Having done a number of real world photo comparisons between Nokia's new Lumia 1020 and various competitors, including its own 'predecessor', the Nokia 808 on Symbian, I wanted to break down the word 'oversampling' and try to demonstrate what is - and, particularly - what isn't going on inside each of these camera-toting smartphones and their applications. Where do the photo pixels come from and does it matter which application captures them?

The PureView concept

The central idea behind Nokia's original 'PureView' system was to have a large sensor with a high megapixel count - not for producing high megapixel images (though that's possible too), but for gathering enough light information that 'computational photography' became a reality. In addition to a degree of genuinely lossless digital zoom, the highlight for many people was 'oversampling', pulling information from multiple pixels on the sensor to produce 'perfect' pixels in a lower resolution output image.

This 'perfection' is manifested, in theory, by the elimination of digital (random) noise, since random pixel readouts at the pixel level get neatly averaged out as part of the oversampling process. In addition, there's better colour and illumination accuracy, again because values from underlying physical pixels can be cleverly averaged.

Implementations

In the Nokia 808, launched in 2012, the device's main processor (single core, 1.3GHz) and RAM (512MB) was nowhere near fast enough to handle all this oversampling of (up to) 41 million pixels in real time, so custom work was done to integrate the special Toshiba imaging chip/sensor and a dedicated Broadcom BCM2763 image processing chip, together handling this side of things. So we had the raw sensor image data being processed in real time, spitting out the required oversampled data to the screen and to the JPG and MP4 encoding routines in software. It's a system that worked terrifically well, though was somewhat expensive to have implemented in the first place (in both money and time).

For the Lumia 1020, the main processor (dual core 1.5GHz) and RAM (2GB) was deemed up to the job of doing the 'oversampling' in software, so in theory ending up cheaper and simpler to build and maintain, but there had to be a few compromises made. Rather than process the raw data from the 41MP sensor in real time, when under the control of the Nokia Pro Camera application, the camera unit spits out a 34 or 38MP JPG file (stored in the normally invisible Windows Phone file system with a special extension) and this is then downsampled using traditional software techniques (e.g. bicubic interpolation, though the exact algorithm being used by Nokia isn't known in detail) for screen use and for storing as a 'shareable' 5 megapixel JPG.

This latter approach, despite any criticism which you may think is levelled at it below, does have the immense advantage that the 'oversampling' isn't a one time thing, performed when the photo is captured. In fact, you can reframe, zoom and rotate any 5MP viewport onto the underlying full resolution JPG at any later point (hence Nokia's 'Zoom later' slogan for this device).

Problems and questions

The saving and processing of the full resolution image takes a few seconds, even on the Lumia 1020's fairly powerful internals, meaning around a four second shot to shot time in real world use, which might be inconvenient, depending on what you're shooting. Begging the question of what happens when you use the default Windows Phone Camera application on the same hardware - shot to shot time is around two seconds (including an enforced captured image preview), the same as on any other Windows Phone device. Now, obviously, shot this way, there's no PureView zoom or reframing ability, since there's no underlying full resolution image. But is there still any oversampling/downsampling going on? 

Moreover, how does the software-based 'oversampling' on the Lumia 1020 compare with the GPU-based oversampling on the Nokia 808 PureView - is it possible to tell the difference?

_______________

In order to answer the questions above, I set up a test environment, a darkened hallway with almost no natural light. There's no point in shooting something in bright conditions, since the images would be virtually indistinguishable. As I've remarked before, testing camera phones is all about pushing them at the limits of their light gathering abilities, not keeping them in 'safe' territory.

The subject was a poster of my surname artily drawn by a student of my wife's - there were consistent colours and clearly drawn outlines that should prove very revealing to try and photograph when there was extremely little ambient light. Here's the whole photo/scene:

Note that the photo above makes the poster look far, far brighter than the scene was in real life. No flash was used for any of these comparisons, I was purely interested in raw sensor and oversampling performance. To my human eyes, the colours on the poster were almost grey, the hallway was so dark.

Here's the photo, cropped slightly and in slices, taken on the Lumia 1020 with the default Windows Phone Camera application first and then the Nokia Pro Camera application. Below these is the same crop taken from the photo as captured on the Nokia 808 (of which more below):

Apart from the slight colour/exposure difference in the bottom crop, there's little obvious difference between the photos at this modest crop level. So, here's conclusion no.1:

You can use the default Windows Phone Camera application for taking quicker (less than 2s shot to shot in real life) 5MP photos on the Lumia 1020. For events and action settings, you'll still get decent shots (with or without flash).

As usual, it's necessary to crop in more tightly, to 1:1, in order to see what's actually going on. The same order applies below, i.e. output from Camera, then Nokia Pro Camera and finally the same section of the Nokia 808's image:

Never mind the slightly different colours and characteristics in the 808's version, we're going to address them in a moment. Look at the top two crops and pick a few details for yourself. You can see that the Camera-shot photo is full of typical camera phone sensor noise, 'fuzziness' in the image, with significant artefacts in blocks of solid colour, while the photo shot by Nokia Pro Camera has cleaner lines and less noise in every detail. Effectively, the Pro Camera photo's pixels are derived from an underlying 34MP JPG and so a lot of the typical noise and pixel uncertainty has been able to be reduced. 

Bringing us to my second conclusion:

The 'oversampling' used in the Nokia Pro Camera application does have significant benefits in terms of reducing noise and depicting fine details, when compared to the default Windows Phone Camera app*.

* a subsidiary question is whether there are other camera apps, i.e. from third parties, which also make use of the bigger, higher resolution sensor. Watch this space for more on this!

Let's come to the main event, comparing the software oversampling (from 34MP JPG) on the Lumia 1020 with the hardware oversampling (from the raw camera output) on the Nokia 808. But first we need to equalise a few things.

For the test shot above, the Nokia 808 was tripod mounted (since it has no OIS) and was on full auto apart from me upping the ISO to 800 to get it in the same ballpark as the Lumia 1020's camera software. In this configuration, the Nokia 808 left its mechanical shutter open for 0.8 seconds, over three times longer than picked by the 1020's camera apps on full auto. So, to compare like with like (and yes, I know that ISO will still be slightly different), I use the manual control over shutter speed on the Lumia 1020 to leave its (also mechanical) shutter open for the same duration, i.e. 0.8s.

So, retaking the shot with the 1020 and then comparing its result side by side with the 808s, we get:

There's still an exposure difference between the two results (curiously, since the 808 was at ISO 800 and the 1020 was at ISO 1000), but it's less significant now that each smartphone camera has had an equal amount of time gathering light. The 808's photo still looks cleaner overall, but let's crop in, beyond 1:1, magnifying the pixels to 4:1, in order to see why:

What you're seeing here, and yes, we have had to go to somewhat artificial lengths to make things clear on-screen, is the difference between the JPG downsampling on the 1020 and the 'pure' hardware oversampling from raw camera output on the 808. The latter's image is unbelievably clean, with blocks of almost solid colour, clean edges and almost zero random noise.

In contrast, the Lumia 1020 is somewhat crippled by having to work from a starting point that's already degraded. The 34MP JPG file will, by definition, already contain some compression artefacts (after all, the file is typically around 15MB, compared to the many hundreds of Megabytes needed to represent an uncompressed full resolution photo), and then the 1020 is intelligently downsampling from this degraded starting point. Explaining why there's still a baseline of noise and artefacts in its 5MP 'oversampled' output. 

I do want to set this all in context, of course, but in fairness to the Nokia 808, conclusion number 3 has to be:

Real time hardware oversampling on the Nokia 808, in terms of the absolute purity of output, is significantly more effective than the hybrid, software-based JPG solution used in the 1020.

____________________

How pure is pure enough?

The Nokia 808 was something of a freak device, in that it was the last of the Symbian line and contained significant custom hardware which couldn't be transplanted as-is into another, more current smartphone platform. This may even be the last that AAWP readers get to hear of it (for which some will be thankful!), but this focus on oversampling allows the original PureView technology a last hurrah, at least.

Which leaves the Lumia 1020 as the current implementation of the PureView concept in the 2013 smartphone world:

• Despite the relative lack of 'purity' concluded above, the images produced by the 1020 are still significantly higher in quality than the smaller sensored competition. Moreover, as referred to at the start, there's the extra flexibility of being able to reframe images and 'zoom' in after the fact - or, famously, zoom out again after the fact.
    
• In addition to the reframing, there's also the presence of Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS), which has the potential to let normal phone users take far crisper shots than they might otherwise have done with lesser hardware. OIS is just starting to creep into other top end smartphones (e.g. HTC One, LG G2), but the implementation there is either inferior (HTC) or unproven (LG).
    
• There's the flexibility of no less than three built-in Camera applications (default Windows Phone, Nokia Pro Camera, Smart Camera), plus a growing number of third party alternatives. Nokia Pro Camera, in particular, allows a control of focus, ISO and shutter speed which is unparalleled on smartphones.

Given the advantages listed here, it's tempting to ask how 'pure' you need a photo to be in the first place? Camera phone geeks will demand that every last pixel be perfect (and perhaps I fall into this category at times), but for most people the Lumia 1020's 5MP JPG output will be 'easily good enough' and more focus will fall on how users can manipulate and share the images, tasks for which Nokia Pro Camera and Windows Phone are well suited.

And in view of this final conclusion, perhaps some tweaking of the definition of oversampling, from Nokia's original PureView definitions, can hopefully be forgiven.

Your thoughts welcome.

You may remember, back in 2007, a Nokia project called Mobile Web Server, the idea being to host a personal web site ON your Symbian smartphone? Unsurprisingly, it never took off, but the uber-geeky concept is still alive and I came across Sym*Insight here, a web site that's a little content light at the moment, but whose main claim to fame is that it's hosted on the developer's Nokia 808 PureView. Yes, you read that right, when you visit, you're pulling HTML content from this Symbian smartphone. Very cool, and he provides a breakdown of what to do if you want to experiment along the same lines...

This is all based on the app Private Server, in the Nokia Store, apparently free for the next week, so you might like to grab it while you can?

From the 'how to' article (again, hosted ON the dev's phone):

Back in 2009, Symbian S60v3 and v5 had a web server application created by nokia known as Mobile Web Server. Users were provided ad domain name of their choice and could host a website on their device for free. Users dint have to worry about registerding a domain name or updating the dynamic IP address of their device every now and then. All came in one tool. Unfortunately the service was discontinued by nokia. But now we have an app called private server which serves the same purpose, but not quite everything Mobile Web Server provided. Although there are other solutions for those parts missing in this app. Parts which can work along with the app in your symbian device to run a full fledged web server. The website that you are viewing now is hosted on my Nokia 808 PureView and in this review I will explain in detail how was this done.

Installing Private Server v0.5 

Private Server 0.5 is available in the nokia store. The app recieved a major update earlier this month, the developer mentioning that the new version is powered with a new core and added features like folder handling if an index.html file is not present. The first step is to install this app to you symbian device (s60v5, Anna, Belle). Once installed, a folder named "httpd" is automatically created in your Mass Memory. Now whatever content you put inside this folder will be accessible through the internet, provided your device is connected to the same. You can test this by typing in the following URL syntax in the web browser of another device which too is connected to the internet.

"http://xx.xx.xx.xx/filename.yyy/" where xx.xx.xx.xx is your device's public IP address, and .yyy is the file extension or filetype.

I should stress that there's upwards of 1000 words of explanation that follows, mainly on the trickery involved in routing traffic to a dynamically cell-connected smartphone. We're talking extreme geekery here, but kudos to you if you not only manage to read through to the end but also mimic the technique and get your own web site running on your Symbian phone. Let us know the address if you do!

Here's a small excerpt, to give you (somewhat frighteningly) an idea(!):

Since you have not yet set up a DDNS solution, you can give a random value as the name server URL and can later modify it to the actual name server URLs as suggested by your DDNS provider. Once you complete the domain name creation process, the same will be registered by the service provider (in my case, "www.dot.tk") within a few hours. Now you can move on to setting up a DDNS solution.

Setting Up DDNS and IP Updating 

There are a handfull of Dynamic DNS service providers and only a few of them are totally free. The one I use for this website is "www.dnsexit.com". Sign up to this service and you can easily configure DDNS as per instructions given in the site. You must choose to use your already registered domain name while configuring this. You will be asked to enter your current IP address, which you can get by going to "www.whatismyip.com". After providing your domain name and IP address dnsexit will give you the URLs of its name servers which you will then enter into your domain registrar's configuration page, replacing the random value you had given earlier. For this go to your domain registrars domain modification page and select the option of using a third party's name servers and enter the name servers you got from dnsexit. Save the settings and you are done with all the configurations at the registrar's end.

Next step is to get your dynamic IP address updated to your DDNS service every time it changes. IP update agent softwares are available from all major DDNS providers including dnsexit, but none compatible with symbian and probably not with any other mobile OS. There is an alternate method in which, your DDNS provider gives you a URL containing feilds to enter your username, password and domain name and each time you run this URL in your mobile device's web browser, your current IP address will be updated to your DDNS configuration. You can get this URL from the DDNS Client download section at dnsexit.com.

Gulp. If you do try the site and it seems slow, then bear in mind where it's coming from. And if the site's down altogether then maybe AAS and its readers have brought the phone down altogether!

ThOR, which you may recall added support for Bazqux, InoReader and other feed services recently, has just been updated again, with a mountain of changes and fixes. See below for the full changelog and example screenshots.

ThOR v1.0.3 is now available, here's the full changelog over v1.0.2:

• Search the web for new feeds
• New settings page: white theme/default for read filter/feed sort order/font size
• Faster refresh on feeds page. Hold the button for in depth refresh
• Collapsible folders for feeds
• Share Item menu reworked
• Font size controls on item page
• Items with large images can be side-swiped
• Auto 'get more' at feed bottom

Very fast development from asturcon3 here, I'm impressed.

Here's ThOr 1.0.3 in action:

ThOR's main UI, here logged into The Old Reader (of course). Note the search icon in the toolbar - this  is the EXISTING search filter for the name you specify in feed titles (e.g. "Symbian" will find "All About Symbian" and a few others.  You'll find the new 'Search feeds' function on the menu - this will find occurences of your search string in feed items, which is more useful for most people....

... as shown here, very useful. The new Settings page offers a choice of themes and a (tremendously useful) slider for the font size to be used in the display of main content.

Here with the white theme applied... Large images embedded in feed content can now be swiped, i.e. you can scan across. It's an alternative approach to downscaling images, and equally valid IMHO.

Back to the black theme (to save AMOLED power) and showing the various readability controls and the new font size controls on the page; (right) when you get to the bottom of a batch of feed items, there's a new automatic acquisition of more items.

You can grab/update ThOR for £1 yourself here in the Nokia Store.

Comments welcome. Does this now match up to the likes of gNewsReader for you?

This may only be of interest to a small part of AAS's readership, but the directory 'servers' for Nokia Podcasting, built into most S60 3rd Edition and all S60 5th Edition smartphones, have finally stopped working. Attempts to retrieve the directories for podcast discovery result in an error symbol only. Curiously, the 'Search' function, presumably pulling podcasts from the same central directory, has continued to work.

I thought at first that it might just be a temporary fault at Nokia's end, but the error has now persisted for a week and it's likely that these (now very old) servers and their services are gradually being taken offline and phased out. I'd expect the 'Search' function to also stop working at some point.

Of course, Nokia Podcasting was something of an 'in the know' tool even back in the day, with most general users not knowing what it did and the Symbian cogniscenti using it for automated podcatching. In truth, the directories were never that useful, since the former category of people never got as far as using Nokia Podcasting in the first place, while the latter already had their own sets of preferred podcast feeds and URLs and thus rarely needed Nokia's help in picking something to listen to.

Still, I thought it worth highlighting that these directories are now offline.

Moving into Podcasting's 'Directories' section, I've been trying to 'Update' them...

...only to hit an error, with all directories now just returning a '!' error symbol. Curiously, the 'Search' function still works at the time of writing, as shown here.

For what it's worth, my own preferred technique for moving my podcast set to another S60 3rd Edition or 5th Edition smartphone was always to highlight them all in Nokia Podcasting on the source phone and 'Send' via 'Bluetooth'. On the receiving phone, I'd then click on the received .OPML file to import the feeds into a 'Received' directory in Nokia Podcasting and then subscribe as needed from there.

In modern times, of course, most Symbian users have switched to third party podcatchers such as the eponymous Podcatcher and Poddi, both of which are more sophisticated than Nokia Podcasting, though they do have to be purchased via the Nokia Store.

From a Symbian enthusiast's point of view, the scare stories over availability of spare parts for repair and the ever-dwindling stock of new hardware across the world are something of a wake up call. Yes, no doubt all of us are still keeping an eye on developments elsewhere in the smartphone world, but until someone else comes up with hardware as good as Nokia's Symbian flagships and with an OS that's as flexible and feature-packed, there's a very valid case for keeping a look out for a 'spare' for your 808 or E7 or E6, or whichever Symbian-powered device you're currently depending on.

You see, despite the obvious ecosystem and service advantages of more modern smartphone platforms, it's still tough to beat some of the USPs of Nokia's Symbian phones, not least the QWERTY keyboards of the E6 and E7, and the camera/flash of the 808 PureView. And it's still tough to beat the sheer flexibility of a fully multitasking OS and almost full access to a proper file system. All good reasons to stick with Symbian and its device portfolio - maybe for years, maybe just while you look around at alternatives.

My latest purchase, an almost mint condition white Nokia 808 - alongside its original black stablemate!

At which point you might like to consider what you'd do if your Symbian smartphone stopped working tomorrow, or got dropped, or eaten by the dog (etc.)? Unlike with traditional phone insurance, where the issue is usually paying for a replacement rather than finding one, if your 808 or E7 were to die tomorrow, you might have a real job finding somewhere reliable to sell you a device with proper warranty and in appropriate SIM-free and perfect physical conditions.

And this situation is only going to get worse as time goes on, of course. 

Which is why I'd like to humbly suggest that now - right now - is the time to look in the clearance sections of your local national device retailers, now is the time to save that search on eBay, now is the time to scout round 'for sale' forums, now is the time to keep an eye out on the small ads. 

If you do succeed, as I did above with my white 808 (shown above, love it!), then you've actually achieved slightly more than you think you have. Not only do you have a backup device, but you've also:

• doubled the number of spare parts and resources. There might well be a time when the speaker of one has gone and the motherboard of the other has failed. Simple - open 'em up (it's easy in the 808's case) and swap components around to produce a fully working device!
    
• acquired an exact match for your smartphone's battery (assuming you haven't got an E7, which has an almost sealed battery) - so you've effectively acquired a 100% genuine battery for keeping charged and swapping in as needed. Genuine batteries are definitely not trivial to find online, so this is definitely noteworthy.

In addition to these general reasons, AAS readers might be interested to know my extra, ulterior motive for buying another Nokia 808 PureView. As part of a new focus (going into 2014) on custom firmware for Symbian handsets, I wanted to experiment with custom firmware for the 808 without jeopardising, or interfering with the normal day to day use of, my main device. Hence - one to fiddle with and flash (a procedure which wipes the device each time, of course) and one to use. Mangling a quote from The Matrix: Revolutions, "two 808s, two uses - sounds like providence?"

Yes, expending effort to try and find backup Symbian devices comes across as a bit of a rear guard action at this stage in the OS's life story and in the face of impressive technical advances elsewhere in the smartphone world, but it made sense for me - and perhaps for you? Let us know if you've bought (or are intending to buy) a backup/duplicate smartphone - which one and what was your own personal thinking behind the acquisition?

Entitled, 'From the Nokia N73 to the 808 PureView – smartphone photography by Damian Dinning', you won't be surprised by the content of today's PureView Club article - but you may be surprised at the quality of the photos, all hyperlinked to their originals on Flickr. Damian was not only the main driving force behind (and/or public face for) the cameras in the Nokia N73, N90, N93, N95, N86, N8 and 808 PureView, he's also a very good photographer, as you'll see from the 45 examples picked out by Marc.

From the article:

I recently shared some of the first shots by Damian Dinning and his Nokia Lumia 1020. Damian is former Lead Program Manager Imaging Experience at Nokia and had to leave the company last year for personal reasons. He had been working at Nokia’s imaging department for nine years and was instrumental in the development of Nokia’s smartphone cameras from the N73 and N95 (the one that really got me hooked on smartphone photography).

I didn’t just find his shots with the Lumia 1020 on his Flickr account – all the shots from the “old” phones were there too. Pre-PureView so to say. Fascinating. So I asked for his permission to share them here at the club, and if he could add some of the Nokia 808 PureView on Flickr as well.

After he did so, I made a large selection of 45 shots in total – and you know what? I’m going to share them all here. Because I can :-) All the formats chosen are 640 pixels wide. If you hover your mouse over the shot you’ll see with which smartphone it was taken. If you click on the shot you will be taken to the original as offered by Damian on Flickr.

Nokia N73, shots from 2006

My first encounter with the N73 was in the context of a camera comparison with the N90 and, unsurprisingly, the latter won in my view, but the N73 was also a great imaging device for its time.

Here's another pick from the article:

Nokia N86, shots from 2009

Ah yes, my beloved Nokia N86, I still pick this up with fondness. It's main weakness is the use of dual LED flash rather than Xenon - I think if it had had the latter I might still be using it today as a smart camera, since the device is tiny and surprisingly feature packed.

Back to the selections:

Nokia N8 “during development”, shots from 2010.
Maybe these shots are the most “spectacular”, since they show the result of the N8 in the process of finalizing the device. The results from all the work must have been absolutely breath-taking back then (in fact, it still is…). And to realize that no-one really knew about it. Can’t imagine how exciting that must have been.

To be honest, the 2010 Nokia N8, in terms of imaging, can still hold its head up against the giants of today - iPhone 5S, Galaxy S4, and so on. The only device to exceed the N8's all round imaging capabilities is its own successor, the ground breaking Nokia 808.

And, what do you know, Marc has picked out some lovely 808 photo samples too. Here's my favourite:

I'm a sucker for a good dandelion shot! You can see all 45 selections here in the original article.

In all my previous Nokia 808 PureView and Lumia 1020 still camera comparisons, there has been an assumption that has proved to be slightly inaccurate. You see, on many occasions a Lumia 1020 'reframed' (usually 'zoomed') shot has been compared to a partially zoomed Nokia 808 photo and the assumption has always been that there's no difference on the 1020 between zooming at capture time and zooming later. It turns out that this isn't the case, as demonstrated in today's story of mine over on All About Windows Phone.

From the feature:

It's a fair cop - there was one nuance of the way the Lumia 1020 camera works that I got wrong in my previous article (and I've now included links in that to point to this amplication). Think about the 'zoom later' facility and it's obvious that the way the 1020's Nokia Pro Camera software works is to intelligently crop/downsample the 34MP/38MP full resolution JPG as needed. So you're starting off with an initially 'compressed' version of the original image, complete with a degree of artefacts and approximations. Unsurprisingly, the result is an 'oversampled' 5MP image which isn't as pure as it could potentially have been as if it had been constructed with data taken directly from the 1020's sensor.

However, I can exclusively reveal that the engineers at Nokia had thought of this. They knew that 'reframed' images had to be compromised slightly - there was no way round this, given that an uncompressed version of the image would have run up towards a Gigabyte each(!) - so working from a 15MB 34MP JPG it had to be. And, to be fair, the algorithms used to work from this are pretty good, with admirable detail and less artefacts than you might expect. But there's another scenario allowed for.

The initial 5MP 'shareable' image isn't, it turns out, downsampled from the 34MP JPG - it's generated from the RGB data coming from the sensor chipset. It's true that the oversampling done here is being done in software rather than in hardware (as on the older Nokia 808), but there's no intermediate 34MP JPG step/file in the way. However, the moment you hit the 'reframe' tool in Nokia Pro Camera, to zoom/pan/rotate the image, however slightly, the underlying full resolution image has to be used as the new image source, meaning an extra processing step that loses some quality (however small).

In other words, having taken a photo with the Lumia 1020 in Nokia Pro Camera, whether taken full frame or 'PureView zoomed' in, your initial sight will be of the highest quality 5MP image. If you want to keep this best quality then this is the one to upload or share. Do this before you're tempted to reframe and play with the image, as this will necessitate working from the compressed original instead and will result in a slightly lower quality photo.

These differences are small, but they are demonstrable. 

I go on to show three examples, with different degrees of 'difference', according to subject type. The most dramatic is the book spine, with text and a fine 'tree' graphic, but what most AAS readers will want to see is what the Nokia 808 would have made of the exact same shot. So I did this as well.

Here's the shot, a batch of books on a bookshelf, shot in semi-macro fashion, from around 30cm (on the limit of the Nokia 808's macro focus ability, by the way):

And here are the magnified crops of the original photo from the Nokia 808 (top) and the original 5MP image from the Lumia 1020 (i.e. before any reframing had been attempted):

Look very closely and you can see that the Nokia 808 is still king in terms of naturally presented fine detail, whereas the Lumia 1020's image looks, relatively, over-processed.

However it should be noted that we're cropped in beyond 1:1, in fact magnified by an extra factor 2, and that at 1:1 the images are all but indistinguishable. Even when magnified, the 1020's result gets surprisingly close to the 808's.

As per the linked (exclusive) article though, this Lumia 1020 result is from an original 5MP image, derived in software from the RGB data coming from the 41MP sensor at capture time, i.e. before any reframing or 'zooming later', processes that revert the 1020's output to re-downsampling from a 34MP JPG file.

Whether taking full frame shots or zooming at capture time on the Lumia 1020, it seems that to stay close to Nokia 808 levels of purity, the trick is not to then fiddle with the image further using the Nokia Pro Camera reframing facility. It's a classic compromise scenario, i.e. maximum quality versus flexibility.

Comments? Does the 1020,  in this 'initial capture, no fiddling' scenario get close enough to the results from your older Nokia 808?

Damian Dinning, featured here many times on the All About sites, was the guy helping drive Nokia's imaging over the last decade. He no longer works for Nokia, meaning that he's now free to talk about the Symbian-running 808 PureView and the Windows Phone-running Lumia 1020 in particular. How did the transition between the two 41MP camera phones turn out and which would he choose for his own use?

A brief warning over length - this is a long piece to read, so when you click through to the original article, you might like to grab yourself a drink and settle back(!)

From the conclusion:

On this basis it may make sense for Nokia to provide some form of option for sharpness handling. For arguments sake let’s call it sharpness with at least two options, one being high or enhanced (the current) with another being low, minimal or natural. This setting would provide roughly the net level of sharpening applied to the full resolution images but for 5mp oversampled images.

The goal I would recommend being skies with little/zero noise and no obvious sharpening artefacts when viewed at 100-200% when using 1x zoom. Based on my limited and restricted Photoshop trials, this should provide ‘808 like’ image quality, possibly even slightly more detail than the 808 in some situations. What’s your view?

In low light, I think Nokia already has the balance about right for sharpening, detail and noise handling where it seems a significantly lighter touch has been applied to sharpening. My above recommendations are therefore for good ambient lighting levels and enjoy the benefits OIS provides in low light.

You may be wondering, of the outlined recommendations, which would I use myself? For colour handling, in most situations I probably would use the default (although ideally as said with a little less saturation/colour vibrancy) but at times change across to a more natural setting.

With regard to sharpening, I would use the setting which provides the lowest sharpening, for me, I like the low/zero noise and smooth clean details the 808 produced, even if the images ‘look’ less sharp at lower viewing magnifications. However, I can also see for ‘snapshots’ myself using the super sharp setting. Viewed on our projection screen at home, they do look rather awesome!

Which would I use, 808 or 1020? Definitely the 1020, even as it is today.
I love it (especially in yellow! :-)

In summary, although the default characteristics and settings in the Lumia 1020 camera don't appeal to Damian in all circumstances, it does seem as though he's coming round to accepting the mass appeal of greater colour and edge enhancement, for on-screen viewing. He feels that with a little software enhancement to add saturation and sharpness controls, plus the fixing of the 'yellow cast' issue, the Lumia 1020 could well be the perfect camera phone. He factors in the excellent video capture too, something which I highlighted here in text and here in video form.

He emphasises the relatively early state of the Lumia 1020's Nokia Pro Camera software - and in fairness, the Nokia 808's camera application took a couple of updates to be really reliable/consistent.

Thanks to Damian for writing the editorial and to Marc for hosting it!

There's an interesting little article up on Wired, highlighting a novel use for the Nokia 808 PureView - with the aid of some 3D printing and a small laser, as a fluorescent imaging microscope! Details below, but somehow I don't think this will become an established Nokia 808 accessory...

From the Wired article, which thankfully summarises the incredibly dense original research text here:

A Nokia 808 PureView smartphone has been used to do fluorescent imaging on individual nanoparticles and viruses. By clipping on a 3D-printed attachment that included a laser bought on eBay, researchers at the University of California (UCLA) were able to turn the smartphone into a microscope capable of imaging particles around 100 nanometres in size. Weighing only a fifth of a kilogram, the device could have uses for microscopic imaging in the field. The research is detailed in a paper published in ACS Nano.

In tests, the smartphone/add-on combo was able to detect fluorescence-labelled polystyrene beads down to 100 nanometres in size, as well a deadly type of virus called HCMV, which is between 150-300 nanometres in size. The results were cross-checked using a scanning electron microscope and a confocal microscope.

The lead professor also runs a startup called Holomic, which is "commercialising the smartphone inventions, but it's unclear how much the fluorescent microscope add-on would cost."

I thought I'd seen it all in terms of Nokia 808 imaging, but filming particles at 100 nanometres is new to me! Given the Nokia 808's prowess in imaging, I wonder what other innovative uses it will find in the coming years?

You may remember that Nokia, as part of their ramping down on Symbian-specific activities recently, decided to stop accepting theme submissions into the Nokia Store? Not surprisingly, new themes keep getting created by enthusiasts, but hosted on their own sites and servers. The guy behind ThemeBox got in touch recently, to let us know of his theme-centric effort. See below - hopefully this and other download sites will become more and more worth supporting as the months roll on?

'Saving Symbian's legacy' is perhaps a little grand, but hey, it's part of the same overall worldwide Symbian-centric enthusiasm and conservation effort as my own Symbian App Store and Symbian Games Store, so who am I to complain?

From the blurb on ThemeBox:

ThemeBox is a site made by the Symbian Developers Team where you can upload and publish your own themes for Symbian. It’s very similar to Nokia Store, and the reason why Themebox exists is because of Nokia’s decision to kick out almost all themers from Nokia Store. We want to give you a way to still publish fabulous themes for the Symbian community, and that’s why we made ThemeBox for you. At the moment, you can only publish free themes, but it might change in the future. We’re still in Beta, so if you find any bugs or have any questions, just contact us!

If you are interested in publishing themes here, just register a free account and wait for it to get approved.

Here's an example of one of the decent themes currently up for download, Save The Tiger:

Once a majestic animal in the wild now in threshold of extinction. According to WWF, Tigers are amongst the ten most endangered species in the world. Over the last century more than 95% of the Tiger population has been wiped out & three sub-species are already extinct. Less than 3500 tigers remain in the wild today with around 50% in India & their numbers are declining fast. It's our responsibilty to save the tiger

-New Icons
-Vector Elements
-300 most used TPI's
-Light & Fast

Worth bookmarking anyway, and if you're a theme creator then send in your SIS files etc. for the world to download and enjoy?

It's a fair cop, I'm firmly in camera geek territory again here. We see a lot of smartphone camera comparisons online (not least here on the All About sites), but all this talk of optical formats and pixel sizes rather gets in the way of the man in the street understanding the simple physics involved. To help out, I've summarised all available data on smartphone camera sizes and apertures and present the result graphically. So the Lumia 1020 has a 1/1.5" sensor - what does this mean? And how does it affect the ability of the device to gather light? This and much more below...

The 1/n" optical format specification is all a bit confusing, referring to an obscure equivalence to the 'old' camera world. But the numbers are all relative to each other in the right proportions, of course, with the sensor area of each smartphone camera going roughly as the square of the optical format number. 

Don't worry, we've done the maths for you and have represented the sensors graphically below. Your browser will probably downsize the image anyway, so note that the absolute sensor sizes are smaller than they appear on your screen (even the very largest is, in real life, not much bigger than a square centimetre!):

The differences in sensor size are quite dramatic - remember that 'square' factor mentioned above? So, for example, Apple made a big thing of making the sensor bigger for the iPhone 5S camera. In the chart, going from the green rectangle to the blue one. Now compare that sensor size to that in the likes of the Nokia Lumia 1020 or 808 and you start to see why the latter two phones keep winning out in camera comparisons when conditions get tough - ultimately, physics/optics play a huge part in how well (phone) cameras perform.

Surprisingly, even the much vaunted 'large' 1/2.3" sensors in the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom and Sony Xperia Z1 seem tiny compared to the monster sensors in Nokia's camera flagships. 

Now, there's more to camera performance than physical sensor size, of course, which is why more maths is needed. There are other optical factors like aperture size and whether the sensor is Back Side Illuminated. Plus there's the whole image processing chain, converting the raw light input through Bayer filtering, oversampling (if relevant, e.g. on the Nokia 41MP sensor devices and the Sony Xperia Z1) noise reduction, colour corrections and sharpening. And, at the end of all of this, a photo is produced!

The image processing chain varies according to manufacturer, smartphone platform, device and firmware version number, but we can at least get a handle on the raw light gathering ability (LGA) of each smartphone camera with some more maths.

In order to estimate LGA, for each device under consideration, I took the quoted optical format and:

1. calculated the approximate sensor size
2. factored in the aperture size (depends on F number and camera dimensions)
3. factored in whether Back Side Illumination was used

With the (somewhat hairy) maths done, the LGA table for all smartphone cameras considered looks like this (sorted from highest amount of light gathered to least):

(The bottom two rows are provided for perspective only, representing more mundane camera phone hardware!)

As with the graphical chart earlier, the gulf between the two Nokia PureView flagships and the rest is larger than you'd expect. So, even when we factor in aperture and BSI, the Nokia 808 and Lumia 1020 have roughly three times the light gathering ability of their nearest challengers. And note that nowhere in any of this analysis have I mentioned 'megapixels' - the actual resolution that the manufacturer chooses to implement, i.e. how to divide up the sensor, is largely irrelevant for this analysis.

The extra step mentioned above is 'image processing', of course, an amorphous factor which is hard to pin down. Plus there are other factors which you have to take into consideration when trying to decide which smartphone camera is 'better':

• Light conditions for the test photo - if there's plenty of light (e.g. sunny) then the raw LGA (and this entire article!) is fairly irrelevant. In other words, if there are enough photons of light hitting each camera sensor pixel then there won't be any pixel-level digital noise, however small the sensor.
• Whether the shot is indoors under flash conditions and the strength and type of the flash (e.g. LED vs dual LED vs Xenon).
• How tight or wide an angle is being used for the camera optics.

This mass of caveats and extra factors not withstanding, I thought you'd find the comparison chart and table interesting - and hopefully worth bookmarking or sharing.

PS. Watch this space for more real life test photo testing comparisons. Lumia 1020 vs Sony Xperia Z1 is the next big one to look out for.

PPS. Thanks to Manpreet for his help with the graphic.

You'll remember from yesterday about Nokia, as part of their ramping down on Symbian-specific activities recently, deciding to stop accepting theme submissions into the Nokia Store and my subsequent publicising of a new Symbian theme startup site? I had to chuckle at developers like Chirag Kapuriya here, who circumvented the July 1st deadline by submitting a load of themes before it, though with publish dates during July and August, so they've trickled out as 'new' still. Anyway, they're all live now in the Nokia Store, see the links and some screenshots below.

There are five themes in Chirag's series for you to consider, all commercial at £1.50 or so:

• Pink Metal- http://store.ovi.com/content/381069
• Green Metal- http://store.ovi.com/content/381007
• Carbon Metal- http://store.ovi.com/content/379820
• Metal Steel- http://store.ovi.com/content/379386
• Aqua Metal- http://store.ovi.com/content/380077

From these, I thought I'd highlight Metal Steel, here:

The brushed metal theme is pretty extensive, with complementary wallpaper, of course...

The application icons also get the brushed (and screwed) metal treatment...

Ditto application backgrounds, tabs and buttons. Perfect for the Metal N8 and E7?...

Nice work, Chirag! You can buy Metal Steel here in the Nokia Store. Watch this space for more Symbian theme makers, though probably hosted at their own sites.

Available for a couple of months for Symbian now, but recently updated to a big new version 4.2.0, clocking in at over 6MB, Chinese favourite WeChat is described as 'a robust and comprehensive voice chatting app with photo sharing'. So text and voice messaging, essentially, only for free apart from cellular data costs. It's cross platform, too, available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone as well. Loads of screenshots below.

From the Nokia Store description:

WeChat is a robust and comprehensive voice chatting app with photo sharing! With WeChat, you can chat with one or more friends, and find people around through LBS. It is available for iOS, Android, Symbian and Windows Phone platforms.

Here's WeChat in action:

Logging in - sign in can be via a QQ login or via your SIM and phone number; (right) the main UI - communications can be text or voice, or as annotated media.

The contacts section can tie in with your device contacts, plus there's a cloud backup service if you want it; (right) the social section (explored more below) offers the chance to share with the world and make random connections.

...And into the comprehensive settings, along with some of the 'me'-centric functions as shortcuts, including the status 'Whats Up?' message shown here...

My Moments shows your shared photos/messages to the world, tapping on one brings it up full screen, along with confirmation of the number of people who have liked it and the number of comments/replies...

As the screenshot explains, your phone number is matched against other willing WeChat joinees and you can be notified; the settings include an option to auto-start - probably a good idea to save you forgetting to start WeChat and wondering why everyone's so quiet today, etc.(!)

Many of WeChat's functions are implemented as 'plug-ins' and these can be disabled or enabled, permanently, or between certain hours; showing WeChat's origins, the two biggest language options are the two written forms of Chinese - followed by International English, of course(!)

Here are the current plug-ins available, nice to be able to enable them independently, too; (right) the optional contacts backup service, though as you can see, it's not fully automatic!

One interesting feature is this homescreen overlay (above right, at the bottom left of the screen), showing the bandwidth used by WeChat, in case you're on a tight tariff...

Drift Bottle, as you might imagine, lets you type or record a message and cast it on the interwebs, for a random contact to pick up and get in touch with you....

Group messaging is well done, so you can engage your regular friends, co-workers or club members (etc) in a group chat, incorporating all the usual communications methods....

A Chinese import, seemingly(!), these cute tuzki animations require installing on the first time you want to use them....

All very impressive and a definite Whatsapp competitor, even if few in the West have heard of it. You can download WeChat for Symbian free from the Nokia Store here.

PS. Thanks to Amirul Ashaff for his help with the screenshots in this flow item.

Long time readers will remember my empassioned editorial on the subject of replaceable versus sealed batteries a year or so ago. Although putting forward the various arguments for and against the concept (and quoted below), it's clear that I come down clearly on the 'replaceable' side of the fence. Not that the industry listened to me, with almost most designs in recent times coming with sealed batteries. But do see below for an illustrated example of one of the things which can go wrong with a Li-Ion battery. 

From my earlier editorial:

To me, the 'disadvantages' of sealed batteries are almost showstoppers, yet still the industry (Samsung aside) persists in this integration. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, Samsung, the biggest manufacturer in the industry by a country mile, is fully committed to replaceable batteries? Could it be that people (like me) really do want this feature in our phones?

Here though, I'd like to highlight the phrases in italics above. We don't hear of batteries going 'bad' very often and I for one am careful to always store phones with a decent amount of charge in their cells, just in case. However, just occasionally the chemistry inside a Li-Ion battery does go rogue, either triggered by mis-use or just bad luck. In this case, I noticed my 2010 Nokia C7 (last used about 6 months ago and stored with what I thought was a decent amount of charge) battery cover looking a little more 'convex' than usual. Popping it off, I immediately spotted the problem. Here's the Nokia original BL-5K battery:

Quite a bulge! What's happening is that part of the internal chemistry inside the Li-Ion cell has broken down, physically changing the structure of the electrolyte and causing the production of (potentially dangerous?) gas. 

The solution for my (now quite old) Nokia C7 was simply to throw this misbehaving cell away (responsibly) and to slot in a spare BL-5K that I happened to have lying around - and all was well. But the exact same thing could happen to an internal (sealed) battery in one of the modern flagship Nokia Lumia devices, or to that in an iPhone or Xperia Z or whatever. 

What would happen in practice if such a battery fault developed in a sealed design? The charging/performance would get markedly worse and the battery swelling would put strain on the other internal components. If in warranty, the phone could be taken to an authorised service centre, of course, for the battery to be swapped and (if necessary) the device replaced. Out of warranty, you'd be looking at a sizeable repair bill, from the battery cost and labour to dismantle and rebuild the phone, to paying for a complete replacement.

So yes, a cautionary tale and hopefully a situation that most people will never face. But surely this is yet one more reason for manufacturers to stick to designs in which the user can check on - and replace - the battery if needed? 

I've a feeling I'm going to be ranting about this for several years to come. Thankfully, my Symbian devices (with one exception) all have replaceable batteries. In the Windows Phone world (this being AAWP too), maybe I should go buy a Samsung Ativ S after all? Comments welcome - I suspect others will also have string feelings here!

In All About Symbian Insight 242, hosted by Steve and Rafe, we talk about the future of Symbian support, especially in the light of the proposed acquisition of Nokia's Devices & Services business by Microsoft. We touch upon software updates, app updates, service availability, component supply (for repair), and more. In the second half of the podcast, we round up various news items including the removal of App Wizard apps from Nokia Store, the EasyStreetView app, the MusicKloud app, ThemeBox, and the Nokia DC-19 accessory.

This podcast was recorded on Thursday 19th September 2013.

Topics covered in this podcast include:

• Now is the time... to double up and stock up?
• 'Support until 2016' confirmed by Nokia's Weber
• Data point: only one year of repair parts left for Symbian smartphones?=
• ThemeBox - "Saving Symbian's legacy"?
• Smartphone camera sensor sizes visualised, light gathering ability calculated
• All About 'Oversampling', the Lumia 1020 compared to the original Nokia 808...
• New Lumia 1020 camera revelation gets it closer to Nokia 808 purity
• Dinning on choosing between the 808 and 1020
• EasyStreetView brings the world to your Symbian phone
• MusiKloud is a full SoundHound client
• App Wizard 'apps' disappear from the Nokia Store
• AAS app link

You can listen to earlier episodes of the AAS Insight Podcast in our media section.

Quickoffice was the main Office editing suite for Symbian from 2005 until 2011 (the date of the last installer we have on file), taking over from the built in Symbian native office suite inherited from the Psion days. With the Google acquisition of Quickoffice in 2012, the writing was on the cards for the Symbian version and today we have closure with the term 'discontinued' on Google site. Comments and links below.

Of course, the smartphone world is always in a state of flux and with Microsoft's gradual tie up with Nokia, we've also had the 'Microsoft Apps' suite available for several years on Symbian, giving many users an effective choice of two office suites, albeit with very different flavours (Microsoft's is much more cloud-centric, Quickoffice is more geared to full-featured local editing and local round-tripping).

The discontinuation comes as part of a major Google shake-up of the Quickoffice product, releasing it as freeware for Android and iOS 7. In fact, the changes for those platforms also involve some disruption since older commercial products under the Quickoffice name are no longer supported and all rival cloud file systems to Google Drive are now no longer supported.

For Symbian users, Quickoffice is already included in many device firmwares, and this functionality won't be affected, of course. However, the in-app 'purchasing' links (e.g. to convert the 'viewer' module into full 'editing' mode) now no longer work, merely redirecting to a generic Quickoffice page for Google's main platforms.

There's now no further online support for Quickoffice for Symbian, so any installations and issues caused in operation are clearly at your own risk. Here's the last installer we had for the full editing version, from 2011, Quickoffice_7.1.18_AM_signed.sis (7MB), in case anyone had bought this, had an activation code and still wants to experiment with it, since it's no longer in the Nokia Store and Google has now clearly washed its hands of the product and erased all options for existing Symbian users.

Comments welcome - do you still use Quickoffice in any form, or have you switched to the Microsoft Apps Suite? Or perhaps you just don't edit Office documents on your phone?

Nokia yesterday published additional material about its proposed transaction with Microsoft that will see the sale of its Devices & Services business and a major patent licensing agreement. The information is intended to give shareholders more information ahead of the proposed 19th November EGM (Extraordinary General Meeting) at which shareholders will be asked to follow the board's recommendation and vote to approve the proposed transaction with Microsoft.

The document sets out in detail what is meant by "substantially all of the assets and liabilities primarily relating to the Devices & Services business", sets out what will happen if the transaction goes through, what will happen if the transaction does not go through, how the price for the business was determined and more.

In a section that sets out the reasons for the sale of the Devices & Services business, Nokia notes the final decision was made at a meeting of Nokia's Board of Directors on September 2nd, after a thorough and careful assessment. This assessment, which included consultation with senior management and outside advisers, comprised an extensive strategic review of Nokia options. 

It is made clear that one of the material factors considered in the assessment was the option of terminating the existing agreement with Microsoft before the end of its term and instead adopting another smartphone platform. The document notes that while the agreement with Microsoft did not "fully restrict Nokia from developing and using other mobile operating systems" it did have "certain limitations as well as financial incentives to encourage Nokia to continue using Windows Phone as its primary smartphone platform". This is a reference to the platform support payments made by Microsoft to Nokia, which have been important in maintaining Nokia's financial stability, but it is notable that Nokia, financial considerations aside, could have opted to create devices using a platform other than Windows Phone.

A number of other factors were also considered, but the key factor was that the Board and its advisers believed that the transaction provided the greatest value to shareholders and that the proposed sale price reflected a fair financial valuation.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Nokia Chairman Risto Siilasmaa at September 2nd press conference 

What's included in the Devices & Services business sale?

Nokia describes the sale as including:

substantially all of the assets and liabilities primarily related to our development, production and sale of mobile phones and smartphones and industry-leading design, operations and related support functions, including the associated design rights and applications owned or controlled by us, and the Lumia and Asha brands and trademarks

This description includes all the key activities related to creating, designing, and making a modern mobile phone device. It includes all the key activities that are part of Nokia's Devices & Services business. This includes both device and accessory creation and design (e.g. device creation teams, design studios, and related technology teams, such as Nokia's highly regarded imaging team) and related software activities (e.g. silicon optimisation, mobile phone software, custom software on top of Windows Phone, services like Nokia Music and Nokia Store, developer relations, and more).

Nokia will also assign to Microsoft contracts that primarily relate to the Devices & Services business. Notably this includes a number of third party intellectual property agreements (e.g. patent licensing agreement with Qualcomm). We can assume this will also include support contracts related to Symbian devices and the ownership of the Symbian source code itself. 

The sale also includes assets primarily related to the Devices & Services business and related affiliates. This includes the leasehold interest in property and related objects, all intellectual property (other than patents and certain trademarks), and intellectual property licenses, other than patent licenses, related to the Devices & Services business. For example, this includes a number of Nokia hardware production and hardware testing facilities, the associated equipment, and the associated employees (of the 32,000 Nokia employees set to transfer to Microsoft, approximately 18,000 are involved in production). 
   

Success or failure of transaction

If the transaction does go through then the Devices & Services business will be sold to Microsoft, a 10 year patent agreement will be enacted, and Microsoft will become a strategic licensee of the HERE location platform. Nokia will continue to own and maintain the Nokia brand. Microsoft will have a 10 year license to use the Nokia brand on current and subsequently developed mobile phones based on Series 30 and Series 40. Nokia will be restricted from using the Nokia brand on its own mobile devices until December 31st 2015, and from licensing the brand for mobile phones for 30 months from the date of closing.

However, if the transaction does not go through then Nokia will continue to conduct business "in the ordinary course" and will evaluate all "forward strategic alternatives". Nokia will be obligated to pay Microsoft a damage fee of €37.9 million if the transaction is blocked by its shareholders, and a further fee of €75.8 million, if 20% or more of the Devices & Services business is sold to a third party. In addition, the patent agreement will not become effective and Microsoft will not become a licensee of Nokia's HERE platform. If the transaction is terminated by Microsoft then Nokia will receive a payment of $750 million from Microsoft and Nokia will have the right to terminate the existing commercial agreement with Microsoft.

The transaction is expected to be approved by shareholders at the November meeting. While there are likely to be a number of small shareholders that raise objections and vote against the board's recommendation based on their disagreement with the strategic direction of the company (i.e. not wanting to sell to Microsoft), institutional shareholders, controlling the majority of the shares in Nokia, are almost certain to vote in favour of the transaction, on the basis that it provides the best return for shareholders. It would be very unusual for a Board of Director-recommended proposal of this kind to be rejected by the shareholders.
 

Competing proposals

As part of its agreement with Microsoft, Nokia has undertaken that its employees and affiliates will not initiate or knowingly facilitate any proposals for a third party to acquire all or part of Nokia's Devices & Services business. This provision includes not disclosing non public information and not recommending a competing offer. 

This does not mean a third party cannot make a competing proposal, but it does make it more difficult for it to occur. In essence, Nokia is anointing Microsoft as the preferred acquirer for the Devices & Services business and making it more unlikely that there will be a competing offer.

If a superior proposal to the Microsoft offer is made then Nokia is required to notify Microsoft and negotiate in good faith. It's worth noting that the competing proposal clause specifically excludes Nokia Siemens Networks, which theoretically would allow Nokia to spin off or sell NSN before the closing of the Microsoft transaction.
   

Compensation for executives

One point that will attract substantial interest is that Stephen Elop will be receiving a significant payout, as laid out in an amendment to his contract that became effective when the transaction with Microsoft was announced. As previously disclosed, Elop resigned from his position as President and CEO and took a role as Executive Vice President of Devices & Services, which he will hold until the transaction with Microsoft is completed, after which he will become a Microsoft employee again.

What's new are the details of the financial payout that Elop will receive. In total, Nokia estimates that this will amount to €18.8 million, consisting of base salary and incentive of €4.1 million, benefits of €0.1 million and equity awards of €14.6 million, with 30% of the cost borne by Nokia and 70% borne by Microsoft. While this is a handsome payout, it is worth noting that Elop's original contract provided for similar departure terms (18 months salary and accelerated vesting of equity awards).

Both Risto Siilasmaa (interim CEO) and Timo Ihamuotila (interim President) are receiving additional compensation as result of their temporary new roles (€500,000 and €250,000 respectively).
 

Nokia businesses after the transaction 

The proxy materials document also offers a summary of the nature of Nokia's business after the sales of the Devices & Services business. The Nokia Board of Directors will consider strategies for each of the businesses and "possible synergies between them" and the optimal corporate and capital structure after the closing of the Microsoft transaction.

NSN is described as being a leader in mobile broadband and being focused on operating on the forefront of each generation of mobile technology, connecting people through LTE and future technologies.

HERE is described as concentrating on growing its broad location offering across mobile devices, connected devices, enterprise solutions and automotive solutions. HERE will "continue to execute its strategy to become the leading independent location cloud platform company, offering mapping and location services across different screens and operating systems".

Nokia's Advanced Technologies is set to explore new "business opportunities through advanced research, development and concept products in areas such as connectivity, sensing and material technologies, as well as web and cloud technologies". It will also seek to continue to build Nokia's patent portfolio and expand its licensing program.

Time for another slice of retro Symbian action over at The PureView club, with the 808 shooting a Nokia N90, the original 'transformer' smartphone and the first Nokia device with an auto-focus camera, back in 2005. I loved mine back in the day, as I suspect many other future N93/N95/N82/N86/N8/808 owners did(!) See below for a quote and link.

From the heavily illustrated article:

It’s about the no less than epic Nokia N90 from 2005. You will see a few of his “unpacking” shots here with which I tried to illustrate his own words. Below you will find a video I realized with all of the results he got from the Nokia 808 PureView. Moreover you will see some of the really surprising results he got using the “just” 2MP camera of the Nokia N90 as well.

This time, the stage is for Richard Shepherd from the UK.

Prior to 2005 I personally had no digital imaging device of any kind. I had seen some of the first early camera phones and wasn’t too interested because the quality and resolution of the images didn’t seem too great. I consciously decided to wait for the first “good enough” camera phone to come out.

In 2005, it arrived in the form of the Nokia N90. I can’t remember where I first heard about the phone, but it seemed like science fiction at the time, especially the image quality which blew away the competition. It was probably the first time I and many others said “Best Camera Phone on the market!”, but definitely not the last time in regard to a Nokia flagship smartphone.

The N90 concept went on to become fully mature in the N93, which truly broke new ground as a camera phone but which was hampered as a smartphone by (as would become common for Nokia in some models) a crippling lack of RAM. Over and over and over again, Nokia would ship flagship devices without enough RAM to even get close to fulfilling their potential. [cough N95, N97]

But I loved the N90 back in the day. It was just so cool to have an auto-focus camera in a PHONE. 

Read on in the full article here.

Somewhat eyeing up the OIS in the cameras of many of the Nokia Lumia smartphones, guest writer Keir Brython got to wondering how he could stabilise photos for extreme low light shots on his Symbian-running Nokia N8 and 808 PureView. His ponderings led him to the two titled Joby tripod mounts and his full illustrated review is below.

Keir writes:

There have been some very impressive developments lately with OiS (optical image stabalisation) on Nokia's newest Lumias. First we had the 920 whose OiS enabled long exposure times for impressively sharp photos in low light (at least with static subjects) and now we have the 1020 which achieves similarly impressive results with its much larger sensor.

What if you have an older Nokia model though, one without OIS? Both the N8 and the 808 have fantastic camera modules which far exceed the performance of the 920 and in the 808's case, arguably that of the 1020.

To get great results with a long exposure time you have traditionally required a tripod to keep things sharp and steady. Who wants to lug one of those around though? I mean there's no point in using a mobile phone camera with all of its convenience if you need to drag along a tripod. You may as well get a DSLR to go along with your bulky tripod and do away with any pretence of mobility. If only tripods were as portable as your phone.

When I went looking for a tripod adaptor to suit my Nokia 808 PureView I was turned off the Nokia HH-23 by less than glowing reports of its performance. Instead, I turned to Joby which makes very high quality tripods and adaptors for both mobile phones and conventional cameras. I ended up ordering the Joby GripTight Micro Stand and also the Joby GripTight GorillaPod Stand. They were relatively inexpensive and I could not be more pleased with the quality and the results I've been able to achieve putting them to use. Let me show you!

First up is the GripTight Micro Stand. How portable would you like your tripod? How about small enough to put on a keyring? I'm not kidding!

Here's the Joby Grip Tight Micro Stand fully unfolded and ready to accept a large variety of mobile phones

And here it is holding the Nokia 808 in position

As soon as you place a Nokia 808 or N8 in the stand, it becomes obvious that it's not only useful as a tripod for taking photos, it's also brilliant for using as a music station, watching video and as a bedside alarm clock when the always on, Nokia Sleeping Screen application is in use:

The real party piece for this stand though is its ability to fold up into a package that's impossibly small:

The base and the clamp sections come apart (using a coin to tighten or loosen) which means that you can use the tripod with any other small devices that already have a standard tripod thread (and it's small enough that you could leave it connected and still fit it in your camera's regular case). Conversely, you can use the separate clamp section to adapt your mobile phone to much larger, conventional tripods.

The clamp section has very strong, precision made, spring loaded metal parts which live up to the GripTight name and open up a long way to accommodate today's large screened phones. There are grippy rubberised pads too, which will hold on firmly to your phone without damaging it.

If you look carefully above the thread hole in the photo you will see a smaller hole to facilitate connection to a keyring. As promised!

___________________________

Up next is the Joby GripTight GorillaPod Stand. This is a larger but still incredibly light and portable tripod. It has legs constructed of a series of rubberised balls. These provide a grippy and flexible platform that suits irregular surfaces and will even hang on laterally to things like tree branches. It uses the same foldable clamp section as the GripTight Micro Stand and also incorporates a quick release mechanism to separate the legs from the clamp section.

The legs can bend into an almost unlimited number of positions.

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So, what can you do with these great little tripods? Well I've been having a lot of fun. I've mainly been using the GorillaPod because it's the most flexible. I was down by the Thames having a workout one evening (in Gravesend, there's a modest outdoors gym) and I caught the sunset. I had the Joby GripTight GorillaPod Stand in my gym bag and was able to capture this image:

Thames photo on Flickr

This photo was made possible in such low light because the tripod held the phone steady during the longer exposure. Another trick I use is to deploy the self timer. It means that I don't have to interact with the phone and introduce any movement or shake by pressing the button. The standard Nokia 808 offers 2,10 and 30 second timer intervals. The 2 second interval is useful for a lot of tripod mounted scenarios. Check out the high resolution version of this Thames image (link above) and notice how free of digital noise it is.

And employing the tripod when recording video results in a whole new level of production quality too. I used the GripTight Micro Stand to record a simple video of a burning candle which is absolutely stunning. There's no noise in this video even in the dark areas. You'll need to watch it at 1080p to fully appreciate it:

Link to video on SkyDrive

In summary, I'm really impressed with the Joby gear. It's well made, inexpensive and very portable. It will enable you to take some amazing photos that otherwise would be next to impossible to achieve. I've only just scratched the surface too - I'm looking forward to shooting a super long exposure night scene with moving illuminated elements and also doing some more video using the Joby grip adaptor and my full height tripod. Best of all, the Joby gear is so small that while it might not always be in my pocket, there's no reason why it can't live in any small bag that I'm carrying. It's that portability which ensures I'll get great use out of the Joby gear.

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Thanks, Keir! The Joby GripTight Micro Stand and the Joby GripTight GorillaPod Stand do seem quite widely available across the world, though you might like to seek out a local retailer/distributor.

Always happy to encourage new Symbian developers, here's Leonardo Alassia, an electronic engineer in Argentina, who has been through Android and come out the other side with a Nokia 808. For which he's developed 'Wake Up Healthy', an application that tries to monitor your sleep movements and wake you up at the least stressful time. Can you help with the alpha testing and provide him some feedback? Details below.

From Leonardo: (obviously, his first language isn't English, but bear with him)

One of my favourite apps in Android is Sleep as Android, an app that monitors the accelerometer when you are sleeping and, based on that, it determines when is the best time to wake you up in a predefined time interval (because sleep more do not means wake up better). If you want you can read more information related to REM periods and so on in the developer's site.

What I can tell you is that I've been using it since too many time ago and definitely it works. Unfortunately is not available on Symbian, but I want to get rid of my Android tablet so... I decided to develop the app for myself!

The app I've done monitors the accelerometer sensor, makes some algorithms and keeps the data in a file in "E:\wakeuphealthy" folder. My idea is that people with different phones (I only tried it in my Nokia 808) can test it and give me some feedback so I will know if there are differences in sensors and also get stats to define the best threshold, configurations, ui, etc

Hence if anybody wants to test this "pre-alpha" app, follow these steps:

1. download from http://www.mediafire.com/?8u75os9x2872pji and install it
2. open the app before going to sleep
3. leave the cellphone in some place over the mattress (what I do is to keep it within my pillow)
4. when you wake up, quit the app
5. send me the .csv file, to leoalassia@outlook.com

Here's (part of) a sample of Wake Up Healthy's output, analysed in Excel on the desktop:

The periods where the records are below the improvised red line are the "deep sleep" phase, and the peaks are the points that are supposed to be good for waking up.

Comments welcome, but please also copy the developer in by email at leoalassia@outlook.com.