eK-gadgets info

Being another first for BlackBerry, RIM has delved into the widely competed touchscreen market.  Not wanting to be sucked in as “another iPhone wannabe” however, RIM has developed several unique technologies in an attempt to diverge from the traditional touchscreen stigma.  So how does this phone actually fare in-hand, and how does it stack up to its competitors?

After the break, we find the answers to this question, AND we smash the thing apart for some good ol’ teardown analysis.

BlackBerry Storm Review

Greats

First things first, at first sight, this phone is gorgeous.  We think its one of the better looking phones on the market today.  It’s got slants to the device, along with metallic backings - a first for BlackBerry.  Not only that, but the battery door ACTUALLY WORKS.  It’s buttons are well placed, the piano black/matte black/metallic black trims complement each other very well, and the chromed sides actually don’t feel like cheap plastic.  If this is any indication at what the Javelin will look like, then I’ve got good feelings about it.

Next off, the screen is another winner.  Although it doesn’t have the brightness nor the sharpness and pixel density to match the Bold, its HVGA screen on a 3.25″ screen seem to work just fine for movies, tv shows, browsing (we’ll get to that), and anything else that requires lots of screen real estate.  Visuals are obviously accompanied by sound, and while the sound is definitely capable of producing loud obnoxious noises, it doesn’t match the Bold’s quality; it doesn’t have much depth and just sounds like pure treble.

 

Media experiences in general, on the Storm, are fantastic.  It’s built in way more codecs for audio and video, has a decent interface for finding and playing music, and works as music player.  In fact, though their SurePress technology isn’t mentioned in this review’s “Greats”, it works really well for controlling your music.  RIM has mentioned countless times their intention to dive into the consumer market, and with these capabilities, it definitely works.

Luke Warm

Luke warm features are features that aren’t good, nor are they bad.  The first feature on the Storm to receive this fairly mediocre grading is, you guessed it: SurePress technology.  RIM has attempted to really give BlackBerry owners a touchscreen alternative without feeling frustrated by their keyboard.  By giving tactile feedback, you understand the timing for typing, and once you get rhythm, you get rhyme speed.  It’s implementation works rather well for menu selections, the dialpad (it’s honestly fun to type numbers), and as mentioned, the media player.  Unfortunately, typing, even on a gigantic landscape keyboard, just doesn’t feel right.  It’s mucky, because once you gain speed, you instantly hit an error.  This is due to the touchscreen not being able to recognize another finger while the button is being depressed.  If it had multi-touch functionality, letting you place your finger while you’re pressing another finger, we bet that implementation would be glorious.  For now, however, we got to stick with infuriating spelling mistakes from going too fast.  Not only that, but typing on the screen takes a lot more effort than a traditional QWERTY keyboard, and a regular touchscreen keyboard — you have to press the WHOLE screen down.  It’s easy near the edges, because the radius from the centre gives you easy torque, but anything middle-to-top-row is becomes a pain when you’re hammering out gigantic emails.

 

Another luke warm feature is the browser.  Without going into performance metrics, the browser still isn’t up to par with its webkit-based friends (i.e. Safari/Chrome-Lite-ish).  While it’s true that it’s drastically improved over previous generations, it’s nowhere near the level of Safari.  Format pages like IGN still give it your good ol’ lists of links and text for you to scroll around.  This bring us to our next point: capacitive touch.

What’s annoying about Verizon phones is that their capacitive touch phones (including the Motorola Krave) always come with a STICKY screen protector.  It leaves a nasty sticky feeling to the screen, which totally harps on first impressions.  What the Storm needs is a good glossing of the screen - it’ll just generally feel more touch-accepting.  The use of gestures is also inconsistent, and without the rubberband effect deployed by other phones, scrolling feels, lacking.  Viewing any relatively long page will have you scrolling like a mad man, because the screen stops when your finger is lifted off.

Gripes

Applications.  Back in the old days, BlackBerry was competing against Palm for the enterprise space, and even then, the distinction of Palm was its better third party support.  Storm seems to be the first to really try and break this stigma, but… it fails (obviously, since its in the gripes section).  What Apple and Google have done was generate application “outlets” in which you can download and install third party apps, with the latter even focusing their entire handset around this concept.  RIM has developed an “Applications Centre”, which was carrier specific.  This was a poor choice, as carrier-specific applications (namely, VZ Navigator, and other VZ products) are pretty useless, and aren’t anywhere near as diverse as the App Store and the Android Market.

Finally, performance.  This is what totally kills the device in our opinion.  Everything about this phone lags.  Ever since the videos were leaked showing its UI, people have been complaining about the animation lag and hoping that everything would sort itself out by launch.  Unfortunately, even with the last-minute flashing of devices, nothing has changed.  Right on the main menu, scrolling through applications gives a choppy feeling.  Even the media application takes a while to boot, and you end up double clicking in an attempt to get things going.  When I plugged the unit into the computer attempting to sideload, even that dragged in performance.  Typical BlackBerrys have been awesome at sideloading when enumerated through Mass Storage Class, but this one, in traditional Verizon fare, runs on MTP mode for syncing with Rhapsody and Windows Media Player.  Transferring movies to watch on your phone, just plainly sucks.

Conclusion

Everything about BlackBerry is defined around efficiency and its ability to get things done.  The Storm stays true in its ability to feel connected, with perfect integration of corporate e-mails, personal e-mails, texts, contacts, Facebook, My Space etc.  Unfortunately, actually using the device, causes an uprising of frustration.  It doesn’t flow well, and goes against what all the other BlackBerry’s have been so good at.  I feel that RIM pushed this out the door for the holiday season, when it actually should’ve been released in 2009.

phoneWreck Score for the BlackBerry Storm: 7 wrecks out of 10.

BlackBerry Storm Teardown

Enough about the phone!  Let’s dig into the juiciness of the Storm.  Remember how I said that the Bold was one of the easiest devices to teardown?  The Storm is the complete opposite.  There are a bunch of hidden screws that require prying off areas such as the camera plexiglass cover, the chin of the device, and the stickers that surround the back.  Also, the shielding around the ICs are even harder to get at than before.  You’ll need some razor sharp wire cutters to get through that (or you could solder the sides off if you’re that keen on it).  But if you were intending on opening up this device, without a scratch in the end, I wish you good luck.

Nevertheless, we got the thing open for you all to see.  The PCB is actually ridiculously small.  And everything actually fits on there including the processor, memory units, all the transceivers and power amps, and things like Bluetooth ICs.  There’s some random spots of circuitry on the other spots of the phone as well, but its amazing how well everything is integrated.  We’ve put the block diagram out below.  Note: several things on here are educated guesses.  We’ve noted these with the asterisks.  Unlike previous teardowns, the ICs on this device seem rather hard to identify.

Most important to note is the implementation of Qualcomm’s latest MSM7600 processor.  When you view the datasheet, its pretty easy to guess what’s wrong with this phone.  There’s just too much functionality jammed integrated into the processor, including audio codecs, graphics processing, and even GPS functionality.  Samsung’s memory MCP from the Bold makes another notable appearance.  Avago takes care of the CDMA Power Amps, but the GSM Power Amps seem unmarked, which makes it hard to find.  We’ll update this if/when we find out though.

 

This being primarily a CDMA device, Qualcomm brings their entire chipset onto the line including its RF Transceivers for both CDMA/EV-DO, an integrated GSM/UMTS chip, and its PMIC.  TriQuint Semiconductors also makes an appearance.  They’ve previously been used for Duplexers in previous mainstream devices, but its difficult to identify what this IC does, so we’ve assumed that it’s something to do with managing power.  Bluetooth functionality is again won by CSR, while SiRF is notably absent due to the GPS integration into the processor.  A West Bridge chip is also notably absent, with USB functionality also being driven by the processor.  STMicroelectronics seems to have developed the Accelerometer, as the chip in this phone seems eerily similar to one of their other Accelerometer chips in a previous breakdown.  Finally, with Synaptics boasting much of its multi-touch capabilities, we’re making guesses that the BlackBerry Storm uses a Synaptics IC for driving the capacitive touch.  It’s possible that a full multi-touch can be implemented on this hardware, but whether it’ll require updates to the actual hardware or just the firmware, remains to be seen.

Of course, what you’ve came here to see is not just the circuitry.  You wanted to see how the actual button looks like, no?  Here it is, in plain view!  It’s a regular button, pushed by a marked Magnesium Alloy plate with a bump.  Enjoy responsibly.

Via : Iphonewreck

 

Sure, we hit up the press event and got some early hands on action, but there’s nothing like a really solid review, right? We’ve been using the T-Mobile G1 for around a week and we’ve literally combed through the entire device. So much so that we split up the sections piece by piece and separated it into hardware and software. If you’ve got a G1 on the way or are passionately considering scoopin’ one up, you are out of luck they are all sold out might want to take a gander at what we’ve put together.

Hardware:

The hardware part is a little tricky. The phone has supposedly been in development for years, yet we can’t get beyond the feeling that this device is a little bit too prematurely at the prime-time stage. The black model especially just looks like a prototype in a couple areas. One being the four physical buttons on the banana end of the handset. Those are send, home, back and end/power. While the tactile feedback of those buttons is fine, you often times try and select one, and it doesn’t register anything. That’s because of the small size and physical surroundings if you will. They are basically flush with the case, thus making it difficult sometimes to accurately push one of them.

The screen is very crisp and actually offers the second best touch-screen experience ever, yes, compared to the iPhone at number one. For all you Storm lovers, we haven’t officially reviewed the Storm yet so that is why it’s not in this list if it did in fact make it on. It’s a capacitive screen which means that force isn’t necessary. Essentially the touch panel registers the minute electrical pulses in your fingers instead of looking for an actual physical touch input. That works great and we’re happy to say the screen has a high-quality feel all around. It’s not glass, rather a very hard plastic which we love using.

Now onto the probably one of the G1’s biggest features — keyboard time! There are two parts to this; the keyboard is better than most, but not quite perfect. The reason is that the keys are about 1-2mm too flush with the case. There is a bunch of room under the flip, and we really would have loved to see HTC jump up the ‘board a little bit. If they could, they probably would, so it’s most likely not their fault, but that would have made for one of the nicest QWERTY typing experiences to come along in a pretty long time. The layout is completely fine and you won’t have any trouble navigating at all. That includes a very clean white backlighting on the keys and the actual hard/soft plastic feel the physical keys have.

When you take the battery cover off the G1, the first thing you might see is the vibrate mechanism. It’s actually the first time we’ve ever seen one exposed on a mobile device and it gives off a weird vibrate feeling. It’s sort of a rough ass vibrate that makes you feel like the phone is going to explode. Ok, well maybe not that bad, but we guess a stronger vibrate is better than a weak one? That’s what she said.

The speakers are another big important feature of the G1 as this is pretty much a consumer-targeted phone. The placement is again, (noticing a trend here?) flush with the casing. There’s a tiny raised dot which theoretically would help divert sound off a flat surface when resting your phone on, but it honestly does little to remedy the muffled sound you’ll get. The actual speakers are pretty decent when not on a flat surface, but we had trouble hearing alert sounds when the phone wasn’t right next to us or when it was in a pocket.

The camera isn’t all too bad, but for some reason we were expecting more out of a 3 megapixel + camera. Performance even in daylight didn’t work out too well for us, and pictures never got that sharp and crisp look we were looking forward to. Forgot about low-light performance. Without a flash, that’s a non-starter.

Now, onto the actual flip mechanism… it works very well. HTC has made this thing really durable and it slides out with ease, and the same goes for closing it. It’s pretty violent (read: not smooth) but we don’t have any qualms about it. Put it like this… if people are experiencing hardware problems with the G1, we highly doubt it will be with the flip assembly.

Summing up the hardware bit, we’ve just got to get this out of the way; WHY IN THE HELL IS THE DAMN THING ANGLED AT THE BOTTOM LIKE A BANANA? Can someone please enlighten us? This does absolutely nothing for the handset, it just makes its more difficult to hold and carry in a pocket or something else. It really annoys the crap out of us that it isn’t just flat. Heck, everything on the device is flat — buttons, camera, speakers — why not keep in the tradition of flatness?

Software:

There’s no real task manager. Sure, you hold the home button and get a recent list of open apps, and you can install a 3rd party program that makes it easier to switch applications with shortcut keys, but still, sometimes you just want to completely close something. In all fairness, the G1 and specifically Android does a pretty decent job at managing memory, but we have run into a couple “wait for application to respond or close” errors while putting the phone through it’s paces.

We realize this is just the beginning and we’ve got more hope in the platform itself than we ever had before, but for something that was being cooked up for so long, and something practically started by the Sidekick king himself, we can’t understand why there are so many general inconsistencies and non-existent functions.

For instance, the device has an LED in the earpiece to designate charging status (orange for charging, green for full), yet that can’t be used as a notification light for missed events. There’s no keyboard options like key repeat rate, delay, no trackball sensitivity options, and worst of all, when you set a lock for the device, there’s no timeout option! Let’s repeat this. When you set a lock password for the phone, which isn’t a password at all, it’s a specific drawing on the screen which is pretty cool yet highly insecure, the phone will lock and require a password each and every time the screen goes off. For people who the screen set to a 15 second or 30 second timeout, that means you’ll have to unlock the phone by pressing the power button, the menu button, and then drawing your pass-phrase on the screen every single time. Absolutely ridiculous we say.

We’ll explain the inconsistencies for you so you know what to expect and get an idea for how we say the phone is definitely v1. In maps, you can press menu + z to bring up the zoom keys, but you can’t do that in any other application like the web browser, for instance. Just plain stupid. Android could be at least 40% better if all these inconsistencies were addressed and actually let you do more with less, instead of making you work harder to get to the same place.

What about an on-screen keyboard? You’re out of luck. It’s way stupid in our opinion that you can’t pull up a T9 layout and fire off some quick 4 or 5 letter word to a friend in an SMS. You are forced to slide the phone open, and bang out your sentences using the physical keyboard. This can get extremely tiring seeing as there’s practically no way to send off a quick message when it’s closed. Heck, we would have ever appreciated some canned pre-loaded responses. That would have probably held us over for a bit, but nope, there’s no way to basically enter any information other than dialing a number when the phone is closed.

Let’s look at Wi-Fi on the G1… it works pretty well most of the time, but we have run into a couple occasions of the phone staying connected to a much weaker saved network rather than switching to a stronger saved one. The biggest issue you’ll run into using Wi-Fi on here is that it absolutely murders the battery. Even when the phone is locked your battery is dying rather quickly. You’d be lucky to get around three hours of semi-rough usage with Wi-Fi. On the other hand, if Wi-Fi is off, the battery life should really impress you. It’s got a 1150mAh battery which is definitely decent and should power you though the day. We were just a little depressed about the Wi-Fi situation as our Bold and iPhone are both on Wi-Fi and have no issues whatsoever, especially when they are just in standby mode.

Phone calling is pretty straightforward here, and the speakerphone sounds great when it’s not obstructed. The interface is clean and is one of the areas where the G1 looks really, really polished. It’s semi-iPhone like with a swap call button, merge call button, speakerphone button, and keypad button. Call quality was also very good with the G1 in our limited calling tests.

One of favorite applications on the G1 is the SMS app. It’s just very natural to use and makes texting seem fun again. You could think of it as a unified MMS/SMS inbox since everything that is sent to you will show up in message threads in that application. It’s very natural and logical to have such a clean interface where text messages along with photo messages, audio, voice notes, and slides all are seen in one conversation. Big ups to Google for that one, we likes. But what about email? We’re sad to report that emailing is probably one of the worst things the G1 does. It’s clunky, slow, and unresponsive if you are on EDGE. Plus shortcuts are pretty much non-existent.

But, if we go back to the whole unity thing for a second, we’re just not sure why Sidekick king failed to address the issues of inconsistencies and a general lack of usability in some areas, while adding great features in others. Unless we’re seriously missing something, and we doubt we are, there’s no way to instantly flip in between messages, or anything like that. On a Sidekick you have the left and right shoulder buttons to flip through conversations in an application and that applied to every application; IM, SMS, email, even the web browser. But there’s nothing like it here. What’s the point of having 4 dedicated hardware buttons and a full keyboard when there’s basically no shortcuts? It really hinders the overall user experience and will cause people a lot of unnecessary headaches.

Speaking of instant messaging, how is it? As far as smartphones go, it’s one of the worst experiences we’ve had. Google Talk is the best out of AIM, Yahoo, Live Messenger and Gtalk (no surprises there, right?) but it’s still not that good. Reconnects rarely worked for us, we would get signed in and out for no reason, you can’t hide offline buddies, and while you can press menu + space to flip between conversations, the whole thing is clunky at best. So, how are the rest? They work over SMS, people. Utter. Fail. One of the stupidest things we’ve seen in a long, long time. Now, there’s been some debate over AIM and the other clients using data or SMS, but even if they don’t use SMS they are still horrible. Messages take forever to come in, you have very limited options in terms of communicating (read: text only, no media), and again, reconnects aren’t smooth. This should be the “killer app” on the G1 out of the box. Yes, there will be 3rd party solutions, but that doesn’t negate the fact that so many things are just unpolished and rushed here.

There’s the whole theory that basically anything can be added by a 3rd party developer, and for the most part that’s true. We’ve seen applications wonderfully throw themselves in the mix on the phone, and that was incredibly refreshing to see. But, when you have a base package and are leaving a lot of what makes an OS great (intuitiveness, cohesion, user-interface, consistency, and polish) to 3rd party developers, that’s probably not the smartest idea. Why? Well, you might like green and your friend likes blue. Someone might like a putrid mix of green blue and yellow, too. Just because what one developer thinks is the right way to craft a UI for something doesn’t mean another one will feel the same way. That’s going to be the biggest uphill battle for Android in our opinion. Forget about the corporate market for a second, think about how fluid the iPhone is. Heck, think about how consistent a BlackBerry is? Since your first BlackBerry up until now, did you ever have to look at it twice, or did you instantly know what you were doing? Now take the fact that nothing is seamless across even Google’s own OS applications, and let’s now throw in about 5 different form-factors, and 15 different hardware configurations, and 3 different navigational configurations. See what we’re getting at?

How in the world could someone perfect the Android experience across that broad range of hardware when even the first unit doesn’t do that? In the meantime, we think the up-and-coming mobile consumer/prosumer will love the G1 as long as they know what it is. It’s not a BlackBerry, it’s not a Sidekick. You could think of it as the adult Sidekick though, and that, my friends, is what people have been waiting for, for a very long time.

via : BGR

Now that we’ve had some time to spend with the XPERIA X1, we’re going to break down the various features and give you our in-depth review. We’ll continue to update this post as we use the device more, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what’s at hand — a brand new Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1! Full review is after the jump. Pictures will be added shortly.

Screen:

With a 800×480 VGA screen, you can’t really go wrong right? Right. We’ve got to say off the top that this is the best-looking screen we’ve ever seen on a Windows Mobile device. It puts all the others to shame. It’s not just that the screen has an amazing resolution, it’s that the screen is vibrant and clear as day. If your vision isn’t top notch you might have to increase the font size in settings because it gets a little small with that super high-res. Sunlight couldn’t phase it either as we had no problem using it on the go outside.

Audio quality

We didn’t put the speakers through our normal tests just yet to be honest. We tried a couple MP3s and they sounded good, not great. The speaker volume in general could have been a little louder and the sound could have sounded a little fuller. Speakerphone was the same. We’ll report back with more detailed findings.

Notification lights

If you’ve seen the Sidekick LX, you’ll know what we’re talking about. There are 4 independant notification lights on the four corners of the X1. These are LED lights that change through various colors. Unlike the Sidekick, you have complete control over the notification settings. Only want people to think you’ve got a UFO in your pocket when you’re getting a text message? No problem. There’s a lot to choose from to suit your own needs. The lights offer a nice touch and weren’t too over-powering and bright which we were afraid of. The kids will love it.

Call quality

Calls came in and out with crystal clear quality. The ear speaker was plently loud and the party on the other end said we sounded like we were on a land line.

Data Connectivity

Name something you’d like to see in a mobile device… HSDPA? Wi-Fi? GPS? The X1 has all of it. T-Mobile USA lovers will also be overjoyed at the fact that an AWS 1700MHz version is coming. Our unit had the 850MHz/1900MHz US 3G bands so we were rockin’ over HSDPA just fine. In fact, web browsing was abnormally fast. We didn’t find much of a difference between browsing over Wi-Fi or HSDPA. That’s probably due to the bottleneck of the phone in general, but it was a pleasant surprise.

Build quality

Another winner for Sony Ericsson. While the device isn’t the lightest phone on the market, we think it’s build quality is almost second-to-none. Maybe even iPhone status. It’s just so sturdy and well put together. We have to give HTC some mad props on this one. Could you please try and incorporate some of this newfound metal addition into some of your devices HTC? Please. The sliding mechanism was fantastic even though the device isn’t a normal “flat” slider. Major points for build quality.

Usability factor

This could be subjective depending on your view of Windows Mobile, but we found the X1 to be on par or better than any Windows Mobile device we’ve used. Baring the keyboard issue, (see below) there wasn’t anything that hindered us from taking full advantage of the device. When closed, the device gives you access to all necessary shortcuts on the bottom front of the unit. Slide it open and you’ve got access to everything you could want. People have wrote us and asked about how it is to use the phone when the QWERTY keyboard doesn’t have directional keys, but they’ve overlooked something — the optical joystick. This works wonderfully well and doesn’t have a learning curve. It’s a natural extension of what we’ve been forced to use in the past. There was a “cursor” menu in settings but no cursor showed up on the screen. You also have full control over the sensitivity of the optical joystick. Making phone calls was comfortable and we didn’t have any issues with people hearing us or us hearing them.

Keyboard

The keyboard is a sensitive area for many people. Anyone who follows us know we take it very seriously — we put them all through the ringer! So, it pains us to report, that at least with our particular unit, the keyboard wasn’t great. It didn’t take time to get used to it, it just didnt perform like the way we had hoped. The reason is because the keys almost are completely flush with the case and don’t give good tactile feedback when pressed. Odly enough, the spacebar was actually ok. It faired the best out of all of them. We understand why there really is no travel in the keys — there is a huge sliding mechanism right over them — but we would have liked to see a little more feedback when typing. They have this triangular pattern on top which does make it easy to feel them, but you don’t get a good response when actually pressing them down. The backlight on the QWERTY ‘board successfully helped us find the keys when it was nightime, but that still didn’t help when typing. We said this before, but if we had to compare the keyboard to anything, it would be Sony’s UX-series computers. It’s the same exact thing.

by Jeff Keller

The D60 is an updated version of Nikon’s popular D40x entry-level D-SLR. The D60 ($749) retains most of the features that made the D40x a great camera. Those features include a 10 Megapixel CCD, super-fast performance, a 2.5″ LCD display, an easy-to-use interface, and lots more.

How did Nikon top that? By adding these features to the D60:

• EXPEED image processing “concept”
• Dual dust reduction system combines sensor dust-off with an “Airflow Control System” to move dust away from the CCD
• Active D-Lighting brightens shadow areas of a photo as the shot is taken
• Includes new 18 - 55 mm kit lens with Vibration Reduction
• New image retouching options, including Quick Retouch, NEF (RAW) editing, cross star filter, and stop-motion animation

One notable exception from that list is live view: I guess Nikon isn’t ready to jump on that bandwagon with their consumer SLRs just yet.

The D40x, and the D40 before it, were two of my favorite low-cost digital SLRs. Will the D60 continue the tradition? Find out now in our review!

What’s in the Box?

There are “officially” two D60 kits available, though a third one may be available in select locations. The first kit includes the new 18 - 55 mm VR lens ($699), while the second has that lens plus a 55 - 200 mm VR lens ($899). I’ve spotted a third kit at my local Costco warehouse, featuring the 18-55 and 55-200 lenses, a 1GB SD card, and a camera bag, all for $875.

Here’s what you’ll find in the box for each of these:

• The 10.2 effective Megapixel Nikon D60 camera body
• F3.5 - 5.6, 18 - 55 mm Nikkor VR AF-S DX zoom lens
• F4.0 - 5.6, 55 - 200 mm Nikkor VR AF-S DX zoom lens [dual lens kit only]
• EN-EL9 lithium-ion rechargeable battery
• Battery charger
• Body cap
• Eyepiece cap
• Shoulder strap
• USB cable
• CD-ROMs featuring Nikon Software Suite
• 190 page camera manual (printed)

Since the D60 isn’t sold as a body only kit, you’ll find either one or two lenses in the box with it. Both the 18-55 and 55-200 lenses feature Vibration Reduction, which is Nikon’s term for image stabilization. If you have any other Nikkor lenses laying around, keep in mind that they need to be AF-S in order to have autofocus support on the D60. The 18-55 lens performed fairly well, though I did notice some minor corner blurring at wide-angle, as well as some purple fringing. The 55-200 didn’t have those issues, but some slight vignetting (dark corners) was evident in telephoto shots.

Like all D-SLRs, there’s no memory card in the D60’s box, so you’ll need to pick one up (if you don’t have one already). The camera supports both SD and SDHC memory cards, and I’d recommend starting out with a 2GB card. It’s definitely worth spending a little more for a high speed card when you’re using it with a D-SLR.

The D60 uses the same EN-EL9 lithium-ion battery as the D40 and D40x. This battery packs 7.4 Wh of energy into its plastic shell, which is decent. Here’s how that translates into battery life:

Camera Battery life, live view off (CIPA standard) Battery used

Battery life has gone down slightly on the D60 when compared to the D40x before it. In the group as a whole, the D60 is a bit below average. And, since the camera doesn’t support a battery grip, what you see above is the best you’ll get.

I want to mention a few issues about the proprietary battery used by the D60 and most of the cameras in the table above. First, they’re expensive — an extra will set you back around $40. Secondly, if your battery runs out of juice, you can’t use an off-the-shelf battery to get you through the day. The only camera on the above list that takes AAs straight out of the box is the Pentax K200D, so it’s a fairly uncommon feature these days.

When it’s time to charge the battery just snap it into the included charger. It takes just ninety minutes to fully charge the EN-EL9. This isn’t one of those handy chargers that plugs right into the wall — you must use a power cable.

Being a digital SLR, the D60 has plenty of accessories available, and I’ve compiled some of them into this chart:

Accessory Model # Price * Why you want it

Two quick things to mention about accessories. First, you’ll have to spend over $110 to get the AC adapter for this camera, which is nuts. Second, Nikon doesn’t include a video output with the cable (everyone else does), and if you want one, that’ll be at least $9.

Nikon Transfer

Nikon includes a number of software products with the D300. The first is Nikon Transfer, which you can use to transfer images from the camera to your computer. Nikon Transfer gives you a thumbnail view of the photos on the camera, and there are various ways to sort through them. Once you’ve picked your photos, just hit “Start Transfer” and away it goes. The software not only copies the photos to the destination of your choice, but it also lets you select a second, backup location for them.

Nikon ViewNX

Once that’s done, you’ll find yourself in Nikon ViewNX, which you can use for organizing and sharing photos. Here you can the usual thumbnail view, and you can assign photos to various categories, or give them “star” ratings. ViewNX lets you see the focus point used on a photo, listen to voice memos, and convert RAW images to JPEGs.

The RAW editing features are pretty lousy. You can adjust the exposure compensation and white balance, or select a Picture Control (more on that later), but that’s it. In addition, you can only adjust these items while looking at the thumbnails which, while not the end of the world, seems a bit silly to me.

If you want more advanced RAW controls (and who doesn’t), then you’ll have to either use Adobe Photoshop CS3 (with the latest Camera Raw plug-in) or pony up at least $115 for Nikon’s Capture NX software, which I described here.

So what is RAW, anyway? The RAW image format (Nikon calls it NEF) stores unprocessed data from the camera’s sensor. Thanks to this, you can adjust all kinds of image properties without degrading the quality of the image. So, if you botched the white balance, you can change it in your RAW editing — it’s almost like getting a second chance to take a photo. Since the bundled software hardly lets you do anything, you’ll want to pick up a better RAW editor to really take advantage of the format.

The downsides of the RAW format are that 1) the file sizes are significantly larger than JPEGs, 2) camera performance is slower, and 3) you must post-process each image on your computer in order to convert it to a standard image format. Okay, that last one isn’t entirely true — the D60 does let you perform basic RAW edits on the camera itself.

Camera Control Pro 2

Capture NX isn’t the only optional piece of software that you can get for the D60. There’s also Nikon Camera Control Pro 2, which costs a whopping $160. As its name implies, CC Pro lets you control the D60 from your Mac or PC over the USB connection. When you take a photo, it goes straight to your computer. It’s worth pointing out that the D60’s biggest rival (the Canon EOS Rebel XSi) includes remote capture software in the box, though that’s unusual.

Nikon includes a nice, thick manual with the D60. The manual should answer any question that may come up about the camera, though it’s not the most user-friendly read. I do appreciate how Nikon didn’t use a tiny font — even the “fine print” is large. The documentation for the software will be installed on your computer.

Look and Feel

The Nikon D60 is easy to mistake for the D40 or D40x, as all three cameras look exactly the same. That makes it a smaller-sized camera made of high grade plastic. The camera is well put together in most respects, with the one weak spot being the door over the memory card slot.

The D60 has a more substantial grip than the Canon Rebel XSi and Olympus E-420, though it’s still smaller than I’d like (though I seem to have large fingers). There are a fair amount of buttons scattered around the body, and not all of them in are logical places. That said, the buttons you’ll use most often are within easy reach of your fingers. I would recommend getting your hands on the D60 before you buy it, as not everyone is a good “fit” for small SLRs.

Alrighty, let’s take a look at how the D60 compares with others cameras in its class in terms of size and weight:

Camera Dimensions (W x H x D, excluding protrusions) Volume (bulk) Mass (empty) Canon EOS Rebel XSi 5.1 x 3.8 x 2.4 in. 46.5 cu in. 475 g Nikon D40x 5.0 x 3.7 x 2.5 in. 46.3 cu in. 482 g Olympus E-420 5.1 x 3.6 x 2.1 in. 38.6 cu in. 380 g Panasonic Lumix DMC-L10 5.3 x 3.8 x 3.1 in. 62.4 cu in. 480 g Pentax K200D 5.2 x 3.7 x 2.9 in. 55.8 cu in. 630 g Sony Alpha DSLR-A200 5.3 x 3.8 x 2.9 in. 58.4 cu in. 545 g

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the D40x and D60 have the same dimensions — they’re identical. The D60 is a bit heavier, possibly due to its new dust reduction system. The camera falls toward the small end of the spectrum amongst its peers.

Okay, enough numbers, let’s start our tour of the D60 now!

Here’s the front of the D60, with the lens removed. As with the D40 and D40x, the camera has no built-in AF motor, That means that if you want autofocus, you must have an AF-S or AF-I lens attached, as they have their own AF motors. Nikon has built up a good collection of zoom and telephoto primes with the built-in motor, though there are currently no wide-angle or standard primes available with AF-S. If you want a Nikon D-SLR that can use all your Nikkor lenses, then you’ll need to step up to the D80 or D300.

Like nearly all D-SLRs, there’s a crop factor to mention — 1.5X in the case of the D60 — so the 18 - 55 mm kit lens has the field-of-view of a 27 - 82.5 mm lens. To release the lens you have attached, simply press the button to the right of the lens mount.

The holes for the Airflow Control System. Image courtesy of Nikon USA.

Inside the lens mount is the D60’s new dust reduction system. Nikon takes a two-prong approach to dust removal. The first one should sound familiar to anyone who’s looked at digital SLRs recently: the camera uses ultrasonic pulses to literally “shake” dust off of the low-pass filter. The second part of the dust reduction system is rather unique, and Nikon calls is the Airflow Control System. There are tiny holes located at the front of the viewfinder chamber. When the mirror flips up to take a photo, air is channeled through these holes, taking the dust with it. If you want to see some nice animations of how both of these systems work, visit this page on Nikon’s website, and click on number three on the right side of the page.

Directly above the Nikon logo is the D60’s pop-up flash, which is released electronically. It has a guide number of 12 at ISO 100, which is the same as on the D40x. Checking the competition, the Canon Rebel XSi and Pentax K200D have guide numbers of 13, the Olympus E-420 and Sony Alpha DSLR-A200 score a 12, with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-L10 holding up the rear with a GN of 11. If you want more flash power, you can add an external flash via the camera’s hot shoe that I’ll show you in a moment.

Just to the right of the grip is the camera’s AF-assist lamp, which the camera uses as a focusing aid in low light situations. It’s nice to see a camera with a dedicated AF-assist lamp, instead of just using the flash. This lamp also serves as a visual countdown for the self-timer, and it’s used for redeye reduction as well.

The last thing to see here is the receiver for the optional remote control, which is located just under the red triangle on the grip.

The main thing to see on the back of the D60 is its 2.5″ LCD display. This screen, unchanged from the one on the D40x, has 230,000 pixels, so everything is nice and sharp. As I mentioned earlier, the D60 doesn’t support live view — so this screen is for menus and post-shot review only.

Like most cameras in this class, the D60 uses the LCD as a information screen when you’re taking pictures. There are two info screens to choose from, called classic and graphic (which looks like a lot like the logo of these site), and they display plenty of useful data. When you put your eye to the viewfinder, the screen turns off automatically (a feature not found on the D40/D40x), courtesy of an eye sensor.

By pressing the “zoom in” button the lower-right of the LCD you can quickly change any of the options shown on the info screen. If you’re not sure what a particular option does, just press the “zoom out” button, and that’ll bring up a help screen. The camera displays “Assist Images” for each setting, showing you what kind of situation a given setting is appropriate for. There’s also a help screen available, which describes each option.

Warning screen

Speaking of help, sometimes you’ll see a blinking question mark on the info screens above. Press the Help button and the camera will tell you what’s up. All-in-all, Nikon has made the D60 exceptional easy to use.

Getting back to the tour now — directly above the LCD is the D60’s optical viewfinder. While the viewfinder shows 95% of the frame, it’s on the small side, with a magnification of 0.8X (only the Sony A300 and A350’s are smaller). Below the field-of-view is a line of shooting information, which includes the usual things: shutter speed, aperture, focus lock, shots remaining, and more. There’s a diopter correction slider on the right side of the viewfinder which will focus what you’re looking at (handy for those of us without perfect vision).

To the right of the viewfinder is the AE/AF lock button, which is also used for protecting photos in playback mode. Continuing to the right, we find the D60’s one and only command dial.

Below those items is the four-way controller and the delete photo button. You’ll use the four-way controller for navigating menus and reviewing photos you’ve taken.

The last items of note on the back of the D60 can be found to the left of its LCD. They include buttons for:

• Playback mode
• Menu
• Zoom out + Help
• Zoom in + Info + Quick Setting Adjust

Alright, time for the next view!

The first thing to see on the top of the D60 is the hot shoe, right in the center of the photo. It supports i-TTL flash metering with the SB-400, SB-600, and SB-800 Speedlights, and you can also use Nikon’s wireless Creative Lighting System with the SB-800 flash or SU-800 controller. You can also use third party flashes with the D60, but you’ll probably have to set both the camera and flash’s exposure settings manually. The camera can sync as fast as 1/200 sec with an external flash.

Moving to the right, we find the D60’s mode dial, which is chock full of options. The items found here include:

Option Function

As you can see, the D60 offers several scene modes for you beginners, but when you’re ready for something more advanced, there’s a full suite of manual controls as well.

To the upper-right of viewfinder are two buttons. The first turns on the D60’s new Active D-Lighting feature, while the second adjusts the exposure compensation (-5EV to +5EV in 1/3EV increments). D-Lighting has been on Nikon cameras for several years now, but it’s always been something you used after a photo is taken. Active D-Lighting lets you brighten dark areas of your photos as the picture is taken. It does this by breaking the scene into smaller sections, and adjusting the brightness and contrast appropriately for each one. Does it work? Have a look:

Active D-Lighting Off	Active D-Lighting On

Something unexpected happened here. Not only did Active D-Lighting brighten things up (look at the printer, the desk, and all the junk on it), but it also did a much better job at dealing with the window. The window is almost totally blown out without D-Lighting, and properly exposed with it.

If you’re thinking, “what’s the catch”, then I’ll tell you. Images are going to be a bit noisier with D-Lighting and, more importantly, the camera will perform a lot slower. There’s a roughly three second delay after you take a photo with Active D-Lighting, so you may want to avoid using it when you’re taking action shots. The burst mode is also a LOT slower if this feature is turned on. Don’t forget that D-Lighting is also available in playback mode, though I don’t think it’ll be quite as effective as what you see here.

Above that pair of buttons is the power switch, which has the shutter release inside it.

Before I tell you what can be found on this side of the D60, I’ll mention those two switches on the 18 - 55 mm kit lens. The top one switches between auto and manual focus, while the button one turns Vibration Reduction on and off.

Just to the right of the lens mount are two buttons (with the lens release below). These buttons are for:

• Flash release + flash mode (varies, but includes auto, auto w/redeye reduction, fill flash, fill flash w/redeye reduction, slow sync w/redeye reduction, slow sync, rear-curtain slow sync) + flash exposure compensation (-3EV to +1EV in 1/3EV increments)
• Function button - see below

The function button is customizable. By default it toggles the self-timer on and off, but you can also have it change the release mode, image quality/size, ISO, or white balance.

At the far right of the above photo are the D60’s I/O ports, which are protected by a rubber cover. The two ports here include video out (cable not included) and USB. As you’d expect, the D60 supports the USB 2.0 High Speed standard, so data transfer to your computer will be quick.

On the other side of the D60 you’ll find its memory card slot. The plastic door that covers this slot feels especially flimsy.

On the bottom of the D60 you’ll find a metal tripod mount (in line with the lens, of course) and the battery compartment. The door covering the battery compartment is of average quality.

The EN-EL9 battery is shown at right.

Using the Nikon D60

Record Mode

Despite the addition of a dust reduction system, the D60 is still ready to start taking photos a fraction of a second after you flip the power switch.

While autofocus speeds have a lot to do with your choice of lens, generally they were quite fast. With the 18 - 55 mm kit lens, focus times ranged from 0.1 - 0.3 seconds at wide-angle, and around twice that at telephoto. In low light, the D60 focused quickly and accurately, thanks to its powerful AF-assist lamp.

As you’d expect, shutter lag wasn’t an issue on this digital SLR.

Shot-to-shot delays were minimal, except if you’re using Active D-Lighting. If that’s the case, then you’ll have to wait around three seconds before you can take another photo.

After you take a photo, you can hit the delete button to review and/or delete the shot you just took.

Now, let’s take a look at the image size and quality choices on the D60:

Resolution Quality Approx. file size # images on 2GB SD card (optional)

The D60 can take RAW photos, either alone, or with a Large/Basic quality JPEG. It would’ve been nice had they used Normal or Fine quality instead, or at least given you the choice. I explained the benefits of the RAW format back in the software discussion.

Images are named using the following convention: DSC_####.JPG, where #### is 0001 - 9999. File numbering is maintained ever if you switch or erase memory cards.

One of many help screens in the menu system

Moving onto menus, now. The D60 has the same menu system as Nikon’s other recent D-SLRs. Getting around the menu is easy, and if you’re confused about any of the options, just press the Help (zoom out) button for an explanation. The menu is divided up into five parts: playback, shooting, custom, setup, and retouch.

Here’s the full list of menu options for you:

Playback menu Delete (Selected, all) Playback folder (Current, all) Rotate tall (on/off) - automatically rotate images taken in the portrait orientation Slideshow Start Frame interval (2, 3, 5, 10 secs) Print set (Select/deselect, deselect all) - for DPOF print marking Stop-motion movie - for viewing movies that you’ve created; more later
Shooting menu Optimize image - some powerful tools are buried down here Preset (Normal, softer, vivid, more vivid, portrait, black and white) Custom Sharpening (Auto, normal, low, medium low, medium high, high, none) Tone compensation (Auto, normal, less contrast, medium low, medium high, , more contrast, custom) - the custom option lets you use a tone curve that you created in Nikon Camera Control Pro (optional) Color mode (Ia, II, IIIa) - the first one is for portraits (sRGB), the second one is AdobeRGB and for images that will be retouched, and the third one is for landscape shots (also sRGB) Saturation (Auto, normal, moderate, enhanced) Hue (-9° to +9° in 3° increments) Image quality (see above chart) Image size (see above chart) White balance (Auto, incandescent, fluorescent 1-7, direct sunlight, flash, cloudy, shade, preset manual) - see below ISO sensitivity (100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, H1/3200) Noise reduction (on/off) - used when ISO is over 400 or if shutter speed is slower than 8 sec Active D-Lighting (on/off) - described earlier
Custom settings menu - the full list is only shown when the CSM/Setup menu option is set to ‘full’. Reset - back to defaults 1. Beep (on/off) 2. Focus mode (Auto-servo, single-servo, continuous-servo, manual) 3. AF-Area Mode (Closest subject, dynamic area, single point) - the camera only has three focus points 4. Release mode (Single frame, continuous, self-timer, delayed remote, quick response remote) - see below 5. Metering (Matrix, center-weighted, spot) 6. No memory card (Release locked, enable release) - whether you can take a photo without a memory card inserted 7. Image review (on/off) 8. Flash compensation (-3EV to +1EV in 1/3EV increments) 9. AF-assist (on/off) 10. ISO Auto (On, off, max sensitivity, min shutter speed) - see below 11. Function button (Self-timer, release mode, image quality/size, ISO sensitivity, white balance) - define what this button does 12. AE/AF Lock (AE/AF lock, AE lock only, AF lock only, AE lock hold, AF-on) - how this button operates 13. AE lock (on/off) - Whether pressing the shutter release halfway locks exposure 14. Built-in flash / Optional flash unit (TTL, manual) - the latter lets you select the flash strength from 1/32 to full power 15. Auto off timers (Short, normal, long, custom) - how long the menus, post-shot review, and metering last 16. Self-timer (2, 5, 10, 20 secs) 17. Remote on duration (1, 5, 10, 15 mins) - how long the camera waits for input from the remote control 18. Date imprint (Off, date, date & time, date counter) - print the date on your photos; the date counter prints the number of days before or after a selected date 19. Rangefinder (on/off) - whether the exposure meter in the viewfinder shows focus distance in full manual mode
Setup menu CSM/Setup Menu (Simple, full, My Menu) - see below Format memory card Info display format (Classic, graphic, wallpaper) - you can select the info display format for the manual and automatic modes separately; the wallpaper option lets you use a photo as a background Auto shooting info (on/off) - choose whether the info screen is shown automatically; again, you can have different options for the auto and manual shooting modes World Time - set the time zone, date, date format, and daylight savings time setting LCD brightness Brightness (-3 to +3) Auto dim (on/off) - whether screen dims slowly while shooting info is displayed Video mode (NTSC, PAL) Language Image comment - attach text comments to your photos Folders (Select, new, rename, delete) - folder management File number sequence (Off, on, reset) Mirror lock-up (on/off) - for cleaning the CCD Firmware version Dust off reference photo - for the dust removal feature in Nikon Capture NX Auto image rotation (on/off) - whether camera orientation info is saved in the EXIF data
Retouch menu (I’ll discuss all of these in the playback section) Quick retouch D-Lighting (Low, normal, high) - see below Redeye correction Trim Monochrome (Black & white, sepia, cyanotype) Filter effects (Skylight, warm filter, red/green/blue intensifier, cross screen, color balance) Small picture (640 x 480, 320 x 240, 160 x 120) Image overlay - combine two RAW images into one NEF (RAW) processing Stop-motion movie

There’s lots to talk about, and I’ll save the playback options for a bit later in this review. First up: the Optimize Image option in the Shooting Menu. There are several presets available, plus a custom option. The custom option is where you can adjust sharpening, contrast, saturation, and more.

White balance fine-tuning

As you’d expect, there are numerous white balance options on the D60. There are the usual presets, including a whopping seven fluorescent options. Each of the presets can be fine-tuned, using the interface you see above, in the green-magenta and/or blue-amber directions. You can also use a white or gray card in the preset manual mode, for accurate color in really unusual lighting. You cannot set the white balance by color temperature on the D60.

I want to briefly mention the D60’s focus modes. Single-servo AF locks the focus when the shutter release is halfway-pressed. Continuous-servo AF keeps focusing, even if you’ve got the shutter release pressed. Auto-servo will select between those two options, based on subject movement. There’s also a manual focus option available, though you can flip the switch on your lens to accomplish the same thing. The D60 only has three focus points, which feels a bit behind the times in 2008.

Now, onto continuous shooting, a feature which is essentially unchanged from the D40x. Here’s how the camera performed in this mode:

Quality setting Burst rate

Not bad at all, though some of the competition is now up to 3.5 fps. Keep in mind that the camera will grind to a halt after 3 or so shots if you’re using Active D-Lighting.

One feature usually found near the continuous shooting option is exposure bracketing. Strangely enough, there aren’t any bracketing options on the D60, which is disappointing.

An Auto ISO option is always available in the point-and-shoot modes, but if you want it in the P/A/S/M modes too, head to custom setting #10. You can select the maximum sensitivity the camera will use, as well as the shutter speed at which the camera starts boosting the ISO.

The My Menu option lets you select what menu items are visible

The last menu option I want to mention is the My Menu feature, which can be found in the Setup Menu. This lets you select exactly what items are in each of the five menus. This is a great way to make the menu system a little easier to navigate.

Enough about menus — let’s move onto photo quality now. All of the follow test photos were taken with the 18 - 55 mm VR kit lens, except for the night scene, which used the 55 - 200 mm VR.

Like really saturated colors in your photos? Good — so does Nikon. Our macro test shows you just how “punchy” the color is on the D60, with the reds standing out the most here. The subject has the smooth — almost soft — look that should be familiar to owners of Nikon D-SLRs. There’s no noise to be found here, and I that’s to be expected.

The minimum focus distance will depend on the lens you can use. The kit lens can get as close to your subject as 28 cm. If you want to get closer you’ll want a dedicated macro lens, and Nikon offers two that support autofocus on the D60 — one 60 mm, the other 105 mm with Vibration Reduction.

I had this strange feeling of déja vu when I was taking the night test shots for this review. Just like when I reviewed the D40x last year, it was totally foggy in San Francisco — it is that time of year, after all. The fog adds a bit of a color cast to the photo, and it soften things up slightly, as well. Even so, the photo looks great, with plenty of detail captured. There’s no noise or noise reduction artifacting to be found, and purple fringing levels were minimal.

There are two ISO tests in this review, and the first one uses the night scene you see above. I apologize for not having a photo taken at the H1 (ISO 3200) setting available for this test. Here we go:

ISO 100

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

There’s not much of a difference between the first two photos. At ISO 400, we start to see some noise, but detail loss is minimal. Noise and noise reduction artifacting become more obvious at ISO 800, lowering your maximum print size to small or medium (and perhaps larger if you shoot RAW and post-process). The ISO 1600 shot is fairly noisy, and you’re probably better off passing on this one (and the H1 setting above it) for long exposures like this.

We’ll see how the D60 performs at higher sensitivities in better lighting in a bit.

There’s moderate barrel distortion at the wide end of the 18 - 55 mm kit lens. You can see what this does in real world photos by looking at the building on the right side of this photo. The lens had a bit of corner blurriness, but nothing too serious. There’s no vignetting on this lens, though I did spot some on the 55 - 200 mm lens I also used.

There was no redeye in our flash test, and I wouldn’t expect any on a camera with a big pop-up flash (and a powerful redeye reduction lamp) like the D60. If you do encounter this annoyance, you can use the redeye removal tool in the Retouch menu to get rid of it.

Now it’s time for our second ISO test. This one is taken in our studio, and is comparable to other cameras I’ve reviewed over the years. While looking at the crops below gives you a quick overview of the image quality at each sensitivity, viewing the full-size images is always a good idea. And with that:

ISO 100

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200 (H1)

The first three crops are as smooth as butter. You see some mild noise at ISO 800, but that shouldn’t keep you from making a large size print at that setting. Things worsen at ISO 1600, but it’s still very usable for small and midsize prints. The ISO 3200 (H1) setting is still pretty clean all things considered, and you’ll probably want to shoot RAW to minimize detail loss at this setting.

If you’re like me, the first thing you’ll likely notice about the D60’s photo quality is the over-the-top color saturation. Some would call it “consumer friendly”, but I think it’s a little too much. The sky is often so saturated that it looks artificial. I found that dialing down the saturation (via the Optimize Image feature) helps, though sometimes things end up too dull, so I would use it on a case-by-case basis.

What else can I tell you about the D60’s image quality? Like all of Nikon’s D-SLRs, photos are on the soft side. If you think so too, then I again direct you to the Optimize Image feature, where you can bump up the sharpening using the Custom option. Noise isn’t really an issue until the highest ISO settings (1600 and 3200), and noise reduction artifacting was minimal. Purple fringing reared its ugly head a few times, especially with the 18 - 55 mm kit lens, though it was fairly mild.

Movie Mode

Digital SLR cameras do not have movie modes.

Playback Mode

The D60 has one of the most elaborate playback modes that you’ll find on a digital SLR. Before I tell you about the “fancy” features, here are the basic ones: slideshows, DPOF print marking, image protection, thumbnail view, and zoom and scroll. This last item lets you enlarge a photo by as much as 25 times, and then “scroll” around it.

The Retouch menu is where all the action is. Here you can do the following:

• Quick retouch - uses D-Lighting and also boosts contrast and saturation
• D-Lighting - brightens dark areas of a photo
• Redeye correction
• Trim (crop)
• Monochrome - changes a color photo to black and white, sepia, or cyanotype
• Filter effects - use virtual skylight, warm, red/green/blue, cross screen, and color balance filters
• Small picture - downsize an image
• Image overlay - combines two RAW images into one
• NEF (RAW) processing - edit RAW images
• Stop-motion movie - combine a sequence of photos you’ve taken into an AVI movie

Previewing the effect of D-Lighting

The D-Lighting feature found here is different from the Active D-Lighting option in record mode. It brightens dark areas of a photo effectively, though don’t expect it to improve overall contrast levels like Active D-Lighting does. You can select low, medium, or high levels of D-Lighting, and keep in mind that the more D-Lighting you use, the noisier your photo will be.

Quick retouch works in much the same way as D-Lighting, except that “vividness” (contrast and saturation) are boosted as well.

Cross screen filter	Color balance filter

Two of the filter effects are worth nothing. The cross screen (star) filter turns bright light sources in a photo into “stars”. You can select various parameters, preview the shot, and then save it to a new file (see example). I can’t say I’ve been craving a feature like this on a D-SLR, but there you go. A perhaps more useful filter is color balance, which lets you shift the color tone of a photo in whatever direction you wish (see screenshot above).

RAW processing in playback mode

The D60 is one of a very small group of cameras that actually lets you edit a RAW image right on the camera. You can change the image size and quality, white balance, exposure compensation, and Optimize Image setting. The resulting image is saved as a JPEG.

Creating a stop-motion movie

The last feature of note in the Retouch menu is the unique stop-motion movie feature. Simply select a sequence of images, choose the output size (640 x 480, 320 x 240, or 160 x 120) and the frame rate (3, 6, 10, 15 fps), and you’re set. You’ll get a chance to preview the stop-motion movie on the screen, and if it looks good, you can save it to the memory card as an AVI file.

One less-exciting feature that I want to mention is the ability to delete photos in a group, instead of one or all of them. Thanks Nikon!

By default, the camera doesn’t show you much information about your photos, but if you press up or down on the four-way controller you can get a lot more, as you can see above.

The D60 moves from photo to photo instantly in playback mode.

How Does it Compare?

The Nikon D60 is an entry-level digital SLR aimed squarely at consumers. It has a friendly interface with numerous help screens, in-camera photo editing, and very vivid color that borders on unrealistic. You also get a dust reduction system, snappy performance, Active D-Lighting, and solid build quality. There are quite a few downsides, though, including a limited selection of autofocus lenses, a small viewfinder, no live view, and poor bundled RAW editing software. The Nikon D60 isn’t my favorite entry-level digital SLR — mainly due to its soft, over-saturated photos — but it’s certainly worth a look.

If you’ve seen the D40 or D40x, then you’ve seen the D60 — it’s the same body. As entry-level D-SLRs go, the D60’s is quite well put-together. Its made of high grade plastic, with the only questionable part being the flimsy door over the memory card slot. The D60 doesn’t have the biggest right hand grip out there, but it’s better than what you’ll find on cameras like the Canon EOS Rebel XSi and Olympus E-420. While the most important controls are easy to reach, I’m not a fan of the poorly located buttons on the left side of the camera.

Like the D40x before it, the Nikon D60 has a limited selection of autofocus lenses. While most of Nikon’s new lenses have built-in autofocus motors, there are still quite a few in their collection that do not (especially wide and standard primes). It’s a good idea to go over your lens collection to see if they support AF-S or AF-I before you buy the D60. Whatever lens you attach to the D60, there will be a 1.5X focal length conversion ratio. One of the new features on the camera is dust reduction, which Nikon attacks on two fronts. The first one is familiar — the camera shakes dust off the low-pass filter when the camera is turned on and off. The second method is unique to the D60, and it involves funneling air (and dust) through special holes near the lens mount. On the back of the camera you’ll find a 2.5″ LCD display, which is only used for menus and viewing photos you’ve taken — there’s no live view here. The D60’s optical viewfinder is on the small side compared to much of the competition.

As I mentioned, the D60 is definitely slanted more toward the soccer mom than the photo enthusiast. The camera offers numerous auto and scene modes, help screens for every option, and “assist images’ that describe when you’d want to use one of them. In addition, Nikon did a good job with their two information displays on the LCD (graphical being my favorite), and you can change shooting options there as well. In playback mode you’ll find quite a few retouching features, including redeye reduction, color filters, and D-Lighting and “quick enhance” options. You can even string several photos together into a stop-motion movie. There are manual controls on the D60 too, though not as many as I would’ve liked. You get full manual exposure control, numerous white balance options, and in-camera RAW editing (which is arguably more capable than the software Nikon includes with the camera). The D60 supports RAW+JPEG shooting, though the JPEGs are recorded at the Basic quality. Nikon includes with the camera). The Active D-Lighting feature improves overall image contrast, though there’s a noticeable performance hit. The camera has only three focus points and, strangely enough, lacks any kind of auto bracketing.

Camera performance is the D60’s strong suit. The camera is ready to start taking photos a fraction of a second after you flip the power switch, even with the newly added dust reduction system. The camera focuses quickly, in both good light and bad. The dedicated AF-assist lamp is a nice change from the flash-based systems used by most D-SLRs these days. Shutter lag wasn’t an issue, and shot-to-shot delays were minimal. The only time you’ll wait before you have to take another photo is if you’re using Active D-Lighting, which locks the camera up for around three seconds. The D60’s continuous shooting mode is good, with the ability to take 6 RAW or RAW+JPEG shots, and an unlimited number of JPEGs at 3 frames/second. Battery life was a bit below average, and there’s not much you can do about that, as there’s no battery grip available.

I had mixed feelings about the D60’s photo quality, and I think a lot of people will disagree with me here. I think that the photos produced by the camera are too soft, and way oversaturated. Colors are so vivid that they almost appear cartoonish, in my opinion. You can dial down the saturation a bit (and increase the sharpness) using the Optimize Image feature, though I’d use that on a case-by-case basis, as it can make things a bit too dull. Noise is kept to a minimum until the highest ISO settings, and I never found noise reduction artifacting to be much of a problem. The 18 - 55 mm kit lens has some minor corner blurring and purple fringing, and I saw some mild vignetting on the 55 - 200 mm kit lens as well. I didn’t encounter any redeye during my time with the D60, but if you do, you can get rid of it in playback mode.

Overall, I consider the Nikon D60 a “good, but not great” digital SLR. While entry-level buyers will enjoy its point-and-shoot features, I think more experienced photographers will frown on its overprocessed photos, mediocre set of manual controls, and autofocus lens support. I think there are better entry-level D-SLRs out there, but the D60 is still worth looking at.

What I liked:

• Photos have accurate exposure, low noise levels, and minimal purple fringing
• Solid construction; feels better in the hand than the competition
• Dust reduction system
• Large, bright, and sharp 2.5″ LCD; shooting data well presented on the main LCD, with fairly easy access to common settings
• Full manual controls
• Speedy performance in most areas; good continuous shooting mode
• Effective (but slow) Active D-Lighting feature
• In-camera RAW editing
• Dedicated AF-assist lamp
• Redeye not a problem
• Useful features for beginners like D-Lighting, redeye removal, assist images, help system
• USB 2.0 High Speed support

What I didn’t care for:

• Images are oversaturated, and on the soft side
• Limited selection of AF-S lenses means that many Nikkor lenses (mostly primes) will not support autofocus
• Missing some features offered by competitive cameras: bracketing, DOF preview, live view, more than 3 focus points
• Viewfinder on the small side
• Active D-Lighting brings camera to a crawl
• Poor RAW image editing software included
• JPEGs saved at Basic quality in RAW+JPEG mode
• No battery grip available
• Flimsy door over memory card slot
• Video cable not included; AC adapter is way overpriced

 

Hardware Design:

Let’s get the good stuff out of the way first: this is a sleek, well balanced, attractive handset. It sits well in your hand and feels almost perfectly weighted. There are certainly smaller and thinner phones out there, but HTC has struck an impressive balance between usability and efficiency of design. The hardware button layout is a far cry from the “everything-but-the-kitchen-sink” ethos of the Kaiser/Mogul/etc, with 4 hardware navigation buttons (Home, Back, Call Answer, Call End) complemented by a touch-sensitive scroll wheel that doubles as a 4-way D-Pad serving as the main navigation options. A power button on the top and volume keys on the left side of the phone round out the hardware keys. The back of the device reveals the 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera lens and, well, not much else. Our handset is the European version of the Diamond (more on that in a bit), and as such sports a secondary VGA camera for video calls next to the earpiece on the front of the phone. Sadly, this feature will most likely be omitted from any American iterations of the phone. All told, the physical design of the phone is by far one of the best selling points, with a effective compromise between small and usable. While this isn’t specific to the Touch Diamond, we really wish HTC would reconsider their all-in-one min-USB jack. It’s great for charging and file transfers, but especially considering the media-centric appeal of the Diamond, we would appreciate a 3.5 mm headphone jack, as the current configuration limits you to the HTC-supplied headphones unless you’re willing to deal with a cumbersome adapter.

Screen:

As this is a Touch-Screen only device without a physical numeric or QWERTY keypad, the quality of the screen, both in regards to resolution and touch response, is going to determine a lot about how well the handset will perform under day-to-day use. We’re pleased to report that the quality of the display is fantastic, with a bright 2.8″ TFT-LCD with full VGA resolution. Pictures, videos, and web content look beautiful on this thing with a level of clarity not present in your average Windows Mobile handset. Web content looked particularly impressive. Opera and VGA resolution is a killer combo. Unfortunately, the actual touch-screen interface leaves a bit to be desired. Screen presses take an un-nerving amount of pressure to register, often requiring you to tap an icon more than once to register a selection. This, unfortunately, makes the touchscreen QWERTY keypad a bear to use with your bare fingers, and we found ourselves pulling out the stylus on more than one occasion to complete a sentence. The device also feels like it’s moving about a half a second behind your input, which could be contributing to the feeling of unresponsiveness. We hate to make the obvious comparison, but HTC is obviously gunning for the iPhone market with this one and, sadly, the screen just can’t compete with the way that Apple’s finest seems to effortlessly respond to your every input.

Connectivity:

This is where things get a bit tough to call. The Touch Diamond is technically a 3.5G device, sporting 7.2 HSDPA. Unfortunately, our test device is a European spec dual-band 900/2100 MHz HSDPA handset with tri-band 900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/EDGE support. As such, our data tests were basically limited to whatever EDGE signal we could pull down off of the the 1900 MHz band. HSDPA was definitely a no-go, and at times we had trouble connecting getting an EDGE signal. We’ll give HTC a pass on this one, as any American carrier-supported device should be fleshed out with the appropriate radios, but it was a bit disappointing nonetheless. We’re happy to report, however, that Wi-Fi was dead simple to set up, and the Diamond seemed to hold its Wi-Fi signal pretty damn well. We had some trouble acquiring a GPS signal, though once we finally locked in Google Maps worked like a charm.

Sound and Call Quality:

Call quality is above average on the internal earpiece, and callers commented on the clarity of calls initiated from the Diamond. The speakerphone is decent in a quiet environment, but forget about making calls in that Aston convertible, as speaker volume leaves something to be desired. MP3’s sounded surprisingly good given the size of the speaker, but volume is definitely an issue.

TouchFLO 3D:

Here’s where things get interesting. HTC’s new Touch FLO 3D is, without question, the most aesthetically pleasing Windows Mobile skin we’ve ever seen. If you thought the HTC customizations on the original Touch and the Shadow were impressive, you’ll be blown away by the new version. The company has set a new standard for turning Windows Mobile’s corporate whitewash appearance into something you might actually call “attractive”. When we spoke with HTC in London last month, the company indicated that they would be rolling out Touch FLO 3D along much of their lineup, which should go a long way towards countering some of the “ugly” stigma attached to the Windows Mobile platform. Touch FLO 3D goes much deeper than the original iteration of