Another week, another camera-toting smartphone comparison, this time from Hannah Bouckley of 'recombu', comparing the Nokia N8 to the Samsung Galaxy S II, the iPhone 4, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and (for some reason) the Samsung Omnia 7. Despite the author seemingly failing to understand how to use the N8 after dark*, the N8 was given the overall verdict of winner across the different test shots. 

From the piece:

So that leaves the Nokia N8. Stills are consistently sharp with natural colours, it’s even passable in low light. We’re really impressed with HD video performance, footage is sharp, with excellent audio and it handles changes to lighting conditions better than some others. The Nokia N8 might not have won every category, but consistently solid performance with stills and movies makes it our winner.

* I was disappointed by the methodology used for the low light test. With a shot of a building at night, a good 50 metres away, there was ZERO point in letting the flashes of the different phones fire. The only effect was to reduce the quality of all the images since each was adjusting its settings to allow for some flash illumination. The N8 was affected more than most because it had the most powerful flash by a mile. The correct way to do a low light test of a far away subject (to test the sensor, etc) is to turn the flashes off. And, preferably, to do a second test, of a nearby subject, with flash turned on, to test the flash strength. See also my similar comparison of many of the same devices back in June.