It is.

As a DSLR owner I'd be wrong if I didn't give you two tips:

a) DSLRs are f*ng impressive. The quality is stunning compared to just about any other imaging tech out there. There is endless fun to be had. They also look cool when everyone uses compacts and phones to keep memories, taking 15 shots to get one right and a DSLR only needs one. And then there's the sound. And the 12 bit color. And HDR.

b) They are incredibly expensive. Well worth it, but expensive. They sound cheap, but if you plan on using it right it needs a few more glasses and it starts to mount up. On the bright side, once you have your camera and your fav lenses it's free. And there's a great second hand market. Still, unless you have around 2000E to throw at it, you're going to have equipment envy.

and one advice:

Buy a very good camera. This is paramount. Forget the price and marketing, go to dpreviews, look them up, pick a good one. Because once you do, you'll buy glass, accessories, and you'll beat yourself if it has some flaw.

And one last tip. Fanboism is rampant in the world of DSLRs. REALLY rampant. Let me save you trouble. They are all basically the same if they come from the top guns in the industry. Canon, Nikon, Sony. I went with Sony because they have in-camera stabilization, making lenses cheaper. To each his own, I guess.

I'll stop here before I post another multi-part review

Can't say, with Nokia you never know. Still, they have screens, promises, beta testers. It's definitely real unlike some other updates they kind of forgot about. I'd make a crack on N900 here but it's not funny.

It is visibly better. It's not that E7 doesn't do text, it does, it just needs bigger font to make text visible in low resolution, so loads-of-text is going to show. Think of it as N900 with big fonts.

Opera does a font-and-zoom thing that I find really nice. Double-tapping zooms element to screen, makes font large enough to read and reflows the text.

It can. Without Big Screen, it does N900-like output (it even has PAL output just like N900). That is, shows the menu/desktop on screen.

Big Screen is a media center that gives you a menu for music, video, images, a la HTPC, while the phone itself displays a D-pad with very big buttons so you can control it. It also allows control via BT-linked hardware, like mice, keyboards and Wi-motes or what that's called. As a result, you can plug the phone in the back of the TV and watch video using a non-directional remote to control.

Lookie here. See the video to view it in action.

Not a breakthrough in technology, still, allows a pro-looking display rather than showing the world your menu full of strip games. I mean, personal data. Yeah. Personal data, that's what I meant.

Also, you have Default apps, a la XP+, so you can have NBS fire up automatically when HDMI is plugged. Still an option, you can use the normal players.

It can use media player to stream RTSP links, just like N900, also, it sports an Internet radio. With Anna, it comes with one installed, sporting 4000 stations or so.

It also has a streaming access point, and you can initiate a link via said AP while in a call, much like sending a MMS, except this can be done while in a call, with the other party (as opposed to anyone, via select number).

Once this is accepted, the other party can see live from your camera. If it sounds like a fancy version of video calling over 3G, and you think it's useless, then great, because as far as I can tell it's precisely that. Documentation is poor. Help is limited. I just left it where it dropped.

N900 works by being online as long as possible, regardless. This kills battery.

Symbian works on a request basis. What it does is scan for wifis, but does not connect, it just keeps it as an option. As soon as someone wants out, it will "dial" out, transfer data and the hang up, be it wifi, 3G, etc.

On N900, wanting something is instant because it's online. With E7, you need to wait a little. Generally, it's half a second, as it already knows what to connect to. Most apps offer "Easy WLAN" as a connection option, which means "if online, go. if a known wlan is close, hit that. If more, hit in order. If not, scan and ask me". Which is, indeed, easy. er. Easier. Can't win them all.

Still, if you hop on and off it's kind of distracting and it also goes off unexpectedly when widgets request it. There is a screen that tells you who wants out and why it is online (apps that use the link). As soon as they shut up or don't do enough traffic, it hangs up.

It is extremely useful with battery life, not being on WLAN at all times almost doubles my battery life alone.

However, it does have drawbacks. For example, live chat isn't live no more when using a widget. What it does is link up and ask for new messages. If one exists, then it keeps it live for a little while to see if there are more (they arrive in packs). If not, is sleeps again. You can fire up the chat app by clicking the message/widget and that keeps it online at all times, but now it wastes battery.

So you can either have a 5 minute delay or the lower battery life. It's good you have an option. It's bad that Instant Messaging is kind of not instant. In fact, it's about as lively as mail.

I was a bit disappointed myself, but we've grown closer with time. It's still a Nokia, so it still has frustrating moments, some bugs, sometimes needs a reboot, but it's lighter on my nerves than N900. Hey, progress is progress

When considering low light performance I never count the flash. First, because if it's flashed, it's no longer low light, now is it? Second, because flash only illuminates close targets that support flash, not distant targets, panoramas, landscapes, sleeping babies, plus, it washes out the image. Plus, color of skin starts to matter. It's very hard to review. Especially with no specs.

I tried to get hold of camera sensor specs for E7 but couldn't. If you have a link to a reputable source I'll gladly bring the math out to work out the light distribution and post the errata.

I could only find specs for N8. And while it is impressive for a phone, it's laughable by camera standards. It sounds nice in marketing (bigger than some cameras), but it's only the second smallest sensor size. It looks nice, but even positive (and professionally done) reviews admit that while it has clearer images, the shutter is 1/8 or slower which to a photographer means only one thing: static images only.

Anything under 1/125 will need to be slow moving or stopped, and stabilized. Anything over 1/15 has to be standstill, and with a tripod.

1/8 means that a talking person will have a blur for a mouth.

I'd like to make clear that when I say low light poor performance I mean low light poor performance (kids these days, right?). By which I mean in an absolute scale. It may be better than other phones (it is), but better evacuation from rear end still smells. You can't take moving shots in low light, it loses color depth, etc.

1/1.8 sensor has 38 mm2. APS-C in a DSLR is ten times that. A full frame is ~30 times that. And then there's glass size.

I did refer to E7 camera in the paragraph, and I did offer the N8 as hint of what happens when resolution goes up. That said, I did not review the N8 camera in depth, so if they compensated for it with larger optics, it may be better than E7.

Still, that is not saying much.

They only real thing I found was that both N8 and E7 seem to have an f/2.8 camera so, in theory, they should be exactly the same.

Like it wasn't difficult enough.

No, troll. That ^^ is why you are on my ignore list. Because you are stubborn, attack in your posts, put labels on people, throw in words like "ignorant" two rows after admitting that in a 50.000 character review you only disagree with one point, and "fanboi" because I like what you also like, but dare disagree on points.

You are also on my ignore list because you accuse me of fanboism, but are active in IPhone versus N900, Galaxy versus N900 threads, Android 2.3.5 and other competitors, defending whatever you feel like it with posts that contain "N900 is GOD" and posts replies that starts with "Wrong." and that timeless, signature "Oh dear, how old are you?"

You wanted to start an endless debate and I ignored you.

And, if you were the adult you claimed, you would have gone away, instead of coming back and throwing a tantrum over the injustice of the internet.

The nerve of these fanbois!

On a side note, I found more images with E7.

Next up, in-depth review of Anna. Also, Symbian Anna. Ha!