Nokia N86. Did you say 8 megapixels?

Would really like to see some video capture samples from this beauty…. Any ideas?

Mike, to be fair to them they majored on these features during the launch (info follows) and had a Carl Zeis expert to talk to us about how the components are optimised as a unit. They're going to be pushing the N86 via bloggers as they think it's real-world performance is what will sell it via word of mouth… the decision to slap '8MP' on the name just shows their branding people don't completely share the convictions of the product team.

The first thing they did… in the briefing room at 8:30 this morign was show us A3 print-outs of images shot on the camera… very impressive. Of all the numbers, 8MP matters the least here.

There are a few problems (as ever) but they're called 'S60' and 'N85'.

Cool.

Who prints in A3? ever? at all?

My question would be – if you took a snap with an N95 and an N86 of the same scene, then displayed it on a 17″ monitor, could you really tell the difference? Face it, no-one does anything else with them. Sharing in the home is still waaaaaay too hard. If they made it childishly easy to get images up on a 42″ 1080p screen, then I might see the benefit of more pixels. Maybe. Possibly.

Shutter lag and low-light performance are the big points, as Aston points out above. Show me your lag, in the dark, Mr Nokia…

A3? No one, but if the images look awesome at A3 then _all_ my usage needs are covered so it's a good demo.

Yes, you will tell the difference – from memory (words coming) 40% reduced lag to shooting / beetween images, revised dual LED flash, wider-angle lense and mechanical shutter with wider range of exposure times are all part of a wider package of improvements to the imaging system. I saw an image shot without flash of a street at night illuminated by a single street-lamp and the tones and detail is very impressive.

I'm coming over all Nokia fan-boy here (and I'm not, believe me), but Nokia have done the imaging system right (from first appearances). They're a bit dim for letting the handset be branded with '8MP' in the name because whilst the resolution is excessively high the factors they've tuned read like a much more rounded solution.

Cool.

Who prints in A3? ever? at all?

My question would be – if you took a snap with an N95 and an N86 of the same scene, then displayed it on a 17″ monitor, could you really tell the difference? Face it, no-one does anything else with them. Sharing in the home is still waaaaaay too hard. If they made it childishly easy to get images up on a 42″ 1080p screen, then I might see the benefit of more pixels. Maybe. Possibly.

Shutter lag and low-light performance are the big points, as Aston points out above. Show me your lag, in the dark, Mr Nokia…

A3? No one, but if the images look awesome at A3 then _all_ my usage needs are covered so it's a good demo.

Yes, you will tell the difference – from memory (words coming) 40% reduced lag to shooting / beetween images, revised dual LED flash, wider-angle lense and mechanical shutter with wider range of exposure times are all part of a wider package of improvements to the imaging system. I saw an image shot without flash of a street at night illuminated by a single street-lamp and the tones and detail is very impressive.

I'm coming over all Nokia fan-boy here (and I'm not, believe me), but Nokia have done the imaging system right (from first appearances). They're a bit dim for letting the handset be branded with '8MP' in the name because whilst the resolution is excessively high the factors they've tuned read like a much more rounded solution.