More PureView Pictures

Car park of Garden by the Bay
Love the greenery and sunlight pouring in like a spot light.

Resort World Sentosa

Puss in the Mountain

The big kitty cat from the mountain has arrived. Based on the introduction by Apple, it makes your Mac feel like any iOS device. Their default browser Safari has come out from the wilderness and feels more like....Chrome, the one from Google, although I must say the pinch-swipe to navigate tabs is pretty neat. Not quite enough to make me jump on the Safari ride as yet.

For once Apple is making it cheap to upgrade and everyone else seems to have been eager to shut up and part with money.

Looks like we are getting deeper into the Walled Garden of Cupertino with iClouds overhead. Once you are in, you can never get out....*cue evil laugh*

Unexpected Garden

Sometimes people can screw up your schedule, but at times it can end up an opportunity for a unscheduled distraction. With an hour to spare, I made a quick trip to latest attraction of this region if not the world.

Gardens by the Bay

Good for testing the Nokia 808. I have only explored the entrance area, so there are plenty to see still.
PureView with Lightroom ahead.

Techno-lot?

My bag feels so light after reading this from Gizmodo. It shares the bag contents of one Steve Wozniak.
Then again, he can afford it.

I heart PureView

Well well, looks like I am not quite alone in liking the poor orphaned child of Nokia. In the short time since it's launch, the 808 has gotten quite a fan club.

PureView Club
This group actually started since the 808 was announced. Talk about love at first sight. Lots of news and discussion. Which led me to the next item.

From ZDNet, the title is self explanatory: Another week with the Nokia 808 PureView convinces me it's worth the $700. I think the main problem is the Symbian OS or rather the perception. I had used Symbian S60 previously and by the E52 it was clearly buggy. Belle is definitely different in performance, far more responsive and stable.

One thing I find missing is the ability to upload to Picasa webalbum directly. If I am ever desperately in need of connecting to Picasa, I can actually transfer to my N9 which in turn can upload to my account.

So much trouble you say? Three simple letters: NFC. I snap on the 808, open the gallery, put them together at the NFC antenna and voila! The image is sent via bluetooth automatically provided the phones have been paired previously. Very fast and automatic.

Volker Weber is the owner of the blog vowe dot net, I particularly like this post about going back to the 808 , something I can attest to.

Lastly this Finnish blogger, Jarmo Timonen, has patiently gathered all the music videos he made with the PureView. Quite amazing recordings for a mobile phone.

Enjoy this video of a misunderstood, underrated and under sold phone

Today

PureView with a little Lightroom magic.

Things to be thankful for:

Shade on a sunny day.

Solid ground. No mudslides, flooding or bomb craters, how great is that!

Look up. Best wallpaper on the best Super definition screen.

Update on the PureView

Accessories

What is a gadget without accessories?

Screen protectors are generally a must, even with the magical Gorilla Glass cover. A little quirk is the left and right edges of the PureView screen curves down into the poly-carbonate casing, so the current screen protector available is actually short of the long edge of the screen, by at least 2 mm. That is irritating because it will always have gunk building up there. Good thing is Nokia actually supplies the phone with quite a good temporary protector. From past experience, they last pretty long for something temporary.

Official casing offered is the C-3046 which comes with a lens cover. It is a pretty stiff silicone casing, which I do recommend as the bulging lens assembly has some shiny metal parts that can get scratched, worse is cracking the lens glass.  Interestingly behind the glass cover the lens has a separate cover, that automatically opens while the camera app is active. Negative about the casing is I think the loudspeaker is dampened a little. The dedicated camera button becomes a little harder to press, resulting in accidentally taking a shot while trying to turn on the camera..

Nokia has on offer a tripod adapter as well, the HH-23, which is available in Singapore despite it missing from the local website. Costing SGD$18, it is a poly-carbonate spring loaded clamp with a tripod screw hole. Unfortunately I think it was designed for use without the casing, so beware of flying phones if not too gentle.

Update: As I suspected. the tripod mount does not work well with the casing, there is a tendency for the phone to slip out of the clamps. In fact, I think it needs a bit of adjustment as it does not allow for the curved backing and deeper body of the PureView, even the placement of the slider lock key is not considered. It works perfect on the N9.

Purity in Vision

Nokia PureView 808.

This is a CAMERAphone, depending on how you define a mobile phone. It is relatively smart, though not top of the class, so you get a fair bit of your social media connection and internet whatnot. In this era of Apps and Gazillion Apps, the PureView seems rudimentary, with the basic apps to process your photos, nothing to the slickness of iPhoto or Photoshop but enough to get a stray ear or finger out of the frame and brighten that most embarrassing photo of you puking after a binge.

I have very minimal needs for my phone, so this serves me well especially since I still have the N9. The one key difference from the N9 is Whatsapp which runs on Symbian but not MeeGo. The service has improved a lot since I last PAID for it on iOS, now it is the better alternative to iMessage and almost platform agnostic. And it's FREE.

Until iOS6 is released, one thing that beats the iPhone is the turn by turn navigation. Nokia Drive is pretty accurate and now includes voice guidance with street names. Fun to hear things like SLE to CTE pronounced as "Slay" to CTE with an American accent.

Symbian Belle is relatively light footed, and definitely streamlined for this monster of a camera. Except for a quirk while shooting continuously for some time, it had not crashed.


Now the CAMERA part.

Nokia effectively squeezed in a compact camera into a phone. It is the equivalent of a Ricoh GX series type camera. While the 41 megapixel specification seems incredible, my experience is that you have to treat it like any point and shoot. Do not expect something to compete with say a Nikon D800. The sensor SIZE is 1/1.2" which competes with most top of the line compact point and shoots. The dense pixel count is used with pixel binning, so you don't get huge files.

There are plenty of reviews online, I have posted a few previously, so I won't repeat with a review, rather I will share my experience.

Incidentally it is the bi-annual Singapore Garden Festival again, lovely to attend, tough to photograph.

I left my GXR behind, determined to test out the PureView in a "lucky I have my camera phone with me" situation. It was very similar to my first experience with the Ricoh R5, thus why I say treat it like any point and shoot.

The first thing to note is how fast you can start shooting. Dedicated camera button. It allows you to jump to the camera view from a locked screen with a screen saver running in almost 1 second and you can actually shoot by simply pressing the camera button again.

I haven't tested how fast it can focus, but it is relatively faster than average for a mobile phone. Focusing is activated on the touch screen with a default to Autofocus, but with a long press, you can then select  from Automatic, Close up, Hyperfocal and Infinity. Would have been nice if they could do something like Ricoh's snap focus.

There area 3 modes, fully automatic, typical scene mode or "creative". Which basically means semi-manual. You have no control over shutter and aperture, but have access to ISO control up to 1600. There is exposure control and surprisingly a built in ND filter.

Zoom is purely digital, but with cropping instead of extrapolation, and is silent. It does not work in "Full resolution" mode. One magical touch, you can zoom in Video mode silently without losing resolution.

The PureView theoretically should work quite well in low light situations, but I noticed the shutter speed tends be in the low 1/10 to 1/30. This unfortunately means blurry picture for me. Shaky hands and the fact the phone is held in an awkward position most of the time rendered a lot of my photos blurry. I also find that touching the screen to focus and shoot makes it worse. Stabilizing on a post or fencing did not help me either. Would be nice if Nokia added a timed shutter release. My bad, it DOES have a timer release, in steps of 2, 10 and 30 seconds. Annoyingly it beeps counting down.

The screen though large has a lower resolution which makes the blurry pictures hard to detect unless you spend time zooming in. Everything looks good zoomed out.

Here are some less blurry photos. They are untouched except for some cropping.

Nokia also threw in 5 free photography apps which includes Panoramic shots and an Instagram copy.

I am pretty impressed by the Panoramic stitching.

Rain

It was a wet morning, with winds creating strange patterns. Nice weather to have when tucked away safely at home.

Lonesome 9

Like the gentle giant of the Galapagos, the N9 is all alone.
Before us users could even savour the latest update, it was announced that the MeeGo team is leaving Nokia

So to Sotiris Makyrgiannis and his team: Kiitos ja näkemiin

It is still alive! N9

Yippee! Any N9 users reading this : New update available!
Thanks to MyNokiaBlog and Nokia Swipe

Nokia might be crumbling under the assault from within and outside, but thanks to the Engineers toiling away, the one strange N9 is still getting updates. Sure, its nothing fantastic like iOS6 and Jelly Bean, but it gets the work done. It has some smarts to it and best of all, I don't have to worry about updates killing paid apps or slowing things down. Call me iRebel.

Oh as an aside, Corning Gorilla Glass is one tough a** cover. The video is in Italian, but the visual is pretty conclusive.  I can testify as I have been carrying my N9 around without a screen protector for the longest time or front cover either. Of course you have to treat it with care, but not as much as an iPhone considering they are quite similar in form. After so long, I only see very tiny scratches.

Nokia Pureview 808 scratch test

VIA MyNokiaBlog

PS: I love to listening to Italian being spoken, donta eska mia wai, Mamma Mia! è molto bella!

Fragile

Considering how pervasive the internet is in our lives and how immersed we can be in that virtual world, it is a timely reminder that Mummy Nature can whip our behind. While a testament to the strength of the internet, this incident says it can be all turned off with a switch.

Jelly Bean

The latest sweet stuff from Google

A quick recap from GSMArena

One thing about Android that bugs me is the graphics, the scrolling and switching of home screens has that oh so subtle jerkiness. Now it has been proven by the incredible Red camera.

Question is why I can pick that out but can't "enjoy" the Retina display.

Take 2 tablets and call in the morning

Actually it is more like 3.

iPad, Surface and Nexus. Portraits by Endgadet

The first

The middle

The latest

The first two control the total package from software to hardware. The Nexus is a collaboration between Google and Asus, probably because the big G has not gone G+factory. Interestingly big G did not go with big S, maybe because big S is being Sued big time by big A. The world is for the big big boys.

The next video is kind of why Apple is the leader in presentation. The subtitles are hilarious and detracts from the Nexus. Hands down, Apple does the slickest Keynote.

In case the video gets corrected, here is a little slip up that is oh so Freudian.

Naughty Naughty.

The Magic Window

Finally! The latest gift from the gods of Cupertino have arrived on the shores of our fair island.

When on the course of running errands, I get to pass the great halls of worship with their white walls, so I have been stalking the latest and greatest. Oh you know that great amazing magic window that allows you such great clarity of the world around you. No no, not around you, IN the screen you fool!

Ah yes, there it was, alone on the pristine white table. It's form long so famous before its appearance, I recognize it a mile, sorry, 5 meters away. The right side was no longer dominated by that long ugly scar, a wound that we would keep open by slicing it with an old fashion optical blade. No wonder we could not ascend into the iClouds.

I rushed to the front of the white altar, trembling with excitement at the thought of beholding that magical, AWESOME window.

I wanted to be amazed, shocked and awed into a warbling mass of jelly!

I wanted to have that tremendous feeling of flying in the air among the iClouds.

I was..

I was..

I was.. I just mentally screamed in my best Singlish.

"Lie DAT onee har?!"

(Translation: "That's it?" WTF optional depending on emotional status. Singlish is a compact yet many layered version of English)

Suddenly I was brought back to reality, feeling heretical among the faithful.

I glanced and then stared at the less magical version next to it. Yes I can see the difference, slowly. Less magic more fuzz, less color, smudgy black. Less $ also, all 500 of it.

The AI or perhaps SIRI even, sensed my unbelief and stopped my further probing. Safari stopped connecting to the internet and I could not view any thing else to support or change my conclusion. I tried iPhoto but was distracted by the 27 inch Apple Display stationed  in between.

Sure the colour is more intense, the black has more depth just like my N9 (sorry I cannot help myself since my phone is like the giant Panda, almost extinct!). It has less glare, that is evident, especially since the less magical are super reflective.

Yes it is also flatter, but hardly airy fairy like the Air, just enough for a bag to accommodate an iPad more comfortably.

So being "denied" the internet connection, (yes call me sensitive SIRI.) I decided to resume my errands. Leaving the white halls of the store, I came to the conclusion that the latest and the best Cupertino magic is for the young and rich. Worn out eyes and anorexic wallets are simply not worthy of the love that Sir Ives has lavished.

As I write this on my comfortably clear Full HD 24 inch Dell screen, I tell myself one thing:"I am not worthy".

And dream of a Retina 27 Apple Display.

Gadgeddict

[gaj-e-dikt] 
noun

• a person who is obsessed with the knowledge and possession of the latest gadget, regardless of personal well being. Usually equipped with a Reality Distortion Field unit.

Trojan horse

All is not good in Espoo.

Windows is a Trojan horse brought in by Mr Elop. Now with the latest Microsoft announcement of Windows Phone 8, Nokia is blowing up inside out in painfully slow motion.

Read: Microsoft screws over Nokia and At the Salo end of Nokia's deep crisis

Microsoft announced at least 6 months ahead of Phone 8 supposed release means buyers holding back on new phones. No full update for current users makes lots of upset customers. Seems like Microsoft's plan to head off Apple by being more like Apple made them worse than Apple. Planned obsolescence over at Cupertino  was at least much less painful than Redmond's.

Poor Nokia is left with 6 months of poor or no sales before even introducing the new Phone 8 models.

A Greek tragedy unfolding in the far north.

Mega Mini

Eyeballs rolled when Nokia announced their PureView 808's 41 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera. Most photographers have realised megapixels don't mean much alone, you need the whole package including eyeballs and that all essential lump behind them.

Has Nokia gone bonkers or simply desperate? Perhaps.

Before going into the camera function, let's talk phone first. To sum it up, Symbian Belle. It is the latest and perhaps last of an old phone OS. Being a Nokia user for a long time, I find it familiar and is actually quite sufficient for me. However that could be Nokia's Achilles Heel as most perceive it as old fashion, uncool.

Hardly the bait for non-Nokia lovers. Apparently development on the sensor started when Symbian was still their hope against Apple, so they stuck with it. Stephen Elop the ex-Microsoft man seems to be the orphan maker with N9 and now this. Is he the Man to save Nokia or serve Nokia to Microsoft?

What interested me is the camera function, which surprisingly exceeded expectation. Nokia developed this huge sensor, did the simple thing of "downsizing" the resulting image. Ok, it is not a direct downsizing, but with a bit of engineering magic, they also managed to capture a fair bit of details.

The camera function response is quick. From the lock screen you just press the dedicated shutter button and the camera comes alive to shoot. Touch focus on the screen and shoot with the same button or on screen button. It just might win in an OK Corral shoot down.

From Nokia Singapore Facebook page

The PureView 808 can "zoom" and keep quite good details.Try doing this on most camera phone and you get mush or impressionist art. It is not an optical zoom or even digital zoom, it is more a "crop" camera.

"What is so impressive about that picture?" you might ask.

Here is the full image capture.

Sure most tiny point and shoots can do the same but we are talking camera phones.

Video recording is Full HD with auto-focusing and zoom. Looks impressive. Watch the video as it pans to the setting sun.

What else impressed me is this test of camera phones plus an Olympus EPL-2 camera. It is not a true blind test scientifically speaking, but go on, try it out before the reveal on the last page.

The biggest problem with this camera phone? It is EXPENSIVE at around SGD $850, even more than the flagship Windows Phone Lumia 900. That and it is running on Symbian.

Do I want it? You betcha.

WWDC 2012

So how was the recent Apple Harvest Festival?

For me it was strangely exciting and soporific at the same time. Now that I own quite a few pieces of fruity goodness, I know what works for me and what is rotten.

First of all, this truly Post-Jobs festival was on par with previous. I think the new High Priest, Mr Cook, did a good job. (No pun intended). He does not have the same arrogance/confidence as Jobs, but he clearly loves what he does, not just because he declares it almost tearfully at the end, the love was there at the start.

Apple's strength is the sheer confidence and belief in what they are doing and really crafting their best. The famous Reality Distortion Field is what holds them together and their fans clinging on. You want to succeed? Raise up your RDF! It works, not just at Apple. (Not all the time: See Americal Idol)

Ok back to the harvest.

Pick of the crop: The Mac Book Pro Retina Display

Read the review on Engadget for technical details, I am just giving my opinion here.

Obvious elephant in the room, hard to miss since it is in super high definition. The only selling point I think is the display. It is super high res, less shiny, deeper black. No cover glass, so as to reduce the air gap, just like my year old Nokia N9. Oh sorry, we are on Apple.

Cleverly, Apple did not go the Windows way of making a high res screen for you to squint at microscopic icons. They applied scaling so everything looks normal. Unfortunately older apps will look fuzzy.

The question is does the screen makes up for the difference in premium? I am sure it does for graphic/media industry persons. While I reserve my opinion until I see the real thing, based on my experience on the iPad it is not equivalent to the premium involved.
"Are you blind?!" you may ask, unfortunately the answer is YES!
I just started on my first pair of Progressive eyeglasses, so I cannot truly be stunned by the"glorious" screen. Boo Hoo.

Kudos to Apple for FINALLY adding USB 3 to their line up and not some silly dongle. Give it to them for simply giving a unified USB 3, instead of a split 2-3 ports as if USB 3 is not backward compatible. (Or is it?)
Also they introduced the MagSafe 2 power point. At first I thought it was some ploy to make users buy more accessories, but as stated in Engadget, it helps to keep a wandering USB plug from getting drawn in. Happened a plenty to me.

Interesting but over marketed point: Asymmetrical Fans.
It does show how much care they put into crafting the machine, but frankly I wonder if it makes a difference. They are already pretty quiet.

From iFixit website:

Doesn't it look like a Mayan pictograph/carving in 2012 style? Signs of times? 

Oh yes the teeth like battery pack does pack a bite (pun so intended), as experienced at iFixit. Apparently the tech got a shock removing the glued down packs.

What else bites? Well your wallet is certainly going to resemble their logo. It is almost SGD $3000 for the basic model. That puts it well above my comfort zone for notebooks. sorry Tim, my wallet is not worthy.

Silliness of the day: They quietly upgraded the Mac Pro a tinny weeny bit and then peeled off the "NEW" label in Apple Store after a few days. Yes, your followers know it is not new without at least an addition of Thunderbolt port.

Hello Kitty!

The rest of the festival was rather soporific. It was Apple playing catch up and leaping forward at the same time, they copied some features from their competitor, refined it and gave it that Apple touch.

Turn by turn navigation.
Finally it arrived for the iOS and it looks good. Been using one in my N9, but while I hardly need it, Apple's version does include traffic data and alternative routes. The test will be if it works in Singapore, just a nagging feeling it will be very US-centric.

Irony of the day: iOS 6 is going to use a lot of online data, what with Siri and Facebook integration, just when the Telcos here are throttling 3G bandwidth and cutting back on data pocket money.

Apple is "mobilising" their desktop OS, making it more like their mobile counterpart. Smartly they slipped it in a small portions so that they don't alienate the original OS users while making the iPhone/iPad users welcomed. Microsoft is going the wrong way with Windows 8. Currently I am using the release Preview on an older computer and the Metro UI is very jarring when it flips between views while launching Non-metro ready Apps. Microsoft has a lot to do, considering how many old Apps that can run on Windows 8.

Fragmentation or sales tactic

A summary of iOS  and iDevice compatibility via Engadget

I don't think it is quite the same fragmentation as in the Android with multiple versions and manufacturers. Here the hardware and software development is tightly controlled by a single company, we all know it is just Apple's way of hinting to their followers," Shut up and give me your money". Will it work with Tim Cook's smiling gentle demeanor? I think with the right recipe, Apple addicts are still a plenty, considering they refocused on 1.3 billion souls.



Last word, I just feel that SIRI is sounding a lot like S.A.R.A.H, did Steve Jobs do a Fargo? Or is he really inside?

Comment on Ricoh A16 24-85mm

There was a question posted last month which I missed. Well, who knew someone would read this?

To Clint

Yes it is possible to use the Dynamic Compensation with Interval Shooting. How effective it is I am not sure.
Guess you probably found that out by now :) Thanks for reading and commenting.