Nokia N86 8MP Review

Posted on October 19th, 2009. Written by Rico.

Marc de Vera is a designer at an online marketing company by day and a freelance photographer on some nights. Here’s his review of the Nokia N86 8MP, the photo-centric phone that features an 8 megapixel camera.

Using the Phone

Though it looks quite hefty, I find that the Nokia N86 8MP is quite a sleek beauty. The chrome accents against the dark gray finish add to the elegant feel of the phone. It feels relatively solid despite it being a slider, although you will notice some wobble between the screen section and the keyboard when you use it while the slide is retracted. The buttons and keypad are a bit on the stiff side but is quite easy to get used to after a while.

I’ve had the chance to use this phone for more than a week and it has restored my faith in Nokia phones (I haven’t really used a Nokia since my old 8250). The interface is really quite snappy and is very easy to use. Kudos to Nokia’s Symbian S60 OS! [Marc currently uses a Sony Ericsson P1 -Ed.] 3G internet, Wifi, Email and MMS worked right out of the box and very minimal setup time was required.

The Camera

Now we get into the best part. The Nokia N86 8MP’s selling point is the built-in camera. 8 megapixels means 3,264 x 2,448 pixels of fun! There also a lot of features such as an auto-panorama stitch mode, sequence capture and of course video. It’s very rare to see a 28mm equivalent lens, one that features a wide angle at that. Shutter response and auto-focus is impressive as well, making the camera that fastest I’ve ever seen built into a phone.

The camera is probably the fastest I’ve ever seen on a phone. The shutter button supports half-click to focus and full-click to take a picture. The shutter clicks almost instantly as soon as the button is fully pressed. This is really good for those people who like to shoot action stuff. The Carl Zeiss Lens is actually quite a performer. The wide angle lens is a must have for any person who likes to travel! It really gives you a wider shot and chromatic aberration (the streaks of color you see where light and dark parts of a picture merge) is manageable. This really means that Nokia spared nothing to give you this grade A lens. Performance is superb in general, but there are a few exceptions.

The Downsides

As always there are some downsides to this seemingly perfect piece of gadgetry but probably not enough for you to get turned off. First we have the shutter button. Yes it supports the half-click, full-click process but it’s a bit of a struggle to press the shutter button fully as the full-click notch in the button is a bit too close to the body. This makes it hard for people with larger fingers to operate it. Secondly we have the panorama function. When you try it out for the first time you’ll really be impressed by it but when you finally load the picture on the computer you’ll find that the image stitching is less than perfect. Then again, who used that feature anyway? And lastly, probably the most disappointing of all is low-light photography. I would’ve expected something more from a phone with all these high-end camera features. Images taken in low light are unusually noisy and have poor contrast. The flash doesn’t help either. The dual-led flashes have a yellow-green color balance making shots made with the flash a little strange to look at.

In summary the Nokia N86 is a very impressive camera phone with very high end features and good looks. If you’re not too nitpicky about the little quirks like the shutter button then this phone is close to perfect. I highly recommend this phone to those who want a good camera phone while not compromising on the phone’s size and functionality. If you’re a shutter bug by heart yet you often forget your camera at home then the Nokia N86 8MP is the camera, I mean phone for you. You’ll never miss an important photo opportunity again.

The lowest price for the Nokia N86 8MP is currently P20,500; buy it now through CgeNa