Camera Phone Reviews

Nokia N95

Nokia N95 Reviews

Brighthand has a first thoughts review of the Nokia N95 and writes, "There's no doubt, the N95's camera is drool-worthy. The pictures were very sharp and the auto-focus worked great. For many of us who just like to carry their mobile and use the camera on it, we are used to pictures that are not so great. After the N95, I am less accepting of that."

CNET Asia has a preview of the Nokia N95 and writes, "Another strong feature of the N95 would be its 5-megapixel camera. We haven't reviewed the image quality from the Carl Zeiss lens yet, but the general impression of the shooter is that is has all the typical features you get on a compact digital camera. Performance was a tad sluggish with noticeable shutter lag, though that's nothing surprising for a camera-phone."

AllAboutSymbian reviews the camera on the Nokia N95 and writes, "there are distinct limitations to having a much smaller sensor and lens, with slightly less detail in many images. Every digital camera has algorithms built-in, to reduce sensor noise (usually by blurring the image very slightly) and then to sharpen up the result in terms of edges and contrast, to give a more 'pleasing' result. The N95 has to work slightly harder at this, since it's got lower quality input that the Sony camera tested, and the results can sometimes be a little artificial. ... The Nokia N93 produces optically perfect photos but with lots of the original sensor noise and (sadly) over-enthusiastic compression artefacts. The N93i had a tweaked algorithm, with deliberate blurring applied in order to reduce the apparent noise, at the expense of loss of detail. ... With the hope that newer firmware improves camera speed, I think Nokia will get more praise and respect than criticism."

MobileBurn reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "For many, the prize aspect of the N95 will be its 5 megapixel autofocus camera. The camera takes mostly wonderful photos in a wide variety of lighting situations. The automatic white balance system in the camera seems to be very accurate in most situations, though perhaps the photos might appear a bit cool (blue) in color for some. The camera's user interface is simple to use and consists primarily of a series of icons that run across the right edge of the display when the N95 is held horizontally. The user can move up and down with the d-pad to quickly pick a setting and press the select button to change it. Nudging the d-pad left or right accesses the digital zoom. One of the more interesting aspects of the camera is the built-in orientation sensor that allows the user to take landscape or portrait mode photos just by holding the N95 horizontally or vertically - no menu access required. It is not fool proof, however. Sometimes the orientation sensor appears to get stuck in the default landscape mode, and there is no way to tell if it is working or not since the settings icons remain on the same edge of the display regardless of the orientation. A couple of taps on the side of the phone before taking a photo in portrait mode seems to increase the chances that things will work out properly."

PCWorld reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "From the back, the N95 looks just like a slim point-and-shoot camera. To use the flash-enabled camera, simply slide open the Zeiss lens cover. The camera app starts automatically, and you have your choice of capturing up to 5 megapixel still images, or VGA video at 30 frames per second. When holding the phone as a camera, you have a dedicated button at the top right for snapping pix, and the volume up/down keys double in camera mode to adjust the 20X digital zoom. I found the images I captured to be lively and far better quality than those from other camera phones, but I haven't compared its output side-by-side with a dedicated point-and-shoot camera yet. My initial impression from limited use is that image purists, like myself, will prefer the images generated by a dedicated camera."

Trusted Reviews reviews the Samsung SGH-D840 and writes, "As usual all my test shots were taken with the camera on automatic settings. Outdoors it performed quite well as long as the subject was still. I was able to get pretty close to the flowers and whites were not, for once, dramatically over exposed. The cat shots were good too with honest colour reproduction. As soon as the cat gave even the slightest twitch, though, I got a blurred image. Indoors the camera again reproduced colours well, but photos were not very vibrant. ... The SGH-D840 has some strong components: the camera stands up well, the front screen is impressive, the slider mechanism is smooth and comfortable. But in general the specifications are average, the phone is a little large in the hand and pocket, and there are no really ‘must have’ features. If you have the same trouble with in-ear headphones that I do then steer clear."

GigaOM has a review of the Nokia N95 and writes, "If you like taking a lot of photos, and don’t want to carry a separate digital camera, then the point-and-shoot features of N95 should suffice. The Carl Zeiss brand doesn’t really mean anything to me – I go by how the photos look to my naked eye. I find the quality of photos stunning. Camera is simple to use, and the built in Lifeblog software can get the photos to your Flickr account in a jiffy."

LaptopMag has a review of the Nokia N95 and writes, "As a camera, the N95 takes pretty sharp 5-MP photos, but it doesn't capture them quickly enough. We used the phone as our primary camera over a weekend, and we were generally impressed with the quality of the images, which exhibited good color accuracy but appeared a little fuzzy when displayed on our notebook's 14.1-inch screen. Our biggest complaint is the slow shutter speed; it took too long for the N95 to take photos, even with the auto-focus locked. On the plus side, the VGA videos taken with the N95 looked excellent when played back on our notebook using QuickTime. Zooming in and out was a bit jarring, but otherwise the N95 is a good camcorder stand-in."

3G reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "The Nokia N95 offers a powerful 5 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss Tessar 2.8/5.6 mm lens, auto focus and flash. Pictures are shown on the impressive 2.6 inch display. You can upload your photos directly from your camera phone to the Flickr online photo community. At 30 frames per second, you can easily capture moving objects. ... The result is a camera phone that produces results close to digital camera quality but with some limitations. The main observation would be limited sharpness / blurry results. However, unless you closely examine the results you may never notice anything adverse."

Gizmodo reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "I detect a decent level of grain in these 5mp shots, and the shutter lag is horrendous, but WTF, it's a 5mp camera with a Carl Zeiss 2.8/5.6 autofocusing lens in a phone. There are great controls for ISO, white balance, sharpness, contrast, and flash. And video comes in at 640 by 480 at 30fps. Not shabby. And the editing programs are powerful, especially the photo editor's clip art feature."

MobileTechReview reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "Yes, it isn't fair to compare the Nokia N95 to a dedicated 5MP digital camera, but let's face it: we all are interested in that comparison. No, the shots aren't quite as good as this and last year's 5MP digital cameras. Generally speaking there's more JPEG noise reduction done by the N95's internal image processing software (though not as much as the N73 whose photos could look a tad painted) and more sharpening. And a dedicated camera is better for low light photography (still Nokia's weakness, though the N95's night mode generates the best dark room photos to date on a Nokia phone). But some of our photos came darned close, and in some cases surpassed our dedicated slim 5MP Samsung camera for capturing detail like the drops of water on the carrots below, and offering better contrast on the lava rocks in the Buddha photo. Still images are generally very sharp, colorful, well exposed with a faint purple bias."

Infosync reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "Pictures taken with the phone were among the best we've seen on camera phones, with the exception of the Sony Ericsson Cyber Shot line, perhaps, which also use the Carl Zeiss optics. We still don't think the image will replace a good, dedicated camera, but images from the camera would have been fine for Web publishing or small print jobs. The phone includes plenty of camera options, including various shutter modes for fast-moving subjects or night time portraits. The phone also has a variety of transfer options, including e-mail, printing, IR transfer and Bluetooth capabilities, as well as direct access to Flickr accounts."

CNET reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "We were impressed by the quality of photos and videos the N95 produced, as one would hope with a 5-megapixel lens. Pictures boasted vibrant colors and sharp lines and edges, and unlike some smart phones, the N95 didn't require you to have a super steady hand to get a clear shot. The camera phone also did a decent job with nighttime pictures, though they were still pretty dim. Video quality was also good. There wasn't any of that graininess that sometimes plagues videos shot by camera phones. We also wanted to mention the camera's interface, as we found it extremely easy to use and change camera settings, which can sometimes be challenging when you don't have a touch screen."

PCMag reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "On outdoor shots, our digital camera analyst, Terry Sullivan, judged the N95's 5MP shooter to be quite good, if a little high in contrast. It delivered vibrant color, didn't wash out bright areas or fringe lines, and had just a few jaggies in the shadows. Under low light with no flash, the N95 took fairly decent photos, as long as the target wasn't moving. There was some color noise, but no more than you'd expect. ... That said, the N95 suffers from two major, common cameraphone pitfalls. First, it has possibly the world's slowest autofocus. If the camera thinks it has focused properly already, you're treated to a sprightly 0.5-second shutter delay. But if it doesn't, you're stuck waiting up to two full seconds for the damn thing to focus. Second, the N95 is graced with a worse-than-nothing flash, leading to poor indoor performance. Shots taken indoors sometimes looked either blurry from the low shutter speed or grainy from the forced high ISO. In addition, the "flash" gives everything a vaguely blue cast."

Vnunet reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "there’s that camera. At five megapixels, it’s the most powerful yet seen on a mobile phone in the UK (the X-Cute phone also on sale uses a three-megapixel camera and guesses what the in-between pixels would be – so calling it a six-megapixel camera isn’t quite right). The Nokia N95 still doesn’t have an optical zoom but at least the lens is courtesy of Carl Zeiss, and is auto-focus, rather than fixed focus. Sony Ericsson’s earlier flagship cameraphone, the 3.2-megapixel K800i, was let down by an erratic lens cover which tended to pop open and drain the battery."

3G reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "The Nokia N95 offers a powerful 5 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss Tessar 2.8/5.6 mm lens, auto focus and flash. Pictures are shown on the impressive 2.6 inch display. You can upload your photos directly from your camera phone to the Flickr online photo community. At 30 frames per second, you can easily capture moving objects. ... The result is a camera phone that produces results close to digital camera quality but with some limitations. The main observation would be limited sharpness / blurry results. However, unless you closely examine the results you may never notice anything adverse."

MobileChoice reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "While the Nokia N95's five-megapixel lens does boast the most of any camera phone (well, apart from LG's KG920), it just happens to have a top-quality, Carl Zeiss-built lens and a CMOS sensor. Unfortunately, it does process the images with some artefacting, compression and sharpening noise. ... The pictures we captured of the river and mill were taken with the Exposure Compensation on +1.0 because the auto setting couldn’t grab the detail and contrast in a low-light environment. "

Pocket-lint reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "Controlling and changing camera settings again is easy thanks to a combination of on and off screen buttons however we did find considerable time lag between taking a picture and it actually capturing it. This resulted in fast moving subjects being either blurred or out of frame completely and while the 5 megapixel headline might make you think that you can ditch your compact camera we wouldn't bet on it just yet. Picture quality on the whole is very good (see images compared to the Pentax A30)."

Trusted Reviews has a review of the Nokia N95 and writes, "The N95 has a 5-megapixel camera. The last mobile phone I looked at with 5-megapixel capability was LG’s KG920, and that performed very well indeed. I found this autofocus and flash equipped camera slightly less forgiving than LGs on its auto settings, though it is very easy to use. The coloured dish photographed indoors under standard household lighting is less vibrant than I’d have liked. The cat was moving slightly when her photo was taken and there is no discernable blurring, while the colours of the hanging basket are pretty close to true. You will most likely need more than 1MB of storage for each photo shot at the highest quality."

OSNews reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, " The most involving application in the phone besides the GPS Maps, seems to be the newly redesigned Camera application. There is support to modify zoom, scenes (auto, user defined, portrait, macro, landscape, sports, night, night portrait), flash (red eye reduction, on, off, auto), contrast, exposure, brightness, exposure compensation, self timer, sequence mode, color tone, white balance, light sensitivity and sharpness. We found the quality of the images snapped good-enough for a cellphone, but it can't compete with a real 5MP camera. However, the photos are good enough to print small pictures out of them and to rescale down for web usage."

CNET Australia reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "On the back is a 5-megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, auto-focus, and a lens cover switch that activates the camera -- again, turning the large and bright screen into a viewfinder. The LED flash isn't as good as a Xenon flash, like the one found on Sony Ericsson's K800i, but does a decent enough job for close-range night shots. The pictures we've taken on the N95 are, without a doubt, the best we've seen from camera-phone to date. Recorded video is excellent, too, at 640x480 pixels and 30fps (which is technically DVD quality in the US -- NTSC)."

Lordpercy reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "On the rear of the N95 is a 5.0 mega pixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and auto flash, it is switched on by opening a small manual shutter slider and the screen pops into life as a very good viewfinder. The keys around the screen operate the functions and digital zoom and the dedicated shutter key takes the snaps which can create large files! You can also switch the phone to video mode and record MP4 files direct to memory of VGA resolution (640x480) at 30 fps. Image quality is very good and for us the N 95 only lacks an optical zoom for us to consider ditching a separate camera altogether, low light performance isn't that special but in normal or bright conditions it puts some digital cameras to shame."

PCAuthority reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "The camera is undoubtedly powerful, but it can’t compete with dedicated 5 megapixel models. Either the images are too heavily compressed with JPEG or the output of the CCD is interpolated from a lower quality source, or both. However the images are startlingly good from a phone, as is the video it can capture and the high intensity white LED that acts as a flash."

Stuff.co.nz reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "Photos and video playback are great. The external speaker is darn loud but the quality is good. It's acceptable but not fantastic for music playback. ... Taking photos is also a pain. Expect about three seconds of shutter lag before each shot. It's a great camera, but that really limits the shots you can take with it. The battery also gets sucked dry quickly, with such a bright screen and so many applications. Don't expect it to last much more than a day's use."

IT Reviews reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "The built-in 5-megapixel camera offers a range of features that in some cases surpass entry-level digital cameras, with integrated flash and range of modes, digital stereo microphone for video recordings, image editing and of course a secondary camera on the front for video-conferencing. Nokia promotes sharing of content with its video 'Lifeblog' support and if you find you're eating into the 160MB of built-in memory too quickly you can plug in a microSD card to up the capacity."

Brighthand reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "Voice quality was superb. People told me that I sounded very clear and that there was little to no echoing that could be heard. I noticed that voices sounded clear (albeit a bit high in tonal quality). The only nag when not using the headset was the whine from the LCD panel (similar to that which some Palm Treo 650 users have said happens with their devices). It was noticeable, but not annoying. The included stereo headset was good enough for some casual conversations, but picked up too much background noise. While working with my Jawbone Bluetooth headset however, conversations were nice and clear."

LetsGoMobile reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "The photo quality of our Nokia N95 test photos seems fine. And the newly released firmware has improved the quality and precision of the lighting as well as the speed. The results are the best that I have seen up to now from a mobile phone. The colors are clear and the photos have good contrast. You turn on the camera by sliding open the lens cap. Then you hold the phone just as you would a normal digital camera. The Nokia N95 is a bit slower to focus than a compact camera, but the shutter release is not as slow as it used to be. Focusing woks fine and it is quite accurate in combination with the AF light."

AllAboutSymbian reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "More than once a number of slim digital cameras were waved around, with the phrase “that phone has more than my camera!” Of course, just having more megapixels does not mean the composition of your pictures will be any better. You’ll still need to master the arcane subject of ‘making sure things are lit’ ... The other part of having a camera on a modern smartphone is taking video. There’s a bundle of settings, and five different settings for the quality, size and frame rate of the recording, which to me appears a bit hit and miss and is going to need a lot of testing and watching to find the best setting. So I left this on the middle setting (320x240) and it seemed to do a cracking job in recording smooth video that was viewable on the phone and also on my PC."

PCPro has a review of the Nokia N95 and writes, "Flip the phone over and there's a Carl Zeiss lens. Five megapixels sounds impressive, and compared to most phones the camera offers good quality, but it won't replace a dedicated compact - the lens is tiny and noise is a problem. There's another 352 x 288 pixel camera on the front for video calls."

CNET reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, It's hard to decide where to begin with the feature-packed Nokia N95, but since imaging is one of its biggest draws, we'll start there. The N95 is equipped with an impressive 5-megapixel camera--unheard of in the cell phone and smart phone world--with a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens. (Carl Zeiss was an optician who first started manufacturing lenses for microscopes and then used his expertise for camera lenses.) The breadth of customization and editing options available on this phone is astounding--almost like an actual digital camera. You can choose from seven shooting modes, ranging from close-up to sports to night portrait, and five quality settings. You can adjust the brightness, contrast, white balance, color tone, ISO light sensitivity, and exposure value to get the best picture possible. The flash even has a red-eye reduction option. Plus, there's also a self-timer and a sequence mode for multiple shots."

ENN reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "The device also tries its hand at being a digital camera; the 5-megapixel camera included with the handset is perfect for spur of the moment shots, and the resulting images are great quality -- as they should be though. The camera has a Carl Zeiss 2.8/5.6 autofocusing lens and controls to adjust white balance, ISO, flash and other settings."

PC Mag reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "The N95's 5-megapixel CCD took impressive test photos with excellent detail. Still, the useless LED flash, lack of optical zoom, and extremely slow shutter and save speeds (6 to 7 seconds from the moment you press the button to the moment the camera gives you control again) mean that the handset is not a replacement for a standalone digital camera."

The Washingtonpost reviews the Nokia N95 with US 3G and writes, "Like the first iteration of the N95 this new version is a multimedia powerhouse. Not only is there good support for music and video playback but you can also capture excellent photos with the five-megapixel auto-focus camera. The N95 put up some of the best scores we’ve seen from a cell phone camera. Although it doesn't compare with a dedicated high-end camera, it's definitely good enough for snapshots. Video capture is also excellent at 640 x 480 and thirty frames per second. This isn’t as good as a camcorder, but is as good as the video captured by high-end digital cameras. Those looking to create and consume media on the N95 will be very happy with its capabilities."

Camera Core reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "With the Nokia N95, you get a 5-megapixel camera, auto focus, and very good optics. Although it lacks manual exposure settings and a high-quality xenon flash, its supporting cast is more than enough for techies out there. Apart from pure shooting options Nokia N95 also offers extras like filing pictures into albums, sending pictures in MMS or emails, or even sending images to a photographic blog within Flickr or Vox services. Pictures can be modified in the phone before they are uploaded."

PDA Street reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, " The rear holds the lens for the 5 megapixel camera, which uses a Carl Zeiss lens. If you've been waiting for the day when your cell phone could take excellent, digital camera-worthy photos, wait no longer. We were consistently impressed with the quality of the photos that the N95 produced. Not only that, but the N95's excellent image software lets you crop and edit photos, and even remove red eye. The N95 can also shoot video."

Digital Trends reviews the Nokia N95 and writes, "The integrated Carl Zeiss lens has a fixed focal length of 5.6 mm (zoom is digital only) and takes excellent JPEGs at up to 5 megapixels (2592 x 1944 pixels), with very little noise and good sharpness. The flash is just an LED, but it has a decent usable range for indoor close-ups at around 10 feet. The autofocus is fairly quick, though the shutter click comes well before the flash goes off and the image is captured, causing us to miss many candid moments. A handful of on-board editing and slide show options, and direct links to Flickr and Vox make sharing your photos a breeze."