A few days ago, on AllAboutSymbian, Steve Litchfield published his impressive “big shootout”, comparing the new HTC One with the King of Camphones Nokia 808 PureView, the Nokia Lumia 920 and – surprisingly – the 5MP Nokia N95. The last contender is interesting since obviously it would make more sense to use the Nokia N8 in a comparison like this.
Steve however, seemed to be confident enough the Nokia N95 could prove its 5MP sensor (with bigger pixels) would be a serious competitor for HTC One. I’m getting quite frustrated I’m not able to make comparisons like this myself, but there’s not much I can do – I couldn’t even buy one if I had the money.
So for the full story and analysis, I’ll have to send you to AllAboutSymbian - I’ve seen enough blogs that just copy all content and I don’t like that much when I see it with my own shots. So I just picked two examples and can only advise you to check the source. Moreover, the shots you’ll see here are resized.
First a church. The full shot shown on the site is captured with the HTC One
To go into detail, Steve shows crops from the Nokia N95, 808, Lumia 920 and HTC One (clockwise, starting on the left)
Clear to see the details on the HTC One in this case are not the best in this example.
Next shot I chose from Steve’s comparison is one of a kitchen.
Again, you will see the Nokia N95, 808, Lumia 920 and HTC One (clockwise, starting on the left)
I can only urge you to visit the original post, since after many more examples, Steve comes up with a few quite exciting conclusions – for one thing, after several tests, the HTC One ends in second place after (no wonder) the Nokia 808 PureView. And the Lumia 920 doesn’t even take the bronze medal… I’ve linked his post a few times in this post, here’s one more.
Great post Steve, I’ll hope to have the chance to realize something similar in the near future.
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Hello Marc!
I am ready to share my images taken with Nokia N8 and N95
Nokia N8:
Monster Energy
http://500px.com/photo/29013831
http://www.flickr.com/photos/endijsg/8585320323/in/photostream
Easter Bunny
http://500px.com/photo/29014313
http://www.flickr.com/photos/endijsg/8586422622/in/photostream
Easter Bunny II
http://500px.com/photo/29014315
http://www.flickr.com/photos/endijsg/8586422184/in/photostream
Crash
http://500px.com/photo/29014625
http://www.flickr.com/photos/endijsg/8585320747/in/photostream
Nokia N95:
After Fire
http://www.flickr.com/photos/endijsg/8585322017/in/photostream
Spider
http://www.flickr.com/photos/endijsg/8585319977/in/photostream
I wanted to share more Nokia N95 shots, but on mobile screen they look much better than in 24 inch monitor.
Shot “After Fire” you can see a heart on the floor after fire in my bedroom – no one get hurt :)
But now I m planing to get one N95, if I can and will try to make a better shots, since N95 don’t have on screen shooter key, so it’s pretty hard to hold it steady.
That’s all for now!
It would be really amazing if nokia combines the power of nokia 808 with the lumia 920′s ability to take pictures low light….Can you imagine that camera phone?
The new tendencies are not considering good camera phones. Just look at the ultra famous Instagram, which IMO, is a millionare software company to make your photos look worst (which is now considered cool). Based on this, no one is making a real effort to beat (or at least match) the 808. Farewell to one of the bests handsets ever made all in all. Again, IMHO.
I would disagree, HTC and Sony tried their best at imaging innovations soon after the 808, I wouldn’t say they succeeded, but they felt the need for it! Now Samsung is back again with a 13MP sensor. Nokia simply stays ahead!
I can’t wait to see your comparison.
I hope you’ll do, yourself, a comparison in automode, like everyone else, of course, but also using specific settings, to also be able to show what one Camera can achieve when handled by a photographer. Would make a great comparison, in addition to Out-of-The-Box seetings one.
For phone availability, you should probably ask Samsung and Sony to lend you phones. I’m sure the PR will gladly make sure you can show how good their product performs against the best camera phones on the market.
I’m still the proud owner of a Nokia N8, the quality of the pictures are only second to the 808. I’m still impressed on how Nokia dump this line of cameraphones to focus on Windows phones. Is a shame that they didn’t release an improved version of the 808, ’cause really the 920 is still way behind the 808. Hope this year we’ll see a real “Nokia Cameraphone” and not another Windowsphone.
We will see a real Nokia Cameraphone Windowsphone :)
but not anytime soon, read the forum for better explanation :)
Can’t believe how we sell in to cameras 9, 10. 15 Mp when a old tech like N95 comes out of the dark and perform toe to toe with this top guns.. I feel I should keep my 808 for 5-7 years no matter what the market offers
But the N95 had a real good camera, I made tons of shots with it back then. Still sorry I had to sell the 8GB version I once owned.
Before I start, congrats Endijs. Take lots of photos :)
Anyway, I think that this test confirms the saying – you can’t trick physics. If you look at just the optics, and pixel size (as HTC asks us to to….)
808 @ 5mp (auto) = 4um
n95 @ 5mp = 2.2um
HTC @ 4mp = 2um
920 @ 8mp = 1.4um
Now the n95 is old tech, so if the tech/algorithms have improved, the HTC could punch above the n95 – but not much. The 920 (and pretty much all the other smartphone cameras) have 1.4um pixels. You could argue that the 920 could have a virtual pixel size of 2 pixels (sqrt(8/4)*1.4), virtual are not as good as real. The 808′s virtual pixel has almost 4x (square of the size) the light hitting it, so it is still *way* better.
The 920 is normally saved by gadgetry (OIS etc). In this test, it doesn’t look like the gadgetry helped – or wasn’t given a chance to help (no really low light stuff).
Now of course I haven’t touched on resolution, just light gathering. You can downsize an image to help the quality – just like the 808 does with its pureview tech. So in theory, you can downsize the 920 image to get better results – thats for another discussion :)
So in the end, physics rules.
Sorry, forgot to mention why light gathering is important. More light = faster shot (less blur) or lower ISO (less noise). Basically if you have more light, you can do more with it.
The 920 “cheats” by letting you have longer exposures than normal due to OIS which prevents motion blur. So It get more light by letting the light hit the sensor for longer. Still valid.
however there is a one serious drawback of lumia 920 with ois – longer exposure won’t help with fast moving objects, where shutter time is crucial.
additionaly ois will stabilize while recording movie but won’t help with better exposure – due to shutter time (max 1/30th of second in 1080p@30fps)
I think there was some quite low light stuff in the original post at AllAboutSymbian. I’ve been urging everyone to check that out for your own final judgement. I simply don’t like to copy all content from another blog and present it as my own content. There are much more examples in Steve’s original article.
Hi Marc,
I read the article at AAS, but wasn’t going to mention the lower light photo :) The 2 modern phones didn’t do very well did they? Maybe the 920 blurs a bit too much to get rid of noise – same on the htc. If you hold the 808 steady, it will take a good night time photo – even before fiddling with the settings. I think the 920 excels at night time portrait (ie. close up) shots. Although they are bright, the background tends to get blurred.
excuse me i see every nokia cams pics are good and htc isn’t so good enough then how can htc be second the last pic of kitchen is blurry in htc and crisp n sharp in 920.
920 should be second.
pls look carefully
Thats what my comment below was all about…. If the htc one is the second best, how the hell then 920 shots are sharper and better(than htc one).
May be there’s a typing mistake and they mean that htc one doesn’t deserve a bronze.
Hi Nishy and Pawan
I’m not saying the Nokia Lumia 920 is in fourth place: it’s Steve Litchfield’s conclusion over at AllAboutSymbian. And he based that opinion on much more shots than just the two examples I’ve quoted from his post. Again: have a look at the original post as well before you draw your own conclusions.
I won’t jump to any myself until I have the chance to make my own comparison with the Nokia 808 PureView, Nokia N8, Nokia Lumia 920 and – of course – the HTC One. I don’t think I have to get the Sony Xperia Z into that competition, but I might do that as well.
The HTC One is the one I’m waiting for here, but I couldn’t even buy one if I had the money. It’s simply not available here, might even take one more month.
so do you mean htc one beats nokia 920?
What i think is in good light conditions (daytime) htc one might give a good competition to 920 but in extreme low light 920 should just have that upper hand over htc one(considering that htc one, even with less mp count than 920, has big pixels to gather light).
I want to see htc one vs 920 one on one complete comparison.
I think you might be right – Lumia 920′s PureView is all about OIS and lowlight performance – but I would have to check that myself. See my previous reaction (above)
one has to give credit to htc for putting a 4 mp camera with larger pixels on their flagship phone, where else in case of xperia z and s4, both have 13mp count with no change in the size of sensor and i think its gonna make matter worst especially in low light for both of them
dam. I alwais knew n95 is one of the best.
I had n95, moved to n8 and now I own 808.
I will share my best taken pic with n95 later this week on my 500px page, you will see how amaizing picure I made. Now I don’t have time, I am in hospital, yesterday my dother was born :) I did take here’s first picture with Nokia 808 PureView! :)
Congratulations! :D
Fantastic! Congrats and enjoy! :-)
thank you all :))
I’ve done a little comparison few month ago with my N95, N8, 808 and lumia 920… The N95 wasn’t bad against the other members of the family!