Nokia E75 camera review

The Nokia E75 camera is pretty much what I expected from an E-series phone: reasonable performance that is good enough for e-mail and web stills, but hardly something capable of replacing dedicated cheap digital cameras or camera focused mobile phones like Sony Ericsson Cybershot phones or Nokia's Carl Zeiss equipped phones. Still, on paper at least, the E75 is one of the better camera equipped E-series phone out there.

The camera here is a standard 3.2 megapixel affair with auto focus, macro mode (software toggled), LED flash and cheap optics. I would say that the performance is a little bit better than the 3.2 megapixel camera on the E66 or E71, likely due to a new sensor and/or software optimisation. Like any mobile phone equipped camera, natural light availability is a huge requirement to getting the camera to perform well. Anything other than that and you may as well forget about it and save some precious KB.

The shutter button sits almost on the middle of the E75, hardly an ideal location in my opinion, particularly when the slider portion is open. The UI of the camera is still, in my opinion, one of the worst Nokia bundled application - I absolutely dislike it. It is pretty much unintuitive, though to be fair the UI is a fair bit faster than what I remember it was on the E66 or E71. If all you want to do is press the shutter down and capture an image, then it works well. But accessing try changing multiple options every time you boot up the software and you will cringe and wonder how on earth the same engineers who came up with Series 60 now matured and intuitive UI, developed this... On the upside you can tag your pictures with GPS co-ordinates using the Nokia E75's built-in GPS receiver.

The LED flash is there if you require them, though I really and honestly suggest ignoring it. It is no match for Xenon equipped phones, but let's be honest here - people should not, under any none-reasonable excuse, use the built-in flash of any mobile phone, whether equipped with LED or Xenon.

As for video, the E75 is capable of recording at VGA resolution at 30 frames per second. Not too shabby, on paper. In reality, it isn't too bad either. The quality of the video is ideal for the YouTube generation, though the lack of widescreen format may annoy some. Personally I am more of a picture guy than video, but this may come in handy to those who love making spur-on-the-moment videos for YouTube.

All in all, the E75 offers a reasonable camera performance, that is adequete as a backup to your digital compact. If you require something that is capable of capturing print quality images, then this phone is not for you, and you should turn your attention instead to camera focused phones like the new Nokia N86 or the Series 60 5th Edition powered Sony Ericsson Idou.

Some unedited (but resized) pictures from our recent Lake District trip:






The camera outperforms previous E-series when it comes to taking close ups. Notice how much detail is captured of the brilliant Leatherman Micra:

100% crops:

f/2.8, ISO 128, 1/20 sec

f/2.8, ISO 60, 1/53 sec

f/2.8, ISO 60, 1/167 sec

The E75 is available unlocked for around £300 at Amazon UK and US$450 at Amazon.com

My extensive Nokia E75 coverage:
Nokia E75 pictures & first impressions
Nokia E75 GPS review
Nokia E75 music and sound quality review