Guest writer Stuart Peters provokes thought of the (higher than expected?) worth of a Nokia 808 PureView, 'the ultimate Symbian phone', in 2015. See below for his take on the 808 and a modern approach to use case of the device and its OS, even if it can't be recommended to the masses.
I've had a lot (ok, two or three) of requests for pitting 'ye olde' Nokia 808 PureView against the LG G4, brand new and the hottest thing in camera phone technology, and for good reason, it just won out against the Lumia 930 and 1020. But what about the venerable Nokia 808 with its massive 1/1.2" sensor? Time for a few data points, at the very least... [Updated with a new test shot, oversampled, under sunshine!]
With eight years since the classic Nokia N95 was selling in the mainstream, with one of the first five megapixel cameras in the phone market and the best, with 1/2.5" sensor and 'Carl Zeiss' optics, I thought it would be interesting to see how far the technology has come. After all, the Lumia 930 occupies pretty much the same photo-enthusiast consumer spot, at least in the Windows phone world, yet it outputs at a nominal 5MP still. But how different would the pixels themselves be, with eight years of sensor, optics and processing tech improvements under the 930's hood?
I've had many requests for a camera head-to-head between the Nokia Lumia 830 and 930, not least since they're now about the same price at some outlets. But I thought I'd wait until they both had Lumia Denim and the new camera software. And then, heck, I couldn't resist adding in the Lumia 1020 and Symbian-powered Nokia 808 PureView into the mix. Plus an Android imposter, just to add an extra reference point. Gulp! So much to analyse and comment on below.
In perhaps the most 'current' Pimping piece yet, I tackle the Nokia 808 PureView, still a lot of people's main device, perhaps based on the super flexibility, the great camera, the gadgets, and so on. But what are the keys to keeping this going into 2015 - any tips, tricks or software goodies that you need to know about? It's all here. This is a major revamp to the original article, bringing advice, links and software up to date!
Supremacy, as used in the headline above is about absolute superiority over all others. Whether it's a kingdom or sportsman or, in this case, a range of smartphone cameras. The thing is that over the last decade I've been so used, at every stage, to my Nokia flagship smartphones having superior imaging built-in, that it has been something of a shock to realise that, with the new Samsung Galaxy Note 4, the competition has caught up. Or at least, got close enough that for even technophiles there's no real difference in quality of results. Have the Nokia 808 PureView and Lumia 1020 been dethroned? Not exactly, but the thrones are now looking within reach of a pack of status-seeking courtiers....
“What an oddball pair of smartphone cameras to compare!” I hear you say. “One from several years ago, one with greatly different ambitions from the current month!” Indeed, though the question I was really asking myself was whether improvements in sensor technology and image processing since about 2011 could compensate for a seven times smaller sensor. In other words, could refined tech and intelligence trump physics?
No, no, I haven't got an iPhone 6 - but reader Vlado Grouev has been doing some detailed shootouts and I wanted to delve deeper into his data. The units tested, under various light conditions, were the iPhone 6 (not the 6+) and the Nokia 808, running in its 8MP PureView mode. Which one has the better camera? Go on, have a guess. A wild guess.
I may get mocked for my 'party' mock-ups when testing smartphone cameras, but my tests represent a better look at real world photos, i.e. of people indoors. Moreover, I also take into account facilities like lossless zoom, whereas this slightly questionnable set of test results from the usually reliable DxO mark folks shows the new Apple iPhone 6 models to both be top of the tree, with the classic Nokia 808 in 6th place and the newer Nokia Lumia 1020 down in 10th place overall! Remind me to take the DxO testers down the pub sometime and explain how to really test phone cameras....
As part of a continuing series of features taking a good long look at the state of mobile, and aiming to be as brutally honest as possible, here I use my experience in the mobile industry to tackle the really tough 'what if' questions that have probably been in your brain for the last three or four years, as 'All About' readers. Hopefully my answers will provoke debate in Disqus below, too - why not get involved?
