershot S2 IS, except the N82 focuses just a bit faster.
In Night Portrait mode, the Xenon flash tended to wash me out (which, let’s face it, is pretty difficult to do). Perhaps shooting across the table at a dark restaurant isn’t the best application for this setting. I’ll be gracious and chalk this result up to operator error.
This is one nifty little gadget. I’ve grown quite attached to it. It’ll be hard to send it back.

After a today’s thrilling orthodontist appointment, I took a brief walk up and down Vancouver’s Commercial Drive with the N82 in hand. Today’s objective: to upload the photos while mobile and to get Shozu’s geotagging feature up and running.

As I mentioned in an earlier review, I’m a little disappointed in the N82′s straight out of camera performance. I tend to like contrasty, vibrant photos with rich, warm tones. When I shoot with my Nikon D80, I capture photos in RAW format and then post-process to my own aesthetic standards. The N82 is only capable of capturing JPEG photos which is fine for most situations, but if it were capable of shooting in RAW, Nokia would probably win the hearts of many photographers.
Even though the N82′s Gallery application contains photo editing features, I’m not terribly inclined to edit a photo on the fly before uploading it to my favorite service. Even with the N82′s light sensitive display, I find it difficult to see the screen in full sunlight. It’s not a good idea to make adjustments to an image when you can’t see it clearly.
Still, the image editor performs very well. You can increase contrast and brightness, convert your photos to sepia or black and white, resize (fabulous if you’re concerned about minimizing data charges), crop, as well as a few other gimmicky features like “cartoonizing” a photo right within the N82.
Compare the difference between an unedited photo and one I corrected using the built-in image editor. First, the unedited photo:

Next, the photo with improved contrast:

I doubt that Nokia’s editor would ever replace iPhoto or Picnik, but it does the job well and without needing to upload photos to a separate computer.
Each day I find some new and surprising thing that makes me really appreciate the N82′s power. There are so many features in this very small package for photographers to love. The N82 won’t ever replace my D80, but it isn’t meant to — it’s meant to be a tool that satisfies our need to share our surroundings with friends and the world immediately and easily. Good show, Nokia.

It’s an absolutely gorgeous day in Vancouver (sunny days in January are as rare as black folks in the Republican party), so instead of sitting around on my rear end, I decided to take a long walk and run some errands instead. The N82 was an ideal companion because it not only allowed me to capture some photos from my walk, but thanks to Sports Tracker, I was able to keep track of how much exercise I got while walking.

SportsTracker is a GPS-enabled utility that allows users to track their activities. Initially, I decided not to send live data to the service because I didn’t want to incur my provider’s internet charges. Because I didn’t read the help documentation, I wasn’t sure if I could save the data on my handset and upload it later. After I got home, I was pleasantly surprised to find I could.

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

When you upload your data to SportsTracker, the site takes the information collected by the GPS and plots it on a Google map. If you take photos during your workout, the SportsTracker application searches for any photos taken during that time, and using the GPS data, links the photos to specific points on your route. You can even share workouts with your friends on Facebook. It was fast and easy, and — I almost hate to say it — kind of fun.
At the end of my walk, I checked my stats and saw that I’d walked 2.67 miles (4.3km) in just under an hour. It wasn’t the fastest time in the world, but part of that was my meandering walk around the grocery store. Oddly, the SportsTracker application says that my highest speed — 17.0 mph — occurred at the grocery store. I guess I was in a great hurry to get to the bananas or something.

After my walk, I had a record of the number of steps I’d taken in the day (handy if you’re trying to work your way toward 10,000 steps per day), and because I can store the workouts on the phone or on an SD card, I can save this data and can monitor my progress as I become more fit. If you’re a fitness nut who is looking for an easy way to track your workouts but you don’t want to carry a lot of gear, the N82 plus SportsTracker makes for a very attractive option.