The Best Smartphone Camera in the World

slitchfield · #1 06-10-2008, 08:17 AM

In the latest part in my phone camera series, I put the five top camera-equipped smartphones to the test, evaluating their still photo results under a variety of scenarios (landscape, night, dim, macro, etc). Which really is the best? And will the winning phone be made in Finland? I look at the Nokia N82, N95 and N93, plus the Samsung G810 and i8510...

Read on in the full article.

slitchfield · #2 06-10-2008, 08:18 AM

Comments welcome if you've also tried to compare any of these contenders!

#3 06-10-2008, 09:07 AM

N82 is a disaster in photo quality. Now, after a couple of months after launching, I am happy for not throwing away 500 € on it. The presence of xenon is the single advantage over my old N73 because the 5MP resolution is totally fake. I can create the same 5MP photos with similar results starting from 3MP resolution and then digitally resizing on my PC.

I will wait just 2-3 months and if Nokia won't launch a real camera phone to beat the INNOV8 I will abandon media creation and join the dark side of multimedia consumer and communicator devices. I mean, HTC Touch HD...

bartmanekul · #4 06-10-2008, 09:10 AM

Ah, I see the comments are still going wayward

I posted that the 6220C would have been a good unit to test with, since its FP2, and rumoured to have a few tweaks.

snoyt · #5 06-10-2008, 09:15 AM

Steve, I think the differences between your N82 shots and N95 shots are way to big. I find them much smaller. I did notice with the N95 that occasionally took lower quality images and video (compression wise). Background mail checks or needing a reboot to free extra memory seemed often the source. Perhaps the N82 has a similar problem? Was it in need of a reboot? I'll see if I can post some example pictures tonite.

slitchfield · #6 06-10-2008, 09:23 AM

No, I made sure I was comparing like with like. The N82 was on latest v30 firmware, on an empty device with nothing else installed or running.

#7 06-10-2008, 10:00 AM

Hi Steve... that was an excellent comparison. Would request if you can kindly do a comparison of the music player audio/sound quality of some the current high end phones like N82/N96/5320/I8510/I450/N95 8gb/N78 etc.

slitchfield · #8 06-10-2008, 10:28 AM

@Anindya: No, sorry, we've been round this loop. And my 47 year old ears aren't sensitive enough to tell the difference anyway!!

stuclark · #9 06-10-2008, 10:47 AM

...and in non-smartphone news, Eldar at Mobile-Review.com has said that the upcoming SonyEricsson C905 can NOT beat the i8510 on camera quality.

So, arguably, the i8510 is THE best camera phone on the market!

#10 06-10-2008, 11:00 AM

I wounder if there are sometimes slight variations between each phone, i have seen tests between the n95 and n82 and some tests have the n82 as having better colours and some have the n95 being better

#11 06-10-2008, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stuclark

...and in non-smartphone news, Eldar at Mobile-Review.com has said that the upcoming SonyEricsson C905 can NOT beat the i8510 on camera quality.

So, arguably, the i8510 is THE best camera phone on the market!

I hope so. I just ordered one. Should be here tmw

#12 06-10-2008, 11:56 AM

excellent post, steve! video-quality comparison between those models would also be quite interesting

ajck · #13 06-10-2008, 12:10 PM

Thanks for the comparison. Couple of things:

1.) It would be nice to see the 6220 Classic included, given it'll sell much more than the N82 (presumably) - but, is it fair to say the cameras on those two are basically the same in terms of picture and video quality?

2.) I saw a 6220 Classic review elsewhere that said the video on it was clearly upscaled, probably from 320 X 240, when the specs state that it should be recording in 640 X 480 (and yes I know about the different quality settings). It showed screen shots that showed straight diagonal lines (for example) on the 6220C video were much more blocky/jaggy than those on the N82, when the recording res is supposed to be the same.

Can anyone confirm that the 6220C does definitely record at 640 X 480, 30FPS and is not secretly upscaling?

yade · #14 06-10-2008, 12:20 PM

Steve,

I know your article focuses on the image quality but I think it is worth a mention that the camera interface of the Samsung phones is way ahead of the simple, childish looking interface on the Nokia's. When I had my i8510 I felt like I was actually using a digital camera and not a phone. Nokia have fallen well behind other manufacturers with the camera interface and still have some work to do on noise reduction, maybe as well as Carl Zeiss they need to strike up a partnership with a camera manufacturer to bridge the gap.

clonmult · #15 06-10-2008, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stuclark

...and in non-smartphone news, Eldar at Mobile-Review.com has said that the upcoming SonyEricsson C905 can NOT beat the i8510 on camera quality.

So, arguably, the i8510 is THE best camera phone on the market!

But still falling short though - every single image on this review showed shortcomings.

So it is good to be the best of a bad bunch

(Yah, I'm trolling!)