Wednesday
May212008
May 21, 2008 A new way to achieve lightness
Camera gear can be a major source of weight for the leisure/adventure traveler. Can you leave it behind and just rely on something that you’re going to take anyway - your phone? Read the Gadling account by a photojournalist turned editor who is sold on his new 5-megapixel phone: “Nikon to Nokia”CNET said:
“We have to say picture quality was absolutely impressive. It may be the addition of the Xenon flash, but the N82 produced better photos than the Nokia N95; images were extremely sharp but we were mostly happy that the colors actually looked true to life. Video quality was also great.”
Reader Comments (5)
I am going to leave the camera gear at home this time (4 weeks, Europe) and rely on my phone. Since it is only 3.2MP (1632x1224) the shots aren't journalist-quality but hey, for snaps it is very adequate. And light! I'm happy with the results so far. More pixels are always good, but I really can't justify the SLR these days (that needs upgrading too... *sigh*) and my little digital is from the stone age.
I'll take an Eeepc along too, as I have to write. Should be fun!
Send us some pics of the Eeepc - we'd love to see them. I'm holding out for the 9" version.
I'll see if I can. I would really like the larger one, but timing might not work. There are another couple of factors making me hold off on the 9" as well.
Firstly, the 9" ("900") is not available in Aus yet but it will be *significantly* more expensive than the current 7", which is now under AU$400 and dropping weekly. Secondly, they have announced they will be, soon, upgrading to a processor in the 9" one that will use significantly less power (as well as including bluetooth) - so missing the 900 and going to the 901 would be a better move, I suspect - if you can hold out that long.
The other thing is that I don't know if we'll end up here with the lower battery capacity rip-off that happened in the UK with the 9" - so I'd like to wait until that gets clarified. In any case, the battery life is reported to be lower in the 9" even with a high capacity battery.
Unfortunately even the plain old 9" isn't in Aus yet so it will probably not come here before I leave. And, honestly, for plain text editing and checking email, I'm not sure that I even need the bigger screen.
The Nokia N82 is also currently the only cell phone that works as a text-to-speech reader with Kurzweil's new knfb-reader, as described in this USA Today article. Presumably that's because of the need for high resolution images. Of course, the software costs $1595 on top of the $500 phone.
Yay, the 9" EeePC is here, and with the larger battery. I'll get one in a week or two (and take pics), depending on how the price drops - currently it's at best $519 (Linux), which is pretty good. I doubt very much the 901 will be here before I leave.