You might’ve heard of the Sony Ericsson K850.  5 megapixels of glory, right?  Best camera on a phone nowadays, right?  And you would’ve been, but if you have been keeping up with the times, you’d have noticed two phones emerging from some manufacturer’s labs: introducing the LG Renoir and the Samsung i8510.  Both rocking 8-megapixel cameras that blow the K850 right out of the water.

Samsung i8510

Source: http://digital-lifestyles.info/copy_images/samsung-i8510-lg1.jpg

If my chronology is correct, Samsung revealed their i8510 a couple of days earlier than LG did with the Renoir.  Here are some of its specifications:

• General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/2100 MHz, GPRS/EDGE class 10, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
• Physical Dimensions: 106.5 x 53.9 x 17.2 mm, 140 g
• Display: 2.8-inch 16M color TFT, QVGA resolution (240 x 320 pixels)
• Storage: 8/16GB flash storage, hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 16GB)
• Camera: 8 megapixel autofocus, mechanical shutter, automatic lens cover, dual Power LED flash, digital image stabilizer, geotagging, auto panorama shot, face detection, smile detection, blink detection
  • Video camera: MPEG4 VGA@30fps, QVGA@120fps high-speed recording
• Operating System: Symbian 9.3, S60 3rd edition UI, Feature Pack 2
• Battery Life: Li-Ion 1200 mAh, Talk time: 8 h 30 min, Standby: 310 h
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, Wi-Fi with DLNA certification, 3.5mm audio jack, TV-out, universal microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS

For a full list of specifications, please visit GSM Arena.

CutEdge Analysis:

Samsung isn’t cheapening out on the i8510.  First and foremost, this phone’s got a whopping 8-megapixel camera.  Although I know it’s not much, it’s still eye-bulging.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any test pictures to prove the Samsung i8510′s camera quality, so we’ll just have to go with the hype for now.  Still, the camera overshadows its other features, which are at least up to par: honourable mention goes to its 16GB of flash storage, its 240×320 pixel display, its HSDPA connectivity, and last but not least, its remarkable battery life.

Don’t expect it to come cheap, people — I’m smelling a similar price tag to the Nokia N95 when it first came out.

LG Renoir

Source: http://www.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/mobiles/lgrenoir/3.jpg

Sadly, that isn’t my hand.  Not that the hand looks particularly nice (no offense meant), but because I wasn’t the one that got to hold the LG Renoir.  Not only do I think it has a much better name than this “Samsung i8510″, but it’s also shinier, which scores some bonus points with me.

Head over to GSM Arena or Phone Arena for the Renoir’s specifications (yeah, I got a bit lazy, plus formatting would have been a pain — sue me).

CutEdge Analysis:

Where Samsung’s i8510 seems to have up-to-par specs, so does the LG Renoir.  They differ in only minor ways, several being: the Renoir has a maximum capacity of 8GB (half of the i8510′s),but its got a bigger screen (240×400 pixels).  Luckily for you readers, I was able to find a test picture taken with the Renoir’s 8-megapixel camera.  Yeah, it’s not the greatest quality, but it’s not half bad for a cell phone.

Source: http://www.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/mobiles/lgrenoir/testpiclarge.JPG

Welcome to the Jungle

It just never stops evolving.  From less than a single megapixel, to five, and now eight, with recording quality of 30fps — that of DVD quality, arguably, cell phones are just getting more and more powerful.  They’ve got beautiful displays, powerful processors, ample storage, but probably hefty prices to match.  I would suggest putting off purchases until this kind of stuff becomes more mainstream — as they do, prices will go down.  However, if you’re a phone fanatic or a camera junkie, waiting might not be a good idea (hop onto the 8-megapixel bandwagon!).

Today, I was invited to a family dinner that was slightly to slow-paced for my taste. The food ended up taking an hour to come, and the conversation dragged on from purchasing glasses to Chinese names. I have hardly any experience in the latter category, so you might imagine I grew quite bored. I drew out my Sony Ericsson w600i, which does happen to be a camera phone like all phones made in the last two years, and began fooling around with the camera. Luckily, the restaurant was very well designed and decorated, so I had many items to try it out on.

Before continuing, I’d like to disclose some information:

• My own Sony Ericsson w600i is almost two years old – it has been released for nearly the same amount of time, so as you can imagine, the camera quality will not be as great as one of a w810i or the world-class camera phone complete with Xenon flash, k790i.
• I am not a professional photographer – quite the contrary; I’ve got the interest in photography but definitely lack the skill and experience.
• I am aware I probably looked like a doofus, especially to people who walked through when I was taking a picture. However, my sense of boredom overcame my sense of shame and I decided to go along with such a scheme anyway.
• If you’re looking to put stuff in your portfolio or your school project or even something just as simple as remembering precious family moments, don’t use a camera phone.

We’ll start with my main point: every camera and phone is different, so you’re going to want to experiment. It takes time to find out the optimum settings to take pictures. I realized soon that the maximum resolution was sacrificing response time, so I decided on lowering it to a moderate 640×480 (the w600i has a 1.3mp camera, meaning it has a maximum resolution of 1280×1024). I switched the quality to Fine and mainly tampered with the White Balance, shifting from Incandescent to Fluorescent and then Cloudy. Here were the results; you tell me which one you thought was best.

The next step: how you hold the camera phone will affect the result. If you’re going for the “fly” look and hold it with one hand, it’ll show. If you’re holding it like a normal person with two hands, it’ll show. Some will look much less blurred, some will look like they were taken with a real camera! Because the average human’s got pretty jittery hands, you’re going to want to hold it with both hands, even if it makes you look like a nimrod (unless you’ve got really steady hands). Also, pull the sniper-trick – I read about this in Wired once, if I’m not mistaken: breathe in for five seconds, hold your breath for five seconds, and breathe out for five seconds. Repeat. This is supposed to slow your heart rate (assuming I remember correctly) and calm you down a bit, meaning you’ll have steadier hands.

If you’re going to turn a deaf ear to my advice, and want to replace your camera with a camera phone, common sense will tell you to invest your money in a powerful camera phone. Something like a Sony Ericsson k790i, k850i, or a Nokia N95 costs a sure heck lot more than a normal camera, but if you really want results from a camera phone, then this is what you’re going to want. Higher resolutions, Carl Zeiss lens, Xenon flash, and all the trimmings. Not to mention they’re pretty powerful devices that can do pretty much anything you want them to do.

There really aren’t any universal tricks to taking better pictures, as it’s already pretty subjective to compare which photo looks better from a camera phone: you have to take into consideration the focus (or lack thereof) and the colour capture, not to mention a whole mountain-sized pile of other things. To recap, if you’re resolving to take better pictures:

1. Experiment with your camera phone. Perhaps practise, even.
2. Throw away your dignity and hold the camera phone like a normal person.
3. Invest your money in a stronger camera phone.
4. Thank Herbert Lui for such a wonderful and common-sense filled tutorial.

Have fun snapping those shots away.