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Thankfully, the adapter finally arrived this morning (thanks WOM World!) so I was able to charge the N82 in preparation for a full day’s use. My initial thoughts after the jump.

I won’t bore you with comparisons between photos captured with the N82 and those taken with my current ’smartphone’ because there’s simply no comparison. Instead, I’ll let the photos do the talking. These photos were taken on my way back from the gym today, in various lighting conditions and with a variety of settings.

I was eager to see how the camera on the N82 handled macro or ‘close-up’ photography, and I have to say that while I’m not thrilled with the quality, I’m not completely disappointed with how this turned out. The N82’s form factor is deceptively small and leads you to think that it would be OK to hold such a small camera with one hand, but I found if you don’t have steady hands (and I don’t), it’s probably better to hold the N82 with both hands in order to stabilize the image.

I haven’t yet figured out how to change the contrast on the N82’s screen so that it’s easier to see in outdoor light, so I couldn’t really see how this shot turned out after I took it. In difficult lighting situations such as this, most point and shoot cameras will either blow out the highlights on the building or the mountains, or they’d lose all detail in the shadowed parts of the photo. I’m amazed at how well the N82’s camera handled a mixed lighting situation. When composing a shot like this with my Nikon D80*, I have to meter for the sky, meter for the darkened street and try to find an average in between. With the N82, I literally held the camera up, pressed the shutter and ended up with this result. Amazing.

(*When I shoot with my D80, I never shoot in Program mode. I’m a bit of a photography snob that way.)

The Xenon flash fired in this shot, although I wish it hadn’t. You can see that the highlights are a bit hot, and the glare created by the flash is distracting. This was taken in full Auto mode; I didn’t change the mode to close-up, and I didn’t turn the flash off. This shot isn’t terrible, but it could be much better. It would be wonderful if there was a way to control the flash on the fly.

I was disappointed with the vibrancy and richness of the N82’s colours straight out of the camera. While it’s possible to switch to a ‘vivid’ setting and improve the results, I would have thought that a 5 megapixel camera with a legendary Zeiss lens would have produced better results. In addition, if you’re rapidly moving between situations — from shooting landscapes to a portrait of your best friend, for example — you’d waste a lot of time going through the N82’s fiddly menus to set the appropriate mode. I’d love it if the N82 had a function switch like my Canon Powershot S2 IS. Give me one-button access to change colour modes — or the mode of my choice!

Even though you might not be able to tell it from this review, I’m still excited about the N82. Right now I’m reserving final judgement because I haven’t yet become fully familiar with the phone’s menus and functions (the manual is tremendously unhelpful in this regard). I’m also a little upset that I can’t get the N82’s Lifeblog program to work with my WordPress powered blog, which means I have to go through an extra step if I want photos to appear on this blog. Plus, the LifeBlog software is Windows only (seriously, Nokia? In this day and age?), so I can’t use it to organize and upload my photos from my MacBook. I’ll be posting more photos and impressions throughout the week. Stay tuned.