3 January 2008

Nokia N82 -:- User Review

Another thing that I noticed about the N82 was how dull the screen was compared to the N95. The N82 has a 2.4inch LCD QVGA TFT colour display with up to 16.7 million colours, and the N95 has the 2.6inch QVGA TFT display and up to 16 million colours. Both devices having the screen resolution of 240 x 320 pixels, the Nokia N95 has the slightly larger screen and noticably brighter screen also.

N95 + N82 screen compare Click to Enlarge

here is an image with a Nokia N95 and Nokia N82 side by side, (i sorry for all image quality, they taken with N95) you cant really tell much difference in the image, but screen is noticeably brighter in N95 when side by side.

Both devices side by side with same theme and same display settings, the N95 is noticeably brighter. A duller screen isn't a bad thing at all in my opinion, it is actually better on the eyes at night time, but in daylight, i like to have screen brightness on full. Its a shame such settings are not available to us in profiles it would be real nice to have “proper” profiles in symbian s60 devices, and not just profiles that manage ringing tones, but instead manage everything, including various different user settings which you use differently in day time, than you do in the evening. like the screen brightness being one example.

I actually like the N82 screen and how it displays, the font is very clear and crisp, and i do like the smaller fonts, only some people with impaired sight, may find the font on the menu to be a little too small and difficult to read, and the font size settings has no effect on menu applications, (application name under the icons) only solution for this would be to have the menu in list view, but still the font size setting has no effect on grid or list view either, but the font does go slightly larger and easier to read on list view, as you can see in these screenshots.

Menu grid Click For Original size	Menu list Click For Original size

But if you do ever have a problem reading the small fonts, then you can quite simply change the font. more details on how to do this is on our forum section.

If i was to choose screens between the N82 and N95, i would choose the N82, as i do like the screen, even though screen is smaller and not so bright, i would rather a smaller screen with a higher resolution, than a big screen with the same or lower resolution, as a larger screen with a low res just looks awfull.

When we saw the Nokia n90 device hit the market in 2005 with its amazing 352x416 pixels high resolution screen, im sure i was not the only one to think that this was going to be the standard screen for all coming n-series devices. But unfortuantly, it was not the case as the next nseries device being the Nokia n91 went back to the terrible 176x208 pixels screen, but still the same 2.1 inch physical screen size as the n90, this was a massive dowgrade and to look at the n91 screen after having the n90 just looked extremly terrible with 4 times less the screen resolution.

Let me try to explain a little more about the benifits of a high res screen and also show you some images from Teo's previous reviews. Actually, teo can explain much better than i can lol, so i will copy some images and relitive materials from his previous and amazing in depth reviews.

*click to enlarge

These images that teo made for his n93 review, show the relation between resolution and physical size of the screen, the higher score is better. Nokia N90 and Nokia n80 with more than 10.000 pixels per square cm looks very nice indeed, showed image is almost ideal, even very bad photos look wonderful compressed on such a screen, it is impossible to see single pixel without magnifier because physical size of the pixel is too small. The n90 and n80 were the only 2 nseries devices that had such a wonderfull resolution (a few Eseries devices also has the 352x416 resolution) it would of been just great if all the nseries devices after the n90 came with the 352x416pixel resolution screen, but it just was not the case unfortunatly, as Nokia decided that the 240x320pixel resolution screen was to become the standard for all the nseries devices.

HR vs. LR
*left click to enlarge or right click and save target as.. ..

High Resolution screens are able to process the much more information onto the screen, which also makes it very clear and crisp image to look at. A high res screen just makes everything you do on your device look so very much better and even make your life much easier, for example on web browsing, you dont have to scroll around so much as more information is on the screen, as you can see from the teo's screenshots above.

HR vs. LR
*left click to enlarge or right click and save target as.. ..

Also things like viewing documents on your device becomes a real pleasure with a nice crisp high res screen, like pdf documents as an example, would look so much better and easier on the eye and also much easier to view and read the document properly, wheras on a lower res screen, there wont be as much information (pixels) on the screen, which in turn also makes it look pixelated, even viewing images is a huge difference to the human eye on a hi res screen, and even images of not so good quality will still look nice on a hi res screen, like a Nokia n90 or n80. .

*click to enlarge

I think the N82 has perfect pixel density to screen size ratio, and unlike the Nokia N95 screen, you can view the N82 screen reasonably well in strong sunlight. But in a dream world i would choose neither N82 or N95 screen, as both still have the crappy QVGA 240x320px resolution, and to be honest, i really can not belive that Nokia are still forcing such terrible screens onto there high end devices, i really did hope that this would change in 2007, but it just hasent, and i cant tell you how dissapointed i am with Nokia for this. But on the good note, im pretty positive that this is going to change for Nokia in 2008 with the new up coming s60 5th edition symbian TouchUI platform. I am very excited about to see what is to come with this platform, and to be honest, i am more excited to see devices with some proper WVGA screens with great resolution, and not the crappy QVGA (Quarter Video Graphics Array) screens that we have all been squinting our eyes to view in Nokia devices for so long.

A graphic which shows the resolution of QVGA compared to VGA. Click for actual size.

The name QVGA or Quarter VGA is derived from the fact that it offers 1/4 of the 640×480 maximum resolution of the original IBM VGA display technology. which became a industry standard in the late 1980s.

QVGA (4:3) compared with the other display standards... Click to enlarge image.

The QVGA term is also seen in digital video recording equipment as a space-efficient mode, typically in multi-function devices that are also still digital cameras. Each frame is an image of 320×240 pixels. QVGA video is typically 15 or 30 frames per second. QVGA is larger (higher resolution) than QCIF (Quarter Common Intermediate Format 176×144), but smaller than VGA.

QVGA resolution is a 4:3 aspect ratio. As you can see in image to the left, QVGA is one of the lowest display standards in today technology. And i really cant wait to see the 1st Nokia s60 device to come with a wonderfull VGA high resolution screen with a nice physical size, which is what i hope we are going to see with the first TouchUI s60 devices.

few more screen compare photos against Nokia N95, again i opoligise for photo's quality, taken on N95 in poor light.
Click To Enlarge

Another great feature of the N82 is of course the auto rotate feature which is built into the firmware, this actually functions quite well indeed most of the time, especially when viewing videos with realplayer, as a simple flip on the device brings the video up in landscape mode instantly, or full screen mode. So we dont have to no longer press the options to play the clip in full screen mode we can just play the clip and simply flip the device on its side and the video will continue to be played in full screen landscape mode, but it would of been nice if it had some sensitivity settings like we see on the great samir's recently released to the public famous rotateme application for the Nokia N95, because sometimes it does tend to not rotate every time, and you may need to help it on its way by giving it a little a shake to make it rotate.

This is more so if using on the Nokia SU-8W Blutooth keyboard, if you have the phone at a certain tilt within the keyboard stand, and you go back to the home screen, then you will lose the landscape mode and return back to portrait and will need to give it a little shake or tilt to rotate back to landscape again. But then this depends entirely on your seating position and what angle the device is sat at in the keyboard stand, as if you were to be sat with a table that is quite high, then this wouldnt be a problem as you would have the required angle to have the screen auto rotate back after the homescreen, but i just cant understand why Nokia disabled the rotate screen function for the home screen, quite the strange thing i think.

As you can see here in the above video, i was needing to slightly give the N82 a small shake to return it back to landscape mode, but like i said above, if you have the device sat at a higher angle, then this wouldnt be a problem, as the screen would automatically rotate back to landscape mode after you leave the homescreen, so you can go back to the menu to simply make it back to landscape mode.

Also this apply if you want to multi task on the N82 (leave application running in background) while in landscape mode, and press the menu key 2 times to leave the application open in the background, we will then come to the home screen (or active stanby as it is also known by), and by doing this, the phone will automatically change back to portrait mode as soon as you goto home screen (as seen in the above video demostration) and i found it quite annoying. As of course with me being a self confesed symbian-freak and power user, i am allways multitasking on my symbian devices, same as i am on my home computer, and i belive the not rotating on homescreen, does in a way ruin the whole screen rotate feature. It should rotate all the time, even on the home screen, and the only time it should not rotate, would be when the keys are locked, as this is a true sign to the device that phone is not in use, so no point rotating the screen. I would be intrested to see if this does change in future firmware updates. They should impliment the awsem samir's rotateme application into all there up coming devices, or at least match the capabilitys of this application and add more sensitivity settings, and also rotate the home screen too.

N82 rotate settings

And it can also sometimes become quite a nuisance, if for example you are in bed led on your side, web browsing, or what ever it is you do on your phone while in bed, like watching a video maybe, but we wont go into that lol. In this such situation, you may find the screen rotating when you don't want it too, but this is not a problem at all, as it can be disabled quite easily from the display settings. Again, such a setting would be nice to have set on a profile. maybe this will come in later release of symbian s60 software, so if you reading this Nokia, this would be great to have proper profiles, not just for tone and volume settings, but for all different user settings too ;)

.:[ Nokia N82 - Technical Specifications ]:.