Menneisyys
06-18-2005, 02:01 PM
The new, 1.31 version of one of the most feature-rich, but, up until now, pretty sluggish and slow image viewer/adjuster/converter applications, XnView (see http://www.xnviewpocket.com/ ), has just been released. As it's a free app that still has one of the best batch conversion modes/support, I've spend some hours on comparing it to the previous version, of which you can find my review at http://winmobiletech.com/PICVIEWERS/#_Toc99100656 .
As has already been pointed out, the biggest problem with older versions (even with version 1.20) was its speed, mostly its inability to load existing thumbnails of images fast. Now, this problem is not existing any more - it's really fast at loading thumbnails! I haven't benchmarked it as yet (see the Standardized EXIF reading and compatibility test results ( http://winmobiletech.com/PICVIEWERS/#_Toc99100684 ) on this), but better late than never ;) At the first glance, though, its speed is now comparable to the best apps in this respect (Resco, Pocket Loupe, Pocket Phojo, Pocket Artist etc). I will publish quantitive results later.
The memory consumption has also been decreased a bit: version 1.20 took 1.509M, the new takes 1.455M. (It can be installed on flash cards/File Store).
It is also capable of IPTC editing, unlike with previous versions.
Unlike with version 1.20, the button-only control is reconfigurable (options are previous/next/zoom in/out, fullscreen) Please see http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=40406 for a discussion on the importance of this feature.
As with 1.20, it supports image dithering, which is also a big plus compared to its alternatives. Also, the ability to quick delete images is great - this is much harder with most other image viewer apps (except for Pocket Loupe).
The problems:
As with the older version(s), in slideshow mode, it swaps images a bit uglier and slower than the other image viewer applications, mainly, Resco. Therefore, if you want to use this tool as an image slideshower app, compare it to Resco first. It also displays the clock upon reading larger images; however, with downscaled (the vast majority of images when using the PDA as an image wallet with previously downscaled images) ones, it doesn't, which is an advantage over other image slidesowing-capable apps like Fujitsu-Siemens Album.
Also, as was the case with previous versions too, it can't convert (adjust etc) 8+ Mpixel images at all (I've re-tested with Canon PowerShot Pro1 (8 Mp), Kodak DCS Pro SLR/n (14 Mp) and Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II (16 Mp) sample images), not even (automatically) resized, even when there're plenty of memory available (I've tested on a 128M RAM Pocket Loox 720 device with 90 Mbyte of free memory reserved for program memory). This is a big minus and should definitely be fixed. This program could be an excellent tool for serious digicam users for on-the-field conversions, image rotation (it supports, for example, losless image rotation - very few tools offer the same, except for, IIRC, the Pocket Artist 3.0, costing 50 bucks) because of its conversion capabilities, which also involve batch mode.
Also, zooming into large (8 Mp+) images, unlike with other programs, results in an error message and a gray screen – other programs are better in that they at least show a(n in most cases a bit pixelizated) image. This problem has also been present in previous versions.
As with previous versions, it only supports 4 JPEG image quality grades. All decent image editors have fine-tunable JPEG quality output settings.
BOTTOM LINE: for a free image viewer/adjuster/converter app, it's excellent. Its usability as an on-the-field adjuster/converter app is hampered by the fact that it isn't able to make use of the available RAM memory unlike its best (and costly) alternatives (most importantly, Pocket Artist 3.0 and the latest betas of Pocket Phojo 3.0), though.
I don't think these problems are hard to fix because it's clearly the memory usage restrictions that should be eliminated. Without them, the app would most probably be able to convert high(er)-end images as well.
As has already been pointed out, the biggest problem with older versions (even with version 1.20) was its speed, mostly its inability to load existing thumbnails of images fast. Now, this problem is not existing any more - it's really fast at loading thumbnails! I haven't benchmarked it as yet (see the Standardized EXIF reading and compatibility test results ( http://winmobiletech.com/PICVIEWERS/#_Toc99100684 ) on this), but better late than never ;) At the first glance, though, its speed is now comparable to the best apps in this respect (Resco, Pocket Loupe, Pocket Phojo, Pocket Artist etc). I will publish quantitive results later.
The memory consumption has also been decreased a bit: version 1.20 took 1.509M, the new takes 1.455M. (It can be installed on flash cards/File Store).
It is also capable of IPTC editing, unlike with previous versions.
Unlike with version 1.20, the button-only control is reconfigurable (options are previous/next/zoom in/out, fullscreen) Please see http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=40406 for a discussion on the importance of this feature.
As with 1.20, it supports image dithering, which is also a big plus compared to its alternatives. Also, the ability to quick delete images is great - this is much harder with most other image viewer apps (except for Pocket Loupe).
The problems:
As with the older version(s), in slideshow mode, it swaps images a bit uglier and slower than the other image viewer applications, mainly, Resco. Therefore, if you want to use this tool as an image slideshower app, compare it to Resco first. It also displays the clock upon reading larger images; however, with downscaled (the vast majority of images when using the PDA as an image wallet with previously downscaled images) ones, it doesn't, which is an advantage over other image slidesowing-capable apps like Fujitsu-Siemens Album.
Also, as was the case with previous versions too, it can't convert (adjust etc) 8+ Mpixel images at all (I've re-tested with Canon PowerShot Pro1 (8 Mp), Kodak DCS Pro SLR/n (14 Mp) and Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II (16 Mp) sample images), not even (automatically) resized, even when there're plenty of memory available (I've tested on a 128M RAM Pocket Loox 720 device with 90 Mbyte of free memory reserved for program memory). This is a big minus and should definitely be fixed. This program could be an excellent tool for serious digicam users for on-the-field conversions, image rotation (it supports, for example, losless image rotation - very few tools offer the same, except for, IIRC, the Pocket Artist 3.0, costing 50 bucks) because of its conversion capabilities, which also involve batch mode.
Also, zooming into large (8 Mp+) images, unlike with other programs, results in an error message and a gray screen – other programs are better in that they at least show a(n in most cases a bit pixelizated) image. This problem has also been present in previous versions.
As with previous versions, it only supports 4 JPEG image quality grades. All decent image editors have fine-tunable JPEG quality output settings.
BOTTOM LINE: for a free image viewer/adjuster/converter app, it's excellent. Its usability as an on-the-field adjuster/converter app is hampered by the fact that it isn't able to make use of the available RAM memory unlike its best (and costly) alternatives (most importantly, Pocket Artist 3.0 and the latest betas of Pocket Phojo 3.0), though.
I don't think these problems are hard to fix because it's clearly the memory usage restrictions that should be eliminated. Without them, the app would most probably be able to convert high(er)-end images as well.