Nokia 9 Pureview

[Earth[Tera].bin]

Been behaving myself of late, put a halt on the phone upgrades/purchases and was content with my Note 9 and still aim to be honest but had to pre-order the Nokia 9.

Have a real soft spot for Nokia, having owned a good amount of Nokia phones over the years, personal favourites being the N9, 808 and 1020 so somewhat of a sentimental purchase. Hopefully though it'll be an interesting device with the potential for capturing good images. Definitely has a lot of heritage to live up to.

pre-order was £549 from Nokia , distributor DigitalRiver same as HTC devices. Funnily enough bit of a HTC fan also ,must love the underdogs.

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

Yeah, I predict mixed reviews as per the initial ones for the 808 and 1020. Delivery due mid March so I'd expect reviews to start popping up then.

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

Yeah quite agree, was expecting around £650-699. Free wireless buds if you pre-order also.

 

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Yeah some of the sample shots released have been hit and miss and I wasn't too bowled over of the 'old man of storr' shot that is doing the rounds, it did seem a little washed.

I'm sure there's plenty of potential in the device, both 808 and 1020 received the same mixed reception on release, and this won't appeal to everyone either.

It's a shame about missing sdcard, maybe financial to keep the cost down or something to do with the main board design, not sure, definitely would have been better.

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

In all my years of pre-ordering a phone I've never had a release date pushed forward. Nice surprise then from Nokia, emailing to inform me its moved from 18th to 6th of March. Should be with me tomorrow then.

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

Well no dispatch email last night and my order status hasn't been updated so maybe got excited for sod all

Thank you for ordering from Nokia phones shop. We wanted to let you know that the release date for your pre-ordered product has changed. The following product will now be available on 06 March 2019.




Order Number
XXXXXXXXXX
Product ID
5284893300
Product Name
D | Nokia 9 | GB | Blue | 128GB | Single SIM | Batch 1

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

Personally I tend to end up adjusting images myself anyway as most devices I've had seem to over process images .

The u11/12+ though seemed to produce the most natural colours , what you saw is what you got kind of thing and not something tailored for the small screen or Instagram.

On a side note, no word from Nokia about the early release following on from the email. Resigned myself back to a delivery date of the 18th.

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

Lol lucky sod, too many lenses though.

Still no update from Nokia regarding the delivery, Amazon have a launch of the 21st though. I'll be a bit miffed if it's available from Amazon before I get mine.

Shipped today ( 11th ) from Holland.

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

Interesting, DHL are delivering mine tomorrow so will check their issues with the camera app and see if they ring true.

More folk on Twitter, XDA forums pointing out flaws, generally pointing towards poor software as in the AA review and bemoaning the 'point and click' results. I'd imagine to get the best out of this you'll definitely need to work with your images a la 808, 1020.

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

Yeah, to put it bluntly the finger print reader is widely reported as crap.

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

Some quick impressions.

Build quality is quite good, it's lightness robs it of the same premium feel as my Note 9 though but no complaints about the display or the ergonomics of the device, although the mono speaker is a little underwhelming.

The fingerprint reader seems to be responding okay for me, the majority of the time anyway, round about a 70-80% success rate. My first experience of an under the screen reader so I don't have anything to make any direct comparisons with but the rear reader on the Note 9 is instant, the Nokia definitely takes longer, it's a fraction of a second but it's noticeable.

Played with the camera a bit, just to get a feel for it and the app and can appreciate peoples issues with the responsiveness of the software, lag switching between modes is quite noticeable. I haven't tried editing any RAW images yet, it was my understanding the Lightroom app was included as default but I can't find it so can't comment on the responsiveness while editing RAW images.

Hopefully tomorrow i'll get some time to test the camera out , but my initial impressions mirror what most reviewers are saying, that it definitely needs some tweaking to meet it's potential.





**Lr app needs to be installed during setup
**Make sure to turn on 'depth' in the camera options, three vertical lines with a diagonal intersecting them. Again haven't made an attempt to take any serious images but just playing around with the depth options, blur, focusing etc and starting to get impressed, particularly with the sharpness of the focused objects.

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

If you've got depth on, I've noticed processing can take a few seconds, never been more than 3-4 for me personally but it's noticeable. As is switching from any other mode to 'Pro' , takes 1-2 seconds for the camera to kick in. App crashed for the first time today, was on full power too so their claim about low voltages ( low battery ) obviously never applied in this instance.


Last time I scoured XDA people weren't too favourable about it's low light performance, so maybe not the best for night shots.

Some sample pictures from a Fin given early access.

Forgot to add finding the screen is too small for editing depth , they really need to add this to Google Photos ( online ).

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

He's get a bit carried away with PP for my liking, but it's a good video showcasing the Nokia 9. Taken some images myself but with mixed results, I'm finding after tweaking them on the phone and then looking at the results on the desktop that they don't like half as good, nothing any other phone would struggle to replicate. And that's the dilemma I have at the moment, will I get the most out of it, will the images be beyond anything else I could get on my Note 9 after some PP ? , simply not sure.

 

[Earth[Tera].bin]

Actually had this out with me today, still finding some faults with it but It's got a certain charm to it.

 

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Yeah same scene . Only really taken a few with each but my initial impression was that the Nokia takes more natural pictures off the bat, on seeing some of the P30 results I'm not so sure anymore. With the depth feature on the Nokia though you tend to get a sharper image with more detail.

P30 Pro is impressive though , and a bit of Swiss army knife where lenses are concerned very versitle.