I owned a Motorokr E6 touch screen phone and wanted to buy a camera phone which can take decent pictures. I eyed on the Sony Ericsson C902 (the phone James Bond uses in Quatum of Solace) which has got a 5 MP camera.
Reading the reviews in GSM arena said it is worth to look at Sony Ericsson’s K850i (an older model) which comes with a Xenon Flash. I started comparing various features, my requirement slowly grew up and I was looking at Sony Ericsson’s first 8 MP camera phone, the C905.
After reading several reviews, C905 can take excellent still photos, but
- The video quality is just QVGA@30fps. 2. no front camera 3. The display is only 256K colors only. Even some of Nokia’s basic phones offer 16 Million colors. I increased my budget to Rs. 25K and started looking for phones in that price range.
Nokia announced N97 and the N86. N97 is expensive and a touchscreen phone. I dont want a touchscreen phone, so I decided on N86 which is a 8 MP Camera phone with the Wide Angle lens.
The phone has got everything that I needed. The Still photos are good, Video clarity is amazing (VGA) and it takes in MP4 mode, comes with an 8 gig internal memory and Wi-Fi. Reviews in GSMArena isnt very impressive and they were comparing it with Samsung Innov8, LG and Sony Ericsson C905. Samsung Innov8 is not in my budget and I have heard people’s negative feedback about LG phones. This just leaves C905 and N86. Comparing just the features, N86 lags only one feature when compared to C905, the Xenon Flash. But, the N86 exceeds everything in features. I decided to buy it and went for it.
One major advantage of this phone is it’s Operating System, Symbian. This is not a DivX certified phone, but just go to DivX site and install it in the phone and hey, it is a DivX compatible phone now :). There are several applications available in the Symbian site.
Photos are good with the dual LED flash. I still would love to have Xenon Flash, but Dual LEDs aren’t bad either. Video quality is just amazing. Just transfer the video to your PC and see the quality.
You get a 3.5 mm audio jack incase if you want to connect the phone to an external multimedia speaker and listen songs through it. The glass is hardened and Scratch-resistant.
There is also an FM Transmitter. Store all your songs in the phone. If you are driving, specify an unused frequency in the phone and transmit your playlist. Tune your car to that frequency and hear all those songs.
I am not commenting much on GPS and other features as they are application specific.
The phone, ofcourse is bulky, but can be compromised with the features it has. One of my colleagues have a Nokia N70 and he was complaning that NSeries are slow phones. After I showed the phone to him, he agreed that N86 is faster. The picture folder is alone slow :(.
Overall, you go on a tour or if you are in a situation where you think you need a camera to capture that moment, N86 wouldnt let you down.
I reduced one star for Range of features as the accelerometer is only for orientation and not for playing games. Sony Ericsson C902 and K850i are amazing in this. And for the missing Xenon Flash. The phone has got a TV Output, but the box doesnt have the cable :(. If any one gets a cable in the package, please let me know.
I got this phone a month ago and am not regretting it at all. Now with an upgraded firmware, it got even better. Ofcourse, Nokia is very late in releasing it’s first Flagship 8 MP camera (way behind it’s competitors), but the phone wouldn’t let you down.
Did I forget to mention that it is second to none in it’s call qualities :)?
I thought I will update about Home Media features in the phone. I havent done this before, but thought I will explore this option during the weekend.
Basically, you can sync up your phone’s and PC’s Media files using the WiFi network at your home. You need a wireless router for it though. The Media Server Software (comes with the OVI installation), has to be hosted in the PC and the data has to be synced up. Once sync is complete, access your home media through the phone :). If you have a uPnP device (planning to buy one), you can connect that to your TV or home theatre. So, basically access the Media in your PC via the phone, send it to the uPnP device and watch it in your TV or listen it in your home theatre :). And it is all LAN networked. Control everything through your phone using Wi-Fi. Cool, isn’t it?
Still exploring all the options here.