The N82 is better on the imaging department. The N81 8GB is better when it comes to music. All of this is common knowledge by now, but let’s say music is your number one priority, how much do you actually sacrifice if you get the N81? To answer this question I put the N81 8GB against the current best when it comes to imaging: the N82. Remember, the idea is not to see which one is the best as we already know how this one is going to end. We are going to compare the images and see how much we actually give up when we choose a music phone, in this case the N81. The N81 8GB might be a music phone, but still has a camera! To make things a bit interesting I took the images in less than ideal conditions. Most cameras are able to take decent pics in abundant natural light, but it’s when the light conditions deteriorate that’s when the real differences start to appear. Let’s take a look at the results.

Test 1: Macro

The first test consisted of doing a macro shot. I must admit that here I chose to use a very short distance; even the N82 had some difficulty focusing correctly at such an extremely close distance. In the end the N82 produced pretty convincing results with lots of detail, natural colors and correctly focusing on the subject. The N81 8GB on the other did not only fail the macro test completely, but also had unnatural colors and lots of image noise. In all fairness the N81 8GB lacks any auto-focus or close-range image setting, so it’s impossible for it to accomplish such a test. But the unusually high noise and unnatural colors is unforgiving. It’s clear here that choosing the N81 8GB will give you the best in music, but when it comes to marco-shots you can completely forget it.

Test 2: Macro (Text)

Here I basically took a newspaper and turned the flash on both devices to off. The idea was to see if they could correctly focus on the text and make it sharp enough for it to be legible. This test produced the same results as the first one: The N82 fails miserably, not only making the small text unreadable, but there’s lots of noise. This test confirms that the N81 8GB is unable to do macro-shots.

Test 3

In the third test we move farther from our subject. Things look much better for the N81 8GB, although the N82 shows that the colors are a bit of and that the noise can be lower. Test 3 confirms: you lose color accuracy and noise is big factor.

Test 4

The images here were taken at a longer distance when compared to Test 3. The N81 8GB seems to be correctly in focus. The colors are again way off. Here I can conclude that shots taken at a larger distance will be correctly focused. I would say 50cm to infinity.

Test 5

The colors on the N81 8GB are again incorrect. Changing the White Balance doesn’t help either: it takes images that look vivid, but these are in no way natural looking.

Test 6: Flash

The N82 is able to analyze the scene and “see” that this is a close-up shot and correctly adjust the flash for the image not to become too overexposed. The N81 8GB on the other hand can’t do this, as results the image comes out overexposed. And as confirmed in Test 1 and 2 it is not able to do macro shots, as results the image is not correctly focused.

Test 7

This test is meant to show how these two devices perform in low-light without flash and at a close distance. The N82 performs excellent. The colors on the N81 8GB are ok, but as confirmed in test  1, 2 and 3 it cannot do macro shots and the noise is a big issue.

Test 8

In this final test we can again see that the N81’s colors are a bit of and noise is again a big issue.

Conclusion

Getting the N81 series means getting the best music experience in the among the latest Nseries devices as it has dedicated music controls, Navi wheel, key lock and excellent audio quality, but the N82 isn’t left far behind when it comes to audio quality. But I do have to stress that the audio quality on the N81 is AMAZING. So when you choose to go the audio route (N81), what do you actually sacrifice in the imaging category? Based on these tests we can mention:

-You gain lots and lots of image noise

-No macro focus, so you can forget about those close-up shots

-Less detail and less to work with when doing image editing, cropping etc due to the 3 megapixels less

-Unrealistic colors vivid colors

-Poor low-light performance

-Weaker flash

-The LED flash is not able to “throttle” down; as a result close-up shots that make use of the flash are ruined by it.

The N82 is able to take good to excellent shots in pretty demanding conditions, the N81 8GB on the other hand will take its best shots in bright conditions where the subject is not too close: anything starting from a distance of about 50cm to infinity. To answer our initial question: how much do you actually sacrifice if you get the N81? Based on these finding, you sacrifice a lot and I do mean a lot. The images produced by it are only useful really for those quick shots for sending via email or to be put on WebPages and that’s if you keep a distance from your subject and have enough light. Otherwise the end result would look more like a study in pointillism. But if music is your thing, the N81 is the device to get.