Just a quick note, Panasonic Lumix FZ200 is an impressive camera on paper. I wonder how well it will fare in practice.
The f/2.8 lens allow the use of a huge aperture at the end of the telephoto, this is great to blur the background/foreground and to avoid the use of high ISO, thus increasing the delivered quality in the photos.
Usually Lumix cameras are quick in operation, but their sensors could fare somewhat better. FZ150 did an excellent job for what it was.
So, with all this in mind I searched for some samples online, and found a few, sadly most are low resolution or/and pre-production samples, thus making it hard to assert a conclusion over this unique camera.
The best samples I found were in http://www.quesabesde.com/noticias/panasonic-fz200-analisis-fotos-muestras-video,1_8941
They are the best samples simply because they are RAW files, they don't display the performance over the entire ISO range nor zoom range, but they already gave me an idea of what the camera is capable.
The good thing on the camera (aside from the f/2.8 available through the entire zoom range) is that lens sharpness seems to be very good in center, with some variations in the edges and corners. At its worse the sharpness in the corners is tolerable and quite acceptable for such specs. Same thing goes for chromatic aberrations, even though they are a bit on the high side in some situations.
The bad thing is.... Noise and dynamic range, not that much of a surprise, but at ISO 100 it is just plain bad to have that much noise. Dynamic range is bad, but tolerable, shooting in high dynamic range setups would result in blown skies far too easily though.
You can see the converted RAW files here: https://picasaweb.google.com/113342388960491676361/FZ200RAWSamples?authuser=0&feat=directlink
So ... what that leaves me with? A camera that is not that good, but packing some very nice specs. In the end is not the camera that will mark the difference, even though the f/2.8 lens are unique to it. Price will be scary at the release, but will get down to tolerable values in 3~6 months after the release.
Given the compact design of such lens, one can hope that a f/2.8 12x can be made with roughly the same size, while sporting a bigger and better sensor on the back.
And as an end note, LX7 samples that I found were quite impressive (specially when compared with the FZ200 ones)
Oh well, micro four thirds still has a huge distance over the compact realm ... specially with the new G5 and E-M5 cameras... as for me, the old GH1 will fit the bill till it is rotten.
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Monday, August 13, 2012
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic - Camera
Because my GH1 solved to commit suicide (I may post the repair process later - once I get it repaired), I solve to check what my 'old' 5800 was capable when it came to photo image quality (if you can call it that).
**WARNING - RANT ABOUT NOKIA AHEAD**
After N95, Nokia did not release any mobile phone worth of it's price. Anne update was a mess, most of the devices expected to have it as an update are still waiting for it, battery drain issues (probably processes running astray), etc. - I talk about this update because it also bring some extras to N8 camera (leaving E7, C7 and C6-01 in the cold - hardware could be the reason, though).
Belle is now arriving to the market, the interface useability looks like a copy of android in many points, but I'm okay with that. But thing is ... Symbian is dead, mostly because it got too bloated and fragmented to be maintained by a single company, the attempt to open the code with S^3 failed and now Nokia tries to make it pretty (Yay for marketing!) so it can sell devices while preparing the WP7 ones.
I wonder how Nokia will survive on the market with 250~300€ devices that are almost identical to 80~100€ android devices (except for the screen, Nokia has the upper-hand on that part - but in RAM is the other way around)
** END OF RANT **
Well, I went ahead and ranted about it, back to the camera stuff, 5800 is plagued with something called JPEG compression... Noise reduction doesn't help obviously, and when it comes to ISO let's say that it's better to stick to 100 even though there is no exact control over it. And that's exactly the point, when a digital camera is bad, you can usually control the variables to make it a bit better, 5800 allows for 3 levels of ISO: low (up to 100), medium (up to 400) and high (up to 800). So far so good, since you can't control lens aperture (f/2.8 by the way), nor focal length (3.7mm or around 40mm in 35mm film terms) the only thing left to control exposure is the time, the exposure time is not tweak-able and that's quite a pain: you can set the camera to night mode and get the shutter to go to up 1/5s, but is not exactly accurate and it could be longer like 1s or so (assuming you could put the phone on a resting surface).
So, what else? Well, some guys noticed the JPEG artifacts and hacked the phone configurations to obtain the 'goodies', that was quite good indeed, but hacking is not for everyone and there is also the risk that you break something up.
I tried to override the camera exposure time by making an app for the phone, sadly Symbian is a nightmare to program, with bloated and confusing APIs, even installing the IDE is a challenge by itself (not to mention that I end up by having it crash all the time). So the only thing that would do was python for Symbian, it's a lot more direct to the stuff, but the APIs are limited, I noticed it has a camera API, so I gave it a try.
Sadly python only allows for the basic access to the camera, using the profiles (night, sports, etc) in camera setup. So ... what else? ... hmmm, did someone though of the same but had experience in programming stuff in low level for Symbian? Apparently yes, it's called CameraPro an application that does what's expected to do.
Here goes a few comparison crops so that you can have an idea, I disabled flash in all modes (click on the photo to see it at full size):
As you can see Auto mode is horrendous, it picks ISO 600 (592 to be exact with 1/17s exposure), giving a desaturated photo, filled with blurriness from the noise reduction acting up. There is also a noticeable green tint, specially on the right edge of the photo, probably some electromagnetic interference in the sensor from the phone internal wiring.
The second column, has a tweak from my side, I pick night mode, and ISO medium setting, It gave me an ISO 300 (ISO296, 1/6s), it's noticeable better, the green tint is lower, the detail is a lot better, but there is still some annoying 'mushiness' on the image.
On the third column, I tweaked it, further limiting the ISO setting to low, surprisingly, while I set night mode the camera gave me ISO97 and 1/17s exposure, since it looked dark with the first attempt (I can only check the EXIF on computer) I set the EV to +2, hoping that it got it right, but no, same result: an underexposed photo, not exactly bad it terms of detail, but shadow noise is noticeable, and if I had post processed it to correct the exposure I would have a noise filled photo.
The last column shows the result of CameraPro with the settings: ISO100, Exposure mode: Very Long, JPEG quality at 100, the resulting photo reports in EXIF: ISO 97, 0.52sec exposure (1/2s). It's not hard to see that quality wise, while not perfect, it's a great result when comparing with the other photos. Video seems to have so extra tweaks on it as well, but I haven't tested it.
Well... this just means that the device hardware manufacturer didn't do a good job with the software, requiring third party software to take the best of the hardware.
This reminds me of Canon cameras and CHDK... thing is ALL digital cameras adquire raw signal in the sensor, some sensor chipsets have the JPEG engine inside (usually tweak-able), but for most it is possible to acquire the RAW data, manufacturers choose to not implement RAW feature on compact cameras, when it would increase the camera value for the enthusiasts... Oh well... Let's wait for camera with 50MP 1/8" sensors and 50x Zoom lens and then complain that my 5800 takes better photos :/ (for the ones that don't get the hint, I'm exaggerating)
**WARNING - RANT ABOUT NOKIA AHEAD**
After N95, Nokia did not release any mobile phone worth of it's price. Anne update was a mess, most of the devices expected to have it as an update are still waiting for it, battery drain issues (probably processes running astray), etc. - I talk about this update because it also bring some extras to N8 camera (leaving E7, C7 and C6-01 in the cold - hardware could be the reason, though).
Belle is now arriving to the market, the interface useability looks like a copy of android in many points, but I'm okay with that. But thing is ... Symbian is dead, mostly because it got too bloated and fragmented to be maintained by a single company, the attempt to open the code with S^3 failed and now Nokia tries to make it pretty (Yay for marketing!) so it can sell devices while preparing the WP7 ones.
I wonder how Nokia will survive on the market with 250~300€ devices that are almost identical to 80~100€ android devices (except for the screen, Nokia has the upper-hand on that part - but in RAM is the other way around)
** END OF RANT **
Well, I went ahead and ranted about it, back to the camera stuff, 5800 is plagued with something called JPEG compression... Noise reduction doesn't help obviously, and when it comes to ISO let's say that it's better to stick to 100 even though there is no exact control over it. And that's exactly the point, when a digital camera is bad, you can usually control the variables to make it a bit better, 5800 allows for 3 levels of ISO: low (up to 100), medium (up to 400) and high (up to 800). So far so good, since you can't control lens aperture (f/2.8 by the way), nor focal length (3.7mm or around 40mm in 35mm film terms) the only thing left to control exposure is the time, the exposure time is not tweak-able and that's quite a pain: you can set the camera to night mode and get the shutter to go to up 1/5s, but is not exactly accurate and it could be longer like 1s or so (assuming you could put the phone on a resting surface).
So, what else? Well, some guys noticed the JPEG artifacts and hacked the phone configurations to obtain the 'goodies', that was quite good indeed, but hacking is not for everyone and there is also the risk that you break something up.
I tried to override the camera exposure time by making an app for the phone, sadly Symbian is a nightmare to program, with bloated and confusing APIs, even installing the IDE is a challenge by itself (not to mention that I end up by having it crash all the time). So the only thing that would do was python for Symbian, it's a lot more direct to the stuff, but the APIs are limited, I noticed it has a camera API, so I gave it a try.
Sadly python only allows for the basic access to the camera, using the profiles (night, sports, etc) in camera setup. So ... what else? ... hmmm, did someone though of the same but had experience in programming stuff in low level for Symbian? Apparently yes, it's called CameraPro an application that does what's expected to do.
Here goes a few comparison crops so that you can have an idea, I disabled flash in all modes (click on the photo to see it at full size):
As you can see Auto mode is horrendous, it picks ISO 600 (592 to be exact with 1/17s exposure), giving a desaturated photo, filled with blurriness from the noise reduction acting up. There is also a noticeable green tint, specially on the right edge of the photo, probably some electromagnetic interference in the sensor from the phone internal wiring.
The second column, has a tweak from my side, I pick night mode, and ISO medium setting, It gave me an ISO 300 (ISO296, 1/6s), it's noticeable better, the green tint is lower, the detail is a lot better, but there is still some annoying 'mushiness' on the image.
On the third column, I tweaked it, further limiting the ISO setting to low, surprisingly, while I set night mode the camera gave me ISO97 and 1/17s exposure, since it looked dark with the first attempt (I can only check the EXIF on computer) I set the EV to +2, hoping that it got it right, but no, same result: an underexposed photo, not exactly bad it terms of detail, but shadow noise is noticeable, and if I had post processed it to correct the exposure I would have a noise filled photo.
The last column shows the result of CameraPro with the settings: ISO100, Exposure mode: Very Long, JPEG quality at 100, the resulting photo reports in EXIF: ISO 97, 0.52sec exposure (1/2s). It's not hard to see that quality wise, while not perfect, it's a great result when comparing with the other photos. Video seems to have so extra tweaks on it as well, but I haven't tested it.
Well... this just means that the device hardware manufacturer didn't do a good job with the software, requiring third party software to take the best of the hardware.
This reminds me of Canon cameras and CHDK... thing is ALL digital cameras adquire raw signal in the sensor, some sensor chipsets have the JPEG engine inside (usually tweak-able), but for most it is possible to acquire the RAW data, manufacturers choose to not implement RAW feature on compact cameras, when it would increase the camera value for the enthusiasts... Oh well... Let's wait for camera with 50MP 1/8" sensors and 50x Zoom lens and then complain that my 5800 takes better photos :/ (for the ones that don't get the hint, I'm exaggerating)
Monday, December 6, 2010
Artificial Bokeh
Bokeh... better use wikipedia explanation:
In photography, bokeh is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light."
Now, this is often used to enhance a subject or give a dreamy or surreal look to a picture, in portraits is often used to achieve a smooth background, and while it's not always desired it appears because of the so called circle of confusion and depth of field (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field).
For achieve the blur of out of focused areas one must often use lens with big apertures or/and a good focal length, and those are usually expensive, heavy, big or a combination of the three... The other way of achieve that effect is to simulate it artificially... and that it's kinda tricky, mainly because the original image to which you want to apply it doesn't have the entire information to do it....
The simplest way to increase blur or create blur to given out of focus areas would be when create miniature looking photos of a city, this is possible because cities are often layered in a simple plane and an overlayed blured picture using a gradient as mask does the trick in most of the cases....
Extending the concept, one can create a mask to protect focused areas and blur the rest, but bokeh doesn't have a regular radius blur, the bigger the distance from the focus plane is the blurrier the area looks, and that brings us to a depth map/mask ... sadly this is not easy to create, nor easy to apply as a mechanism of interpreting the depth must exist.
Taking care of a mechanism for doing it properly, i introduce you to GIMP Focus Blur Filter Plug-in (windows version)... Now how does that plug-in perform.... wonderfully i must say... sadly my 20mm f/1.7, while has a big aperture, sometimes it's not quite enough to blur the background as i wished it would do... so i searched and found this pearl... it is quite awesome to apply... the drawbacks?
I point two: It will take its time to be applied (in a 8MP image might take like 10mins!) and you really need a depth map if you want to see awesome results :]
By the way, black means focused, white means fully unfocused.... in the middle ... is in the middle :] Well, to help you out with the depth map, i'll point you to another plugin: Depth map Plugin (windows version) ... It will create a depth map, but it has a requirement: You need to take two stereoscopic images, and that on moving stuff is only possible with two cameras (preferably identical)... it works pretty well, but you might want to retouch the depth map a bit for best results... Here goes an example of what you could do (Halloween Gothic Bride for the win): The original (well, not quite original, as this was cropped, noise was reduced, color corrected, details sharpened and reduced on the end for web view):
The depth map i drawn (clumsy for the win):
The end result using Flat model, 25px radius blur, 5px radius shine:
This is simply the best plug-in I've ever found - and i don't even explored everything it has to give - this fella is just above tone mapping filter :]
For achieve the blur of out of focused areas one must often use lens with big apertures or/and a good focal length, and those are usually expensive, heavy, big or a combination of the three... The other way of achieve that effect is to simulate it artificially... and that it's kinda tricky, mainly because the original image to which you want to apply it doesn't have the entire information to do it....
The simplest way to increase blur or create blur to given out of focus areas would be when create miniature looking photos of a city, this is possible because cities are often layered in a simple plane and an overlayed blured picture using a gradient as mask does the trick in most of the cases....
Extending the concept, one can create a mask to protect focused areas and blur the rest, but bokeh doesn't have a regular radius blur, the bigger the distance from the focus plane is the blurrier the area looks, and that brings us to a depth map/mask ... sadly this is not easy to create, nor easy to apply as a mechanism of interpreting the depth must exist.
Taking care of a mechanism for doing it properly, i introduce you to GIMP Focus Blur Filter Plug-in (windows version)... Now how does that plug-in perform.... wonderfully i must say... sadly my 20mm f/1.7, while has a big aperture, sometimes it's not quite enough to blur the background as i wished it would do... so i searched and found this pearl... it is quite awesome to apply... the drawbacks?
I point two: It will take its time to be applied (in a 8MP image might take like 10mins!) and you really need a depth map if you want to see awesome results :]
By the way, black means focused, white means fully unfocused.... in the middle ... is in the middle :] Well, to help you out with the depth map, i'll point you to another plugin: Depth map Plugin (windows version) ... It will create a depth map, but it has a requirement: You need to take two stereoscopic images, and that on moving stuff is only possible with two cameras (preferably identical)... it works pretty well, but you might want to retouch the depth map a bit for best results... Here goes an example of what you could do (Halloween Gothic Bride for the win): The original (well, not quite original, as this was cropped, noise was reduced, color corrected, details sharpened and reduced on the end for web view):
The depth map i drawn (clumsy for the win):
The end result using Flat model, 25px radius blur, 5px radius shine:
This is simply the best plug-in I've ever found - and i don't even explored everything it has to give - this fella is just above tone mapping filter :]
Monday, August 10, 2009
5800XM v30.0.011
Update! I updated OTA, since OVI Suite didn't detect the new version, now as far as i can tell...
...the goods:
- Snapier on some tasks (web browsing is more stable and fast)
- A few graphical glitches disapeared
- Tab (unable to change tab in settings and in messages) bug disapeared
the neutral:
- fullscreen toggle button (when in fullscreen) in web browser is located on the corner and is transparent
- Max sound volume is a bit lower... not bad since at old max volume the phone vibrated
the bads:
- Slower on some tasks, specially when is the first time (rotate screen for the first time on some places is slower)
- Interface got a little slower in my opinion
- Hue bug is back! ... but now auto-corrects it self after a second or so
With this update i updated Maps to 3.0 as well... please note that Maps requires a huge amount of memory to install! Now ... when will 5800XM get the interface of 5530XM? ... kinetic (inertial) scroll is welcome as well as a better use of homescreen (landscape on it would be nice as well)
OMFG: http://www.forum.nokia.com/devices/5800_XpressMusic Please read CPU speed - They upgraded it from 360Mhz to 434Mhz!
- Snapier on some tasks (web browsing is more stable and fast)
- A few graphical glitches disapeared
- Tab (unable to change tab in settings and in messages) bug disapeared
the neutral:
- fullscreen toggle button (when in fullscreen) in web browser is located on the corner and is transparent
- Max sound volume is a bit lower... not bad since at old max volume the phone vibrated
the bads:
- Slower on some tasks, specially when is the first time (rotate screen for the first time on some places is slower)
- Interface got a little slower in my opinion
- Hue bug is back! ... but now auto-corrects it self after a second or so
With this update i updated Maps to 3.0 as well... please note that Maps requires a huge amount of memory to install! Now ... when will 5800XM get the interface of 5530XM? ... kinetic (inertial) scroll is welcome as well as a better use of homescreen (landscape on it would be nice as well)
OMFG: http://www.forum.nokia.com/devices/5800_XpressMusic Please read CPU speed - They upgraded it from 360Mhz to 434Mhz!
Saturday, April 18, 2009
A new gamepad!
Hmmm ... I got my hands in a new gamepad, my old one is a bit worn off, the old one is a Logitech Dual Action rev1, but usb cable is torning apart and shoulder buttons get stuck on bottom sometimes, d-pad really sucks, but analogs still work fine...
The new gamepad i got was offered by a friend (that i must choke somehow), it's a very sturdy controller from speedlink, is the d-struct model, first of all, shoulder buttons feel like analog buttons are not analogic, just in case you're wondering, that would be totally awesome. The cordless sistem is really cordless on the package, it even lacks the usb cable to charge the gamepad, but i have lots of those around my house (even my FPGA has one).
Bottom line, is a very sturdy, responsive and accurate controller, analogs have a good grip, d-pad looks bad, but isn't that bad at all, most of springs are quite strong, it may be for being new, but being used to my old one, and comparing with a dualshock2 the analogs and the shoulder spring buttons have a very strong springs on their insides.
Friday, April 17, 2009
A new pen tablet!
Finnally i got my hands on a new pen tablet, and now a review over it!
It costed me 68,99€ so, my last tablet costed 69,99€, first, let's look at the specs and compare them with my old tablet...
I had an Wacom Volito2, it was little but precise, i loved it, 2000lpi 512 pressure levels, A6 area... Now i have an Trust (Aiptek hardware in reality) tablet, it's the 7300, has 4000lpi, 1024 pressure levels, A4 area, it's.... huge...
Short after buy it, i installed it in a friends laptop, was pretty linear, and after a bit trouble with ink and graphic modes i was ready to go, openCanvas 1.1 beta 72 is the oldest program i have that uses pen pressure, it worked pretty well, then i installed gimp, and after some changes in shortcuts i even had zoom feature in wheel pads to work, pretty awesome. The worst part was when i arrived home and tried to install it on my laptop, wacom drivers were installed, then entered in conflict with the tablet, it was a mess, even after removed wacom drivers it wouldn't install correctly, so i did what i felt to be the best thing to do, uninstalled every pen tablet driver aplication that was installed and removed all the drivers that could mess up, to make it worse, i have 3 point devices, the synaptics touchpad, the G5 logitech mouse, and a generic HID USB mouse, i removed everything except for touchpad. After all cleaned and rebooted, i installed the drivers (not the aiptek ones, i think they work fine, since in all the mess they were installed once and pen was working, but pressure wasn't recognized in gimp) and then plugged the tablet, a success was what i obtained.
About the features and performance of this pen tablet. One funny thing i noticed is that you don't want to work on it with your UMTS enabled phone near it, the pointer will shake a bit, while it's not important for general use, it will screw up if you're editing image or something similar... so turn you're phone off, or just give a meter or so of distance.
In gimp it behaved very smoothly, i putted settings of drivers to 0 on sensitivity (that is maximum sensitivity) i can say, that a -10 would be nice, since the lighter strokes aren't quite sensed, it requires a bit of pressure to start sensing the strokes, but compared to my old wacom, is almost the same, a bit more smooth maybe.
While the wheel pads are two, they behave as one, and are hardware coded into Scroll, Zoom and Volume features, so using them for other purposes might be tricky, the one thing i can say is that Zoom feature throws Ctrl++ and Ctrl+- keystrokes to system, so if your aplication can be customized in shortcut keys, you know what to choose to have them do what you wish.
Build quality is similar to my Volito2, actully both pens and tablets look like use the exact same materials, if wasn't for the brand logos i would that they were build by the same company.
Given the price of it, i may say i'll never buy another wacom product (unless they get a lot cheaper), sure pen uses an AAA battery, but i have rechargable batteries for everything, and it's a little bit heavier and bigger, but since my hands are a bigger that the average person ones i really don't care (it's not that big the difference in pens).
Just one tip, you may want to use Grab and Drag extension for firefox if you have a pen tablet or a tablet pc, it will improve your experience a lot!
There are also smaller versions of this pen tablet, my guess is that quality and performance should be very similar.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, i usually hate Trust devices, tumbs up for this one!
Monday, February 2, 2009
5800 XpressMusic - Review
Yep, i buyed the first S60 touch device by nokia... i've been using it for a couple days, so lets talk about the goods and the bads:
The goods:
- The screen is perhaps the best screen i ever saw in a mobile device, a little smaller than iphone but with increased resolution, it has an awesome constrast and bright (i use it with bright on lower settings).
- The battery looks like it gives what it promises, i used it for 2 days on a intensive kinda way and it is still kicking
- The performance doesn't make it the fastest device, i won't recomend it for 3d games, but it is quite fast on most of the tasks, reproducing video with 640x368@25fps without trouble.
- Connectivity tests were flawlessly, Wi-Fi wizard configuration is quite intuitive, bluetooth sincronization with hands-free headset was easy, trully a nice experience on this point, helping all this browser is really good rendering pages very similar to desktop way, flash lite 3.0 is a nice think as it supports flash 8 videos and animations.
- The GPS works quite well ... Nokia Maps and Google Maps (google maps works really well on this device!) provide a nice interface and worked quite smoothly.
- Multimedia features are quite nice, video, music, radio and images are presented/rendered nicely, the interface on these aplications was quite well made.
- The interface while fast (except for auto-rotate in internet browser) it's not the most intuitive thing, sometimes you need to tap to select and to tap again to confirm, requiring a double tap, this usually happens in dropdown-like menus. There are also some gliches in browser and with mini-QWERTY keyboard (not that bad). Also in landscape mode the top bar of the browser (equivalent to the title bar and status bar of the desktop merged) is freaking huge the could save that area to the page and provide a bar identical to the one in portrait mode...
- Lacks pre-loaded software, you can however download a bunch of free stuff in a aplication very similar to app store, some are trully free like QuickOffice (only for read documents not to edit), others are trials... the worst thing is that Adobe Reader 2.5 LE is TRIAL!!! I mean with all that bunch of pdf's that exist on the internet a pdf reader is quite handy but to not make it free when non-touch versions are free is freaking bad...
- OS is not that open as most of people may think by look at nokia foruns, installing some applications may prove near to impossible (certificates are a pain), adding to that, the tools provided to development are beta or bug filled. The device is still 'green' require a some extra time to enable development of aplications worth the effort.
- Game Boy Color Emulator MeBoy - A freaking good java aplication that works pretty well with the touch interface provided by the phone to java aplications.
- Google Maps -You know what this is ...
- Handbreak - You WILL need this to watch your videos on the phone, SUPER is also a nice alternative.
- Well .... this - I didn't tested all of them... lol
Friday, January 9, 2009
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
Ok .... pra quem não saiba este bichinho vai estar à venda na worten mobile por 364€ ... é o iphone killer da nokia na minha opinião... GPS, FM Radio, Touchscreen, Acelerómetro, Wi-Fi, microSD de 8Gb included, 3.2 MP na camera, filma a 640x480@30fps .... Symbian S60 release 5 (V9.4) - com todos os goodies .... TV Out .... ah sim ... é também um telemovel com 3G ... e mais não digo.... google it! >:D
Acho que o vou adquirir, o meu Sharp 903SH tá a precisar da reforma... não, não o ponho pra retoma (quem é que seria doido a esse ponto?)
Comparação
Monday, January 5, 2009
T260HD
Hmm... it happen a week ago but i managed to convince my dad to buy a Samsung T260HD to replace both TV and computer screen, for 450€ this is perhaps the best computer screen i ever seen, the 1920x1200, 1:1000 contrast (1:10000 dinamic) with 5ms response time and crystal view design... just awesome... of course that if it was to desk work the T240HD would be enough it has the same features, just in a smaller screen (and less 50€ to pay).
The TV tuner works flawlessly, i just have analog TV, so i can't say much about DTV features (but i can say that playing a 1920x1080p video is kinda amazing).
In my case the 26" (25,5" to be more accurate) are quite the point, and a bigger one wouldn't fit the shelf...
The color calibration took a while, it was to bright/white with default setting, but a little mess in the brightness and contrast provided a nice image, very similar to the one on the old TV (CRT) we had.
If you're searching for a TV/PC Screen combo... this was made for you.... (if it's for a desk i wouldn't buy anything bigger than 24")
I would leave some pics of it... my my mobilephone camera is suffering from old age (the CCD is kinda burned a bit, so above, and sometimes even in, ISO 400 is quite noisy) so it's better to seek google for such pictures...
Monday, December 29, 2008
Lumines Mobile
Enough with programming, let's talk about games, one of my favorites is the Lumines, i do have the mobile version, that is in game play very similar to other versions (basically just lacks some musics and the time bar doesn't change speed within the same music)
This game is very similar to tetris, but adds some tricks that make it one of the best arcade games ever invented.
Mobile version has several modes: Arcade (with easy, medium and hard), Challenge ( beat 999.999 points), vs. CPU (the last guy is quite hard), Single Skin (one music, one skin - gets boring after a while), Time Attack (make more in less time), Puzzle (make some shapes on screen - mobile version has only a few), Shuffle (pretty much challenge but in a random fashion).
I also made a version for TI-89 (a long, LONG time ago - i kept it on one of my backups), is kinda simple and lacks a menu... but works...
Now... about hi-scores >:D ... i wonder if someone who has this game can beat mine:
- I have gold in all arcade levels... so i'll just skip the score of arcade (heck that would made the list quite long)
- I have the 999.999 in challenge mode (several times actually - in PSP/PS2 this would have an extra 9)
- I have 81 Blocks in 90 secs, 132 in 180, 230 in 300 and 432 in 600 for time attack mode... this is the mode i play now that i beat the game.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Portátil novo!
Bem tenho um portatil novo... o velhote ardeu... como a plataforma montevina não está muito divulgada deixo aqui uma pequena review:
Especificações:
Portatil: Runner T564
CPU: Intel® Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4GHz 3MB Cache FSB1066
Display: 15,4." WIDE WXGA, Máx. 1280x800, Glare
RAM: 3GB SODIMM DDR2 667 (exp. até 4GB)
Chipset: Intel® PM45
Grafica: 512MB GeForce 9600M GT
Drive: Gravador DVD RW DUAL (+/-)
Disco: 320GB SATA 5400RPM
Rede: 10/100/1000Mbps, Wireless Intel Wifi Link 5100 AGN, Bluetooth 2.0
Som: Realtek High Definiton Audio 7.1, 2 altifalantes, Mic integrado
Portas: 1 saída VGA p/ Monitor externo, 1 HDMI, 2 USB, 1 mini-Firewire, e-SATA, 1 RJ45, 1 RJ11, Headphones Out, Speaker-out, Audio in, Mic-in,
Slots: 1 Slot Express Card + 1 Card Reader 4 em 1 SD/MMC/MS/MS-PRO
Extras: Webcam 2.0Mpx, Microfone, keypad numérico integrado
Bateria: Iões de Lítio, 7200mAh, 6 Células
Peso: 3.07 Kg ( com bateria )
Mobilidade:
Não é o portátil mais leve do mundo, mas a bateria revela um ponto positivo na autonomia, tem mais de 3h de bateria, que facilmente chegam às 4h em navegação web por wi-fi, sem duvida que o centrino 2 ajuda, um ponto negativo da bateria é o seu tamanho, que faz com que saia na traseira do portatil.
Performance:
Não é nenhum topo de gama, mas este bichinho é mais rápido que o meu desktop, estando à vontade para as tarefas mais pesadas, os 3Gb ram revelam-se uteis quando falamos do Vista a correr.
Quanto à componente grafica, podem jogar Crysis em com bastantes settings em high, a grafica permite ainda aceleração de fisicas por hardware, sendo possivel jogar Warmonger sem problemas.
Conectividade:
A 5100 da intel é sem duvida eficiente quer em termos energeticos quer em alcance.
O bluetooth é bastante rápido, embora não tenha testado o alcance deste.
A porta de rede é um pouco esquisita com o conector, se tiver muita borracha à volta pode não fazer contacto.
A camera e o microfone embutidos funcionam bastante bem, embora o som do microfone seja um pouco baixo.
Conforto de utilização:
O ecrã não possui os melhores angulos de visão, embora o brilho e o contraste sejam irrepreensiveis.
O teclado requer alguma habituação, tendo como areas mais problematicas, o Fn/Ctrl, a zona das setas, o shift direito e o <>, incrivelmente embora as teclas . e - sejam quase de metade do tamanho, são muito acessiveis, o mesmo se passa com o enter. Para quem faça entrada de numeros o numpad é identico ao de um desktop. Nunca utilizei as teclas de multimedia.
O touchpad é preciso e rápido, nada de mal a apontar.
A activação da webcam, bluetooth e tv-tuner (opcional) é feita através de sensores de toque, aparenta ser uma solução elegante e funcional.
Qualidade aparente:
Os plasticos que rodeiam o teclado aparentam ser frageis e pouco seguros.
A traseira do ecra aparenta ser uma liga metalica bastante resistente.
Os plasticos usados no fundo são bastante sólidos.
O som das colunas pode fazer o painel plastico, que está por cima delas, vibrar no volume mais alto.
A temperatura maxima que o portátil alcançou foi bastante baixa, o som da ventoinha do dissipador mal se faz sentir.
Conclusão final:
Um portatil equilibrado, onde a performance e autonomia estão em destaque sendo um optimo desktop replacement sem um peso excessivo, o teclado poderia estar melhor, assim como a qualidade de alguns plasticos.
Optimo para uso em aplicações multimedia, ou que requeiram poder de processamento.
Informação.
A todos os utilizadores da zapp que com o tarifário Web Sem Limites:
Quando o serviço foi lançado em Portugal era impecável, sempre rápido, podia jogar Fear Combat online com um ping de 100-150ms, e fazer downloads a quase 300Kb/s muito perto da velocidade anunciada.
Quando uma aplicação efectuou trafego p2p eles telefonaram, eu indiquei que não tinha conhecimento de qq aplicação p2p a correr no pc, mas como bom samaritano iria pesquisar, e procurei melhor, um software de actualização de um jogo usava p2p, informei-os e eles agradeceram a informação e pediram desculpa pelo incomodo causado e pediram compreensão que o serviço ainda era novo, tudo bem disse eu.
Por norma fazia entre 500Mb a 800Mb por dia.
Até aqui tudo bem.
Após alguns meses, começaram a aparecer registos de 2 e 3Gb de trafego diários, eu desliguei a internet por 2 dias pensando que teria apanhado algum malware que causasse tal dado .. mas durante esses 2 dias continuaram a aparecer registos de 2Gb no portal myZapp.
O trafego apesar de ser sem limites tinha explicita uma clausula no contracto que impedia o uso abusivo do serviço, embora ambiguo vinha seguido de um exemplo, 1Gb por dia durante 5 dias consecutivos, assim sendo, enviei um mail a avisa-los da situação, eles não responderam de forma clara ('vamos tratar do assunto'), mas não houve repercursões.
Até aqui tudo bem.
Passados 2-3 meses notei que a internet estava espectacularmente lenta, o messenger sempre a ir a baixo, o google a demorar 20 a 30 seg para abrir... entre outros.
Enviei um email a pedir explicações, eles fizeram um teste à minha ligação, telefonaram-me, pediram pra testar uns comandos e apuraram que o problema era o meu PC que talvez tivesse virus.
Muito bem, disse eu (de notar embora os teste tenham sido feitos no windows, tinha linux e a velocidade era pouco mais rapida), no mês seguinte formatei o PC, instalação limpa do XP, instalei os drivers da zapp e ... claro ... leeeento como tudo a aceder à net, novo mail para a zapp, desta vez o problema não foi apurado pelo que eles disseram que o remeteriam para a 'equipa tecnica' e este seria resolvido.
Ao fim de um par de dias, a internet estava rápida de novo.
E tudo estaria bem se não fosse pelo facto de eles terem mais tarde alterado o sistema de gestão de qualidade de serviço (ou algo equivalente) : após 300Mb (medido exprimentalmente) num dia, eles cortam a velocidade para 12-13Kb/s (cerca de 100Kbps).
Enviei um email, a pedir explicações, a resposta: variações na utilização da rede.
Seria possivel sim ... se não fosse pelo facto de chegada a meia-noite a velocidade disparar, e para confirmar isto, na altura da mudança da hora o 'sistema' da zapp andava pela hora antiga pelo que a mudança de velocidade era à um da manhã.
Eu não me ralo muito com o corte de velocidade, embora me incomode um pouco o msn ficar instavel e levar seculos para fazer pesquisas no google (para não falar que jogar online é mentira)
Assim após análise do contracto verifiquei que se deram violações do contracto por parte da operadora através da limitação do serviço prestado sem notificação e/ou justificação para a redução de velocidade após efectuados 300Mb de trafego diário, mais especificamente nas condições gerais, clausula 9ª nº.1 alinea a) e nas condições particulares clausula 7ª nº.2, onde é indicada que qualquer alteração no serviço prestado é dada a conhecer ao cliente 24h antes da alteração (caso seja possivel).
A este comportamento da operadora isto chama-se agir de má fé, e a adicionar a isso a divulgação de publicidade enganosa (garanto-vos que dificilmente conseguem passar os 400 a 500Mb por dia - 12 a 15Gb/mês - tudo menos ilimitado)
A Zapp começou bem, mas descambou rapidamente, se continuarem a olhar para o lucro e não para a satisfação do cliente não vão crescer mais... podendo mesmo ir ao 'chão'.
É tudo... e não é pouco...
Link do contracto disponivel em zapp.com:
http://www.zapp.pt/downloadproducts/outros/Zapp_Contrato_WSL6_51_206.pdf
(o contracto tem erros, como passatempo deixo-vos o desafio de os encontrarem)
Friday, June 20, 2008
DownThemAll
In the post below, i talked about DownThemAll as an extension for Firefox, well... now i will explain what i like on it:
- Context menu's integration on firefox;
- Reg Ex download filter for both embebed and linked contents of a page;
- Batch Download (this one could be improved);
- Download Accelerator (if server supports it);
- Pause support (if server supports it);
- Auto rename option;
- Queueing options;
Browser's War!
Edit: Portuguese: Desculpem não ter isto em português ... mas é pra toda a gente entender ^__^;
So... you know (or not) that there are many browsers out there, and now FF3!
Here goes my review over them:
IE4 (yes, it is still used!):
Very very old, if you have it, you may consider buy a new computer.
Quite insecure, it is used on WM2003 and prior for handheld devices (not as insecure in those when compared to desktop versions).
It's very light and lack many functionalities on modern browsers.
IE5.5 (quite old, i actually have it on my oldest computer):
If you're using this old one you should update it ... really... you may say it is identical to version 6, but ... it isn't.
IE6 (you know it):
We all know it, is slugish but kinda light (well it lack many features).
IE7 (shiny!):
Completely new, shiny buttons to match Windows Vista look and feel, tabs were the major inovation, but since it still has activeX controls support (well at least you have some extra security) i really don't like it, make a mistake and you'll have nice spyware/adware popup's every minute or so...
Firefox 2:
Still my favorite, i'm just waiting for some crucial extentions to be supported on version 3, it has some memory leaks (i have lot's of ram so i rarely notice it), but the support for extensions is quite awesome. My favorite extensions are: Firebug, FireCookie, GreaseMonkey, ABP (AdBlock Plus) and DownThemAll. With those i can automate and fully control my browsing experience (stop ad's, mess with running JS, run my own JS, mess with cookies, make batch downloads and speed up my downloads)
Firefox 3:
Awesome, lighter, safer and more stable than the previous versions, i just miss Firebug on it, currently is the browser i use.
Edit: FireBug Beta works pretty well ^__^
Opera 9.5:
Ok... a friend told me opera has been updated, so i went check, it looks quite good, i may say it's the fastest browser that you can have, their widgets are not as productive as the one found in Firefox, but download manager, torrent support, irc and other advanced features that are quite rare, make serious damage in competition. On development side, i really like Dev Tools (until firefox 3 has firebug avaliable)
Safari:
Mac users... you guys are really lucky, your OS features a really nice (light, fast and safe) browser. I don't have much more to say because the windows version has quite some issues (last time i update it, it stop working :( ).
Konkeror:
Well... same as safari... but applied to KDE users :p
Conclusion:
- If you use IE7 ... please change to opera, you will thank me;
- If you develop websites, you may have to use all of them (to check compatibility), but Firebug really helps so FF2 is the choice for you (and make sure you check everything on IE);
- If you use a Linux distro... any browser is good :p quite likely you use Konkeror or Firefox already (i don't think you can use IE - Emulation is not the answer, ok?);
- Mac users, your browser is nice, but test firefox 3 or Opera 9.5, see what you like more;
- If you want to do everything with you're browser, well ... Opera 9.5 might be the right choice, firefox does what Opera does and more, but each extension makes it heavier.
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