The Sony NEX-7 pushes the compact interchangeable mirror-less lens camera system over the cliff. The NEX-7 is a compact digital camera with professional-level technologies fused in beautifully crafted magnesium alloy. The top-of-the-line NEX sports a 24.3 megapixel Exmor APS HD CMOS image sensor with a world’s fastest 0.02-second release time lag, 1024×768 OLED viewfinder, 10 fps continuous shooting, 1080/60p video recording with full manual focus and exposure controls.
With an optional lens adapter the NEX-7 can be equipped with almost all existing a-mount lenses, including the Carl Zeiss Sonnar 135mm f1.8 you see in the photo above.
I’m not impressed with camera brands that unnecessarily increase the number of pixels on the same-sized image sensor. I get the feeling Sony is saying, “More pixels on the same image sensor is better.” The NEX-5 has a 14.2 million effective pixels; the NEX-7 has 24.3, on an image sensor with the same size. This means each pixel is significantly smaller on the NEX-7. Smaller pixels generally mean less light is absorbed and that leads to problems in low light photography. Instead of adding a ton more pixels what would have been impressive is a 24.3 megapixel full-frame sensor. The iconic Leica M9 has one, and it’s not much bigger.
Let’s compare the NEX-7 to a US$7000 Leica M9 and find out if a full-frame sensor could have been fitted into the NEX-7. The Leica M9 has a dimension of 5.5×3.15×1.5 inches (WxHxD). The NEX-7′s dimensions are 4.75×2.75×1.69 inches. The NEX-7 is shorter in length (0.75 inches) and height (0.35 inches), but a little thicker (0.19 inches). The Leica M9 has a Kodak KAF-18500 CCD 35.8×23.9 mm full-frame image sensor. The APS CMOS sensor on the NEX-7 is 23.5×15.6 mm. By eliminating the tilting capability of the LCD monitor the NEX-7 could have been fitted with a full-frame image sensor.
With all of the other specifications left the way they are and by keeping the megapixel count to 14.2 as in the NEX-5, I wonder how much better the NEX-7 might have been for low-light photography. If Sony was really serious about photographic quality it should have shied away from packing so many pixels into the APS-C image sensor. Keeping the same number of pixels or moving to a full-frame image sensor would have been better choices.
Ever since photos of the NEX-7 have been appearing online, I’ve wondered what the two dials on top were for. Well, they are for whatever you want them to be. Sony calls the design TRINAVI:
The NEX-7 offers quick, easy control over creative settings via an intuitive new TRINAVI control. Two control dials on the top of the camera are complemented by a control wheel. Pushing the navigation button cycles quickly through various shooting modes, allowing enthusiasts to make custom adjustments and control images with the flexibility of a DSLR camera.
In other words, the two unmarked dials on top and the control wheel on the back can be custom configured for direct control of settings. The NEX-7 takes the concept found in previous NEX models to another level. The NEX-5 and NEX-3 had two buttons you could assign almost anything to. Not only does the NEX-7 allow you to customize a dial, I don’t know of any other digital camera on the market today that gives you the ability to customize three of them.
Unlike prior NEX cameras, the NEX-7 integrates an electronic viewfinder into the body. The biggest advantage of an EVF is the ability to take photographs in bright environments where a display-only solution would be difficult if not impossible. The 0.5-inch 1024×768 OLED Tru-Finder has an approximately 100% field coverage and is supposedly supplied by Samsung. The 3.0-inch Xtra Fine LCD monitor sports a 640×480 pixel format.
Mount Adapter LA-EA2: This optional piece significantly enhances lens options for the NEX-7 as well as the entire line of NEX cameras. The LA-EA2 uses Translucent Mirror Technology, which means light passes through the mirror component to the image sensor but at the same time light is reflected upward to another sensor for phase detection autofocus. Almost all A-mount lenses can be used on the NEX-7 with the LE-EA2 mount adapter for both still images and video.
Video capture at 28Mbps 1080/60p is impressive, but falls short of the best DSLRs with video capability. The NEX-7 easily trumps the video captured by the NEX-5: 17Mbps 1080/60i. There is a 65% increase in bandwidth and the shift from interlaced to progressive will result in better video quality. From my experience the NEX-5 produced very good 1080i video for such a compact digital camera. Unfortunately video continues to be wrapped in AVCHD; Quicktime (MOV) would have been better. For comparison, the Canon 5D Mark II records video at 38.6Mbps 1080/30p, encodes in H.264, and uses a Quicktime wrapper. And the Nikon D7000 at 44Mbps 1080/24p, H.264, Quicktime. It seems the best DSLRs with 1080p video capture capability have chosen Quicktime as the wrapper. Sony should have done the same.
The NEX-5 I’ve used for several months before selling it was manufactured in Thailand. Although the build quality was generally good enough, there were parts of the NEX-5 that felt plasticky. I hope Sony saw fit to have the NEX-7 built in Japan and expect build quality to be as exceptional as the technical specifications, especially since the body-only price will be about US$1200. Available in November.
The recent rumors that Samsung Electronics will be taking over Hewlett-Packard Co.’s personal computer business are not true.
We hope this clarifies any confusion that may have occurred.
The Rechtbank’s-Gravenhage (a Dutch court in the city of The Hague) today issued a formally Europe-wide preliminary injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace smartphones — but not the Galaxy tablets — at Apple’s request. The decision follows a hearing held on August 10 and 11, 2011.
So what did Samsung infringe? European patent EP 2059868 titled “Portable Electronic Device for Photo Management”. Mueller:
[...] In all likelihood, the winning patent is infringed by Android itself — not the operating system per se, but by one or more of the applications that ship with Android and without which the usefulness of Android would be impaired in one particular area (photo viewing). [...]
In the meantime Samsung will need to focus on two things. One to modify its software, if possible, so that it doesn’t infringe the aforementioned Apple patent. Most likely Google will need to modify its software apps related to photos that come preinstalled with Android smartphones.
Second, it needs to focus on selling to these countries where EP 2059868 has not been turned into a valid patent by Apple: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Spain.
I’m sure some enterprising individuals or even companies will make a tidy profit import/exporting the banned Galaxy S, Galaxy S II, and Galaxy Ace smartphones. The injunction will take effect in mid-October.
Samsung considers this a victory, via BBC:
Today’s ruling is an affirmation that the Galaxy range of products is innovative and distinctive.
With regard to the single infringement cited in the ruling, we will take all possible measures including legal action to ensure that there is no disruption in the availability of our Galaxy smartphones to Dutch consumers.
This ruling is not expected to affect sales in other European markets.
Two things. I think Samsung came away from the lawsuit with less battle scares than original expected. It seems Apple is on its way of losing, in the Dutch court system at least, the claim that Samsung blatantly copied the overall look and feel of the iPhone.
Second, maybe there was a translation error on the part of Samsung, but the preliminary injunction does apply to several European countries: Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Lichtenstein, Luxemburg, Monaco, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.K. Also banned in Germany is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
It’s not surprising Apple leads the pack, as there have been numerous articles such as this, but it is quite shocking by how far ahead of the competition they are, especially considering the company only has 10 years of retail experience.
Apple posted US$5626 retail sales per square foot in the last four quarters. Second was Tiffany & Co. with $2974; third was Coach with $1820.
Sam Oliver, AppleInsider:
Since the debut of the Sandy Bridge MacBook Airs over 4 weeks ago, people familiar with the matter say Apple has been unable to equip its indirect reseller channels with any significant stock of the more popular 13-inch models. [...]
The main reason is price: the 13.3-inch MacBook Air starts at US$1299 and is the cheapest among its rivals.
The ASUS UX31 sports a 13.3-inch display, but isn’t available yet; you’ll need to wait until September. The UX31 is rumored to be priced at about $1500.
Another contender is the newly introduced Sony VAIO Z that weighs in at just 2.57 pounds and 0.6 inches. The 13.3-inch MacBook Air is heavier at 2.96 pounds, but the Z is priced at $2749. At that price you get a 1600×900 display and as far as I know the Z is the only 13.3-inch ultrabook you can equip with with an optional 1920×1080 display. But at more than twice the price of the MacBook Air?
The Samsung Series 9 is another. The 13.3-inch 2.8 pounder starts at $1349. The LCD is limited to just 1366×768 pixels, where the MacBook Air sports 1440×900, for $50 less.
The Lenovo X1 matches the price of the Samsung Series 9 at $1349, but is a bit portly at 3.7 pounds. Another unfortunate match is the limited pixels at 1366×768.
I’ve only focused on a few features like weight, thickness, and pixels, but the 13.3-inch MacBook Air turns out to be the most affordable ultrabook you can buy today. And maybe that’s why demand is so strong.
Radiant accounts for over half of the BLUs LGD needs for its iPad 3 panels, while Samsung sources BLUs from the Taiwan maker for all its iPad 3 panels, the sources said. Sharp also uses BLUs from Radiant for iPad 3 panels, as well as from a Japan-based BLU supplier, the sources added.
According to DigiTimes, LG Display (LGD), Samsung, and Sharp will be supplying displays for the next iPad. The most costly and energy consuming component to a LCD is the backlight unit (BLU). The next iPad, which I prefer to call iPad Pro, is rumored to sport a double-resolution 2048×1536 Retina Display.
Four times the pixels will no doubt be eye-candy, but the thin film transistors (TFTs) block a bit of light and more pixels mean more light blockage. The BLU becomes more important the more pixels you have. The three major components in a BLU must be enhanced: light guide plate (LGP), LED strip, and optical film stack.
LEDs are getting smaller, brighter, and cheaper. The LGP is getting thinner and more effective in reorienting light coming out of the LED to go toward the front of the LCD. The optical film stack includes diffusers, brightness enhancement films (BEFs), reflectors, etc. All of these components need to work well together and better than they do today to get around the 400 cd/m2 brightness* level we see on the iPad 2.
This is how the mouse pointer looks like hovering over a clickable item like linked text. A normal mouse pointer automatically changes into this finger pointer. This user interface (UI) design seems to be universal and can be found in OS X, Microsoft Windows, many Linux distributions, etc.
a:hover
By using the CSS :hover selector you can manipulate text effects when the mouse pointer hovers over linked text. But.
In pursuing a minimalist UI on DisplayBlog, I’m thinking, “Are additional visual hover transitions necessary?” Prior to today, I used:
-webkit-transition: ease-in-out;
When the mouse pointer hovered over linkable texts, the grey underline slowly transitioned to red, and back when the mouse pointer was no longer hovering. When I first discovered this transition, I thought it was so cool. But now I’m thinking: “Is it necessary?”
OS UI designers have already thought of an effective method of showing visual cues to when the mouse pointer is hovering over clickable elements on webpages. From a minimalist point of view, why add an additional visual cue to an already universally understood and accepted user experience (UX)? There really is no reason of necessity.
One concern I did have before pulling the plug on textual hover transitions was:
Will the mouse pointer transition be enough of a visual indication that you are now hovering over clickable text?
John Gruber’s Daring Fireball uses a variation of:
a:hover { background-color: grey; color: lighter grey }
The transition on Daring Fireball changes the background color and brightens the text. Subtle but effective. Gruber has a minimalist sensibility when it comes to UI design, more so than many minimalism-touting websites. Most websites, like Daring Fireball, have unmistakable visual transitions when hovering over linked text. But is it necessary?
I am putting forth the idea that it is not, within a minimalistic UI design approach. Once you get accustomed to more, less can be uncomfortable. Taking away that additional visual cue will force the reader to be more visually sensitive to the mouse cursor, but because we are peripherally but closely following the mouse cursor when we’re moving it I don’t foresee this will become a major UX issue. So, in the quest toward minimalism I’ve removed hover visual transitions from DisplayBlog.
The long-anticipated growth in size and volume of AMOLED display manufacturing is finally becoming a reality, with Samsung Mobile Display’s (SMD) ramp-up of the first Gen 5.5 AMOLED fab. The company began installing equipment in its A2 factory in December 2010 and is now expected to reach maximum capacity of 80,000 substrates per month by the end of Q1’12.
Most of the mobile OLED displays manufactured by SMD is used internally for Galaxy-branded smartphones. With the world’s largest Gen 5.5 OLED fab, Samsung will attempt to manufacture larger tablet-sized OLED displays and possibly integrate OLED displays into all Samsung-branded smartphones.
Sprint Nextel Corp. will begin selling the iPhone 5 in mid-October, people familiar with the matter said, closing a huge hole in the No. 3 U.S. carrier’s lineup and giving Apple Inc. another channel for selling its popular phone.
Sprint has about 50 million subscribers. Verizon and AT&T has roughly 100 million each. According the latest NPD Mobile Phone Track service analyzed by Dan Frommer, the best-selling phones in the U.S. during the second quarter:
Of note, third-placed HTC EVO 4G is Sprint’s best-selling smartphone. If the iPhone is in fact coming to Sprint, I wonder how other brands, in particular HTC, will fair. Verizon sold 4.5 million iPhones in the second quarter.
One element of Samsung’s defense strategy is interesting enough that I wanted to report on it beforehand. Ever since Apple started to assert the design of the iPad against other manufacturers, many people have been wondering whether there’s actually prior art for the general design of the iPad in some futuristic devices shown in sci-fi movies and TV series. And indeed, Samsung’s lawyers make this claim now in their defense against Apple’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
Samsung points to Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey” (YouTube clip) as evidence of prior art. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
DisplayBlog is written and produced by Jin Kim. Subscribe via RSS.