The Nokia N86: two steps forward, one step back?

Tuesday 27 October

The Nokia N86 would have benefited from a powerful xenon flash.

This week I’ve been putting the Nokia N86 smartphone through its paces. Now, I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on it, as I’m a big fan of its spiritual predecessor the N82 – in fact I actually bought one – and the N86 is rumoured to have an even better camera. In truth, though, that’s not quite the case…

The problem is the flash. You see, the N82 has a powerful, bright xenon flash which delivers great pictures when there’s just not enough light around. The N86, on the other hand, drops the xenon flash for a regular LED one, at the same time upgrading the camera’s low light abilities. While this might sound like a good idea, it means that if you do have to use the flash, everything has a rather sickly green tinge to it.

That said, non-flash shots on the N86 are noticeably better, whether you’re snapping away on a sunny day or shooting in lower light conditions – and in most other ways it’s certainly a superior handset to the N82. But why couldn’t Nokia give it the xenon treatment?

You can see my full review of the Nokia N86 on this week’s Web TV episode.