Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

Digital photography seems to be the in thing at the moment, I’ve got several friends who are would be photographers and a couple who are actually doing quite well out of it seeing as it started as a hobby and is now their full time job (Tez Mercer Photography), but the main thing I’ve noticed is although it’s started as a hobby, they all have top spec gear from the off, more than one camera, various lenses etc Like most hobbies I guess you have to have the best equipment and I’m not totally clued up on photography myself, but enough to make an educated guess on what’s good and what’s not.

Now Sony the name we all know and it’s well reviewed Alpha series have brought out two new DSLRs with all the latest goodies for the top end of the home photography market. So what have they got? Firstly Sony has introduced to both the A55 and A33 a new “Translucent Mirror Technology”. A technology Sony says has until now been “unattainable with traditional DSLRs”. So what’s it mean? Basically it means the camera can shoot continuous shots and focus, whether it be stills or 1080p video.

The lower spec A33 stands at 14.2MP and the A55 a slightly higher 16.2MP. Both have a new 15point auto-focus system, the A55 can shoot at a continuous 15fps and the A33 a slightly less impressive 7fps(still impressive though) Another feature likely to interest some of our readers is it packs Sony’s 3D Sweep Panorama mode. Like some of Sony’s other cameras it allows one to take 3D wide-angle shots that can be played back on a 3DTV

Unfortunately no release dates yet or prices but we believed the A33 will probably be around the £600-£700 mark and the A55 will probably set you back an extra 100 notes on top of that.

Panasonic, always a brand you can trust (except maybe the 3DO lol) but definitely a great camera maker, have this week announced two new cameras to add to the family, the top quality compact Lumix LX5 and the tough and rugged Lumix TX10.

The LX5 is a top of the range compact, certainly capable of SLR quality imagery. With a 10.1MP Leica lens with the ability of taking 24mm wide angle images and has an optical zoom of up to 3.8x. Now the goodies. Full HD video clips recorded into the popular AVCHD Lite format but couple that with an HDMI out and you can view your shots and home movies straight to your HD telly. Panasonic have also claimed that on a full charge one can get a tasty 400 shots.

The TX10 on the other hand is for the more adventurous or perhaps clumsy of us. Unfortunately with no images to show, what we do know is it packs a 14.1MP lens capable of 4x optical zoom. With a shockproof body to withstand being dropped(to a certain degree) it is also waterproof in up to 10 feet of water.

When you see the word “Handycam” you imagine the little camcorders with the flip out screens that fit in your hand. Sony’s new “Handycam” the NEX-VG10E certainly isn’t “Handy” unless you’re a real video making enthusiast or an actual pro. Like it’s fantastic range of DSLRs and Micro Four Thirds it has interchangeable lenses so you can shoot some fantastic video, but when you’re using it you will look like you’re actually filming a documentary or movie, when if it was me, it would probably be my holidays or my friends doing stupid things to go on YouTube, where a compact camcorder would suffice.

Basically inside the beast is top notch technology. Powered with a BIONZ processor the sensor on board is a whopping 14.2MP EXMOR sensor. This will mean top notch quality images and videos. The camera captures your video into AVCHD format and it doesn’t limit the amount or length of video you take, it leaves that simply down to the size of your memory card. Lens wise, it supports the Sony E-mount lenses and with a special adaptor you can slap on the Alpha DSLR lenses too so you can always get that perfect shot. Now with this amount of quality imagery one thing that usually lets camcorders down is the sound quality……not with this one. A quad capsule spatial array microphone (“sounds” fancy) will also make sure you get top quality sounds aswell as images.

There’s no price details yet, but expect it to be quite high. Plenty of wait time too as it’s not due till September.

3D is the rage, clearly. We touched a month or so back about the fantastic NEX-3 and NEX-5 micro four thirds(the mini SLR type) cameras from Sony that had the ability to take 3D panoramic shots which you can view provided you have the necessary TV capability and a pair of “Joe 90” looking glasses. Well now Sony have announced these two compact cameras capable of the same thing.

Firstly the WX5. The step up from the Cyber-shot WX1 this a 12.2MP camera with a wide-angle 24mm lens capable of 5x optical zoom. On the flipside it has a standard 2.8” LCD screen to view. The TX9 on  the other hand is the step up from the Cyber-Shot TX7 camera. Again sporting a 24mm lens this has the ability of 4x optical zoom however this camera sports a 3.5” touchscreen on the rear.

What makes these compacts better than their older counterparts is the ability to capture Full 1080p HD video at 60fps and also have the feature what Sony are calling Superior Auto Mode. Basically it’s like Intelligent Auto and will detect all the correct settings for your photo depending on lighting etc. What this does though is on the press of the button, the camera takes multiple pictures(2-6) instantly and puts them all together to reveal a sharper, better quality image. Another feature is the Sweep Multi-Angle mode. You take 15 pictures at different angles and the camera works it’s magic and puts them all into one image. From this the user can tilt the camera into different positions and the image will move to those angles, creating a 3D effect.

Available in September we’re still waiting on Sony pricing them up. Viva la 3D.

Digital Cameras have come a long way in recent years and their popularity has only got bigger too, probably due to the love of social networking and the fact you’ll struggle to find people who don’t own a computer to save all your images too. Also SLRs seem to be used more by amateur photographers rather than just the pros. Sadly this gargantuan beast of a camera will solely be for the pros or the super rich amateur.

With a massive 33 megapixel CCD sensor and a mind boggling ISO range of 50 – 800, the RZ33 is a photographers dream in getting top drawer images of the highest quality. One cool little feature it has is the ability to take landscape or portrait photos without having to actually turn the camera . It also has a shutter speed of 8 to 1/400 second.

Available in the US now it will set you back $17,990 or around £12,000 to you and me. However there’s no date for a true UK release.

After the success of last years Olympus PEN (E-PL1 and E-PL2) it seems the market was open for the micro four thirds camera. If you aren’t sure what that is it’s basically a DSSLR style camera with interchangeable lenses but is the size of a compact camera. Now Sony is entering the frame with its trusty Alpha range of cameras with the NEX-3 and the NEX-5.

Both compact cameras in size, the NEX-3 is 25.4mm thin and the NEX-5 an even slimmer 24.2mm. The difference between the two is that the NEX-5’s body is made from Magnesium making it even lighter than the NEX-3, in fact Sony claim its the lightest camera where one can change the lens.

Both contain the new Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor. This means you can snap images at a fantastic 14.2MP and can record video at another fantastic 1080i. Both also have 3” LCD with a simple control system and even despite the sheer amount of menus and options, Sony claims it’s easy to get around.

Also available are 30 different lenses so you can play about to get that perfect shot, including the classic skateboard picture, fish-eye shot.

Available next month Sony is keeping quiet on the price, but I gues we’ll know soon seeing as June is only 3 weeks away.

Now I’m a big fan of the Panasonic Lumix range(owning a TZ-65) so i’m always excited to see what cameras Panasonic are putting out. Now we will have the DMC-FS10 and FS11, the DMC-FS30 and FS33 and also the DMC-FP1 and FP3.

The DMC-FS10 and FS11(pictured) are a 12.1MP and a 14.1MP camera respectively. Both have a 28mm high quality wide angle LUMIX lens and both give 5x Optical Zoom. Turn it round and you have a 2.7” 230,000 dot LCD screen and boasts a light sensor to adjust the brightness when required. Both can shoot 720p movies at 30fps as well as 640x 480 and a wider 848x480

The DMCFS30 and FS33 again both contain a 28mm wide angle but are capable of 8x optical zoom. The only difference between the two cameras is on the flipside with screens being different. Both have a touch panel LCD screen only the FS30’s is 2.7” and the FS33 is 3”

Then we have the FP1(pictured below) and FP3. “Ultra-slim, Super Stylish Cameras with Folded Optics, Intelligent Auto Mode and Sonic Speed AF” say Panasonic. Both again with 4x Optical Zoom. The FP1 is a 12.1MP with a 2.7” screen and the FP3 is a 14.1MP with a 3” screen.

Pricing and availability are unknown and will probably be released sooner to release.

Recently I was asked to review the LG Viewty KU990 which I happily accepted. Over the past few days I have been using it as my main phone in order to find all the good and bad features about it as possible. I had previously used the phone for a few minutes and was quite impressed with it so I was looking forward to trying it out.

Initial thoughts

First of all I have heard a lot of people moan about the phones name. I don’t really see what is wrong with it, ok it probably isn’t the greatest name in the world but lets compare it to the other phone I use, the MDA Vario II (TyTn, SPV M3100 etc etc), that is defiantly no better plus it have about 4 other pseudonyms. Nokia has N95, E65, N73, 7373, Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition, etc while they may be useful names for people in the know, if I told my girlfriend I just got a new N810 she would look at me blankly and tell me to shut up. I’m no marketing expert but I assume LG want people to easily remember and identify the phone, and Viewty is a lot easier to remember than KU990.

When the phone arrived I was surprised how small the packaging was, it is supplied in a nice matt black box with all the accessories compartmentalised into smaller black boxes. The phone itself is very good looking with an all black body and silver edges. It is clear that LG are marketing this phone towards the style conscious, and I would go go so far to say it is one of the better looking phones in the market today.

The Viewty is rather large at 103.5mm tall, 54mm wide and 14.8mm thick but it is actually lighter than the smaller proportioned LG Shine at 112g and 119g respectively. However it is large for a reason, the phone comes with a 3.0 inch touch screen which occupies the majority of the front of the phone. It manages to display 262 thousand colours at 240 x 400 pixels. The large screen is obviously one of the main selling points of the phone with the majority the functions accessible via the touch screen interface.

On using the touch screen you will notice the phone provides vibration feedback, or haptic feedback as it is more formally known. Haptic technology refers to technology that provides feedback using the sense of touch. While it seems insignificant I really like haptic feedback, it basically replicates the push button feedback you receive from physical buttons and in doing so it improves the usability of the device.

The other feature that is noticeable when using the Viewty is that sweeping the finger across the screen is heavily used for navigation around the phone. Basically you use your finger to sweep through lists like text messages or emails. It took a little getting used to but it is quite intuitive so you should be sweeping through your emails in no time.

On the back side of the phone you have an impressive 5-megapixel camera, though this is not protected by a lens cover. The camera uses a xenon flash which should help provide decent photos in the darkest situations. There is also a weird little rocker on the side of the lens. At first I thought it was just for zoom, but after reading another review I found that it is used for in-call volume, and scrolling through menus as well.

On the right hand side of the phone there is a dedicated unlock key, which also acts as one of the camera keys. There is also the main camera key and a switch to switch between the various camera modes.

Performance

Call Quality.

While I found the call quality fine on my end there did seem to be some distortion and muffling on the other end, I tested the phone with an LG shine and a MDA Vario II. I personally didn’t think it was bad enough to hold against the phone but my girlfriend did complain a little. The loudspeaker is excellent, you can clearly hear people and I would say the loudspeaker quality was better than average. I did not try the video calling, I still find video calling rather gimmicky and to be honest I am not that interested in seeing the callers face as I speak to them.

Messaging / Interface

I have a tendency to text more than I phone, so I was expecting this area to be the biggest let down of the phone. There are 3 main interface options when texting. There is the usual T9 keypad, handwriting recognition and an onscreen keyboard.

As with most phones I have tried with handwriting recognition it is pretty poor. Most likely due to the fact my writing is appalling but it was basically unusable for myself, it would recognise the odd word but the majority would be completely wrong.

While I expected the onscreen keyboard to be too small to use I was quite impressed, it recognised the majority of keys I pressed and I was able to text reasonably fast on it. Unfortunately after a while I did find that I was hitting the wrong key a little too often for my liking and I resorted to the T9.

The T9 text input was perfectly fine, with the haptic feedback it was just as easy as typing on a real phone pad.

Camera

The camera on the phone was good, the pictures were clear and a xenon flash is infinitely better than an LED flash. The only minor problem I had was the response time between pressing the button to take the picture and the phone actually taking the picture was not as fast as I would like. The camera should provide a more than adequate substitute to a dedicated camera if needed.

The phone also has the ability to record video up to 120fps. 120fps is defiantly a bit of a gimmick but it is quite fun to record things in slow motion.

Email – Web

I normally use exchange for my email but was forced into setting up Pop3 for email on the phone. If you have a ISP provided email address than you need to make sure you have a proper SMTP server to be able to send emails. I was impressed with the email though; it was quite fast thanks to the HSDPA (3.5G) and was easy to read through thanks to the scrolling system.

Web browsing was also good thanks to the HSDPA and the nice large screen. The browser was superb; you view full size WebPages and sweep around using your finger.

There is no Wi-Fi on the phone, though this is not a huge issue for me as I rarely use it. I am on Web and Walk so I always connect via HSDPA.

I also found the modem function to be excellent. Once you install the LG software you need to select which service provider you use and click connect. That’s about all you have to do. In comparison I found connecting with my MDA Vario much more of a chore.

Music

The phone only comes with 90Mb of internal memory but it is upgradable via MicroSD. To listen to the music you must use the earphone adapter provided with the phone, this adapter also acts as the hands free microphone and radio aerial.

The music player was easy to use and the sound quality of the provided earphones was adequate. I did not have any higher quality earphones to hand as my V-Modas broke so I am unable to give a more accurate opinion on the sound quality provided from the phone.

I did not test the radio extensively but I managed to pick up radio 1 with little effort and it was quite clear.

I did find on 2 occasions the music randomly stopped playing, and the phone informed me that the files were corrupt. To amend this I had to remove the MicroSD card and insert it again which is quite frustrating as it required me to remove the back plate and battery first.

I would also have liked the phone to come with a proper 3.5mm headset socket built into it to negate the need of the hand free adaptor. Unfortunately this is a common problem with many phones.

Battery

LG quotes talk time battery life at 355 minutes using GSM only and 233 minutes using 3G only, and standby time at 434 hours using GSM and 454 hours using 3G. I didn’t really pay that much attention to it but I have charged it twice in about 4 days and I have used it quite a bit. Heavy browsing or music use will obviously require more battery charged.

Other points.

The phone managed to synch with my outlook very easily which is handy as I use exchange to manage most of my life.

The stylus is stupid, it looks like mascara. If LG want to include a stylus why didn’t they let it slide inside the phone?

The touch screen does get a bit mucky, but at the end of the day it is a touch screen what else do you expect.

Conclusion

I am a geek so I typically chose function over form and go for Symbian/WM based phones. However this phone has impressed me, it does all the functions I require out of a phone and it does them well. It is also a very good looking phone so will keep even the most style conscious person happy.

The camera is not as great as a standalone camera but it is very good for a phone camera and should satisfy most people.

While the phone is probably not the best phone in the world for my requirements it is good enough for me to retire my MDA Vario II and use the Viewty as my full time phone until I find an adequate replacement.

Phone Specification from LG after the jump.

The LG Viewty is available from Vodafone on pay monthly plans from £20

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