So basically everything Android 2.2 does, but with a big 7″ screen?

First up, Google Earth.  A couple of technical details. This requires Android 2.0 or better, and I had to find the .APK file online and install it manually as it seems to be available for Nexus One only in the UK Android Market. Quite why Google are dithering with this I don’t know, but it’s easy enough to find anyway. I always found it odd that this was out for iPhone pretty quick but was difficult to obtain for Google’s own mobile OS. The beauty of Android is that tinkering is allowed and easy. Beats the hell out of Apple’s NONE SHALL PASS approach. When installing from a non-market source you will need to enable external application installs in the applications settings menu.

It opens pretty quickly, under five seconds. When it loads you see the familiar splash screen followed by the blue marble hanging in space. This is the first time I have run Google Earth on any Android device, and only the second mobile device after iPhone 3G. The animation and frame rate is smooth and does not lag at all. GPS allows you locate yourself and zooming is about as smooth and sharp as your data connection will allow. Strangely my 3G is far faster than my home WiFi so it’s pretty laggy when zooming in on my home broadband. Obviously that’s not Google’s fault. I just have a rubbish router.

Video demo:

Forgive me for searching ‘London’ when I was already there – duh. You can see it is pretty slick. You’ll notice I accidentally pressed a couple of photos. That isn’t n issue, I’m just holding a camera whilst using it so I slipped up. You can see that pinch, double tap etc all work very well.There doesn’t seem to be any way to mess with it,  import GPS tracks, KML files etc, but all the usual layers are available so you can, for example, view geotagged Panoramio photos.

Google Earth works very well, and it is crying out for users to do things with it now. Let’s see what happens eh?

Here is how it looks:

I’ve read a lot about the Streak online and it tends to be the same everywhere. Those who’ve never seen it don’t get it, those who see it like it, those who own it are always being asked about it.

For a phone it’s big, almost comedy size, but despite the ability to make calls on it the Streak is sold as a tablet. The interface is set up in landscape mode and you can buy a data-only tariff.  I bought it  outright and got a 30 day rolling data contract. Other options are available, including 18/24 month deals or SIM free from Dell. Keep reading below…

It ships with Android 1.6. Despite my love of Android I have to say that this is farcical. With 3.0 being tested and 2.2 rolled out on most high end phones Dell have really put their foot in it here, and I still don’t know why they did it. The stock answer is that when the promised 2.2 upgrade comes they want it to be just right. I think that’s baloney. since it is open source there is no cost incurred by using 2.2 so I don’t get it. It’s just another one of those barking mad things that makes Apple’s lead easier for Jobs to maintain.  Luckily a2.1 O2 update was leaked online and I promptly installed it. The Streak was great on 1.6 but 2.1 is a quantum leap ahead, and it makes the device faster, more stable and better in every way.

So what do we get? The only real differences between 1.6 ad 2.1, aside from the OS itself are a couple of bespoke widgets for Twitter and Facebook. These are not in the 2.1 leak, but they are not really missed as they were not apps, they just displayed the news feed. Any tap on the widget took you to thewebsites so they were essentially RSS feeds. With 2.1 you get the Facebook and Twitter apps and they are fine, but I use something else that I will talk about later.

In the box is the unit, a drawstring case – replace immediately with a proper leather case – wall charger and lead. The Lead is USB out and the Streak itself has a proprietary charging port which looks to my amateur eye like an 18 pin. This is annoying and the reason they did it becomes clear when you try to buy a spare lead and find they are £19.99. Irritating but to be fair, Apple are as guilty, if not more of pulling this crap on users. When you hold the unit it is reassuringly weighted, solid and balanced and it is only 10 mm thick. It just feels right. Boot it up and you see that the screen is beautiful. This is why people who haven’t seen it don’t get it. The quality of the screen and the extra couple of inches really do make in instant impact. This device is different, and it feels great, pleasing the eye immensely. Pixel density is 800 x 480. Not quite iPhone’s retina, but it looks great. Pin sharp with vibrant, rich colours. Wallpapers look great, live wallpapers (animated scenes) look brilliant – further down you can see my aquarium wallpaper on a video demo.

As with all Android phones, you sign in to your Google account and all your data for contacts, calendar, app downloads and anything else stored on the cloud is pulled down to the unit. Apple’s Mobile Me is £59.99, Google do this for free. Strike one Google. I also think the Google method of having the cloud is better than plugging in to sync all the time. Apple is way off the pace there and wired sync only is, in 2010, not acceptable to my mind. Once accounts are done you can then sign in with other accounts like Facebook and Twitter, although multiple Google accounts only works on 2.1. That isn’t a big deal, but it is for me personally as I use a Google Apps account for my company, and the Google Market has some apps that need a personal account to work, one notable one being Google’s podcast client, Listen. I made do with Acast until I got 2.1, but no other client comes close to Listen so that irked me a bit.

Dell bundles a few apps with the Streak. Documents To Go comes with it, although editing needs a paid upgrade. With Google Docs I don’t see the point personally, but there we go. Also bundled is Touchdown, a business calendar app. Again, with Google Calendar it seems pointless. The only thing I can think is that 1.6 only allows one calendar, but multiple accounts on 2.1 allows as many as you like, and the beauty is that the data streams stay separate, but show up on the same screen, meaning that you can schedule your life properly but still not mix the two. I think this is a real bonus, especially if your boss is a dick, as they so often are. There is the usual music player, gallery, mail, basically all the things that make smartphones smart.

So on to the performance. This has a 1 Ghz processor, and boy do you feel it. Heavy use, multitasking, application switching. None of these fazed it. It st smiled and asked for more. I frequently have music playing, six screens full of widgets, live wallpaper, 10 or 11 applications running in the background. This unit did it with ease, No lag, no delay in functions, nothing. Everything is snappy, smooth and it NEVER crashes. The screen is very sensitive. It requires the gentlest of taps to function but seems to ignore brushes from cuffs etc. Very good indeed. The keyboard is great and I recommend you go one better and install either Swift Key or Swype. They improve the device significantly. There are three soft keys for back, menu and home.

Check out the voice controls here:

MOV02469

Pretty good eh? Also here, I picked the two silliest words I can think of:

MOV02470

I can’t even fool Google’s neural algorithms with ‘transubstantiation discombobulation’! It struggles a little with proper names, but that is not  a surprise to me. As you can see, commands to navigate go immediately to the (excellent) navigation application. Nice touches there include street view when you arrive so you can see what you need to find, and it also automatically switches to night mode in darkness. Slick touches. Google Maps looks amazing on the 5 inch screen too.

The unit has 2GB onboard for applications. That is a hell of a lot – I haven’t come anywhere near it. It came with a 16 GB memory card and supports up to 32 GB. Since I use Spotify I don’t use the card to store music so 16 GB is plenty. Right now I have 4 films and the series’ Wonder of the Solar System, BBC Space and Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets loaded on the card so the storage is pretty big. Android only supports MP4, however, Rockplayer is an app that plays all the regular codecs, it’s free with ads or paid. The speaker is okay on the Streak and the bundled headphones are okay unless you’re a purist. The phones are also a hands free kit. The answer button also pauses and restarts playback. A simple addition that makes such a pleasing difference.

Live wallpapers look great on the display. I switch between the aquarium you can see above, and galactic core. Both are free in the Market, along with loads more.

Web browsing on the Streak is brilliant. The standard browser is great and the screen is large enough for full site browsing. With 2.1 you get tap and pinch zooming and the websites look great, colourful and vibrant. Panning and zooming are smooth and navigation is easy to the point of being addictive.

Despite Twitter and Facebook being in the Android build, I don’t use them as I I have discovered Tweetdeck beta. This is a brilliant app that combines your Facebook, Twitter, Buzz and Foursquare feeds in to one timeline. It makes using all four a breeze and they can be used together and updates sent to one, several or all of them as you see fit. As it is stil in beta you’ll have to get it from their site and install it manually, but it won’t be long before it appears in the market. Perfect.

Streak has two cameras. One five megapixel snapper with a twin LED flash and a front facing VGA for video calling. As yet it’s no use as Skype or Vonage haven’t got their finger out and built a video chat client. You can’t blame Dell. The hype surrounding the release of Streak has been substantial, so why the VOIP companies haven’t got an app ready to go is beyond me. With the arrival of more Android tablets imminent it’s hardly a risk to release software for Streak so I can only assume they don’t want to capitalise on the most profitable and fastest growing telecoms market, mobile tech.

The 2.1 update brought 720 pi HD video recording so the camcorder is top notch, and pictures from the camera look good, although it is very easy to blur them. Here is a Picase stream I snapped at the Edinburgh Fringe recently:

Edinburgh Fringe

Pretty good I’d say.

Dell give you 6 screens to customise. I have one screen full of buttons for my frequent use apps. Two full of photo widgets so I can always be close to my family, and three with application widgets, with things like calendar, weather, tasks list, Spotify, Last FM, power control, Scoreboard, YouTube, Engadget, Taskiller and more. Sorry iFanboys, having used both iPhone and Android, I prefer widgets and customisation all day long.

Media sharing is pretty extensive. Photos can be sent to Picasa, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Buzz and Mail. Add to that any media app you install, just tap menu in the photo and you get your sharing option. Videos go to YouTube, although installing the free Qik app lets you share videos to the usual sites, Facebook, Twitter etc and Pixelpipe, also free, lets you share any media with just about every social network known to man, over 350 listed in the application. 2.1 brings a much improved gallery function to Streak too, smooth and easy to use rather than the raw functionality of 1.6. The navbar at the top consists of buttons rather than pull down menus. Left to right: applications, network status which doubles as recently used apps, notifications, then phone status which lets you switch flight mode and various connections on and off and gives battery status and the time and date too.

Battery lasts easily all day provided you have a task manager installed and use it to kill apps you’re not using. This is highly recommended as you can lose hours running programs you aren’t using – I am not exaggerating. Notifications can be customised not only phone-wide, but for each app, meaning you can have emails only vibrate, or just texts etc. Very useful.

There are also several e-book apps available, including Kindle. Naturally the screen is no match for e-ink, but it is good enough and sufficiently sized to make reading pleasurable. The Flixster application delivers movie trailers that look great, as does YouTube. YouTube allows you to turn high quality on or off. Unless you’re very worried about your data limit then go hi-def as lo-def looks truly atrocious. Blogging is a breeze with the keyboard size and sharing options, although epic posts such as this one are still best done on a PC. I have never found a phone that is up to that.

If you fancy gaming on this it will work very well, but you’ll need to learn a soft touch as it is easy to overload the screen – a sign of which is the colour blur on LCD screens. It’s easily done on the Streak.

The one thing people have been trying to do is decide what Streak is. I think that’s a bad idea. Just use it. It comes in to it’s own when the user is allowed to define it. I have used it heavily, and as soon as my contract on my other phone is up I’ll likely use it as my phone too. I have used it for media, films and music etc, social networking, emailing, navigation (an absolute life saver at the Edinburgh Fringe), blogging tool, camera, web browser, for shopping, eBaying, light gaming. It’s location awareness will become more and more useful. Location aware software will come of age over the next couple of years. The potential is obvious to current users. Maps, Navigation and suchlike are the beginning. Apps like Foursquare let you ‘check in’ at places and gie you discounts at places you regularly go to. Your favourite Costa Coffee or cinema probably does this now. Apps like Locale, which set your phone settings and state based on time and location are really useful and Google places, Flixster, Whereto and similar apps expose you to a world of places you never knew were there. I’ve already eaten great food and listened to great music and comedy as a direct result of using these apps, and the Gigbox app has sent me to various gigs by using my Last FM history to tell me when my favourite bands are in town.

To appreciate Streak you have to see it. On paper it’s odd and people don’t know what to do with it. Go and hold one, see the screen. It sits seemingly awkwardly between smartphones and iPad, and I confess I will be  buying a full sized tablet running either Android or Chrome for home. That way I can keep my netbook for work. I think Streak is a surprise package. I love it and it’s easily the most useful phone I have used, ironically I don’t have a voice tariff either. It won’t convert iFanboys, but nothing would. If a person is willing to pay Apple’s price for a tablet lacking a camera, GPS, phone capability, which is locked, aggressively closed source and which is basically a massive iPhone that doesn’t phone then nothing will win them over. There is a reason that Android recently usurped Apple at number 2 in the smartphone OS market. Despite the hype, it’s better. It’s faster, cheaper, more suable, more customisable and the hardware is better. Apple likes to portray itself as the conquering hero of the market but it really isn’t, and picking up the Streak was the perfect antidote to my irritation at the iPad and it’s crap spec sheet and absurd price. I’m a mac user, and I like Apple, but I don’t like them that much. Streak is a winner. Plug in the hands free and you’re on the phone as usual. Hold it and the world comes to life.

The Nokia N97 Mini is like the beta release of the N97 – with the N97 being the alpha version, perhaps the N8 will be the release candidate or perhaps even the final product? (I am using the software release life cycle terms used for Windows and other apps as an attempt at humour – however some people who have used the N97 would probably find the terms relevant.) Click below to read the full review…

What does it have?

• 3.2″ screen – 16:9 resistive touch 640×360
• Qwerty keyboard
• 5mp autofocus camera – no lens cover
• Carl zeiss branded lens
• Twin led flash
• GPS with satnav – Ovi Map – can be used Online or Offline (preload with maps on PC or through Wifi etc)
• Own voice – out of interest anyone else let you record your own voice for satnav?
• Adobe flash support
• 3.5 headphone jack
• 8gb memory – microsd slot for additional expansion
• 1200mah battery (vs 1500mah on the N97)
• VGA 30fps video or 16:9 640×360 mpeg4 with video light
• Firmware update over the air
• Stereo FM radio (but no transmitter – N97 and N86 feature this)

On first impressions the phone feels like it has a slightly complicated and clunky operating system. Do you press something once to open it or twice? It mostly seems that you have to press it twice, once to highlight something, and then again to open it. Some sections – email, license / about this phone don’t let you scroll with the screen / with your finger, and instead you have to use the right hand side scoll bar (which can be a bit tricky without a stylus – the larger screened N97 comes with a stylus, with the N97 Mini it’s an optional extra).

The phone occassionally* crashes due to an overly complicted and under tested operating system? Or memory problems? The N97 Mini has 512mb ram, twice what the N97 has, and even though the Mini often has 140+ mb free, apps still fail to load due to “lack of memory”**, the Photos app is a particular app that will not load when memory gets too restrained.

* occasionally - define occasionally? once every couple of days would be a rough estimate on how often it crashes? ** The 140mb free is actually free on the phone’s C: drive and not actually free memory that you can run apps in – to view available memory for apps you need a third party app such as RamBlow – this lets me know that running 4 apps, I have 19mb ram free (after cleanup).

This is where I go off on a random tangent (skip if you want): Perhaps Nokia will get symbian right with ^3 and 4. Perhaps maemo / meego is the answer – start from the ground up. But why not allow the consumer the choice? Develop the best, most versatile, appealing hardware, and offer it with a choice of Symbian, Maemo / Meego or Android? (see the Nokia N900 if you want to install anything…) But then you would have to support 3 operating systems when they are already developing and supporting 2. (Which Nokia don’t want to do, as they are discontinuing support for the N900 Maemo OS [citation needed])

Heres the weird thing – Do phones really need touch screens – I mean if you think about it – do you really want to be spending every day cleaning finger smudges off the screen? Apple seem to think you do – not only the screen – but now with the new iPhone 4 you can spend all your life cleaning the back as well, and hoping you never drop it – and the front and now back are both made out of glass. /random tangent end

Liverpool Cathedral taken with the Nokia N97 Mini - Click to Embiggen

Compared to the Sony Satio – the home screen widgets seems like a much better way to get updates from social sites like facebook, twitter, email etc compared to the tabs and non-existant social apps on the Sony Satio. However the Satio does have a good on screen keyboard whereas the N97 doesnt – it would be nice to have the choice on the N97 / Mini just in case you dont get on with the real keyboard. Opera mini has one so its definitely possible. And typing too much on the keyboard reminds me a lot of the ZX81 (not that anyone even knows what an Atari ST is anymore, let alone the ZX81) – or perhaps the Psion 3 (although nothings as good as the Psion5 yet, one can always live in hope).

Internet: As an excercise in futility thoroughly testing the device I attempted to edit and post this entirely using the N97 Mini: After a while Opera Mini / Blogger stopped saving changes made – so I ended up having to revert to using a full browser on a PC. It has already wiped out and lost about an hours worth of work and crashed twice three times since i started this – seeming to coincide with losing the WLAN connection. (The built in browser fails to work with blogger)

Opera App settings managed to set itself to have the internet connection as none. And since I’d told it to always connect it was always trying to connect to no internet – not even sure why this is possible? The built in phone connection manager often caused annoying problems like this, where you’ve lost the WLAN connection, yet it will still try and connect to it, even though it’s now miles away. Occasionally you’ll need to completely exit the browser and close all data connections before it will connect properly again.

The phone’s home screen widgets are worth exploring in more detail. They let you choose what you want to be displayed and (theoretically) auto updated on your home screen. You can choose from your Apps assuming the App supports it – so unfortunately some things aren’t supported. RSS feeds aren’t supported for example – they’re barely supported on the phone anyway – you have to view them inside the built in Nokia web browser. If you get a Vodafone branded phone they have provided an RSS Reader app – but for some reason you can’t select this as one of the home screen widgets – and it appears to simply be a shortcut to RSS within the web browser.

The home screen can show 6 different widgets – and is perhaps one of the best features of the phone – providing quick access to some of your favourite things, such as time / date, calendar, email, gravity (twitter), facebook, the weather and shortcuts to apps / programs. The Nokia N86 8mp as a comparison can show only a few items and the choice is much more limited: 6 shortcuts, Ovi Chat, Calendar, Email, and “Share your photos” (limited by only supporting uploads to Ovi,Flickr and Vox).

You can get extra apps from the Nokia Ovi store – such as “Communities” (in Beta) – you can put this on the home screen as a widget – but then it regularly logs you out and then you need to re-enter your password before you get anything displayed on your home page (Communities lets you link to your twitter and facebook accounts). The standard facebook app seems to work more reliably and works well on the homescreen as a widget. Another worth trying from Nokia’s beta labs is Nokia Bots – it’s meant to improve battery life, and learn some of your favourite apps, and automate actions for you.

Ovi Maps 3.04*** / Ovi Voice*** – Ovi Voice (now updated v1.1 includes 2 extra voice commands that were missing from the original version) lets you record your own voice for directions, although before you start, you need to choose between imperial or metric (kilometres vs miles), and can’t record both for easier switching in Ovi Maps. Ovi Voice only works with Ovi Maps v3.04 or higher. To use your “own voice” in Ovi Maps you need to open Ovi maps go to the navigation settings and select “Own Voice” in the Drive guidance settings (you also need to be signed in to Ovi Maps prior to selecting “Own Voice”).

The process for making you own voice is a little more complicated than I think it could be, particularly after you have recorded your “voice pack”, it goes like this:

1. Before recording, make sure keypad tones are switched OFF otherwise the mic will pickup the sound
2. Start Ovi Voice
3. Click Record voice pack
4. Click Start – or click Units to change between Kilometers or Miles (assuming you remember)
5. Record each word or instruction one by one, by pressing the record and stop button.
6. Go through each one using << or >> and using the playback button until you’re happy, recording things like “Turn Left”, and “Safety Camera Ahead” (although I’ve never heard this when actually using Ovi Maps, instead it seems to just make a “bip bip” sound), and you can record anything you want instead if you feel it would be funnier to say “Computer says no” instead of “Route recalculation”, or you could use some amusing accent…
7. When you have finished, you need to record a brief description / preview of the voice pack, and then
8. You need to enter the name, description, of the voice pack and your name, and have the option of sharing it with the internet (which could be useful if you ever wipe your phone and want to try and re-find it again from the internet, although whether you actually will be able to or not is an ENTIRELY different matter!)
9. It then UPLOADs the entire voice pack to Nokia (whether you want to share it or not)
10. Then you need to DOWNLOAD it, before you can use it! (Surely it should already be on the phone! But I digress, I guess you need to have it “processed” or made compatible with Ovi Maps by Nokia)

Before you download it, you can play it back, share it over text, facebook or twitter, and emailing the link to yourself would probably be a good idea just as a backup to make sure you can (try to) get it back at a later date should it disappear off your phone when you need to reset it for some reason…

*** I would recommend trying to get Ovi Voice and Ovi Maps to work using a wifi connection at home as this can all fail horribly when out and about trying to use a poor mobile phone signal, as successful uploading and downloading of data is needed before it will work as a voice navigation system.

Music playback: MP3 playback is good, as with the Nokia N86, it is very good.

Camera and Photo quality: Photos are quite good considering this isn’t a “Camera-centric” mobile phone such as the Nokia N8, Sony Satio, and Nokia N86, etc. Colours are bright and saturated, macro focus is very good with a closer focusing distance than the N86.

The photo software works quite well, and lets you customise the photo before shooting, and also provides a number of fairly useful editing tools for use in playback mode / photo viewer (brightness, contrast, sharpness, crop, resize, posterise, sepia, black and white, negative, red eye reduction, etc) although a few more, such as saturation and some more “artistic” effects would be nice. It also successfully fills the whole screen when you are viewing zoomed photos (for some reason the Satio didn’t).

Email on the Nokia N97 – the default version looks the best, updating it, turns it into a more unpleasant looking black and white text affair, and I struggled to get push email working on it initially until I realised you had to link it with your Nokia Ovi account. The phone can notify you to email with a beep or be silenced. 3rd party apps such as gravity can have the same notification settings as email / text so can also beep when you get new messages. Its just a shame it doesnt appear in the notifications area at the top like the twitter and faxcebook apps on the blackberry.

Conclusions? Over the course of using the phone for nearly a month as my main phone, I’ve found the Nokia N97 Mini to be a generally pleasing phone to use, excellent at phone calls, a mixed bag for email (the latest Nokia messaging for email seems worse on the Mini, than the N86), great for twitter (thanks to gravity), and good for facebook. Photos can be very pleasing, especially in bright sunny conditions, and the touchscreen and keyboard seem reasonably responsive, with a fairly low level of user frustration… the physical keyboard and home screen widgets make this a much more useful phone than any other phone I’ve ever used, and for that reason I like it a lot! The updated (latest 3.04) Nokia Maps and OVI voice make it suitable as a real replacement for sat nav devices (provided you have a suitable car holder and charger), and I’ve used it for several 400 miles round trips without any major problems (apart from it ignoring some mini roundabouts). MP3 playback is excellent, and sound quality and volume is better than expected.

The build quality is also good, with a nice metal surround on the front, and a solid metal battery cover on the back. The nice thing about Nokia phones seems to be that, even with camera-centric models, such as the N86, is that they do everything well, for example MP3 playback is excellent on both the N86 and N97 Mini, and the camera is very good on the N97 Mini, even though it’s not a camera-centric model. Whereas with other phones, such as the Satio, it’s a camera-centric model and MP3 playback seems to be poor, and if you buy a “Sony Walkman” phone, then most likely the camera will not be as good as other models. The Nokia N97 Mini is an enjoyable phone to use, and worth considering, even if it might appear a little dated compared to the newest Android and Apple phones.

+ Good earphones provided with remote control
+ Very good quality MP3 playback, loud without distortion
+ Metal battery cover
+ Photo quality and macro focus can be very good in bright sunlight, see examples.
+ Good home screen widgets
+ Free sat nav – mostly very reliable but you will need an in car charger (not provided) – can be used offline
+ Own voice lets you record your own voice(s) for satnav voice guidance

- Base of keyboard is wobbly unless you hold it (when resting the phone on a desk for example)
- Phone rests on camera lens / pop out area.
- Feels like you have to press too hard to press the keys
- 13 hour battery life
- Random “system error” on startup (sporadic)
- Wobbly micro usb socket
- Email not autoupdating (was using old email app, updating and reconfiguring resolved this – needs to be linked to nokia ovi account)
- No stylus provided
- Seems to have a faint whistle (may be mine that is “faulty”)

(Mostly) Edited in Opera Mini. The nokia browser has a tendancy to crash whenever I try and edit a blogger post. (Started in blogger, and then transfered to wordpress, and finished editing on a PC)

I changed from a HTC Hero as my priorities have changed. I now need a phone that is good for work. The Hero is a great phone but a touchscreen is hell for texting and emailing a lot. I needed a hard keyboard and, being a fan of Android this was the natural choice. Continue reading below…

Out of the box

This feels like a premium phone. It is weighty and balanced in the palm. The top has the power button and 3.5 mm jack, the ft side the mini USB charging port and on the right is a volume rocker at the top and a hard key for the camera at the bottom. On the front there are four soft keys, left to right: Back, Menu, Home and Search. Turn the phone 90 degrees left and the screen pushes up the reveal the keyboard. The keyboard snaps in to place with a satisfying click and the screen flips in to landscape mode. The transition in to landscape mode and then back in to portrait mode is smooth and snappy, and when an application is open the phone will change orientation when the phone is turned, iPhone style, without having to slide out the keyboard. The screen is beautiful, pin sharp and bright with very full colours. I was genuinely surprised by that, when I switched on it was so bright and clear.

The phone runs Android 2.1. The software runs smooth and very fast. Windows open promptly, scrolling is smooth and applications switch between each other well. There is no lag between app switching and the processor has yet to slip up for me, two weeks so far. Like any multitasking phone you’ll need a task manager – I recommend the free version of Taskiller – too many apps open means the phone slows down but that’s to be expected. Just remember to kill open apps that are not used. For ones you wish to never kill there is an ignore list in Taskiller.

The phone is great for media. Photos and video look great on the screen and it has a built in speaker that is by far the loudest I have ever heard on a phone. There were certain podcasts that I always struggled to hear on speaker, but no longer. his is very, very loud. I use my phone for media all the time. I have a Spotify library that, if I downloadeded it all, would push a terabyte, I listen to podcasts all the time, watch TV using the Android iPlayer app, Beebplayer, I regularly use train journeys to catch up on TV like The Wonders of the Solar System. This phone delivers with a great picture, crystal clear sound and completely bug-free playback. Like every phone and music player I have ever had, the bundled headphones are crap. Get some good noise canceling earbuds.

The biggest surprise this phone brings is the camera. It is, frankly, the best phone camera I have ever used. I have a Sony Cybershot 8MP camera, and aside from the 5MP resolution on this phone, it is every bit a match for it. It has a twin LED flash and the pictures are crisp, bright and clear. The colours are live and vibrant, which is the best feature. Every phone camera I have ever used produced washed out photos which were only good for messing about on Facebook really. Not so the Droid. The photographs produced here are very, very good. Naturally photography buffs will always use their top of the range cameras, but for family snapping and personal use this will replace any camera you have and you’ll be very pleased with the results. Here are some pics I have taken with it:

Uploading to online hosting is seamless and the HSDPA/3G connection on this is the fastest I have ever used. 5 megapixel snaps upload in 10-15 seconds. So far I have uploaded to Picasa, Photobucket, Facebook and the excellent Photoshop, which has an excellent application for editing and managing, I recommend this. It’s 2 GB free storage with paid upgrades at very good prices, plus it links to the three aforementioned hosts so it manages all your pics online, wherever they are. There is a desktop app for your PC which syncs everything across all your devices. My only complaint is that the online account runs using Flash and it takes ages to load. This doesn’t affect the phone though. I’ve dumped Mobile Me in favour of Photoshop.

Shooting video produces very good quality footage, although be wary that filming whilst using the LEDs in dark conditions will sap the battery. It films up to HD quality so uploading to YouTube is usually a WiFi only thing. I made a 60 second video and it was 19 megabytes so I don’t mind WiFi uploads, since one or two videos would soon eat that data allowance. You can set defaults for the film quality if you want to produce smaller videos.

Contacts will sync with multiple accounts, so your Google contacts stored on the cloud can be synced with Facebook, which is nice as it pulls their photos to the phone, also Last FM friends, Flickr friends, basically any account that supports contacts sync can be configured to work with it. Multiple Google accounts are allowed and corporate accounts can be added for work – very useful. I use Google services for my work IT so this isn’t distinction isn’t necessary for me, but it’s a great addition as the phone can be used for work and personal but still keep the two separate. It even has two calendar apps, one personal and one corporate. For things like notifications they function as one, but the data never mixes meaning that if you leave your job your personal data remains intact, or, for an employer, if an employee leaves you can zap the work-sensitive data without bricking the phone, and you don’t affect the employee’s personal data. Brilliant. I am self-employed and can see the huge benefits here.

I live out of my phone. If I didn’t have calendar, tasks and corporate functions I would be stuck carrying a diary around. This phone is the best at data management I have come across. iPhone doesn’t even touch it, nowhere near. Having the free Google web infrastructure means that I am able to subcontract my company IT stuff to them for free. I know they get my company information for use in advertising but that’s a small price to pay for the use of their data centres. If anyone out there does want to set up their own business, do not waste money on IT. Learn to use Google’s services. You’ll get a comprehensive 24/7 IT department for free. All you need is a phone and a netbook/laptop. This is where Google massively threatens iPhone and Blackberry. It does everything that they charge for, it does it superbly and it does it for free. This phone accesses the cloud and Google services and integrates perfectly. You don’t notice when you’re using the phone or when you’re using web-based stuff. This technology is still in it’s infancy so remember where you heard this first: in a year or so the IT world will be unrecognisable as it was. No more massive hard drives, USB sticks etc except for data transfer on an industrial scale. They’re pointless. Google is betting big on the cloud and it looks like it’s about to go crazy. As soon as web connections allow streaming of high-yield media and data, such as films etc, in the same way it does for music now, then the devices in your pocket will go from needing large memory as a standard to needing a fast connection and top class CPU. Everything will go online. I use the cloud now and I can see it so clearly. Everything except for video I now get online. Anyone using YouTube will have noticed more and more premium and professional content appearing on there so it’s coming. I think Apple might be in real trouble here if they don’t adapt. Once streaming abolishes downloading then the winner will be the one offering the best-connected devices and Google wins hands down here and now with that.

Camera sample images (click thumbnail for full size picture):

- RSS feed widget on home screen (ala The Sony C905 from Oct 2008) – Comfirmed in this video.
- Improved UI Design / Icons – read somewhere that Nokia were planning on a refresh before actual release?
- Improved Web Browser – the built in Symbian web browser has been poor for a long time – it needs to support email subject definition in email mailto links (it doesn’t understand the ? option).
- Improved sharing features – ie. Photo share to Twitter, FB, Blogger, not just OVI
- Built in Twitter client and home screen widget
- Improved battery life or sleep mode(s) – using the phones features often drains the battery too quickly.
- Have a screen that works outside even when battery is low (what’s the point in the light sensor if it doesn’t do anything?)
- PC software needs fixing – why are there separate apps for Nokia Maps loader, Nokia Ovi Suite, Nokia Software Updater, etc, why can’t these all be combined into one?
- Lots of memory (RAM) for multi-tasking, the Nokia N97 has 256mb* but only 73mb was available, the Nokia N97 Mini has 512mb with 277mb available to the user*, and the Nokia N8 has 256mb, but will it be enough?

Whilst the imaging options (filters – vignette, colour filters) look greatly improved (based on Mobile-Review’s look at the new OS), in the built in photo editor, it would be nice to see the same sort of Apps as Android and iPhone devices have – Photoshop for Symbian anyone?

The MP3 playback on the N86 is very good (much better than the Satio) and features stereo speakers which are useful for video playback – and it would be nice if this level of quality should continue (Unfortunately it looks like the Nokia N8 only has 1 speaker).

However, whether Nokia fans will continue to be faithful is another matter. Will they wait for the Nokia N8 to arrive even when numerous Android phones and the new iPhone4 are already available, and then if they do use the N8, will it be enough to encourage them to wait for Symbian ^4? Even as a Nokia “fan” I don’t know how much longer I will remain “faithful” to Nokia. Especially as the Android onslaught continues…

* Source: Wikipedia.

In the olden days (you know when people used film cameras) no matter what camera you had, whether it was a cheap piece of plastic crap or the best SLR in the world, it all had one thing in common: 35mm film*. And the one thing 35mm film did well, was take photos no matter what the lighting conditions. Even in dark situations, without flash, you’d still be able to get some kind of photo from it. * assuming you weren’t using a 110 or APS camera. An example on flickr, and another example above with flash (I assume the flickr link is using 35mm film which measures 24x36mm).

With a digital camera – nearly all of them have flash (I’d estimate 99%) – so in dark conditions you can use the flash and get a half decent photo (generally speaking). Some of the time you can switch the flash off, setup the self-timer, put it on a wall or a tripod and take a half-decent night shot. Which is fairly impressive considering how small the sensor is in relation to 35mm film. (The average compact digital camera sensor size is 7.2mm x 5.3mm (1/1.8 sensor), this is roughly 5x smaller than 35mm film, with an average Pixel area(µm²) of 2.6 – 3.8µm²) (Using a 12mp example: Canon Powershot G9 with a 1/1.7″ sensor, the pixel area is 3.8µm²). Example above taken with the Casio Exilim Z120.

On a side note: Do you remember when Digital Cameras were still new? Like in 2002 or 2003 when digital cameras were still so new that they had to write “Digital Camera” on the front of it somewhere so that you knew it was a digital camera? Simply being a digital camera in 2001 was so exciting and new that they simply used those two words together as a marketing tool / selling point for the camera. Now you’re lucky if you even have the model number written on it, and rarely do you find the manufacturer name on the back these days. (They used to always put the manufacturers name underneath the screen – like this). Now it’s more likely the be the huge number of megapixels or optical zoom or screen size that’s plastered all over the camera.

With a camera phone – most of them don’t have a real flash (maybe 1% has a real xenon flash (the Sony Satio is the only recent one) that is equivalent to the flash you find in a Digital Camera) – and the rest – if you’re lucky (or unlucky depending how you feel about it) – has an LED or a “twin” LED flash. The problem is that even with (or without) the LED flash, the camera’s just don’t cope with low-light situations. You can put the phone on night mode (if you’re lucky), put it somewhere steady^ and switch on the self-timer, and hope it takes a successful shot. The problem is that the sensors in camera phones are even smaller than compact digital cameras. They just can’t get enough light into the sensor, and that means in low light situations they produce crap noisy images that are over-processed so much that you’re lucky there’s any image left to view. Further problems are caused due to the small sensors lacking the ability to capture dynamic range, so dark areas are underexposed, and bright areas are overexposed, further reducing detail in images (the example above taken with the Nokia N86 – where’s the detail in the steps?). The latest 12 megapixel camera phone sensors made by Sony have a 1.4µm pixel size – which is again 2.7x smaller than compact digital camera sensors. (2.6mm x 1.96mm estimation). This is roughly 13.8x smaller than 35mm film.

In a nutshell – it’s all about the light – 35mm film cameras can absorb lots of light, and therefore take photos in dark conditions and get as much colour and detail as possible. Digital Cameras, more so compact cameras, have much smaller sensors and struggle in low light, but don’t do too bad a job of it thanks to having a flash, however, they are very much on the limit of acceptable image quality (that’s why Digital SLRs get better image quality – they have larger sensors). Camera phones on the other hand have had to miniaturize to the point where image quality is badly affected, and the only way to get good photos from them is to use them in ideal light, or have a real xenon flash for times when lighting is poor.

^ Options are limited as I don’t know of any camera phones with tripod mount, and you’re generally lucky if the phone will stand on it’s side without falling over. Even on the “Photo-centric” Nokia N86 8mp you can’t stand the camera on it’s side without it falling over!

The Toshiba Portege R500 – a couple of years ago – before the netbook world took off – the ultra compact Toshiba Portege R500 was a premium £1600+ laptop – it features a 1.2ghz (or 1.33ghz) core 2 duo processor, built in DVDRW, 12.1″ screen, wireless, 2gb ram, 160gb hd, and even the option of solid state hard drive, before these even were heard of. So it was a fully featured mini laptop rather than a stripped down large netbook. And what’s even more important, and relevant today, is that it is available for around £300 second hand on ebay, which is the price you will pay for a new mid-range netbook. But instead of minimal features, memory, and built to a budget price and build quality you get a premium ultra compact laptop, with premium features.

However, is it any good? Or would you be better off with a “modern” netbook with low power and efficiency built in? Or perhaps even a small laptop with a 12 or 13 inch screen? Continue reading below to find out…

The keyboard is a standard laptop layout without anything obviously wrong (unlike the Vostro 1510), although when you do compare it to normal laptop keyboards it is roughly 1cm smaller, so this does seem to effect touch typing speed.

The speakers are missing – and instead there is only one speaker that seems strained when the volume is at a reasonable level.

The screen seems to have a very poor viewing angle – blacks are grey – the range between white and black (dynamice range) doesn’t seem very good. The resolution is very good though with the same resolution at normal laptops with 15.6″ widescreens. You have to sit in front of the laptop at a very specific viewing angle otherwise it’s difficult to view.

The “power” – the CPUs offer 1.2ghz or 1.33ghz dual core (Core 2). This should be adequate and better than most netbooks.

The Windows score is: 2.2 Overall (the overall number uses the lowest score and not an average – the average would be 3.66 if Windows used this)

CPU calculations: 3.8
Memory (RAM): 4.2
Aero (Desktop) Graphics: 2.2
Gaming graphics: 3.0
Disk performance: 5.1

Noise? The cpu fan is quite noisy when watching BBC iplayer – I wouldn’t really expect a laptop to be strained when watching iplayer and should be able to cope without making noise – not so with this one unfortunately. Most modern laptops are optimised to make minimal noise, even budget laptops such as the Dell Vostro range.

Battery life – says you should get 4 hours out of it. Although this will depend on usage. I got about 4 and a half hours out of it with very light use.

It has wifi, bluetooth, VGA connection, 3 USB (1 powered), firewire (mini), mic / headphone sockets, analog volume control, fingerprint reader, LAN, wifi switch, DVDRW, SD slot, built in microphone? (no webcam), Tested running Windows 7 Professional 32bit.

Size, and weight? It’s small – shorter than an A4 piece of paper in length, but wider than the width of an A4 piece of paper. It’s light as well, with an ultra thin (and fairly wobbly) screen. The screen is roughly half a cm thick, and the whole laptop when the screen is closed is less than an inch thick.

Overall – it could be worth considering. However the screen makes it quite difficult to recommend for anyone who does photography or web design. In fact it’s not great for watching TV or films either. There is a lot of backlight bleeding, and viewing angles are very poor. The fan noise is quite disruptive to watching online tv (especially with the placement of the speaker on the left near to where the fan is) and the volume doesn’t really get loud enough to counter the fan speed at times, especially when the internal speaker distorts above a certain volume.

Finding a similarly high specification netbook could turn out to be quite a lot more expensive. The Samsung NC20 with 12.1″ screen is £349 and uses a VIA Nano processor (1.3ghz), and the Lenovo IdeaPad S12 is £399 and uses an Intel Atom cpu at 1.6ghz, however very few, or probably no netbook actually features an optical drive… making DVD playback somewhat difficult. And when you are looking at spending £350 – £400 you are also in the same price range as normal “entry level” laptops with full size screens, DVDRW, and all the other features you’d want in a laptop such as dual core processor.

However – if you’re looking at spending £350 – £400 on a laptop, you are now able to afford most entry level 15.6″ laptops, or even 12.1″ and 13.3″ Dell Vostro laptops, which are available with 2.2ghz Core 2 Duo processors, and full size keyboards etc. The Dell Vostro v13 – with aluminium body is also quite a stylish laptop available for under £400 – and with low power CPUs and a 1 year warranty this could be a good option. Click the pictures to embiggen.

The new Olympus PEN EPL-1 has just been announced, it looks good in silver from the front, but looks better from the back in black. A new budget version of the Olympus PEN EP-1, and Olympus PEN EP-2, with built in flash, it will be available in March, priced at $599 with 14-42mm (28-84mm Equivalent) kit lens.

Other specs feature: ISO 100 to ISO 3200, HD Video recording, 12 megapixel sensor, SDHC card support (Class 6 recommended), anti-shake sensor, face detection, in camera panoramic mode, 2.7″ screen, 6 art filters, multiple exposure, dust reduction sensor, HDMI out etc.

Two new lenses have also been announced: “the new super wide-angle zoom ED 9-18mm f4.0-5.6 lens (18-36mm equivalent) or the high-power wide to telephoto zoom ED 14-150mm f4.0-5.6 lens (28-300mm equivalent).” and Olympus have also announced underwater housing for the camera.

Press Release below, Found at Pocket Lint, Crunchgear, Photorumors, 43rumors

POWERFULLY SIMPLE: INTRODUCING THE INCREDIBLE OLYMPUS PEN E-PL1 CAMERA – Simple Operation + High-Quality 12 Megapixel Images + HD Video + In-Camera Creativity + Interchangeable Lenses = Total Compact Multimedia Package

CENTER VALLEY, Pa., February 3, 2010 – The new Olympus PEN® E-PL1 is truly greater than the sum of its parts, with a surprisingly small camera body packed with technology normally found in bigger, bulkier and heavier professional Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras and High-Definition (HD) camcorders. This third-generation PEN is built for shutterbugs who always wanted better pictures and considered a DSLR, but were intimidated by the bulky size and complex interface. The new camera’s simple design and easy interface enable consumers to easily create amazing images never dreamt possible. It will make you wonder how Olympus managed to put all of these powerful features inside such a compact camera for only $599.99.

The E-PL1 equals an affordable and powerfully simple all-in-one package that travels with you to capture life in the high quality that your memories deserve. “Many of today’s consumers want a camera with the professional still image quality of a DSLR and HD video in a compact body that’s as easy to use as a point-and-shoot,” said John Knaur, senior marketing manager, Digital SLR, Olympus Imaging America Inc. “Thanks in part to an image sensor that’s approximately eight times larger in size than what’s inside the average point-and-shoot camera, the E-PL1 delivers outstanding high-quality images. Add the flexibility of high-quality interchangeable lenses, the convenience of a built-in pop-up flash, in-camera creative features and technology designed to produce images effortlessly, and the E-PL1 is the total consumer-friendly, multimedia package.”

EASILY PEN YOUR STORY WITH A BRAND NEW PEN – This third generation of the Olympus PEN series combines powerful features in an easy-to-use package that will make capturing your life more fun. The new direct record button makes taking videos easier than ever and the new Live Guide functionality makes it simple to learn photography techniques without requiring the skills of a pro shooter.

New Direct Button for HD Movies – Recording HD movies with the E-PL1 is simple, thanks to an easy-to-reach red “direct button” (red record button) on the back of the camera body. If you’re about to snap a photo and you realize a video would capture the spirit of the scene even better, simply press the record button and instantly you’re capturing videos! Easily toggle back and forth between capturing stills and videos by using your index finger to press the shutter button or your thumb to press the red record button. Having the ability to shoot still images and videos opens up a world of imaging possibilities.

New Live Guide Sets the Scene Before You Shoot – The E-PL1’s new Live Guide interface simplifies great photography and gets the results you desire at the touch of a button. Want more vivid or muted color in your shot? Want warmer or cooler color? Want a brighter or darker subject, or a sharper or softer background? Or maybe you want to capture the fast-moving action of your subject with a little artistic blur, or perhaps freeze the action? Simply select Live Guide and press the up and down arrows on the back of the camera to slide through numerous photographic effects. Make adjustments and watch the LCD as the effects are made live – before the image is captured! Don’t worry about learning technical things like f-stops, shutter speed and white balance; jump right in by composing, adjusting exposure and more before the shot is taken. Seeing the results before snapping the image ensures you are getting the shots you want, and it will change the way you photograph. Shooting Tips are also included with Live Guide, so you can leave the manual at home.

Automate Everything – Live Guide is just the start of automated technologies on the E-PL1 designed to free you up to focus on your subjects instead of focusing on your camera’s settings.

➢ 19 Scene-Select Modes: From portraits to sunset shots, the E-PL1 is equipped with 19 Scene-Select modes for effortless picture taking, including Fireworks, Sunset, Children, Macro and Panorama, to name a few. Capturing beautiful portraits is easy with the ePortrait Mode that enables you to smooth your subject’s complexion.

➢ Intelligent Auto (iAuto) Mode: When you don’t want to use the scene-select modes, the iAuto mode automatically identifies what you’re shooting and adjusts settings for you to capture the best result depending on the situation.

➢ Face Detection: Reduce the chance of blurred subjects in images by recognizing up to eight faces, tracking them within the image area, and automatically focusing and optimizing exposure for sharp portraits.

➢ In-Camera Panorama: Capture three images and stitch them together to create one amazing, seamless panoramic picture. Or use the included OLYMPUS [ib] software to stitch up to 10 images together for the ultimate panorama.

➢ iEnhance: With this mode the warm yellow and orange colors of a sunset are heightened to a dramatically lifelike color that’s truer to what you see with the naked eye. iEnhance can be used in any mode, and automatically engages when using iAuto to enrich color in any subject.

➢ Share: Just connect the camera to an HDTV with an optional HDMI cable and use your TV remote to control playback functions and navigate the camera’s menus from the comfort of your personal front-row seat. The E-PL1 records to SDHC (Class 6 recommended) media cards that can be plugged directly into many devices and accommodate large files, including videos.

New Powerfully Simple Pop-Up Flash – The E-PL1 is the first camera in the Olympus PEN series with a built-in pop-up flash that makes it easy to illuminate low-light subjects, reduce red-eye and fill in dark areas. The camera is also compatible with a range of optional external flashes, including the Olympus FL-36R and FL-50R, which can be controlled wirelessly by the E-PL1 so you can dy
namically control lighting as your photography skills grow.

PRO-QUALITY IMAGES – How do professional photographers capture the stunning images you see in the pages of glossy magazines and coffee-table books? Talent matters, of course, but you also need the right equipment. Rest assured that the E-PL1 has everything you need to produce vibrant, professional-quality images: a large image sensor, in-body Image Stabilization, Imager Autofocus, the proven Olympus Dust Reduction System and the TruePic™ V Image Processor.

Big Sensor, Not a Big Body – At the heart of the E-PL1 is a large-size image sensor that’s the same sensor as the one inside the Olympue E-30 and E-620 DSLR models. The only difference between this sensor and what the pros use is that this big sensor is inside the much smaller body of the E-PL1. This high-performance 12.3-megapixel Live MOS image sensor (eight times larger than the average point-and-shoot camera sensor) delivers excellent dynamic range, accurate color fidelity, and a state-of-the-art amplifier circuit to reduce noise and capture fine image details in both highlight and shadow areas.

Stabilize All of Your Lenses – Instead of selling more expensive lenses that have image stabilization inside them, Olympus takes a different approach by having image stabilization built right into the body of the E-PL1. This means that any lens Micro Four Thirds™, Four Thirds and any third-party lens) attached to the E-PL1 will deliver blur-free images thanks to three modes of In-body Image Stabilization that automatically compensate for camera shake, including in low-light situations or when shooting without a tripod. Since the PEN cameras are the world’s smallest interchangeable-lens cameras with image stabilization built inside the body, you can take the E-PL1 with you and capture great images, and it won’t weigh you down.

Track Your Subjects Wherever They Roam – The E-PL1’s Continuous Autofocus (C-AF) Tracking and Autofocus (AF) Target Registration locks your subject into focus and constantly adjusts focus and brightness whether you or your subject is moving. With this mode, a simple push of the shutter release enables you to keep moving subjects in focus – tracking them from left to right and from front to back – within the frame, automatically ensuring that even active subjects, like kids playing sports, are captured clearly.

The E-PL1’s Imager Autofocus in Live View enables you to compose, focus and capture the shot quickly and easily without ever taking your eyes off the camera’s large, 2.7-inch full-color, high-contrast HyperCrystal LCD for an easy, seamless viewing experience when shooting still images or videos. The LCD also provides a wide viewing angle of 176 degrees, which ensures that images can be composed from even the most obscure angles.

This Camera Leaves Others in the Dust – If you’re just starting out with a camera that has interchangeable lenses, you don’t have to worry about dust spots on your sensor ruining the perfect image every time you change lenses. Spend more time shooting with the E-PL1 and less time worrying about dust with the proven Olympus Dust Reduction System that produces spot-free photos with the exclusive Supersonic Wave Filter™, a patented ultrasonic technology that vibrates to remove dust and other particles from the front of the image sensor, capturing them on a special adhesive membrane every time the camera is turned on.

True-to-Life Color - The E-PL1’s Live MOS image sensor is complemented by Olympus’ TruePic™ V Image Processor, which produces clear and colorful photos using all the pixel information for each image to provide the best digital images possible. The image processor is noted for accurate natural color, true-to-life flesh tones, brilliant blue skies and precise tonal expression; it also lowers image noise in photos shot at higher ISO settings (ISO 100 to ISO 3200), enabling great results in low-light situations.

EASILY EXPAND YOUR CREATIVE HORIZONS WITH BUILT-IN EFFECTS – Express yourself with in-camera creative features. Professional images are rarely unedited images. Video and still image pros use computer-editing software to render their images with effects that set their shots apart from the pack. Olympus appreciates that you may not have hours to spend retouching your images at the computer, so the E-PL1 incorporates editing effects inside the camera to save you time. Whether you apply in-camera creative effects while shooting an image, or apply them later to images captured without the effects, all are inside the E-PL1, so you can achieve dramatic results on the go without a computer or editing software.

The E-PL1 has six in-camera Art Filters, including a new filter called Gentle Sepia. This filter gives your images and videos a soft, warm sepia cast similar to historical images from the early days of photography. The sepia tones are softer and the blacks are a true black, unlike traditional sepia images. The new filter joins Pop Art, Soft Focus, Pin Hole, Grainy Film and Diorama (the filter that makes everything look as small as the E-PL1).

With the E-PL1’s Multiple Exposure function available for still image capture, you are free to tell a visual story your way. The image capture options enable you to shoot one shot, then another and combine them in real time, or capture both shots separately and combine them within the camera later. Take a shot of your significant other, and overlay your self-portrait on top to figure out what your kids will look like. If you have kids already, overlay your kid’s face on top of a shot of his or her favorite cartoon character for laughs. Your ability to manipulate space and time makes this new creative multimedia device a veritable time machine.
You often can achieve greater photographic expression by framing a scene in a unique way. The E-PL1 provides four aspect ratios that serve as masks to frame your image to the desired proportions, including the standard 4:3 aspect ratio that is suited to an 8 x 10-inch enlargement; the 16:9 aspect ratio that will display beautifully on a widescreen television; and other popular aspect ratios, such as 3:2 and 6:6. The Multi-Aspect Shooting further expresses your creative vision when combined with in-camera Art Filters and Multiple Exposures.

With the E-PL1, you have your own living library of still images, HD video and audio to remix at your command. In playback mode, you can seamlessly mix stills and movies inside the camera to create a multimedia slideshow, and dub in one of three built-in dramatic background music options to provide a soundtrack for your cinematic creation. With so many creative options, there’s no limit to what you can create. Choose whether or not you want to play back just pictures, just movies or a combination; also control playing back the whole movie or just a clip.

OPEN SYSTEM EASILY GROWS WITH YOUR ABILITY – With a basic point-and-shoot camera, you get one lens built into the camera. One lens, that’s it. And it’s likely a small lens, which doesn’t allow a lot of light through to hit the image sensor. So, you may have a difficult time in low-light conditions. And without the option of adding more lenses, you’re limited to what that one point-and-shoot lens can do. The E-PL1 solves these issues by accepting a variety of lenses to maximize its functionality. Whether shooting still images or HD video, you can add everything from an extreme wide-angle fisheye lens to a super-telephoto lens for a wide range of expressive options.

The M. ZUIKO DIGITAL Micro Four Thirds lenses are designed to be more compact and portable like the E-PL1. Choose from the ED 14-42mm f3.5/5.6 zoom lens (28-84mm equivalent in 35mm cameras) sold with the E-PL1, the ED 17mm f2.8 lens (34mm equivalent), the new super wide-angle zoom ED 9-18mm f4.0-5.6 lens (18-36mm equivalent) or the high-power wide to telephoto zoom ED 14-150mm f4.0-5.6 lens (2
8-300mm equivalent).

If you want to have even more options, the MMF-2 Four Thirds System Lens Adapter makes the E-PL1 compatible with all Olympus ZUIKO Digital Specific™ lenses and other Four Thirds System lenses from Sigma, Panasonic and Leica. Olympus OM film-based lenses can be attached to the E-PL1 with the MF-2 OM Lens Adapter, and there are third-party adapters developed for lenses from most other manufacturers.

SOFTWARE AND ACCESSORY OPTIONS WHEN YOU’RE READY – The E-PL1 incorporates an accessory port for connecting the optional VF-2 live-finder, a detachable electronic viewfinder, or the new optional external microphone adapter set (which includes the EMA-1 adapter, the ME-51S stereo microphone and a cord) for those who want to capture enhanced audio with any microphone that has a 3.5mm plug. These optional accessories easily slide into the camera’s accessory port and hot shoe.

Consumers who wish to hold the E-PL1 up to their eye rather than use the LCD will appreciate that the optional VF-2, which provides 1.15x magnification and a 100 percent field of view with sharp resolution, brightness and contrast. The viewfinder refreshes quickly to minimize image ghosting on fast-moving subjects. It also rotates up to 90 degrees to enable photographers to look down into it, which is useful when shooting subjects from challenging angles. The built-in diopter adjustment and high magnification offer easy viewing with and without glasses.

The E-PL1 offers OLYMPUS [ib] software that includes photography workflow, browsing, editing and unique photo-organizing functions. You can organize your photos by person with automatic face-recognition technology, by location with a Geotagging function or by event. You can easily view photos on an HDTV or on the camera’s LCD with the Photo Surfing or Slideshow functions. The name [ib] stands for image bridging, image browsing and image brightening. The software will be available for Windows operating systems only.

Underwater Housing for Aquatic Adventures – The new camera’s compact design makes it the perfect companion for all of your dive trips. The PT-EP01 underwater case has been specially customized for the Olympus E-PL1 and is waterproof to a depth of 40 meters (approximately 130 feet). With its durable, high-quality polycarbonate construction, this Olympus housing protects the camera from water while also cushioning it from knocks and bumps on land. The housing enables viewing from either the camera’s LCD screen or an optional electronic viewfinder. The flash connectors allow optional use of up to two UFL-2 underwater flash units via fiber optic cable. A nonremovable front lens port accommodates multiple Micro Four Thirds lenses.

New Exterior Design, Same PEN DNA – The E-PL1 streamlines the Olympus Micro Four Thirds PEN series form and is available in three new body colors, including Black, Champagne Gold and Slate Blue. Thanks to its compact size (4.51″ W x 2.84″ H x 1.63″ D excluding protrusions) and light 10.4-ounce body, the E-PL1 won’t weigh you down when you’re on the go.

AVAILABILITY – The Olympus E-PL1 will be available in March 2010. It includes the E-PL1 Body, M. ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 14-42mm f3.5/5.6 Zoom, USB Cable, Video Cable, Li-Ion Battery Pack (BLS-1), Li-Ion Battery Charger (BCS-1), Shoulder Strap, OLYMPUS [ib] software CD-ROM, Manuals and Registration card. U.S. Pricing / Product Configurations: E-PL1 Body with M. ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 14-42mm f3.5/5.6 Zoom Lens. Estimated Street Price: $599.99

As a phone – it’s okay. It has a great screen (the built in videos are quite impressive) although it’s not as colourful as the Nokia’s OLED screen. Acceptable touch screen – although I’m not a big fan – so never really got completely used to (or happy) using this phone. The stylus seems quite loose – which has resulted in me loosing it once, and nearly loosing it a second time. The phone feels a little cheap – very plastic – although the sliding lens cover is quite nice and the shutter button feels decent. It’s interesting (and a little surprising) to see Sony ditch Sony M2 memory cards and instead include an 8gb Micro SD cards. (It looks like Sony are doing the same with all their cameras and giving the option of Sony MS or standard SD cards). What else does it do… find out below…

It’s got WIFI, GPS, a huge 3.5″ screen, and almost everything else you expect from a modern phone (except for a facebook / twitter app etc which are noticeably missing), and surprisingly it doesn’t have built in stereo speakers, instead it only has one internal speaker.

Another thing noticeably missing is a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, and the new MicroUSB charging standard – instead it uses Sony Ericssons standard connection, and provides an adapter for when you want to plug some earphones in (which then ties up the connection so you can’t use it for anything else like connecting it to your computer).

The earphones look better than the ones shown on the box but come with a really short cable so you can’t use them with anything else – they sound fairly clear, but seem to lack bass, and the rubber fittings aren’t as rubbery as they should be. (Cheap £8 Creative Labs EP-630/A Noise Isolating Earphones (Sennheisers duplicates/copies?) sound much better than the provided Sony earphones).

The Nokia N86 seems to have slightly better mp3 playback quality – and nearly no background hiss – whereas the Sony has noticeable background hiss when not playing anything. The Sony also distorts above 70% volume, with 80, 90 and 100% adding no extra volume other than additional distortion.

Software – Symbian S6 v5 – the buggy touchscreen version of the software – so buggy at one point that the phones were recalled / withdrawn from sale until they had a software update for the phone(s) involved (including the Nokia N97). Although it’s been updated with Sony’s own home screen(s): Quick contacts, Web shortcuts (default to the fairly horrible built in web browser), Home with Music, keypad, media, messages, and a Google maps shortcut, Photos (shows your most recent photos), and Shortcuts which can be customised.

The built in photo / media viewer seems quite poor – for example in and mode (portrait or landscape) – zooming into the photo doesn’t fill the whole screen (see examples).

As a camera – it’s better than most camera phones – simply because it’s got a real flash. It’s also got a focus assist lamp. But compared to real cameras – it’s very slow to switch on – slow to focus – and slow to take the photo. Colour is good – bright and saturated – without being overly saturated and there is very little ghosting or “white-out” / lens flare.

As mentioned above, the shutter button feels quite good with a two step process – half press to lock focus and fully press to take the photo (much better than the Nokia N86). It’s strange that the camera doesn’t have the “Cybershot” branding – even though previous Sony Ericsson phones have had the branding – even “lowly” 5mp camera phones.

Focusing indoors in low light is mostly successful, although 1/10 is probably out of focus. The camera does a very good job of toning down the flash when taking macro photos with flash – which is quite impressive as often normal cameras struggle with this. (see the Delonghi Cafe Treviso Coffee Machine Review for numerous examples)

16:9 Aspect Ratio

Speed / Timings:
Switch phone off: 12 seconds.
Switch phone on: 35 seconds
Switch from phone to camera: 2 seconds
Continuous shooting “BestPic” mode (without flash): takes 9 photos at 9fps, at 12mp – then you can save one or all of them (or any number of pictures you want).
Menu speeds are fairly slow.

Touch focus is quite neat – and lets you press the screen where you want to focus and it’ll take a photo. Overall having a 12 megapixel camera on your phone is overkill – particularly if you’re only going to be uploading them to facebook! Even a 1 megapixel camera would be good enough for facebook – with it’s 604 pixel wide photos (less than VGA resolution).

Photo editing options (same as Nokia N86) – the options are brightness, contrast, sharpness, resize, crop, rotate, annotate, clipart, text, something, square, red-eye reduction, black and white, sepia, something, shame there isn’t the option to increase saturation / colour. (Using the contrast option does a good job of increasing colour though)

Video recording is better than the previous Sony camera phone (the C905) – it now records VGA/30fps but nothing spectacular or impressive like HD or 720p (like most real cameras). The phone also has a video light that you can use to light dark subjects.

Overall - this is a usable phone – with an excellent camera and flash for a camera phone. If you want an excellent camera on your phone, this is the best currently available (as you should be able to see in the included sample photos) mainly thanks to it being one of the only current camera phones to feature a real flash, but other aspects of the phone are a little annoying (lack of built in facebook / twitter apps, slow software and initial bugs). The touchscreen isn’t really good enough to convert me into a touchscreen user, and I much prefer the buttons on other phones. Also, you would most likely get better results from a compact camera, with even budget cameras offering a 3x or 4x optical zoom lens, 10 or 12 megapixel sensor, and more photo options.

Pros:
Real Xenon flash
Large 3.5″ screen
Good shutter button

Cons:
Cheap build quality
Poor touchscreen
Sony charging connection, and no 3.5mm jack built in

Nb. The fairly poor / average photos of the Sony Satio were taken with the Nokia N86.