Ms. Jen Pits The Nokia N82 Versus The Nokia N85
The very excellent Ms. Jen got a hold of a Nokia N85 and compared it to her N82. She took TONS of photos with both cameras in several situations and posted her findings here:
You might think that the N85 MUST be better than the N82 just because it’s newer, but that wasn’t always the case.
The N82 has a better flash and a better focal range than the N85, but the N85 takes the photos as you click, it does not focus and then capture. At times this is much more satisfactory as one is not frustrated as the camera focuses, but as you can see from the photos above the N82 takes much clearer and sharper photos than the N85. I conclude that it is worth it to wait for the N82 to focus rather than have the immediate satisfaction that the N85 is fast.
Dark situations are the bane of the camera phone, so she tested in that situation. The N85 won that round.
As for night and difficult lighting situations, I purposely took the camera phones to the badly lit red interior of Alex’s Bar in Long Beach, California, which is the bane of rock photographers LA wide for the lack of spotlights and the red walls which eat light right on up before your camera can sense it. The N85 won in this situation when I turned off its flash and just had it shoot. It was fast, captured warm colors and made the most of the dim lighting, but the N85 failed miserably when I turned the flash on as it was dark and dim. The N82 was blurry and a bit darkish with no flash inside of Alex’s, but with the lovely Zenon flash really lit the band right on up.
Next time you curse your cameraphone for not taking great pictures, remember that Nokia is making cameras… err… PHONES especially for you!