Nokia N75 Review - Imaging
|
Alfredo Padilla Published on June 14, 2007 Comment on this |
|
|
|
|
Resolution (1.14)
To test resolution we use the phone's camera to take photos of an industry standard resolution chart and run the resulting photos through the Imatest software. Imatest produces a scored called line widths per picture height (lw/ph) that measures how many alternating black and white lines the camera can discern before they begin blurring together.
The Nokia N75 did poorly in our resolution test, it was only able to discern 505.9 lw/ph horizontally and 698.8 lw/ph vertically. This is far below what the Nokia N73's 3.2 megapixel camera managed: 946.4 lw/ph horizontal and 1126 lw/ph vertical. It is also worse than the Sanyo M1, a phone with a 2 megapixel camera that scored 859.9 lw/ph horizontal and 773.4 lw/ph vertical. In fact the Nokia N75 did worse than the Motorola Q, a phone with a 1.3 megapixel camera that didn't do particularly well in our test. We can only call the N75's performance on this test disappointing. And that's being polite.
Color (3.47)
To test how well the N75's camera reproduces color we take photos of the industry standard GretagMacbeth color chart, which displays 24 different colors. We run these photos through the Imatest software, which compares the camera's produced colors to the chart's true colors.
Imatest produces the chart above that shows the original colors in the small vertical rectangle, adjusted colors in the middle rectangle and the original capture colors in the outer square. Imatest also produces the color analysis chart below where the squares represent the ideal color and circles represent the captured color. The longer the line between the two the more inaccurate the camera's color capture.
As you can see the Nokia N75 did a terrible job of color reproduction, with drift evident in nearly every color, especially those closer to the edge of the color gamut. The N75 seems to have particular trouble with white balance, which may contribute to its trouble with color. Regardless of the reason the N75 performed significantly worse in our color test than either the N75 or N95, and also did worse than the Sanyo M1. We were again disappointed at the N75's performance.
Noise (0.41)
To test the noise produced by the N75's camera we take photos of the GretagMacbeth color chart at four different lighting levels, ranging from as bright as a sunny day to ta darkened room with a single light bulb. We run the resulting photos through the Imatest software, which examines the noise in the images. The Nokia N75 did as badly in our noise test as it did in our other tests. In fact in this case it did worse, posting the worse noise score of any phone we have tested to date. The N75 performed below average at all lighting levels, but its score at the lowest lighting level was exceptionally bad; the image was much granier and noisier than that produced by other cell phone cameras at the same light level . Once again we are disappointed at the N75's performance.
Live Preview (4.0)
Unlocked Standby to First Shot (4.26)
We time how long it takes to go from phone closed until we have taken a photo to see how quickly you can whip the N75 out and take a quick photo. We repeat this process until we get the lowest repeatable time. The N75 took 4.7 seconds to go from standby to shot using the exterior screen to take a photo. This is not a good time for a phone that has a fixed focus lens. It is better than phones with auto focus lenses like the Nokia N73 and Sanyo M1, which took 5.3 and 4.9 seconds respectively. However the Razr V3m, which has a fixed focus lens, took only 3.5 seconds. Compared to regular digital cameras the Nokia N75 also scored poorly, with a good digital camera being able to complete this test in around 2 seconds. Shot to Shot Time (1.29)
Shot to shot time is a measure of how quickly you can take photos in succession. When possible we attempt to use burst mode for this test. The N75 does have a burst mode that takes 6 shots in quick succession. It took 13.8 seconds to take all six shots, which works out to .43 frames per second. This is a poor score, about on par with the N95's .42 frames per seconds and significantly worse than the Sanyo M1's 2 frames per second or the T-Mobile Wing's 2.3 frames per second. This is even worse when you consider that the N75 doesn't have an auto-focus lens, which is the N95's excuse in this test.
Shutter to Shot Time (2.74)
Shutter to shot time is a measure of how long it takes the camera on the phone to take a photo after you hit the shutter key. The Nokia N75 took .73 seconds to take a photo after we depressed the shutter button. This is better than either the N95's 1 second time or the N73's 3.1 second time. It is also slightly better than the Sanyo M1's time of .8 seconds. All of these phones have auto-focus lenses however, which significantly impacts their score on this test. Compared to other fixed focus cameras the N75 doesn't look as good. The T-Mobile Wing took only .43 seconds while the T-Mobile Dash took .3 seconds. Stand alone digital cameras typically don't take more than .5 seconds to complete this test.
Interface (7.5)
Photo Album Software Internal (7.0)
Manual Control (2.0)
The N75 has scene modes that allow you to adjust your settings for particular situations. You can also create your own user defined scene mode if none of the presets are appropriate. More advanced manual controls like manual white balance, aperture priority and shutter priority mode are not available.
Zoom (1.0)
The Nokia N75 sports a 10x digital zoom. Digital zoom is of limited utility because all it does is enlarge the center of the image rather than zooming the lens.
Focus (0.0)
The Nokia N75 uses a fixed focus lens. This is a step back from other models like the N95 or N73 that have auto-focus lenses. Phones like the Sanyo M1 are also available with auto-focus lenses at a significantly lower price point and we're disappointed that the N75 is stuck with a simple fixed focus lens.
Flash (3.0)
The N75 has a simple LED flash that is only useful out to a range of a couple of feet. It actually flashes instead of just being an always on flood light; a definite plus that should lead to fewer pictures of people squinting because you're shining a bright light in their eyes.
Metering (2.0)
As with the Nokia N73 and N95 the N75 has exposure compensation controls that allow you to control the overall exposure of the photo. More advanced metering controls like spot metering or evaluative metering are not available. Given that we saw some of these controls on the T-Mobile Wing we hope that other manufacturers catch up and include them soon. Metering controls allow you to control from which point or points light is judged in your scene.
White Balance (2.0)
The Nokia N75 has preset white balance modes just like the N73 and N95. These include sunny, incandescent, florescent and automatic. These are fewer presets than the N73 or N95. Unfortunately there is still no evaluative white balance mode.
Image Handling (8.0)
As with other N-Series devices the N75 has excellent image handling options, including things that are not often seen on phones like cropping, contrast, red eye reduction and sharpness. We are extremely happy to see such an extensive photo editing solution on the N75.
Video
Overall Video Score (7.5)
The Nokia N75 captures video at 352 x 288 resolution and 15 frames per second. The quality of the video is about the same as what we saw from the Nokia N73, which means its good for video capture on a mobile device. Colors were reproduced accurately and we saw very little tearing or artifacts. It isn't up to the standard that Nokia's set with their VGA capture devices, but it's good enough to throw up on Youtube or to view on a small monitor. If you watch it on a TV however you'll start to see some serious pixellation. We were generally pleased with the quality however.
Video Resolution (10.97)
To test video resolution we take a video of our standard resolution chart and run frames from the video through our Imatest software. As with still resolution this produces a score called line widths per picture height (lw/ph), a measure of how many alternating black and white lines the camera can discern. The Nokia N75 posted a solid score in our video resolution score at 315 lw/ph horizontal and 348.1 lw/ph vertical. This is actually significantly better than the Nokia N73, which scored 272.5 lw/ph horizontal and 224.8 lw/ph vertical. It's also better than any other phone we've reviewed to date except for the Nokia N95, which captures VGA (640 x 480 pixel) video. We were very pleased with the N75's video score; it seems that the imaging chip is much better suited to capturing video than it is to capturing still images.
Video Compression (2.0)
The Nokia N75 only captures video in Mpeg-4 with the .mp4 extension. There are no options to create video in any other format like 3GP or AVI. We would have liked to see preset options for sending via Email and more compression options generally.
Interface (7.5)
Manual Control (0.0)
The Nokia N75 does not provide any manual control features for video capture.
Zoom (1s.0)
As with still photos there is a 10x digital zoom available for video capture on the N75. As we've stated before digital zoom is of limited utility as it just resizes what you are capturing rather than truly zooming in.
Editing (6.0)
As with other N-Series phones the N75 provides you with a decent range of video editing options. You can cut sections of the video out, change the soundtrack and add some special affects. This is significantly better than what is offered on Windows Mobile devices like the T-Mobile Wing or regular phones like the Sanyo M1.
Modes (4.0)
The Nokia N75 allows you to take video specifically for MMS and has a single scene mode for videos taken at night.
| Previous Next | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
