Nokia N95

I am pretty happy with the Nokia N70 that I purchased over a year and a half ago. The ability to read eBooks on the phone using Mobipocket reader (www.mobipocket.com) has been invaluable.The phone is sturdily built and has taken lots of falls and bangs in its stride. I am sure that it's going to serve me well for another year and a half and probably even beyond that.

The Nokia N95, however, has built in WiFi, GPS receiver and a 5 MP camera. What this effectively means is that depending on how much memory you can put into this phone, you can turn it into a road navigator, trekking guide, city guide and use it for geotagging photos. Want to find the nearest Italian restaurant? Just stop by a WiFi hotspot.

While I am not someone who would go gaga over just increased megapixels, a 5 MP camera is something that could be really interesting. I know that Nokia is probably going to cram those 5 MPs in the same sized sensor as the one in my N70, which would result in smaller pixels. Smaller pixels means a lower signal to noise ratio (SNR).

Interestingly, as I wrote this, I found that for photon noise which is the limiting factor for modern CCD based cameras, SNR = SQRT(N) , where N is the number of photons collected by any pixel in a given time period. I don't even know how good the optics are going to be, but the noise itself could be sufficiently high to prevent the output of anything good except under the most perfect ligthing. The noise reduction algorithms that the imaging software in the phone will no doubt apply can only do so much. Garbage in, garbage out after all.

All I am saying here is that is this phone and others like this one will be the phones I will be looking at, if and when I decide to upgrade from my good old N70.