8 Megapixel head to head - Samsung INNOV8 vs Sony Ericsson C905
Published by Steve Litchfield at 14:04 UTC, November 18th 2008
With the Sony Ericsson C905 arriving for review in The Phones Show, I couldn't resist doing a quick head to head between it and the Samsung INNOV8 - and the Nokia N82, for good measure. The C905 is undoubtedly the phone with the stills camera of highest specification at the moment - but how good is it? Is it worth overlooking the many other factors involved in choosing a camera-phone/smartphone?
Here are the two main protagonists - hey, the N82 was taking the photo(!) - of comparable size in each dimension, although the INNOV8 is slightly wider, to accomodate the 2.8" screen (the C905's is 2.4", the same as on the N82). The C905's screen is gorgeous, I thought it was OLED technology at first, but it turns out to just be a very bright TFT. It's certainly nowhere near as reflective as the awful display on the INNOV8 (i8510), which is hard to see when you're outside taking photos.
The Sony Ericsson C905 has a beast of a camera. While the C905 is deficient in many other ways (no smartphone OS/apps, no 3.5mm audio, poor video recording resolution, wobbly slider, etc.), there's no faulting the camera, which is superb. It's the first phone camera I've ever seen with 8 megapixels AND Xenon flash - and there's a full, bright LED 'video light' too. And some very clever camera software and options, allied with hardware stills/video mode switch, plus extra scene and mode controls on the left of the screen in camera mode, plus four extra controls embedded in the d-pad. Phew. Despite my familiarity with phone cameras, this one takes some getting around and it's easy to end up in the wrong setting or mode.
Test shot 1 - some rare winter sunshine, a macro/close-up of some ivy flower buds. The first thing I wanted to establish was how much more I/you/we'd get by opting for an 8 megapixel camera rather than a 5mp unit. More on this at the end of this piece, by the way... Now let's crop the central section to 1:1....
To be honest, for this real world shot, the amount of detail isn't significantly greater in the C905's 8mp shot. It is better though, and the colouring's better - the N82 takes notoriously pale photos. Both shots have too much edge enhancement for my liking, but hey...
Shot 2, some colourful Autumn leaves. This time let's bring all three camera-equipped devices into play....
There's not that much difference, to be honest, all three devices do a good job, although the N82 handles the contrast of light and dark best, the C905 has the best colour handling, and the INNOV8 arguably has the best detail. But as I say, all three test phone cameras are excellent in this typical, good light scenario.
Shot 3, indoors in near pitch darkness, typical of a pub, party or club shot that you might want to capture...
The N82, on the right, lights the scene well with its Xenon flash, but the 5 megapixel resolution just isn't up to extreme crops, as here. The INNOV8 does surprisingly well for a LED flash-equipped camera, but the results aren't that crisp, despite the underlying 8mp resolution. The new Sony Ericsson C905's shot is both well lit and crisp, a very impressive result. Perhaps we have ourselves a new clubbing phone champion?
Back to the weak winter sun for test shot 4, looking out across a pond to a small sign in the middle, with a gull sitting on top!
C905 on the left, INNOV8 on the right. I think the INNOV8 wins this round, the picture is certainly sharper and more realistic. As with my tests into optical zoom, the issue of camera shake also starts to rear its ugly head when you start hitting serious megapixel counts with such small camera sensors. Maybe the C905 image was spoilt by some miniscule hand shake on my behalf? It's a tricky issue and one argument in favour of sticking with lower resolutions, where a tiny tremble isn't going to spoil the picture as obviously...
In terms of picking an overall winner between the C905 and INNOV8, I'm torn. The C905 has the great Xenon flash but the INNOV8 produces slightly more reliable results and has good (natural) low light performance. So - don't use the camera to decide between the two, there are many, many other differentiating factors! 8-)
I wanted to return to the subject of 8mp vs 5mp again - how can I quantify this difference in terms of real world photos? Heading for a park/playground, I snapped a sign in the medium distance:
Cropping this to its centre 1%, i.e. 100x zoom (!):
The words 'Park Play Area' can be made out on the C905 version of the photo, while no text is readable on the N82's, at 'only' 5 megapixel. Having said that, at any lesser cropping factor, the two photos aren't that different. I touched on this in my 'megapixel myth' article recently. Yes, the 8mp image here is better, but probably not that much better as to outweigh other factors, in terms of which phone suits your needs best.
And we're done for now. For a full review of the C905, which isn't a Symbian smartphone, of course, and so lies outside the remit of AAS, see The Phones Show 69, out on 23rd November.
Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 18 Nov 2008
Categories: Comment, Hardware
Platforms: General, S60 3rd Edition
Feature Discussion
About SE C:
No Smartphone mean "Good bye u worth nothing"...i will never pay a cent for a dump phone,but i guess this is recommanded for people need a Camera only,and to make life easier they want the camera to make calls and send sms "sms only,emails and web need at least 2.6' screen". :icon4:
The S40 Nokia phones are dump but they are cheap,thin,can do many things SE dump phones cant do...while these SE phones are dump and they are considered the flagships and very overpriced...this is why i think SE will die soon. :icon13:
About INNOV:
Its not a surprise when Samsung camera arent in par with Nokia and SE camera,i will be surprised if its better "in the same count of Mega Pixels". but in general i think the INNOV will be better with firmware updates becauz the Symbian is a new OS for Samsung and i guess the problem with camera is a software rather than hardware. :cool:
N82:
Great,but where is the 8MP from Nokia :con?...need to wait for 2009.
One thing you can do to improve 5 or 8MP is to offer true optical zoom
I can't inderstand why they don't make a xenon/led pair dual led is ok but not fast enough.
-seki :)
| The megapixel myth has been shown to influence people irrationally |
You see a similar thing in the film world, there are people who trash a film because it flopped at the box office, and praise another because it made a lot of money. It's as if they're terrified of using their own sense of taste, or perhaps just scared of standing out from the crowd?
I've had 3 sony erricssons over the past 2 years, and guess what.
They were all cyber shit phones.
From stupid os (which I think is actually better than iPhone's) to even stupider camera (k800) with xenon flash which always destroys a photo (in the night it is or too weak or too powerfull) to stupid buttons on k850 and that something they called touchscreen.
And auto focus, especially macro mode which seems to do nothing at all.
Glad I got N82.
As far as specs go it has it all
In regards to the photo taken comparing the two phones suggests to me that the that Steve Litchfield never actually spent much time playing with the lighting settings :P not only that new phone glass tends to reflect light. Another thing that could help is changing the background and display cause it is horrible.
Now Cameras :) I love clubbing with this phone the flash does justice but could obviously be improved. Daytime shots is also good when taking photos they are quite clear and once again the camera is quite customizable sadly that wasn't mentioned in the review. Face targeting and blink removal is good on this phone :)
APP compatibility: I have to agree N82 may win this component but the INNOV8 can use quite a lot of APPs:suggestions for APP downloads if the INNOV8 isn't there: N95, N96, Symbian S60 3rd apps, Samsung SGH- G810 are all mobiles which share similarity of the INNOV8.
I will list the current APPs I have: Y Browser, x-plore, Fring, Ogg Media Player, Screenshot, Kaywa Reader, Widsets, Gypsii, Opera - however I removed cause it is shit compared 2 default browser,
Mobile Signer, Smart Movie, Shozu.
Overall the phone is something I spend time on, it is not a noob's gadget. Bottom line don't buy it if you can't appreciate good phone art.
how do you explain that you beloved best Nokia camera flagship take so crap photos in comparison with C905?
suggestion: maybe tell the actual inferiority of Nokia toward SE?!
don't worry, you have an smart OS (symbian) which is that smart that all the times you want to send something by bluetooth ask like a dumb: bt is off do you want to switch it on? what a smart :D
no I won't you completely dump OS . lol Talking
and wen you are thinking if you wan BT on or off pfff... the phone is off...... the battery don't have that much time in you disposition. hahahaha
cheers WM
Let's see:
1. SE's sales are tiny when compared to Nokia's;
2. their favoured interface (UIQ) is shortly going to disappear;
3. the BT on my E90 is on all the time, so don't know what you were going on about here; presumably, you've used an S60 phone but not worked out how to switch on bluetooth (hmmm, who's the dumb one?);
4. my E90 battery lasts about 3 days, even under fairly heavy usage, so battery life is certainly not an issue.
And what the hell do you mean with "no I won't you completely dump OS"?