N90 review and video sample

Here’s part II of my showcase of the Nokia N90’s multimedia capabilities. Part I is here. Below is a link to a 1 minute 16 seconds video of my dog playing. I intentionally chose this subject to show just how good the hardware is for taking home videos.

Notice that when my dog runs for the ball and jerks side to side, no lag occurs. Same thing goes for the camera that tries to catch up with the subject. Nokia hit the bullseye here by claiming that this is the first phone that’s able to record decent home videos.

Video files are saved in MPEG4 format. The video I uploaded (highest possible quality) is rougly 5.1MB for 1:16 of play time. That’s a huge chunk of data for a mobile phone. You can download and view it here on Quicktime.

It is its own tripod
The N90’s unique camera mode is designed with the idea of that users will be able to do a lot of vari-angle (a term taken from Canon) action. The phone is made up of three pieces of real estate – the screen hinge, the keypad hinge and the camera hinge. All this ‘hinge-ing’ allows the phone to be positioned standing up: it is its own tripod.

The most common shooting mode of the N90 is the “video cam” mode where the phone mimicks the appearance of a mini DV cam. How is this achieved? The screen area of the N90 is tilted to a 90 degree angle, perpendicular to the camera’s hinge. The camera can be tilted to about 315 degrees round, which gives you a lot of options for creative angles.

Two steps backward
Oh dear Nokia, what have you done? It’s always when you come up with new technology that you forget to maintain your infrastructure. I’ve confirmed my suspicions on the N90’s Symbian powered Series 60 platform and man, the phone is slooooooooow. I will be willing to give up the need for speed for the fantastic multimedia quality, but c’mon I was expecting a lot more in terms of speed and power from Nokia’s new N series. Access of menus are slow. Loading of images are slow. The Gallery has been tweaked for eye candy purposes though – but it sucks when all your images are grayed out because of loading times.

Battery life is also a bummer. I could barely survive a day with this thing on a full charge. Perhaps, if I decide to not use the camera the entire day, then yes it will last my 7 am breakfast till 9 pm movie date. But then again, with so much eye candy in your pocket, I can’t resist but show off.

Buying considerations
A three piece hinge is very delicate for a cameraphone. There are a lot of moving parts and therefore the chances that it will just snap (pun intended) are … huge. Seriously, Nokia’s previous phones like the 7650 had problems with the slider after a while. These twisting and turning mechanisms are scary. Especially when you’re shelling out around US $700.00 for it.