Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Review – Photography
We’ve already covered the build quality and music experience of the 5800 XpressMusic, so we’re on to Photography. Photography definitely is not one of the main selling points of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, but with a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, Carl Zeiss optics and dual-LED flash, it’s obvious that Nokia expects you to use this little phone as a camera sometimes. I took some sample photos for you, in a few different scenarios. First, though, some thoughts on the photography experience of the 5800 XpressMusic.
The phone does feature a dedicated camera button that also launches the camera application (thankfully). As usual, Nokia has paid special attention to making the camera activation a speedy experience, with the 5800 XpressMusic taking only 3 seconds to be ready to snap a picture (from standby). You can half-press the camera button to initiate the autofocus, and then fully press the button to actually snap your picture.
The phone uses the entire display as the viewfinder, and the onscreen controls disappear after a few seconds, to reduce the clutter on the screen. You can easily bring them up again by touching the far right of the screen. There are 4 buttons here: exit, mode, flash, additional settings, and options (from top to bottom). The mode lets you easily switch between still image an video mode, while the flash allows you to quickly disable or enable the dual-LED flash.
Pressing the additional settings button (shown with 3 lines, consistent with the S60 browser), you are presented with a transparent grid of labeled icons for various user settings. Here you can change the scene mode, activate the grid, and initiate the self-timer (though, as is typical, the phone is incapable of standing on its own, so the timer function has limited practical use). You can also adjust the color tone, white balance, exposure, ISO, contrast, or sharpness. Another handy addition is the Gallery shortcut, so you can easily look through your photos.
Advanced photographers will complain about the inability of the camera to remember your settings after exiting. For me, I use the camera like a regular point-and-shoot camera, so the only time I’ve changed something, it’s for a specific photo. Thus, I personally prefer it to reset to default every time I open the camera. Regardless, I can easily agree that the option should be there for a user to change the defaults to his or her liking, and have those loaded automatically.
Taking a photo is quick, with nearly instant reaction from the shutter. There is only a second between snapping your photo and being presented with the resulting picture, and you also then have the standard array of options (send, delete, share, etc). After taking a picture, the phone is a tad slow to be ready for the next photo, though this can obviously be sped up by disabling the auto-preview feature.
As mentioned previously, I find it rather annoying that the 5800 XpressMusic doesn’t natively support geotagging, as that seems to be a major push for Nokia lately. I realize that Nokia Beta Labs has the Location Tagger application, but it’s silly to require a separate application for such a trivial feature. I’m also disappointed that the 5800 XpressMusic does not have an integrated lens cover, to protect the lens from scratches. While it hasn’t been a major issue on my N95-3, it’s still something that Nokia shouldn’t have ignored.
I’ve taken 4 sample photos with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, so you can see how it performs in different scenarios. Note that all photos were taken without adjusting any settings. While I could likely achieve better results in different situations, I believe that most consumers consider their cameraphones to be point-and-shoot cameras, and thus do not usually tinker with the settings. Also, this serves to give a good baseline for what you can expect from the photos.
The 5800 XpressMusic does not have any odd color issues that I noticed (purple/yellow tint, etc) and seems to take great photos in good lighting. You’ll see one photo below that was taken in darkness, allowing the dual-LED flash to do its thing. The autofocus works well, though there’s a lack of detail when you view the full-resolution version of the photo. It’s not going to hold a candle to the more imaging-oriented cameraphones, such as the N95 or the N85, but the 5800 XpressMusic is snappy, and takes decent photos for online sharing and the like. You can click on the photos below to see the original file in full resolution.
Overall, I give the 5800 XpressMusic a 3 out of 5 stars for photography. I like the dedicated camera button, and the phone is quick to be ready to snap a photo, though it does exhibit some delay after taking the picture. The dual-LED flash does a good job of illuminating objects without completely washing them out, and the settings are plentiful. As compared to other 3.2 megapixel cameras, the resulting photos are free of any odd color distortion, and look great for the normal online usage. Unfortunately, the lack of native geotagging is annoying, and the lack of a physical lens cover is something Nokia should know better than. As mentioned, advanced users should know that the 5800 XpressMusic does not have the option to load user-customised defaults automatically.
Taken in moderate light with flash:
Taken in darkness with flash:
Taken up close outdoors:
Taken at a distance outdoors:
Looking forward for videorecording in your next review
thats a very informative article i was looking for camera. thanks alot. i feel you have not done the extreme basic review of the touch functionality of the phone. for example, how does it work when you start viewing the images in ladscape mode. is just moving the finger from left to right (or vise versa) good enough to go to the next image? also how is the browing experience on the phone.
thanks,
karan