 "gadget Wars - Mobile Cameras - N73 vs. K790i")
Two phones like the Nokia N73 and the Sony Ericsson K790i would never be pitted against each other, one being a Series 60 multimedia smartphone and the other a regular, fixed UI multimedia phone, but everyone has the same question on their mind when they go out to buy one of the two. Which one has a better camera?
Even though the phones are different, they’re remarkably similar to each other. They’re both in a candy bar form factor. They both have a 3 megapixel camera (3.2 on the N73 and 3.15 on the K790i, if you want to be precise). They both have a lens cover. They’re both almost the same height and thickness, with the K790i’s lens cover sticking out a bit. The keypads on both are almost the same shape, but the K790i’s is slightly bigger. They both have a QVGA (320x240) display, with the N73’s being a little larger. Both are all-in-one phones which have a music player, Bluetooth, expandable memory and all that jazz. Both have an equally praiseworthy XHTML web browser. The K790i’s browser even goes into landscape mode.
Both have a 3 megapixel camera, but are they both the same? We decided to put the cameras on the phones through a real test with the help of our in house photographer, Vipurva Parikh, and arrived at a smashing climax. But first, a little background info.
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Sony Ericsson has been putting great quality cameras in their phones for a while now, starting with the K700i’s VGA camera, through the K750i’s 2 megapixel camera and now leading the line with the Cybershot-branded K790i, so it would be an obvious train of thought to consider the K790i as a clear winner. After all, Sony has advantage of the expertise of making some great cameras under the Cybershot brand.
The K790i also comes with a real Xenon flash as opposed to the normal LED flashes that other phones offer. Quality of camera phones has been steadily getting better and better with megapixels mounting up on each other, but traditionally, their weak point has always been low light photography. Most camera phones come with no flash whatsoever and the other ones that offer an LED flash are also not phenomenally superior. With the addition of a real Xenon flash, the K790i looks to take the fight to a whole new level as it enters real camera territory.
While most camera phones now offer some preset scene modes and some even offer ISO settings, the K790i takes it further by also offering image stabilization, which comes in handy when you’re taking pictures in a very shaky situation like from a moving car or a bike. It also offers a burst mode-like BestPic feature for use when the subject you’re trying to capture is in motion. For example, if there’s that elusive Murcielago zipping by, the K790i will capture several successive shots in BestPic mode, after which you can browse through the best one of the lot and save it.
It’s interesting to note that both of the best camera phones in the market that are out to replace your real digital camera don’t have a real zoom lens in it. They both offer digital zoom, which is just silly. Do NOT use digital zoom if you want to take pictures. Move close if you have to.
The N73 doesn’t offer anything as fancy as the K790i. It’s got all the basic camera features like scene modes, a decent LED flash, a Carl Zeiss lens, but that’s about it.
To pit them both against each other, we took the same shots with both the phones and compared them to each other. We took a total of six shots — portraits, outdoor shots, a couple of indoor shots, macro mode and motion shots. We also took the same shots with a Kodak V603 6.1 megapixel digital camera to use as reference images.
Does the Cybershot lineage take the crown for the K790i? Does the Carl Zeiss powered N73 prove to be the dark horse?
Let’s find out!
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Portrait Shots
Anyone with a camera phone is going to be photographing a lot of people, with or without their permission, so we figured this was the best way to start the comparison tests. We made our news reporter and resident model Priyanka Pradhan our scapegoat for these tests.
The first one was taken from the N73, while the second was from the K790i. That’s the order we’ll follow for all these tests. Take a look.
Here’s what the expert said:
“The picture taken using the Nokia N73 was a lot sharper and crisper than the K790i. There was a little bit of oversaturation in color and it was also a little overexposed, but in contrast, the K790i’s output was soft, dull and a little blurry. I’d rather choose a sharper, oversaturated image than a blurry one.”
I felt that the color on the K790i picture looked more natural, but the expert’s opinion is the expert’s opinion. Besides, you can always use Photoshop to tweak the color, but you can’t add sharpness.
Winner: N73
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Outdoor
We went outside the office and took these shots bang in the middle of the road with cars passing by. Now here, both the N73 and the K790i performed equally well. The sky was a little more blue in the K790i.
Vipurva said:
“There was a slight difference in the color tones of the two pictures, but both were nearly the same.”
Winner: None. This round is a tie!
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Indoor (1)
The best place to take this shot was inside our lair… I mean our lab. The windows are tinted so not much light comes in and the lights in the lab were turned off for the perfect setting. This is where the real flash on the K790i would come in handy, but I was quite shocked after seeing the photos!
Our expert said:
“The flash from the N73 performed much better. It spread wider and more evenly over all the objects. There was very less grain. On the other hand, the K790i had an excessive amount of noise and the image was too dark. Though the K790i image was relatively sharper, the graininess nullifies it.”
I have no idea what happened here. The modes were set just right!
Winner: N73.
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Indoor (2)
For this test, the RC car in our labs was kept in similar low light conditions as the props in the previous shot. Flash was used here as well.
What did our expert think?
“Once again the N73 picture was nicely lit and the light spread was more even. Overall, the N73 picture was a lot more pleasant. The K790i flash was too harsh on the object and because of that the hotspots were clearly standing out.”
Winner: N73. It’s getting boring now.
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Macro Mode
We picked the macro mode which is present in both the phones for a close-up shot of this 2001 Yamaha Road Star scale model. I had a good feeling about this test!
“The K790i took the macro mode points. The details hold out very well even in this printed picture. The N73 picture was slightly blurry and there was quite a loss of detail on smaller, finer parts of the bike like the cylinders.”
Winner: K790i. I told you!
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Motion
Fast motion photography ideally needs a camera capable of a very high shutter speed or the object turns out all blurry and hazy. We didn’t expect either of these phones to capture a proper, still image of a car like the way they capture them for ads, and they didn’t. We used the sports mode for this test.
“The N73 got a better picture of a moving car. The sharpness and clarity were comparatively better. The K790i introduced lots of unwanted motion blur in the image, even in sports mode.”
We also took one shot using K790i’s BestPic mode and we got a decent shot of a car, but this one wasn’t going too fast.
Winner: N73 again, but K790i’s BestPic can come in handy.
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Conclusion
Now that you’ve seen all the pictures and heard what our expert had to say, it’s time for the truth.
Vipurva feels that “if your primary criteria for choosing one of these phones is the camera, then I would recommend going in for the N73.”
The camera on the N73 performed much better in our tests, grabbing at least three, if not four points, leaving the K790i behind with one or two points. Sony’s Cybershot legacy and the presence of a real Xenon flash didn’t help it much in our real world tests. This proves that it’s not just the technology that matters, but how it is implemented in the phone that makes a difference.
The Nokia N73 sells for around Rs. 20,000, which is more expensive than the K790i which sells for around Rs. 17,500, but if you want quality, you won’t worry about the price. You have the real pictures. Download them and print them, see for yourself and make an informed decision.
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