My Nokia Blog |
- Lumia 521 #1 Best Seller On Amazon’s No Contract Cell Phones
- MNB RG: Nokia 1020 Still Image Quality – Any Good?
- Rich Recording: Nokia Lumia 1020 vs iPhone 5 vs SGSIV
- VentureBeat: “WP as 2nd platform? More developers plan to start developing for Windows Phone than any other platform”
- TheVerge: Nokia selling more Lumias than Blackberry selling phones
- Nokia Lumia 1020 ‘sold out’ at AT&T?
- MNB RG: Nokia Asha 201 review
- Nokia’s Q2 2013 Results
- Press Release: Gi Group recruits Nokia Lumia as its business smartphone
| Lumia 521 #1 Best Seller On Amazon’s No Contract Cell Phones Posted: 18 Jul 2013 02:00 PM PDT
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| MNB RG: Nokia 1020 Still Image Quality – Any Good? Posted: 18 Jul 2013 01:52 PM PDT
It’s a very thorough discussion despite the limited availability of early Nokia Lumia 1020 samples. So you can imagine what Werner will deliver when the device becomes available. ___________Nokia 1020 Still Image Quality – Any Good?Currently, I have no access to a production Nokia 1020 yet. (While Nokia’s homeland is Finland, it’ll only appear in shops here only some months later.) This means it’s no possible for me to run my own tests on the handset or compare it directly to, say, the iPhone 5. This, unfortunately, also means only a smallish subset of image quality parameters can be properly examined. In the following, I provide you with an extended version of my original comments HERE. 1.1 The Original PR Images Nokia has made available several images online on their official blog HERE. Unfortunately, most? all? of these shots, presumably shot on a pre-production device, are certainly inferior to ones shot on production ones – for example, those made by the GSM Arena folks or the main subject of this article, that is, the shots made by an AT&T employee. (Incidentally, the GSM Arena folks have also emphasized HERE the following: “We are also pleased to report that the blurring along the right side of the frame, which is visible on the samples wasn’t present on our unit so it is definitely due to a imperfect prototype unit.”) As has been explained, the official Nokia shots don’t seem to represent the image quality of the final version of the handset – they may have been engineering samples with more (or straight non-existing) tolerances. It’s, nevertheless, pretty strange Nokia didn’t strive for publishing less flawed images. This might have been a oversight on their part. A pretty bad one, I’d say – after all, a lot of people in every forum used these images (not having access to anything else) to form a pretty bad conclusion on the image quality of the handset. That is, Nokia did make a major mistake by letting these images out. (We’ve been discussing the why’s of publishing these flawed samples. See for example my discussion with “Janne“ HERE (first, dedicated comment at July 17, 2013 at 7:52 pm GMT: “I still wonder why Nokia published those awful (noisy and decentered) demo shots…“)) Let me show you some examples of why the official samples are inherently flawed. We’ll concentrate on the most prevalent and software-unfixable issue, major blurring because of decentered lens. 1.1.1 What’s Lens Decentering? Lens decentering is a major problem well known for every serious photographer. Many known camera (or lens) models suffered from some degree of decentered lens, at least in the first batches; for example, the Canon S100. For example, DPReview have reported (link) the following on the S100′s they’ve received for testing: ”…the camera [s100] sitting on my desk in front of me is the third sample that I have looked at, and the third with what appears to be a slightly decentered lens.” The results of the decentering was (also) almost half-framesize blurring on the right. (Fortunately, later S100′s have been fixed and I don’t know of they having major decentering issues.) The same effects are clearly visible in Nokia’s official samples. In the following two subsections, I elaborate on both 16:9 and 4:3 samples. 1.1.1.1 A 4:3 Sample On the 4:3 sample I’ve evaluated, about 1850-1900 pixels on the right of the 4:3 shot has major blur problems. It’s not a simple focus point issue – objects in the image’s center and right, on the same focal distance, are perfectly focused and have no blur. http://www.flickr.com/photos/33448355@N07/9316832540/sizes/o/in/set-72157634697436364/ Note that the background buildings in the same (original) image also exhibit some visible oversharpening and detail-smudging issues. The following crop, taken from the upper center of the original image (that is, from an area where the blurring was not an issue any more, unlike the rightmost part of it) shows pretty ugly oversharpening halos around the contour of the building: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33448355@N07/9316831350/sizes/o/in/set-72157634697436364/ In other shots, I haven’t noticed this kind of oversharpening. While the shots are indeed sharpened by default, halos don’t generally become distracting. 1.1.1.2 A 16:9 Sample The 16:9 sample image HERE exhibits a “dead” zone on the far right of about 1000 pixels: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33448355@N07/9316833658/sizes/o/in/set-72157634697436364/ Note that rest of the images (for example, THIS, THIS and THIS) would have been much harder to correctly evaluate: all images only contain in-focus subjects in either the center-left or the center of the shot. Fortunately, production units seem to have much smaller areas with (strong) blurring. 2. Edge Softness in the AT&T Images While the AT&T shots, decentering / blurring-wise, are much better than Nokia’s own, official samples, they still exhibit quite strong edge softness along both the left and right edge. This is pretty much visible even in low-resolution, oversampled images. On 16:9 shots, the heavily blurred zone is about 750 pixels on both sides – that is, 20% of the entire frame’s width (7712px). 2.1 Fixing the Softness Edge softness in no way can be fixed. Oversharpening would make things even worse as there’s almost no true source detail to sharpened. In addition, it’s exactly in the soft areas that Chromatic Aberration (CA) is visible (unlike in non-edge areas), further degrading image quality. All in all, as long as you do require a tack sharp image along the entire picture and/or CA is far too evident and can’t be fixed with the traditional CA fixing tools, your only way of doing this is just cropping – that is, removing the leftmost and rightmost pixels of around 750 pixels in 16:9 and about 750-288 = 462 pixels in 4:3 images. (How I have got the number 288? The Nokia 1020 is (as with the 808) truly multi-aspect, just like many Panasonic cameras (ZS3/TZ7, LX5, GH1/GH2 etc.). This means 16:9 mode make use more horizontal pixels of the sensor than 4:3 mode, which also means the former mode also makes use of the extreme edges of the lens, unlike the latter. You may want to consult section “Multi-Aspect Sensor” at http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/PanasonicDMCGH2 for more info on multi-aspect sensors. Now, given that 4:3 pics are of resolution 7136×5360, while 16:9 ones are 7712×4352, the left/rightmost (7712-7136)/2=288 pixels are abandoned in 4:3 mode. This also means the blurred zone should be around 750-288 = 462 pixels on the left/right edges of 4:3 shots.) 2.1.1 Consequences of Manual Cropping - Resulting (Equivalent) Focal Length If you crop from 16:9 images (again, these suffer from lens softness more than 4:3 ones, the latter having considerably thinner blurred left/rightmost image areas), the effective focal length does increase. By simply cropping the 2*10% of 16:9 frame (that is, around 770 pixels on both sides), we’re still at 26 + 2*2.6 = 31.2 mm equiv focal length – with, now, excellent sharpness. It’s still considerably wider than the camera of most other flagships, particularly in video mode. (iPhone 5: 33mm in 4:3 stills / 42 mm in 1080p video – particularly the latter is much-much narrower than the 1020, even with some heavy cropping to get rid of the blurry edges). 2.1.1.2 What About 3:2? Cropping the 16:9 originals has, in addition to completely getting rid of the blurred left/rightmost image areas, another advantage: getting closer to the 3:2 aspect ratio (to my knowledge) missing from the Camera Pro client of the camera. Assuming you don’t crop vertically, that is. (You don’t need to as, the lens’ being round, there’s no blurring in the shots around the bottom / top edges. Also see my post at July 18, 2013 at 4:51 pm GMT HERE for more info.) As you may know, 3:2 is the aspect ratio used by most large sensors (except for the 4:3 micro 4/3 and the now-discontinued 4/3 sensors.) Should you remove exactly 2*10% of the frame, that is, 771 pixels, 7712-771*2=6170 pixels remain. If you don’t crop vertically, this will be, at 1.417 aspect ratio, much closer to 3:2 (=1.5) than either the source 16:9 (= 1.777) – or, for that matter, 4:3 (= 1.333). By cropping somewhat less pixels (or, alternatively, in addition to cropping 771*2 horizontally, also cropping (4352-6170/1.5)/2 = 119 pixels from both the bottom and top), you can achieve precisely the 3:2 aspect ratio. 2.1.1.2 Don’t Forget The Cropping Areas When Shooting! Of course, cropping as explained above requires you to pay attention to framing your subject. Don’t use the outermost 10% next to the edges! Unfortunately, currently, it seems you can’t use custom rulers in the Camera Pro app and, according to Nokia, accessing the 1020 camera from third-party app (one where you could display 10% rulers to show the area that will need to be cropped) doesn’t allow you to use the built-in, in-camera oversampling method of Nokia. That is, for the time being at least, you’ll need to shoot without cropping area-specific rulers. 3. Other Image Issues I’ve dedicated the entire second section to blurring resulting from the lens being “pushed” far too hard on the left/right edges. Fortunately, that seems to be the single most important issue with the 1020′s camera; this is why I discuss other issues in the same (this) main section. 3.1 Rolling Shutter Effects in Stills HERE, I’ve posted quite a lot on the differences of mechanical and electronic shutters and, in general, the inherent problems one faces when using a sensor without a global shutter. The 1020, as with the 808, doesn’t have a global shutter either. This means there’ll be some image skewing even in still mode where the mechanical shutter can be utilized. (Note that I, not having a reliable video recording of, say, fast-moving cars, I could’t properly evaluate the rolling shutter problems of shots made with purely electronic shutter. I assume it’s somewhat – but not much! – worse than the image skewing distortion visible when using the mechanical shutter.) In the AT&T shots, image skew because of the rolling shutter can definitely be seen in the images HERE and HERE. Check out the wheels of the white car on the right – it’s not an exact circle but more like a skewed oval. Just like in the image HERE (linked from HERE) The two crops: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33448355@N07/9316831110/sizes/o/in/set-72157634697436364/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/33448355@N07/9316831236/sizes/o/in/set-72157634697436364/ It’s actually not that bad, given that we’re speaking of a 41 Mpixel sensor, meaning really a LOT sensor photodiodes to be read. In addition, the car in question had the speed of around 80 km/h (50 mph); that is, it was pretty fast (at least in the eye of somebody used to the traffic speed regulations here in Finland 3.2 Chromatic Aberration There’s no Chromatic Aberration (CA) to speak of in the (horizontally) center 80% (that is, the non-blurred area) of the frame, “only” the 20%, where – as I’ve previously mentioned – the lens are pushed too hard, over their limits. CA in the left 10% is very visible for example HERE and HERE: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33448355@N07/9316834096/sizes/o/in/set-72157634697436364/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/33448355@N07/9316834412/sizes/o/in/set-72157634697436364/ I used red rectangles in both crops to emphasize the areas with quite strong CA. Again, if you do crop (as I’ve recommended), you’ll unlikely to be faced by any kind of CA. The lens of the 1020 is VERY well done in this respect (too). 3.3 Dynamic Range (DR) DR is, as was easy to predict, doesn’t come close to for example APS-C sensors; see for example the abrupt clipping in the green foliage at the bottom of THIS image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33448355@N07/9314047627/in/set-72157634697436364 Here, I used red rectangles in the crop to emphasize some (but definitely not all!) of the clipped areas. However, it seems to be definitely better than that of the 808 and on the same level as better small-sensor P&S cameras. |
| Rich Recording: Nokia Lumia 1020 vs iPhone 5 vs SGSIV Posted: 18 Jul 2013 07:26 AM PDT
A promo to show off the stereo Rich Recording on the Nokia Lumia 1020 against the top two competing smartphones, the iPhone 5 and Galaxy SIV.
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| Posted: 18 Jul 2013 06:55 AM PDT
VentureBeat reports that “more developers plan to start developing for Windows Phone than any other platform”. The key word in the phrasing in “plan to” because the majority of these developers are already working on iOS and Android. But that’s still quite a positive for the platform given that it’s now the developers that make or break it.
Apparently the average developer now makes apps for 2.9 ecosystems simultaneously. That’s down from 3.2 in 2011, and VentureBeat feels that BB has fallen out of favour. With space only for three platforms, it’s good news to hear WP edging in third position. These are Windows Phone specific apps, either originals from the developer or third party apps all built for WP (versus horrendous ports on an emulator – the gist I got from speaking with @SamJPullen about BB ‘apps’). VB notes that the developer interest is actually down from last quarter and there’s tough challenges ahead for MS to break that Duopoly between Android and iOS. An interesting point they make is how WP could become the second platform sooner than you’d think. This is based on WP’s potential to displace iOS. Potential? Yes, everything has potential. Likelihood on the other chance is possibly not so high, especially given what we’re seeing MS is doing with Windows Phone. But hey, they could still positively surprise us. |
| TheVerge: Nokia selling more Lumias than Blackberry selling phones Posted: 18 Jul 2013 05:07 AM PDT
Nokia’s smartphone portfolio consists now of just Windows Phone, aka Lumia. The Symbian segment is negligible now and the Asha isn’t considered as a smartphone. The upward trend for Nokia Lumia continues upwards, bolstered by highly praised entry level handsets such as the 520/620. You could say that BB is still ramping up. Out of their last quarter sales, just 2.7M were BBOS. Expectations for Q3 from our readers estimates between 8-8.5M, 10M for Q4 2013. There’s one more major announcement for Nokia Lumia (possibly?) which may not be available early enough to impact Q4, but the likes of the 1020 should definitely gain some worldwide attention as the first mass market 41MP camera (808 unfortunately did not get the same availability or awareness given Nokia’s shift to WP). Hopefully that does create the expected ‘halo effect’ onto the rest of Nokia’s portfolio. Early indications seem positive. The fight between BB and WP/Lumia is even more interesting because they’re currently fighting for third place. In sales, with the ‘assistance’ of the other OEMs, the WP numbers to rise ever so slightly more so compared to BB. Fingers crossed an October announcement from MS gives a good surprise for WP users. Or at least give us some form of a worthy update this year.
Cheers to Janne for the heads up |
| Nokia Lumia 1020 ‘sold out’ at AT&T? Posted: 18 Jul 2013 05:06 AM PDT
It appears AT&T have already run out of stock for those who pre-ordered the Nokia Lumia 1020. Aah, perhaps a great ploy by Nokia to get the devices out super early by only having 100 in stock, thus giving time to manufacture the rest and ‘ship when available’ haha. Jaded assumptions aside, the hopeful guy in me wishes this trend continues in the US and the AT&T staff pay attention to the 1020. It’s really the first Nokia on a US carrier with truly stand out unique features never before seen in any other device. That 41mp camera at the back should get it noticed. OIS was awesome in the Nokia Lumia 920 but darn, I’m not sure folks understood it. At Phones4U they certainly never mentioned it to me when pitching the 920. They only mentioned the 8.7MP camera.
Hopefully this will become available to the rest of the world soon enough! Three is a totally epic option for the UK readers given their excellent approach to data. I want to get my 1020 on Three Cheers Viipottaja for the tip! |
| Posted: 18 Jul 2013 02:45 AM PDT
Justin shares some quick impressions in his informal Nokia Asha 201 review:
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| Posted: 18 Jul 2013 02:29 AM PDT
Nokia’s latest results will be available shortly today, July 18, 2013 at approximately 1:00 PM (CET+1)at:
The main report page is over at:
This post will be updated as the results come in. Available: Second quarter 2013 highlights:
January-June 2013 highlights:
Commenting on the second quarter results, Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, said: __________ Cheers Janne for the tip |
| Press Release: Gi Group recruits Nokia Lumia as its business smartphone Posted: 18 Jul 2013 02:19 AM PDT Espoo, Finland – Nokia has announced that Gi Group, a leading Italian multinational company dedicated to the human resources market, has chosen Nokia Lumia as its business smartphone, replacing BlackBerry. The company offers temporary employment, staff leasing, research and selection, executive search, outplacement, HR consulting and training in 19 countries around the world. Gi Group has already provided more than 800 employees in Italy with Nokia Lumia smartphones, including the eye-catching Nokia Lumia 925, the versatile Nokia Lumia 820 and the bright and bold Nokia Lumia 620, with plans to expand to all of the countries where the company operates. The ability to seamlessly operate with Gi Group’s Microsoft Outlook mail and Microsoft Office applications was an important factor in the choice of Nokia Lumia, which is built on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 platform. Using Microsoft InTune, the company’s IT organization can manage the Nokia Lumia smartphones remotely, installing new apps and services and remotely wiping confidential and personal data if an employee’s smartphone is lost. “Our people need to be able to connect with colleagues and access and edit Microsoft Office documents, wherever they happen to be,” said Barbara Cottini, HR manager at Gi Group. “They also need to access our customer relationship management systems as well as their professional social media networks without having to have a laptop with them at all times. Nokia Lumia offered us a unique way of doing this, with elegant, modern smartphones and a user experience that is immediately familiar.” As a company which truly understands the importance of making a personal connection with employees, contractors and clients, Gi Group also values the ability to use Microsoft Lync for conference calling and is evaluating using Skype, together with the great cameras in Nokia Lumia, to enable video interviews with applicants when they cannot meet face to face. Nokia Lumia also offers HERE Maps with LiveSight to help Gi Group people feel at home, wherever they happen to be as well as HERE Drive, with free, turn-by-turn navigation to help them get to their next meeting. Paola Cavallero, general manager for Italy at Nokia said, “Gi Group is a great example of how Nokia Lumia enables smartphones to become an integral part of any company’s IT infrastructure, working seamlessly with their corporate systems and freeing their people to work effectively wherever they are.” |
This post was shared with us by Werner Ruotsalainen. There was quite a bit of discussion over the post below regarding the image quality of the Nokia Lumia 1020:
). I’ve certainly seen much worse results from cameras with much fewer sensor pixels.
From todays results, TheVerge notes that Nokia’s ‘Record’ 7.4 million Nokia Lumias beats BlackBerry’s shipment volumes.
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