Talk About Nseries

The N78 features the same camera that you would find on its predecessor (the N73) - a 3.2 Megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Optics and an LED flash. Unfortunately however, it doesn’t have a lens cover which could make the lens on the back of the device prone to scratches.

You can tag images that you take with your location using the built-in GPS, and with Feature Pack 2, Nokia have added many improvements to improve the user experience when browsing through images you have taken.

In this post, I will look at how well the camera performs, as well as improvements made to help you make the most of the pictures and videos you take!!!

The N78 is designed to be an entry level/mainstream Nseries device, so you won’t expect to find the 5 megapixel camera used by the likes of the N95 and N82. However, you do get a great 3.2 megapixel shooter which produces some very pleasing results!

The camera application itself is the same as you will find on all recent Nseries handsets (such as the N95, N82 and N81 etc.) so straight away you have a wide range of features and settings that can be adjusted to suit your needs/the situation if needed. I usually tend to stick with the ‘Automatic’ setting, but anyone that is keen on using digital cameras and taking pictures out and about will feel right at home!

I was really impressed by the quality and detail of some of the pictures that I took, but (as you can see in the second and third photo) areas that were surrounded by bright sunlight came out looking slightly washed out and had a purple tinge. This however is quite rare and pictures taken with the N78 look great with true vivid colours!

In the fifth photo, I used the N78 in macro mode to capture the flower. I was really surprised at the colours and detail of the image produced.

While not the 5 megapixel shooter from the likes of the N95 and N82, the N78 produces some very pleasing results and has fast image processing times to match making it a very good overall camera experience!

The N78 features a new ‘Photos’ application which replaces the old Gallery method of accessing your images. The screen automatically rotates to landscape mode when you launch it (because it doesn’t have a built-in accelerometer), and you will find that images taken/stored on the device are separated into different categories - Captured, Months, Albums, Tags, Downloads and All. Whichever list item is selected, an animation of images included within it are displayed in groups of 3 which is pleasing to the eye and an animation changes these previews every few seconds.

One small thing I really liked is when you launch the camera or photos application (and the number pad is no longer needed), they faded out leaving the keys lit that could be used/are relevant (Sorry for the blurry picture!!!).

I thought this was a really nice effect and made the N78 look a little less like a phone in these modes.

Already, the photos app is a lot more flexible than before to view your pictures by limiting down what you see. Before all images on the device (whether they were taken or downloaded) were shown in the gallery which would slowly mount up until you had hundreds of images to trawl through! You can separate images you have taken into different albums (for different events/places for example) so you can limit the pictures on view to a certain time.

When you access your captured images, you will find a similar interface to the old Gallery where all or your pictures are listed with previews on a carousel.

Even here you will find subtle improvements. For example, if you have the NaviWheel activated on your N78, by scrolling around the D-Pad you can navigate through your images. If you are scrolling fast through a large number of images, the previews zoom out and move a bit faster. In this view, you are also shown how far through the library of images you are at the bottom right of the screen (indicated by a spot that moves around a track as you scroll).

One thing that I was disappointed about with the photos experience was not the application itself, but the N78. With devices like the N95 and N82 (which have an accelerometer) images in the gallery display in the orientation that they were shot in. Because the N78 lacks an accelerometer, photos are always shown in landscape orientation - no a big issue because you can just turn the phone (and the image will always fill the screen), but I think the user experience could improved further with this feature. There is also the option to rotate an image manually if you want to.

You can now also tag your photos and browse them this way (as shown above)! You can tag your images with whatever you want! When browsing photos using the tags you have created, you can see that some may be written bigger than others. This is to roughly indicate how many images are tagged with this name. The bigger the font size, the more images with that tag!!! Easy!

By scrolling through your tags and selecting the one you want, you will be shown all of the pictures with that tag. If you stay hovered over the tag name, a speech bubble appears with a preview square and the precise amount of images there are.

Overall, I am very impressed with the enhancements made within Feature Pack 2 and the improved organisation of images taken. Of course, this is backed up by the good quality camera packed into the N78 as well and I wouldn’t hesitate recommending the N78 if you don’t mind so much about the lower megapixel count (in comparison to flagship Nseries devices), but would like to take some very good pictures!!!