Give Me a 720p Nokia Phone – Successor To Nokia N93

December 23rd, 2008 • Mark Guim • Filed Under •

Remember when the Nokia N93 revolutionized the mobile world by bringing near DVD video recording quality to a phone? Soon afterwards, most Nseries devices carried over the 640×480 resolution and 30 frames per second recording as a standard feature. Now that Youtube is “HD”, video bloggers will get curious with compact High-Def camcorders. Nokia needs to take advantage of this by bringing out an HD video phone.

Kodak zi6
Kodak Zi6 capable of shooting HD videos. Where’s Nokia?

Right now, you can get a compact HD 720p (1280×720 resolution) camcorder that are easy on the wallet. I don’t want to get into an argument with video experts what real HD is supposed to be versus internet HD, but if you want your videos on Youtube to have the “watch in HD” option, the current popular options are the Kodak Zi6 for $140, or the Flip MinoHD and the new Creative Labs Vado 8GB for $200 each.

The Nokia 5800 and Nokia N97 are phones that record videos at widescreen aspect, but only at 640×360 resolution. That is far from being “HD.”

Am I alone with this request or are there others that want to start shooting videos with their phone that people can watch on Youtube in HD?

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  • Salomon
    Hi there,

    Totally agree, the N93 was my best NSERIES by far, since then I'd changed to N95, N95 8GB and now I'm enjoying the N85. But still none of them gave me the same video experience as the N93, the video shooting is better (!!!) eventhough N95-N85-etc.. came out with 640x480 30fps, N93 video are sharper but it had a very small screen display (2.4 inch) not enough !

    Anyway I heard that Nokia will come up with an N93 SEQUEL in 2010 with real DVD resolution video recording (720×576) !! wider screen display, optical zoom x8 and OPTICAL stabilizer instead (cool!)and forget about the sreen resolution (240x320) it would be at least 640x480. wait and see...
  • cool HD Video phone!
  • Not only this, but I would LOVE to see a 720p video output. A micro HDMI port would be nice to see.
  • @PseudoFinn,

    True again! I asked a Symbian rep about that, but he said HDMI would require another chip. Luckily all the other chips in the phones are consolidating, so there will be room for extra chips soon.

    srsly, tho. If a device has HDMI, bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and wifi/wimax/3g, and 32GB of storage, that's a serious laptop replacement right there.
  • Mark,

    I've been thinking the same thing! It's going to be so great when we can just grab our phones and record in HD. I'm guessing Nokia will announce a device with HD recording in '09. I can't wait!

    I jumped the gun on HD, and I'm testing a Samsung HMX-10 and Kodak Zi6 vs the N95. Working with HD footage is proving challenging, even for my reasonably power MacBook. The real advantage for SD is that you're actually able to edit the footage. HD produces really huge files, which make editing soooooo slow!

    I'm going to put up a camera test with all three of these camera in similar conditions. I'm really excited about <$200 camcorders! Anyone can make movies now. Fantastic.
  • @matthew bennett, I sometimes capture the content from my Canon HV10 at 960 pixels wide, it's not full HD but it does speed up the editing quite nicely.

    As an aside, I also noticed the editing HDV 720p is way, way quicker than editing MP4 720 (H,264 or otherwise).
  • @James Burland,

    That's good to know. I need to take a closer look at the codecs that each of these cameras use. The AVCHD from the HMX-10 takes "real-time" to import videos into iMovie08, as in 30 minutes to import a 30 minute video. Too slow.

    Comparing rendering SD in iMovie vs the N95, the N95 renders twice as fast. I'd LOVE to be able to edit HD video on the device, even if it's just cut and merge. Hopefully we get HD from a phone sometime in '09! Do want!
  • Prashant
    To be able to process HD content, it needs a beefy processor. Nokia Symbian Phones are greatly lacking sufficient processor power compared to HTC/Iphone. Its high time, they increase the processing power too.
  • I concur! Two more points:

    1. Add video formatting settings like youtube video format or vimeo video format when you shoot a video

    2. Allow direct uploading to major video sharing sites, not just share on ovi
  • I'm also there with you mark.
  • the N93 was my favourite N-series phone... can't wait for an updated version...
  • Welcome aboard the 'New 93' train Mark!

    I'm just writing a massive post myself to conclude my 'Road to HD' series. I've been shooting in nothing but HD throughout 2008, going back to SD (especially Nokia SD!) is painful for the most part. As you mentioned, Nokia's lack of a N93 successor is now even more pronounced since YouTube went HD.

    Below is a clip filmed on my Canon HV10, a camera that which will just about go into my coat pocket! ^_^

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMqL_MgoJd4
  • Zylam Marex
    @James Burland, wow i just saw your video, amazing quality and did't take to long to loud either on a 1mb connection. Thanks can't wait for phones to start implementing such quality
  • Ashu
    count me in
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