Nokia E66 Cell Phone Review - Imaging

The Nokia E66's 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera is a significant step up from the two megapixel fixed focus camera found on its predecessor the Nokia E65. Resolution on still photos was good and color was reasonable, but we did find a lot of noise. The video capture is above average, but not up to the standards of phones like the Nokia N95.

Resolution (5.66)
To test resolution we take photos of an industry standard resolution chart and run the photos through Imatest software to analyze them. Imatest produces a score called line widths per picture height (lw/ph), which measures how many alternating black and white lines can be displayed.

Industry standard resolution chart

The Nokia E66 performed very well in this test, scoring 1128 lw/ph horizontal and 1406 lw/ph vertical. This is significantly above average and you can see below that amongst our comparison phones only the Nokia N82 and its five megapixel camera performed better. Although its not one of our comparison phones we should also mention that the E66's 3.2 megapixel camera performed significantly better on this test than the Nokia N73's 3.2 megapixel camera, indicating that Nokia has either improved the hardware slightly or improved the software processing.

Cell Phone	Nokia E66	Palm Centro	BlackBerry Pearl 8130
Score	5.66	1.41	4.27
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	1128/1406	581/596	980/450
Image of Resolution Chart

Cell Phone	Nokia N82	Samsung Blackjack II	LG enV2
Score	7.59	2.45	1.61
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	1307/1288	742/894	601/631
Image of Resolution Chart

Color (4.17)
To see how well the Nokia E66's camera reproduces colors we take photos of the industry standard GretagMacbeth chart, which displays twenty-four different colors. We use Imatest software to compare the captured colors to the original colors.

Imatest produces the chart above, which shows you the difference between the captured and ideal colors. Imatest also produces the chart below, which gives a clearer picture of the results with the ideal color marked by a square and the captured color marked by a circle. You can see that the E66 had a few problems with color capture, with some significant inaccuracies in several colors.

The longer the line the more inaccurate the color.

We also noted that there was some significant error in capturing whites, which indicates that the auto white balance on the E66 may have some problems. We recommend you use the white balance settings on the phone to adjust accordingly for your scene as this may help produce better final colors. The Nokia E66's overall performance on this test is just below average, and you can see below that only the Blackjack II amongst our comparison phones performed worse.

Cell Phone	Nokia E66	Palm Centro	BlackBerry Pearl 8130
Score	4.17	8.08	5.13
Color Checker Chart

Cell Phone	Nokia N82	Samsung Blackjack II	LG enV2
Score	5.45	2.62	6.39
Color Checker Chart

Noise (0.39)
The Nokia E66 did not perform well in our test of how much noise is found in photos taken by the phone's camera. To test noise we take photos of the GretagMacbeth color chart at four lighting levels, ranging from very bright to low light. We use Imatest to test the noise at each lighting level and consider both the total noise at each level and consistency across lighting levels in our final score. The Nokia E66 produced higher than average noise at our three higher lighting levels, and this already poor performance shot up at the lowest lighting level. You can see below that none of our phones perform well in this test, the simple truth is that sensors as poor as those used in cell phones produce a lot of noise. Amongst our comparison phones only the LG enV2 performed anywhere near as poorly as the E66. What this means is that you can expect photos captured by the E66 to be a bit grainy.

Noise

Live Preview (6.0)
The Nokia E66 uses its entire 2.4 inch display in landscape mode as your viewfinder, which we much prefer to phones that only use part of the screen. The display is sharp, color accuracy is good and it gives you an good idea of what the final photo is going to look like, which is what we want. On the negative side we did notice some trailing and artifacts when panning, but this is less important for still photos than it is for video, which we'll get to later.

The E66's viewfinder takes up the whole screen.

Unlocked Standby to First Shot (3.64)
In this test we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we are able to capture a photo. On the Nokia E66 this took 5.5 seconds, including the time it took for the shot to come into focus. If you don't wait for the focus it took about a second less, but the picture comes out looking terrible so we're going to score on the former. You can see below that this time is significantly slower than average and amongst our comparison phones only the Blackjack II performed worse. We expect to have auto-focus phones take longer on this test, but we should also note that the E66 took more time than Nokia N82, which also has an auto-focus lens. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Unlocked Standby to First Shot (sec)

Shot to Shot Time (2.40)
Shot  to shot time is a measure of how quickly you can take a series of photos. This is important for catching action shots. If a phone has a burst mode we use it for the test, and the Nokia E66 does have one. Using the burst mode we were able to take five photos in 6.2 seconds, which works out to 0.8 frames per second (fps). You can see below that this is just below average and pretty decent when you look at our comparison phones, where only the Blackjack II beat it out. We were also very pleased to see that even in burst mode the Nokia E66 took full size photos. Many phones, including the Blackjack II, take much smaller resolution photos in burst mode. So is the E66's shot to shot time good enough to capture an action shot? It should help you get an action shot at your kid's soccer game, but don't expect to be able to capture a race car. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Shot to Shot Time (sec)

Shutter to Shot Time (1.25)
Shutter to shot time is how much time it takes the phone to capture a photo once you've pressed the shutter button. If you wait for the auto-focus on the Nokia E66 this takes 1.6 seconds. If you ignore the auto-focus it takes only 0.4 seconds, but once again the photo probably isn't going to come out well so we'll score on the former. 1.6 seconds is on the slower side, as we expect from auto-focus devices, but it is slightly faster than what we saw from the Nokia N82. It is much slower than average, however, and you can see below that most of our comparison phones, which have fixed focus lenses, were significantly faster than the E66. What this means is that you better hope your scene holds still for a good second and a half at least or you're not going to get the shot you want. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Shutter to Shot Time (sec)

Interface (9.0)
The Nokia E66 uses the same camera interface we've seen on N-Series devices like the N82. This is a good thing as the interface does a very good job of giving you quick access to many features while keeping the screen uncluttered. When you launch the camera all you will see on the screen is your focus box, an icon in the top left that shows you are in camera mode and two tiny icons in the bottom left for battery and signal strength. The entire screen is taken up by the viewfinder, which is what we like to see.

The same camera interface you see on N-Series devices.

You hold the phone horizontally for calls, which puts the camera shutter button conveniently where you would expect it. In this position hitting up/down on the D-Pad will control zoom. To access other controls press either soft key, which brings up the familiar S60 line of icons on the right side of the screen. These icons give you quick access to features like scene modes, flash, timer, sequence mode, color tone, viewfinder grid, white balance and exposure compensation. Other options are available under the soft key Options menu. With the ribbon of icons on screen you'll also get an indicator in the bottom left with information about photo size and a counter of how many photos you can capture. This approach gives users fast access to most of the adjustments you'll want to make while taking photos without having to deal with a dense menu structure. It's very well designed and easy to use.

Photo Album Software Internal (5.0)
The Nokia E66 uses an older version of Nokia's gallery software. Unlike the rotating carousel approach that you see on N-Series devices you get a simple list of file types like Video. Open one of the types to see all of those file types on your device in a list with small thumbnails on the left and the name of the file on the right.

The album software is very basic.

You can create folders to better organize your files and you can sort by date, title, size or format and there's also a search feature. You can also assign an image to a contact or your wallpaper from here, or send it via MMS, Bluetooth, Email, etc. There's no support for slideshows or changing how you view your photos. It does a decent job, but lacks some of the nicer features and panache of the N-Series gallery.

Manual Control (2.0)
The only manual controls found on the Nokia E66 are scene modes. There are a bunch of pre-set scene modes including Portrait, Landscape, Night, Night portrait and Close-up. You can also define your own scene mode which lets you pick your own flash, white balance and exposure compensation settings.

Zoom (1.0)
The Nokia E66 has a 4x digital zoom. All digital zoom does is crop and enlarge what you're seeing, so we only award a single point for it.

Focus (5.0)
The Nokia E66 is an auto-focus camera. This means it will adjust itself to make sure the scene is in focus. This slows the camera down a bit as you have to wait for the camera to focus, but it also results in much better photos. This is a significant upgrade over its predecessor the E65, which had a fixed focus lens.

Flash (3.0)
The Nokia E66 has an LED flash, which is good out to a range of about three feet.

Metering (2.0)
The Nokia E66 doesn't offer traditional metering controls, which allow you to control from which point or points in the scene lighting is judged. This is a shame since we are starting to see metering options on phones like the LG enV2. There is an Exposure Compensation control, however, which basically acts as a brightness control.

White Balance (2.0)
The Nokia E66 has the typical presets for white balance including Automatic, Sunny, Incandescent and Fluorescent.

Just simple presets for white balance.

Image Handling (2.0)
The Nokia E66 lacks the advanced image editing features that we're so fond of on Nokia's N-Series devices. Instead the only editing features you have are the ability to rotate and rename a photo.

Video Quality (7.0)
The Nokia E66 captures video at a maximum resolution of 320 x 240 and 13 frames per second. This is nowhere near as good as Nokia's high end N-Series devices like the N82 and N95, however it matches most other mid to high end cell phones. The video produced by the E66 is pretty good. Colors seemed a little dark, but we didn't see a lot of pixelation and artifacts with slow panning or normal motion. Very fast motion will produce artifacts and blurring, as you would expect from such low quality video and overall it does look a bit soft. We were able to blow up the video to about double its size without too much reduction in quality, but once we went full screen on our laptop you definitely see some pixelation, we shudder to think what it would look like on a full sized TV. Still, it's definitely good enough for throwing up on Youtube.

Video Resolution (9.14)
To test the resolution of video captured by the Nokia E66 we take video of an industry standard resolution chart and then run still frames from that video through Imatest software. Imatest produces a score called line widths per picture height (lw/ph), which measures how many alternating black and white lines can be discerned before they begin blurring together. The Nokia E66 performed quite well in this test scoring 282 lw/ph horizontal and 324 lw/ph vertical. You can see below that only the Nokia N82 amongst our comparison phones performed better, not surprising given that it captures video at twice the resolution of the E66.

Video Compression (4.0)
The Nokia E66 captures video in Mpeg-4 at full resolution and also offers lower quality video in 3GP format.

Interface (8.0)
The video capture interface on the Nokia E66 is very similar to the stills camera interface. The entire screen is used as a viewfinder with the ability to bring up a line of icons on the right side to access features. When recording there's a bar at the bottom of the screen showing you how long your video is. Advanced features are found under the left soft key Options menu. The interface gives you quick access to most features and is clean and easy to use.

Manual Control (0.0)
There are no manual controls available when taking video on the Nokia E66.

Zoom (1.0)
There's a 4x optical zoom available when capturing video. All optical zoom does is crop and enlarge what you're seeing so we only award a single point for it. With video, where the resolution is much smaller than still photos, this can have a serious impact on the quality of your video, so we recommend avoiding the zoom.

Editing (0.0)
There are no video editing features on the Nokia E66.

Modes (4.0)
The Nokia E66 offers you a lower resolution mode for capturing MMS video. There is also a night mode available.