19 March 2006

3.2 MPX battle
N93 vs. N93i photo shoot-out

I have recently been able to get my hand on the Nokia N93i. My first impressions was, like, wow, it looks like an N93 all grown up, except in this case, it is lighter and smaller.

Immediately, when I touched the unit, I felt something that I did not even feel on the N93, fragility! Yes indeed the rumors have been true about the hinge on the N93i not being as strong as the N93. It feels weak, and the mirror screen face section when fully closed has a lot of give in the lateral directions.

The mirror finish is useful for applying makeup or combing ones hair and makes the phone aesthetically pleasing. The memory card bay, and battery cover and pop port, all have been super refined. The battery bay now gracefully glides on tracks and locks when in position. Release is a simple press on the release button and sliding.

On the old N93, one had to literally pry the back cover off, often stressing the back cover whist bending. The memory card cover now is made of the same high quality plastic of the rest of the phone, which for those N93 users; this is a nice aesthetic add-on.

Another practical wonder is the fact that the pop port and the memory card cover fit flush against the case and are attached in a way so you cannot lose the covers!

The unit I acquired, came with the plum rear backing, while nice, seems to resemble the styling of the N73 rear back, also gives better grip, so the unit is less likely to slip out of your hand. One thing to note though is when you fully open your N93i, it will not rest flat on a table surface. N93 also suffered from this, but not to the same extent as this!

N93 taking N93i, heheeh ;)

Now looking at the joystick on the side of the N93i. To me, this felt flimsy, and loose compared to the micro dpad which was on the N93. It looks like a lot of dust could accumulate behind it, and possible affect the performance in dusty environments. One has to admit though, the N93i joystick is alot easier to navigate while in camera modes as opposed to the micro dpad on the N93.

.:[ complete hardware overview right here ]:.

Here I used landscape mode
Nokia N93 shot, Lighting is excellent	Nokia N93i shot, Lighting is excellent
*click to enlarge

Now put N93 with post processed with Neat Image

Nokia N93 shot, Lighting is excellent

*click to enlarge

We can see color wise that both N93 and N93 are very similar. The repositioning of the optics, we can see here has made next to no difference, both share the same fall off, and corner softening.

Now in terms of noise, it is clear here that N93i new algorithm (blur image) is working well and no visible artifacts can be seen. N93, how ever is showing off its artifacts even though lighting is excellent. The noise reduction on the N93i though does reduce detail, as can be seen if you compare 100% crop images.

Here I used landscape mode
*click to enlarge

Here is another image comparison, again both are remarkably similar, and they should be as they both carry the "93" part in their model name, which means hence just an improved facelift and software upgrade model, not a total replacement model. You can tell which is which right?

Optical zoom set to nearly 3x
Nokia N93i shot, Lighting is excellent	Nokia N93 shot, Lighting is excellent
*click to enlarge

This is shot using the optical zoom set to nearly 3x! Both units are showing yet again, amazing clarity and but N93i is less noisy and also less detailed. N93 retains all detail ,but has extensive noise and artifacts

100% crops showing the difference between N93 and N93i

*click to enlarge

100% crops showing the difference between N93 and N93i

*click to enlarge

100% crops showing the difference between N93i and N93 and post processed N93

*click to enlarge

To conclude, we can see that there is no physical difference between the N93 and the N93i optic. Both capture very good precise color, N93i has some sort of noise reduction, although effective at removing artifacts, does not remove noise entirely from the picture.

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Nokias semi conservative approach here on the N93 has done well, allowing straight out of phone camera usage for publishing on the web, prints, etc. It can be seen noise reduction does not come without cost. In a lot of cases this sacrifices detail.

What was not mentioned in the review, was how much faster the firmware in the N93i was over the N93, lag from changing modes from video to still mode was considerably. Also the increase in the font size and spacing of the built program modes menus and options in the N93i is welcome. This requires eye concentration to read the descriptions.

For those who already own the N93, I would not necessarily rush out and get the N93i, unless of course the noise and artifacts really does bother you or you just want a new phone with state of the art latest looks, sporting lighter and slimmer profiles.

Optical zoom set to nearly 3x
Nokia N93i, low lighting, no flash	Nokia N93, low lighting, no flash
*click to enlarge

Unfortunately, I did not take the subject at exactly the same distance, but we can still do quite a good comparison. It is clear N93i noise reduction is cleaning up the image slightly, but in the process has introduced some sort of "color noise".

N93 shows less of this, but instead shows artifacts and a lot of noise in general, which results in a grainy appearance. Obviously even in low light the N93 is resolving more information than the N93i thanks to the absence of noise reduction. Noise, is it an advantage or disadvantage.. one has to weigh this up carefully.

Optical zoom set to nearly 3x
Nokia N93i, LED flash (illuminator)	Nokia N93, LED flash (illuminator)
*click to enlarge

From the two images above we can see that although N93i has a brighter LED flash thanks to the non diffused perxpex placed in front of the LED, the image is still illuminated similarly. This is due to the now increased shutter speed the N93i. This is advantageous for those shots where the subject is moving, or camera is not still!

Undoubtedly N93i users will get more successful night shots when compared against N93. Interesting though, if we look closer at the details, we can see N93i is not rendering the picture the same color as the N93 no longer. N93 is holding black color better than N93i here. Also on the words on the box, there seems to be some sort of blue halo effect, which may be undesirable.

I will not post videos, instead I’m going to post some screen dumps only, from both the units taking video simultaneously..

N93i	N93
This one is in average lighting
*click to enlarge

N93i	N93
very low lighting
*click to enlarge

N93i	N93
very low lighting with optical zoom nearly 3x
*click to enlarge

.:[ Nokia N93 -:- Huge user review ]:.

.:[ Nokia N93i - Hands On ]:.

SF Review: 3.2 MPX battle, N93 vs. N93i
Originally posted: 18.03.2007
Last Updated: 21.03.2007
Author: Bigley Ling (AKA Mazor)
Copyright: Symbian Freak 2006; all rights reserved