I was going to ignore this, but getting many questions about it, and now even reading about it on The Verge, I guess I’ll just have to: HTC is publishing an incredible amount of crap on its official blog.
Promoting the upcoming HTC M7, which is supposed to offer “a new camera experience” this year, HTC published a “brief history of photography“, giving itself a hell of a lot more credit for the development in mobile imaging than I would think possible.
It mentions the Japanese Kyocera VP210 as the first cameraphone, which is correct in itself – but it’s quite childish not to mention the Nokia 7650 at all… Then it says: “Pixel numbers for camera phones are increasing quickly. Picture quality does not improve.” Anyone with a bit of experience in this field knows that’s utter nonsense.
But it gets even worse: next we suddenly see a few HTC devices in this all too short history which leads to a few more “mistakes” – the HTC Droid Incredible with 8MP from 2010 and the HTC Evo 3D from 2011.
First, the HTC Droid Incredible was not the first with a 8MP sensor – not by far. Already in 2008 Samsung produces the INNOV8, Sony Ericsson the C905 and LG the Renoir. In 2009 Sony has the X10, Nokia the N86. I might add that Nokia already produced it’s masterpiece N8 with a 12MP camerasensor in 2010.
Second, the HTC Evo 3D was not the first smartphone to shoot pictures and video in 3D, that was the LG Optimus 3D Speed. And I’m pretty sure HTC knows that as well. They just don’t like things the way they are I guess. Just like these phones didn’t sell at all.
And than all of a sudden, the author reaches the iPhone 4. Not a word on all achievements by Nokia AND by Sony Ericsson in the field of mobile photography. Not a word on the fantastic work Carl Zeiss has done. Not one mention of some very good smartphone cameras by Samsung and Sony either.
To add insult to injury, it says “The megapixel wars escalate. Nokia’s 808 PureView premieres with 41 megapixels. Causes one reviewer to note this “won’t help you at all“.
I’m amazed, really.
The megapixel war was in fact long over – everybody seemed quite happy with 8MP and 12MP (for the Nokia N8 and Xperia S), although HTC pushed the limit to 16MP in the HTC Titan II from last year (they can’t even get their own history straight!).
It’s The Verge that found where the quote from the “one reviewer” came from, namely Gizmodo, claiming that after a certain point megapixels don’t matter. It was written just after the announcement so the author didn’t have a clue either. Well, we can laugh about that article now – and HTC knows that, too.
I think it’s very sad that HTC seems to be proud of or having fun publishing all this crap on its official blog. It’s not just “mocking Nokia”, it’s making a complete mess of a fascinating part of our recent history, giving itself much more credit than it deserves. I used to respect that company, the way it’s trying to keep their (modest) place in the smartphone market. But this is is absolutely pathetic.
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You’re right with everything you say but I think a company that cheated as much in advertising as Nokia did (N97 to 920) just cannot take the moral high ground here.
They’re all just trying to manipulate customers, that’s the way it is.
[...] by itself. And it chose to ridicule the company that really invented just about all of this on its official blog.Credit where credit is due, I’d say – but hey, it’s a war out there. A war of [...]
Is there an agency where one can report Advertising malpractices and misrepresentation of facts? I think somebody should make some money suing HTC
…how i wish i could go now to the HTC headquarters and punch them in the throat!!!..those potato-cam makers…
I hate violence even more though :-)
It does seem that HTC are getting the Nokia 808 more media coverage than Nokia, this does appear to be a very odd situation.
HTC M7 will feature great display and 2 GB of RAM and it will be very fast and have a great design!
I don’t read HTC blog.
I like Android OS, but if Nokia will come up with camera greater than 808 have, there will be no doubt about what to buy!
And if we talking about people talking crap, I can say, that Stephen Elop said crap last year, when he called Nokia Lumia 920 the best camera phone ever! We all know that best camera phone ever is 808!
Haha HTC sure is funny. The quality of 808′s full res mode is miles ahead of any HTC phones, not to mention its pureview mode.
HTC, really. When it comes to buying smartphones. HTC to me would be like buying a Yugo.
EL Ohhh ELL for the HTC
The funny part is how HTC ripoff Nokia with their HTC 8 line, form, lines and ads, supported by Microsoft. Well done Nokia, dropping Meego and selling your soul to Ballmer.
Maybe there was a typo and the author meant “brief history of htc photography” lol.
quoting the extremely idiotic gizmodo review for their pr tells me that htc doesn’t just want you to believe what it has to say, but that THEY themselves are drinking the kool-aid. with their fingers crossed.
funny how nokia never had to release any revisionist history that bashed other phones’ cameras before the 808 was released; they didn’t have to. this is camera technology: let the images speak for themselves, htc.
frankly, though, this is all very amusing. i’m sure the m7 will be a decent enough phone with a decent camera. but this is just tacky desperation from a company that made its name being the “value proposition”. the guys in espoo must have had a laugh.
+808
Oh my.
That garbage on the HTC blog doesn’t fit their slogan “quietly brillant” very well.
If whatever they’re going to show is less then brilliant (let’s wait and see, you never know, they might pulling something good out of their hat), “loudly mediocre” would be much more fitting.
Are they upset because Nokia outshined them one year ago at MWC?
Nokia has the know-how and the innovations. They’ll do good on the MWC. How well that reflects on sales is another thing. The surprise might come from a Nokia byproduct, Jolla. Exciting stuff! Nothing too remarkable will come from anyone else, I believe. I hope I’m wrong though.
I’m curious about Jolla as well, nice to see an OS from a non (or not-yet, you never know) player. Makes the mobile phone world much more colourful! I’m also curious about what Nokia will show. End of February can’t come soon enough!
I think I’d rather have no camera at all than to have ANY HTC phonecam.
HTC makes TERRIBLE quality phones, the WORST cameras out of any ‘big’ manufacturer. And have absolutely abysmal support. Apparently they don’t know shit about history as well.
http://blog.htc.com/2013/02/a-brief-history-of-photography/#
Look at the comments… Never try to fool consumers… Only Apple can do that. XD
HTC’s phones are generally have bad built quality. Even on their Malaysian Facebook page have tons of complains regarding new yet broken One x phones and also their bad treatment to those who bought their products…
Who buys HTC phones anyway, they have never produce any ground braking technology and that’s say it all. A joke article by a Mickey mouse company.
HTC – Highly Toxic Crap !
Let them first match one tenth of Nokia’s battery life and then talk about photography !
“The HTC Droid becomes Verizon’s first 8-megapixel camera phone.”
-Just a comment on you claim that HTC was not the first. True, but here they are only talking about one network.
Interesting way of delivering the article, but that was more of a joke than a “history”. Romanticized in favor of HTC.
I viewed to original article mainly for the comments. I was not disappointed!
True in itself, but read below that part: ‘the iPhone 4S bulks up with an 8-megapixel camera – 1 year too late to be “incredible”‘. Claiming the premiere after all.
Anyone saying that 38 mp don’t matter have clearly never taken a picture with a 808 camera Phone.
I know the 808′s main selling point is the PureView mode, but the only time I used that mode is when I do burst shots or when I really need to use the Scenes mode. Otherwise, I always shoot at full 38/34MP, and sometimes even 41.5MP in CameraPro
more quality megapixels does matter for enlarged printing. Most people use camra phones for sharing in facebook, so thats possibly what they meant by megapixels does not matter
Man I had to bite my tongue not to leave a comment there… I’d rather just vent a little… but maaaaan that’s an impressive piece of work there!
People can mock Symbian all they like (usually for the wrong reasons, but that’s not the point) but I can’t believe any respected tech individual can mock the 808′s camera technology. I find it difficult to believe there’s people out there in the tech world (especially working for HTC) that don’t understand what those megapixels are there for… they really should have just not mentioned it at all, the less said about it the better.
I really hope the Lumia EOS rumours are true and slap the smug grin off HTCs face.