Comments on: Why Is Xenon Flash Missing on Nokia N97?

By: John Young

John Young — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:47:02 +0000

The Xenon flash on the N82 also triggers a slave flash, which dramatically extends it's range. Try the Vivitar DF-120 on setting 2. It's a third the size of the N82 itself, and fits easily in your pocket. An LED flash can't work with a slave unit.

I've had my N82 for 15 months, and I'm going to write a web article on it, with a part on “must-have” pocket accessories to make it an all-around multimedia center in your pocket. I've dropped my N82 about 20 times and I've never damaged the flash, but I recently broke the LCD. I wasted $10 on an aftermarket LCD before buying a real Nokia one for $40.

By: Ray

Ray — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:04:59 +0000

Taymoor, you were probably referring to N86 who has more superior camera than N85. N85 camera and photo-taking capability is lousy. N86 is, yes, much better but it would have been best if it had Xe flash instead of the inferior LED, despite being dual LED. Yes, dual LED has improved on its light output performance but it drew so much current and the motion-freezing capability is just too far off to compare with xenon. IMHO, the superiority of N86 camera plus software capability cover up the dual LED flash capability. I'm excited to see the upcoming Xe-flash-based phones Nokia is going to launch next year.

By: Dr. Taymoor

Dr. Taymoor — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:44:34 +0000

but i would like to draw your heed towards the nokia N 85's camera LED, if you can compare it's almost the same like xenon flash you will have to think 5 times before differentiating it with the Nokia N 82's xenon flash…

By: Dr. Taymoor

Dr. Taymoor — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:44:34 +0000

By: FK

FK — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:34:27 +0000

There are several technical flaws in your analysis :
1. LED will never be able to offer the strobe effect that Xe flash gives.
2. Supercapacitor is still very expensive at a about USD2 each. The N97 and other dual LED phones I believe do not use supercapacitor.
3. The Xe flash module in N82 and 6220C can withstand more than 300 drops and are compliant to European safety standards. In fact you can flash it in a cup of coffee.
4. You will need a mech shutter anyway with dual LED to be able to capture good quality photos.

As device/gadget convergence takes place, more mobile phones will move and adopt Xe flash. Note that there's NONE digital camera ever use LED as their flash.

By: peterspiteri

peterspiteri — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:49:52 +0000

HEY GUYS IM A TECH FREEK AND I LIKE TO DO THINGS LIKE PLAYING MY ONLINE FLASH BROWSER GAMES ON MY PHONE, BUT I NEEDED TO KNOW IF THE ALL NEW N97 COULD HANDLE FLASH 8 – 10, SO I COULD START PLAYING GAMES LIKE HTTP://PAYPETE.EVONY.COM THIS IS ALL I WANTED THE PHONE FOR AND WOULD HAPPILY SPENT THE MONEY ON IT JUST FOR THIS GAME, CONSIDERING IM THE TYPE OF PERSON THAT SPENDS ABOUT £400 EVERY 3 – 6 MONTHS ON A ONLNINE GAME I THINK I COULD SPEND ON THIS LOL. STILL I WANT TO GET THE N97 ON THE 3 NETWORK AND WITH FLASH COMPATABILITY, IF ANYONE CAN LET ME KNOW I WOULD BE GREATFUL. EVONYJUSTICE@YAHOO.COM CHEERS GUYS

By: yoshiiiw

yoshiiiw — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:16:14 +0000

question: what should i upgrade to from a nokia n82?

answer: sony ericsson satio (was known as Idou)

im sorry nokia, im a major nokia devout, but if u dont show me a viable upgrade path to another xenon flash symbian phone before this is released...

you can count me out of waiting till u guys realised xenon was the W2G...

By: yoshiiiw

yoshiiiw — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:12:05 +0000

yea been pullin my hair out on this issue… pain in the a** i tel you..

being a devout nokia fan, im sad to announce that if nokia doesnt get its act together an atleast show us a HOPE of a xenon flash camera phone upgrade path, then my money is going to sony cus theres a veeeeery tempting phone coming up this quarter an im not gonna stick around with a 5 meg “WAS” wen theres a “12meg” NOW in the market…

sorry nokia… but i suggest everyone whos in the same dilemma look at the sony ericsson Satio (was known as the Idou).

http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2009/05/so...

By: Hanzolo

Hanzolo — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:22 +0000

I like to thank you for your post and totally aggree with you.
I miss the Xenon-flashes in the new Nokia phones. I got one in my N82 and don't want to miss it anymore. The picture quality in slightly darker camera situations is so much better thanks to Xenon.

By: Firechaos

Firechaos — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:12:29 +0000

Xenon flash maybe good but not as practical as Dual LED flash…
Xenon flash requires charging for sometime which takes a few sec…
But Dual LED do not. Xenon flash requires longer time to take a pic but Dual LED do not nid to take so long. Dual LED can used in all camera modes including video but Xenon only in 1 mode which is the photo mode.

By: Emperor

Emperor — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 05:27:17 +0000

Yes led is handy but what is the use of it? cant capture a clear video nor a clear photo.
Having led flash will surely make the 5MP camera useless in the dark. again even after having 5MP it will be just as a VGA cam in the dark.
I suggest at least have one working perfect than having both dumb….

By: Mark Guim

Mark Guim — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:40:22 +0000

@Paul, I agree the LEDs do come in handy for video.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:14:46 +0000

I’d prefer to have XENON instead of LEDs but now in the age of 16:9 youtube many people will generally do a-lot more filming so those LEDs will come in handy.

By: Smoochy

Smoochy — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:07:00 +0000

My N82 takes wonderful photos. I had all SE cameraphones until this one. K700 and K750i both had LED. The 700’s camera sucked. The K750i was truly amazing. Autofocus and the LED gave some great photos though the best ones were closeups with the LED on. (And I miss the flashlight feature so much).

With that said, I have a K810i that takes average shots but has a Xenon which helps. The N82 obviously blows it away.

I will NOT buy another phone without Xenon. I use my device for 1) phone, 2) messaging, 3) camera. The camera photo quality is too important to me to be giving up something like Xenon. Hope Nokia figures this problem out. It seems they are making very little progress at all.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 04:52:46 +0000

Thanks for the informative article but i myself am totally gutted about the lack of a xenon flash…
i have our beloved N82 and for ages i been waiting for my next nokia to buy and i can see mysef skipping the N97 purely because of the lack of a decent flash like i have all phones since the N82…
and this is purely because i dont use a camera as the photos the N82 takes are good enough but i take a lot fo my shoots at night and in clubs and os on and until nokia come up with a xenon flahs phone i doubt ill buy another nokia and will have to begin looking elsewhere

By: andreah

andreah — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Nice job, i’ve learned a lot! thanks

By: techuser99

techuser99 — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:17:30 +0000

Great post. So insightful as far as the HW and technical reasons for Dual LED. I was using the N82, and was gifted an N85, and loved all the software tweaks that made the S60v3 more friendly. I liked everything, except when I started taking pictures. Each one was blurry and off colour. I thought there was something wrong, and found that the Firmware upgrade improves picture quality. So i upgraded .. and took more pics, but nothing compared to the N82 pics.
So I got rid of the N85 … the quockest I could. For someone who has not used an N82 the N85 is absolutely great … but I was spoiled by the N82.

The only phone I feel is worth changing to right now is the SonyEricsson C905. I used to own the k790 (EDGE version of K800) and the pictures were amazing. And now that SE support Exchange ActiveSync I can really move over.

Thanks again for the post.

By: stilusmen

stilusmen — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:36:15 +0000

great work! snx

By: Mike Macias

Mike Macias — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:33:23 +0000

@Schattenwand,

I agree with your points about dual-led actually being useful. I hardly record video, and when I do it’s mostly in decent light or outside during the day. Even with dual-led night video still looks bad, grainy, and too dark. I’d be curious to hear how often people record video at night from their cell phones.
Almost not even worth having it. Xenon flash far outweighs dual-led for video when it comes to necessity, unless your filming blair witch project or something.

By: Bill

Bill — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:32:35 +0000

One can still make good lowlight videos with Xenon flash equipped phones if one does the following: Just carry around an inexpensive LED flashlight for video shooting. They can just be thrown in a satchel.

I’ve got one that I paid about $10NZD for and it has nine high intensity LED’s that will literally blind a person for a few moments because it’s so bright.

By: Xpress0705

Xpress0705 — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 08:15:22 +0000

The combination of Xenon & LED flash is possible.Sony Errisson has already released 2 phones in the Cybershot range in K850i(5MP) and C905i(8MP).Both of them sports a Xenon for pictures and triple LEDs for video.So when is Nokia releasing such a device which would make many happy?No one knows…..

By: NeonFrog

NeonFrog — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:38:57 +0000

Give the Nokia N97 a miss if you its camera ability you want. I plan on grabbing a used N82 off ebay and carrying it around when out and about on evenings to utilize that outstanding Xenon Flash capability! And then majority of the time i think something like the N97 will be sufficient. Althought I have to say the newly unveiled “Palm Pre” looks EXTREMELY INTERESTING!!

By: sr1329

sr1329 — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:32:05 +0000

@Ricky, In a world of Innov8 and an 8MP phone coming to AT&T carrier subsidized, that’s a sad thing to hear. It’s akin to saying “we give up on phone cameras”.

I realize it is very difficult to get phone cameras to compete realistically with the cheapest digital cameras, but the tech is getting better and why not be at the forefront being the world’s largest maker of mobile phones?

Nokia tends to forget that’s what they are. They like to pretend they are a software and services company now. This is a company that took 5 years to make its PC Suite stable and reliable. They are deluding themselves.

Keep the hardware on the cutting edge and many of use will forgive your lapses in buggy software.

By: Schattenwand

Schattenwand — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:19:44 +0000

@Ricky
I don’t think I’m being inaccurate. You are saying that dualLed is better because it offers improvement on video AND photo capturing to your oneLed device (which isn’t the best starting point for someone who really cares about the camera/video function).

From the viewpoint of the final product, DualLed is sacrificing the possibility to make sharp and clear photos in almost every situation for an only very marginal better video function which is only noticeable at a very short distance at night.

I don’t really see a point for dualLed other than marketing reasons (to make room for the following “PhotoVideo” device, which will have other artificial weaknesses (not counting the overall software which sucks for all devices))

Greetings

By: Xenon flash | Renegade FanBoy

Xenon flash | Renegade FanBoy — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:57:11 +0000

[...] Why Is Xenon Flash missing from the N97?; Ravinda, The Nokia blog [...]

By: sam

sam — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:04:29 +0000

i have an n82 and just love the phone.. but i still cant get why nokia’s phones are so big.. sony ericsson cybershot phones have xenon flash in the whole range and the k850i has xenon+led.. looking at that i believe nokis should be able to do the same..

By: UberTechnophile

UberTechnophile — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:00:58 +0000

Awesome article Ravindra.

I’ve been plagued with the should I replace my N82 question for a while now, more about it here

http://ubertechnophile.severeanomaly.org/2009/01/05/bye-bye-n82-or-not/

Needless to say, your technical explanation of the Xenon Flash has gone a long way that I stick around with this device, no matter what.

I’m sticking to the N82, until perhaps Nokia comes up with a dual flash phone, Xenon for photos and LED for video.

By: Chad

Chad — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:00:53 +0000

Xenon flash is the main reason why i don;t give up my iphone, i wish they;d just put a xenon flash+led for videos, dual led flash sucks ive tested it and i prefer not take videos because of the extremely poor quality, besides the led lightning makes everything look un-natural :/

By: Nokia Daily News - 01/06/09 | Nokia Daily News

Nokia Daily News - 01/06/09 | Nokia Daily News — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:24:58 +0000

[...] The Nokia Blog – Why is the N97 missing the Xenon flash? [...]

By: RobertH

RobertH — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:03:58 +0000

i once asked a question “how many LED’s equal 1 xenon?” is there a possibility that lets say 4 LED flashes can produce the same output as a xenon? and if so will this method still save energy? what about size of the 4 LED’s? will it still be smaller in size or will the 4 equal the size of 1 xenon? (ie same “bulkiness”) and last but not least the N97 in this case is big already would implementing BOTH xenon and
dual/(+) LED’s be such a major problem?
just a few silly thoughts……