My GPS Camera Phone

The Nokia 5610 is here and I am a happy camper. I don’t want to talk smack about my phone, but it pales in comparison when put against the Nokia 5610. I’ve had a busy week, but things slowed down enough to allow me some quality time with the new phone. So far, so good.

What I like the most about this camera phone is the capability of the camera. Weighing in at 3.2 mega-pixels, the 5610 packs a decent punch, capturing shots with reasonable quality and good exposure. It’s loaded with features (for a camera phone), including auto-focus, night mode, image sequence and a self-timer. My favorite feature, though, is its ability to shoot macro photos. See the results for yourself.

I was skeptical when I read about it and even still while previewing the photos on the phone. I was floored when they hit the computer. Seeing such detail come out of a camera phone leaves me speechless and wanting to shoot more. Personally, I like getting close to subjects and I feel disappointed when the hardware doesn’t let me do it. The Nokia 5610 doesn’t disappoint in this respect and I can’t wait to try some more photographic experimenting.

The big down side I see so far is the lack of attention to the image quality. While you could shoot images fit to size for a desktop background, you wouldn’t want to. The images at 100% reveal a chink in the armor: granulation and compression artifacts all over the place like rust eats away at a piece of steel (see below). The plus side is that the lack of quality at full-size can be compensated for by reducing the image size (as seen above), but that negates the point of having a 3.2 mega-pixel camera in the first place. With that said, I concede the fact that this is a camera phone we’re talking about, not a Nikon D300.

I’m looking forward to a lot of shooting before this thing makes it’s long journey back to England. Thanks to everyone at WOM World once again for this opportunity.

It’s time for camera phone reviews again and this time it’s the yet-to-be-released Nokia 5610 XpressMusic. Thanks to the crew over at WOM World, I’ll be receiving a shiny new 5610 this week. As I did with the 5310 XpressMusic, I’ll put myself out there as the guinea pig and suffer through hours of painstaking photography and endure hours of listening to mp3s. As an added bonus, I’ll actually do an un-boxing for you this time around, because it’s always fun to open presents with your friends.

Sporting a 3.2 mega-pixel camera, this phone is poised to take My GPS Camera Phone to a new level. Features include:

• 8 x smooth zoom
• LED flash
• Macroshot, landscape mode, sequential shots
• Dedicated 2-step capture key (not sure what this is)

I’m really looking forward to seeing what this camera phone can do with macros. The sequential shot feature also sounds fun, but I’m not getting my hopes up just yet.

In addition to a sweet camera, this GSM slider also sports an mp3 player, FM radio, high-resolution display, 8GB MicroSD expansion slot (packaged with a 2GB card) and many other features you would expect from a mid-level phone.

I’ll post more when the phone arrives sometime this week. Could the un-boxing be in video format? Maybe, just maybe.