Increased pictures sensors, higher resolution, faster Cpu’s and faster network. Mobile phones are getting more and more interesting as a tool for journalist. In the second half of 2009 you will find faster and better phones - making your mobile phone a good recording machine, even for breaking news on television.
One of the first really interesting phones are the Samsung Omnia HD. It delivers video in 1280×720 - 24 frames per second. Still images will be on 3264×2448 pixels. Combined with 7.2 mbps network capabilities. There are some confusion if the Omnia HD is delivered with a 600 Mhz or 800 Mhz processor. Anyhow, which that sort of processing capability - it’s basically a very small laptop. It will run on SymbianS60 v5, but it is theoreticly strong enough to run Linux. Since the screen is touch sensitive and there are no keyboard it’s not really an office phone, but others will come… The thing to notice is that mobile phone are increasing processing power rapidly. My guess is that within three to four years you will be able to edit recorded HD material on the phone. And if you can record HD quality out in the field, do an easy edit in the field or stream HD live, this will change the ballgame for television. Unfortunately the Samsung only comes with a single LED flash. I’m also uncertain if it will support external microphone. I guess not.
Qik is already experimenting with HD streaming from phones and I guess we will see Bambuser and Flixwagon do the same pretty soon.
I hope to test the new Omnia HD as soon as it arrives Norway, in the end of June.
So far I’ve found Nokia to be the best producer of phones for mobile journalist. With the specs from Samsung, I believe Nokia will find themselves in trouble. The mobile phone maker LG are also expected to deliver interesting phones the next year. The next big phone from Nokia is the Nokia N97. It delivers wide-screen format, but not HD. Basically Nokia has just taken an ordinary 4×3 sensor and chopped away some of picture. This produces wide-screen, but the picture quality will be reduced. I’m amazed that Nokia isn’t more innovative in this field. To be fair - they have announced new phones with bigger picture sensor. I agree that the megapixel count is stupid. Lens quality is far more important.
You can check out a brief review of the Samsung Omnia HD at A Bugged Life.
Tags: Cell phone, Hardware, Streaming // 3 Comments »
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