The Nokia N82 remains the king of the darkness in terms of picture quality, as far as Nokia devices are concerned, especially thanks to its Xenon flash. So how does the new Nokia standard, the Dual-LED flash perform in comparison to the Xenon, in pitch darkness? Are the pictures good enough? Are the videos better? Here is the answer to your questions, as the 3rd part of our N85 vs N82 comparison.
First, here are the shots in a dark room, with no exterior nor interior lights. The N82 images are on the left, the N85’s on the right (click on the thumbnails to go to the bigger images).
As you can see, the N82’s images are more clear, more pleasant to look at, and more detailed. They’re also a lot better lit, all across the image. The N85’s results are pretty decent, but nowhere as good as the N82’s. But what the Dual LED on the N85 loses in terms of pictures, it gains back in terms of video recording: the LED light on the N85 can be activated during video recording, which means that you can light up the surroundings clearly up to 1m approximately. Just check the video below, comparing both handsets, and see how poorly the N82 behaves since Xenon can’t be activated for more than a part of a second and is hence unusable in dark conditions.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTFTYrfvCMs
In my opinion, the Dual LED is a good compromise because it allows for decent still shots, while still being able to give a good video recording quality at night. Though we’re all waiting for a handset that will carry both of them for the ultimate image/video combo.