While Sony Ericsson continues to blur the line between cellular phones and dedicated digital cameras with its Cyber-shot handhelds, Nokia is crossing new frontiers in mobile video with the N93. And it may not be too distant a future before lower-end digital cameras become obsolete. The Nokia N93 is slated to be available late this quarter but we're not expecting the unit to come cheap, especially with its truckload full of multimedia features.
Upside
At first glance, the Nokia N93 looks like a souped-up clamshell with a top-detachable head. Delve deeper and you'll find that the top lid is just slightly short of being able to rotate 360 degrees. The N93 works similar to a clamshell phone; the only difference is you can swivel it to pass off as a camcorder or a super-tiny notebook.
Even though the unit isn't feather-light at 180g, the weight lends a very solid feel, which is important since a firmer grip on the mobile helps minimise jerky videos a la Blair Witch Project. Another useful option is the built-in video stabilisation which helps minimise erratic movements when shooting videos. In addition, the layout of the keypad is evenly spaced and the convex buttons provide a tactile feel when in use.
Design aside, the N93 doesn't let down in features, either. Equipped with a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens -- similar to the one being used on Sony's Cyber-shot T30 -- the mobile is able to record MPEG-4 VGA movies at 30fps. Though there's a 3x optical and 20x digital zoom, you really don't want to focus in that much since your videos will become pixelated at higher telephoto settings.
A large rotatable 2.4-inch LCD panel capable of displaying 262k colours doubles as a viewfinder in digital imaging mode. You can choose to record your movies or images directly onto the 50MB internal memory or on a miniSD card (of up to 2GB).
During a hands-on session, we found the N93 relatively easy to use via numerous shortcut buttons, including one with a prominent red dot which works as a Record button, much like a typical camcorder. We could also shoot from a poodle's eye level or over a crowd without much difficulty, thanks to the swivel LCD. The unit proved very versatile, such as switching from taking stills to shooting pictures, and to answering calls or text messages either with the phone's buttons or by rotating the screen. However, despite activating the onboard video stabiliser, we still had some shaky takes. The only solution was to use both hands to stabilise the N93.
Flickr users have it easy. With the N93, they can upload pictures directly from the phone to their Web account. As this is a pre-production model, we can only test out this feature when a working commercial unit arrives. However, if what we're reading on the menu is right, it shouldn't be difficult to upload the pictures to the Web site. The closest comparison is the Sony Ericsson K800i's Picture Blogging function which allows users to post images to their blogs instantly.
The N93 also comes with a host of connectivity features including wireless LAN 802.11b/g, UPnP, USB 2.0, TV-out, PictBridge, infrared and Bluetooth. Beyond the digital imaging goodies, the N93 is also a music player, FM radio and gaming machine rolled into one to keep those who demand more from their handsets happy.
Downside
This is not so much of a downside but a desire to see better design implementations. For instance, if we had our way, we would have done away with the removable lens cap and instead replaced it with an automatic sliding cover like most digicams have. Also, the rubber door for the miniSD compartment would have been better off with a metallic slab to complement the sturdy look of the unit.
Although the 1,100mAh Lithium-ion battery is rated to power on for up to 10 days in standby mode and has a maximum talk time of five hours, we expect these numbers to drop significantly if the user is an ardent multimedia fan.
Outlook
There are many convergent devices that claim to do-it-all, but few do it as well as the N93, combining a digital camcorder and mobile phone together with rich multimedia capabilities. One thing we're pretty sure of is the unit won't go easy on your pocket. The consolation: Nokia is also bundling the Adobe Premier Elements 2 (with a RRP of AU$200) software together with the purchase of the handheld, so you can further edit your "award-winning" video clips on a computer.
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