In my previous post I was promising Lumia 1020 sample photos and for some time now I've been uploading them to Flickr. Click on the link below to visit my profile consisting solely of images taken with the Nokia Lumia 1020 (filters have been added to some of the photos on-the-device).
I hadn't used Flickr much before, but at some point they've done a nice overhaul on their user interface and I'm liking it a lot now. It's very modern and makes it easy to upload and add tags/titles to multiple photos at the same time. They also offer a whopping 1TB (yep, terabyte) of storage for your photos so it won't run out very easily!
In case you're not interested in saving photos there yourself, you can spend time browsing through some spectacular photos from all around the world taken by other users.
So today I finally received a delivery containing a new Nokia Lumia 1020! It's the ultimate photography phone of today with a whopping 41 megapixel sensor for clearer and sharper images. Sadly, it is also the last Nokia smartphone I'll ever own since Microsoft bought the mobile business of Nokia =(
Here's one sample photo (cropped and uncropped) of Kerava train station demonstrating the vast amount of details Lumia 1020 is capable of capturing! I'll post some sample photos later on, meanwhile you can check out some unboxing pics. I got the phone in the same signature yellow color as my Lumia 920, I think the phone looks absolutely gorgeous. Getting used to the camera bump on the back will take some time (it is "on the way" when holding it in hand), but it's the price to pay for the awesome photos, a price I'm very much willing to pay! =)
Er.. it's been quite a while since my last post here, sorry about that! Nothing special has happened in my life, but perhaps after moving to capital region I've spent more time out, especially in Helsinki and it has to offer, so I've stopped writing here. Anyway, now that the summer is coming to an end I hope to write more often here!
One thing I haven't stopped at any point is taking photos. And I love to take a lot of them when I'm on the move. This year I haven't used much of my DSLR, instead I've mostly relied on my Nokia Lumia 920. While Lumia 920 has been an absolute fantastic phone, in overall quality and especially the camera, I am most probably switching to the Lumia 1020 when it comes out. Perhaps after that I can rely fully on the phone's camera even on trips from where I'd love to snap high resolution photos for print. I'll get back to that if/when I get my hands on the device. =)
Meanwhile, here's a set of over 400 unedited photos taken with the Lumia 920. There's plenty of pictures from my trips, including Tallinn, Stockholm and San Francisco. Vast majority is from and around Kerava and Helsinki where I live and work respectively. Check out the photos on my SkyDrive by clicking the image below!
San Francisco by Night, captured with my Lumia 920
Ok, now after having Halo 4 for about two months, I'll post a few of my opinions on the game!
Overview and the Campaign
Here we go again!
I had some serious doubts about 343 Industries taking over the Halo saga after Bungie, but those doubts vanished really quickly once I started playing Halo 4. In fact, it only needed the simple yet elegant start screen =D With the image of the Forerunner planet Requiem and just plain space with awesome piece of music, I was feeling really excited already.
First thing you'll notice is that the game is beautiful, really really beautiful! It took me few minutes just to move to the next room because I was gazing at the details and the super rich light effects Halo 4 has. It's amazing how smooth the game still runs, I mean it's still the same old Xbox 360 hardware! The controls are little re-arranged, there's more armor capabilities and weapons, but overall it feels very familiar.
I'm not going to go into the details of the story of Halo 4, except that it's actually a love story! Yes, believe it or not. One epic love story, starring Master Chief and Cortana, who after 8 years of service is starting to deteriorate since artificial intelligences' "best-before" date is at 7 years. Sure, there is a super villain Forerunner called Didact on the Requiem (where MC ended up in the Legendary ending of Halo 3). Didact is on a mission to destroy mankind and Earth, but preventing that has been made a second-in-line concern over the health of Cortana. Rescuing her is the priority for Master Chief. We've all used to seeing them together over the course of 10 years so emotionally it works so that the player too wants to keep Cortana alive. We've seen Master Chief save the world quite some times already, so it's good he has new priorities - to keep his lady Cortana alive. Awesome!
Cortana looks better than ever even though her mind is troubled!
I think the campaign is more cinematic than before, well, maybe in Halo 2 they had as much of cutscenes and spoken lines. At least that's how it felt like. In Halo 4 there is a lot of in-game talk between Cortana and MC, which is great. Also the facial animations are much much better and realistic than what they were in Reach.
On the minus side of the campaign are the usual things: It's too short and frankly, I think it was way too easy. Playing a game on a skill level called Legendary should be like pain all the way through, having to repeat each and every scene a million times. But in Halo 4 there were only few places where that occurred. Oh, and another complaint is the variety of the maps. I liked it that there were maps for all vechiles and stuff, but to me it felt like too much time inside Forerunner or human constructions ( = boring environment). So kind of repetitive levels in that sense, would've liked more nature themed maps etc.
Multiplayer games
I'll put it simple: Halo 4 has the most advanced multiplayer games of any Halos, in my opinion. There are plenty of new things, e.g. showing vechiles and special weapons on the HUD radar and having all kinds of tactical set ups for your armor. All this makes it seemingly easier for the player, but the variety of different armor combinations creates many many strategies each player can follow. However, this is also a downside and some people might not like the extended complexity. For instance I'm stuck to the very basic: having infinite speed boost, grenade damage boost, Promethean vision (see through walls) and long distance guns. I admit, should try all other options too, but I'm too lazy... Despite the changes, the gameplay still feels familiar and you can get into it pretty quickly.
Classic game types are there too, but with new twists. In capture the flag, for example, the flag carrier can now also use his Magnum while carrying the flag!
There is a nice amount of game types, one of the new ones is Regicide where top scorer is the King and the rest of the players try to kill him, fun! There's two really big new concepts in Halo 4, first is Spartan Ops which is like a continuing Campaign Add-On, chapters that you can play either solo or online. Second thing is the Infinity slayer that is enabled in many gamelists. The game gives you bonuses for good tricks and kills you make in the game. Once a certain point level is reached, you can pick a weapon/armor ability out of three choices. And I like it that there is much more medals and things you get awarded on, like driving the flag carrier back to your home base is something you previously had to do with no personal benefit.
One thing that is much better in Halo 4 compared to Reach is the multiplayer maps that come out of box. They've been specifically made to suit multiplayer games and they're not just campaign map rip-offs like in Reach. The maps are really beautiful, like big team slayer map Exile (see video below). Also, I like the fact that there's no mechanical Forge maps in the multiplayer game, at least not yet.
Full HD gameplay sample from big team multiplayer map Exile. (My nick is AliquisNJ and as you can see, I'm not very pro =D But say hi if you bump into me in a game!)
Concolusion
I'd say Halo 4 continues the tradition of epic storylines, beautiful graphics and music with the greatest feature being the multiplayer games that simply rock!
My nephew is very keen on trains, vehicles, dinosaurs and stuff like that. Live dinosaurs are hard to find and despite the cold Finnish winter even mammoths aren't that common.. But I happen to live next to a train station so I figured I might shoot some exciting videos for him to view =) Thus, I took my Lumia 920 into freezing conditions (it was around -10 to -15 °C ) and took a few short clips of trains passing by/stopping. The last one that with train going full speed just about a meter away was actually quite an experience to myself too!
Overall I think the video quality is exceptional, very crisp and steady thanks to the optical image stabilization found on the device. The noisy hum of the full speed trains are quite well recorded as well. Check out the 1080p full HD videos on YouTube!
Here's a really short video of how easy charging can be with the Nokia Lumia 920. Just lay down your phone on the pillow and it'll start charging =) Check it out on YouTube:
I've got a new phone again - Nokia Lumia 920! I wanted it in yellow and boy it looks hot! Had my doubts about the glossy finish, but it's really neat. It's a nice, fresh contrast to the classy, matte black Lumia 800.
This time it's not about an actual need to take up years gap of advances as it was when I switched from iPhone 3G to Windows Phone a year ago, but more of an huge interest on the new, feature-rich WP8 flagship device from Nokia. Especially the low-light camera capabilities interest me since I like taking photos and on mixed/low-light, Lumia 800 can't do squat (see sample below).
Sample comparison. From the left: Lumia 800, Lumia 920 auto settings, Lumia 920 Night Shot mode (all lights are out inside unlike in the first two shots)
In addition to the image stabilization feature, the phone has been packed with so much cool stuff - the super sensitive, high resolution screen (yes it looks amazingly sharp compared to Lumia 800), it has WP8 with more speed, power and customization + apps (I can now play Angry Birds Space and Star Wars!) ;D plus NFC and wireless charging that I haven't had time to test yet!
Based on two days testing, I can say that yes, Nokia really delivers this time and the floating lens stuff is not a gimmick! Sure, the photos taken in really dark night condition tend out to have some blur when zoomed 100% but most of the time the photos are truly remarkable.
PS. the phone is a bit bulky if you compare it to other smartphones out there, but I think this has been made into a much bigger "issue" than it really is. The size and weight really doesn't bother me at all, if anything it feels really solid and fits perfectly to hand!
PPS. Don't get me wrong, Lumia 800 is still a very solid smartphone and takes great daylight photos. Will get WP 7.8 on it when it comes out.
