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Along with the HTC One, a zillion new smartphones are going to be announced next week at Mobile World Congress, each promising camera advancements that may or may not live up to the hype. Before we get there, though, we wanted to take stock of how good the cameras are in the smartphones you can buy now. Here’s how the flagships measure up.
For this battle we ran five top-end smartphones through a gauntlet of tests to see what’s working and what’s not. We focused our efforts on the Apple iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920, Samsung Galaxy S III, Google Nexus 4, and the newly-announced Blackberry Z10. Following our last big smartphone camera battle last year, we were convinced of two things. First, that the Nokia 808 PureView is better than anything else, but you’re never going to buy a Symbian phone. Second, up until the One, we’ve never been too impressed with HTC’s flagships cameras. So we didn’t bother with those this time around.
We tested each of the camera’s abilities under a few of the most common situations, making sure each photo was taken in an equal, controlled environment, and taking care that the photos were taken from the same location, and with the same focal point. For each shot we needed we took a few and selected the best from the batch to control for anomalies in camera performance. You can see each of the images in their uncropped glory at the very bottom of this post.
First, we recreated the quick camera test we did for the BlackBerry Z10 a few weeks back, but under the most precise conditions possible. In very dark conditions with no flash, the Lumia 920 takes the best photos. As you can see above, the Lumia’s optical image stabilisation helps the camera achieve a passable photo even under the toughest circumstances. There’s no graininess, and the statue is more or less properly exposed despite the lack of light. The iPhone also picked up decent light, but the photo is a noisy horrorshow. The rest of the phones perform within reach of one another, with the Nexus 4 being the worst of the bunch. The Z10 did better this time around than the last, but still fell short of the frontrunners.
Winner: Lumia 920
You should avoid using your flash under any circumstances, but we know that most people are going to deploy it sometimes, anyway. So we took the same photo above, except with flash to see if any of them could illuminate the scene without ruining the photo.
The Z10′s “hard” flash really shined in this test. The photo above is accurately exposed, and the details are crisp and sharp. The Lumia 920 comes in a close second with an accurate exposure, slightly softer flash, and less noise. Softer light is preferable when photographing people, but the harder flash of the Z10 is great for objects. The Galaxy S III’s flash performance is borderline decent, while the iPhone and Nexus fail the test for blowing out the details of our collectible friend.
Winner: BlackBerry Z10
Based on our Instagram feeds, at least 93 per cent of smartphone photos are of beautiful skies during the day. Because the sun is such a lovely source of light, most cameras should perform reasonably well in this situation. In this test, we were looking for the camera that evenly exposed highlights and shadows throughout the image. We also wanted to make sure a camera could shoot during the day without catching lens flare.
The Lumia accomplishes both of these the best. In the image above, you can see there’s even exposure on the building and sky. The camera’s wide-angle lens provides a great field of view and it has no problem resolving the sun without creating an awful lens flare. The iPhone 5 is a close second, with even exposure a slight flare washing out the contrast of the image. The GSIII handles the sun well but the image looks unnatural owing to the excessive contrast and saturation. As with the flash test, the Z10′s photo has the sharpest details, but the lens doesn’t handle the sun well, and a flare washes the image out quite a bit. The Nexus 4 is dead last, with a horrible lens flare and completely washed out exposure.
Winner: Lumia 920
Finally, we did a little indoor portraiture—just to remove the battle from the level of complete abstraction. The idea here is to see which camera could handle colour balance to really capture the proper skin tone hues when shooting a person. We shot Lindsey against a white background so that the camera had a clear reference point for white balance perfection. Failure under these circumstances is inexcusable.
The Galaxy S III did the best at representing accurate colours in this situation with a very clear and color correct image. The Lumia came out a little on the blue side but still very accurate with a healthy level of contrast. The iPhone balanced more to a yellow-pink colour and the image came out foggy. The Z10 shows up blurry and a little on the yellow/pink side in its colour balance, which is odd because in our other tests it captured the sharpest details. The Nexus 4 once again underperforms by a large margin with a washed out, blurry image with a very pinkish-yellow colour tone.
Winner: Galaxy S III
- Winner: Nokia Lumia 920: Using only the automatic setting, it gets an accurate exposure and decent image in all shooting conditions. You can’t beat it.
- Second Place: iPhone 5 It’s not the best at any one thing, but the iPhone 5 performs reasonably well in most settings, but the flash makes photos a total mess.
- Third Place: BlackBerry Z10: The Z10′s details are beautifully sharp, which is a refreshing reminder that smartphones don’t always have to shoot the fuzzy, soft photos we’re used to. Still, the camera underperforms in terms of overall image quality—especially in low-light—compared to the field.
- Fourth Place: Galaxy SIII: Pretty impressive that the Galaxy S III’s camera holds its own, despite being nearly a year old.
- Fifth Place: Nexus 4:. For being Google’s flagship Android device, the Nexus 4 is incredibly disappointing. Its camera is terrible even under optimal conditions. You have to cut corners somewhere to hit a low price point, and Google obviously skimped on the camera.
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Epic win for the Lumia 920! Wouldn’t be surprised if it beats the new HTC One too given their reluctance to show any camera samples. Be interesting to see if Nokia launch an even better camera phone at MWC next week.
we already know an upgraded pureview wp8 phone is coming…. the design patents show the bulge for the camera (which has been reduced signiicantly since the 808)
Yep, quite surprising (and refreshing) that all the details haven’t leaked yet. A reduced bulge is fine by me. I’ll be at MWC so will get my hands on one whilst there, if it turns out to be true.
steal me one please and i love u long time
I’m there as a guest of Nokia so they might be a bit pissed off if I pocket one and fly me home.
It looks like somebody either needed to clean the lens of the Nexus 4 in the portrait shot or they were doing the test inside a dust cloud.
I’ve tried taking a few portrait photos like that one and haven’t managed to get it to look anywhere near that bad.
True, it looks like a deliberate attempt to underplay Nexus 4.
I’ve took some really good pics with the nexus 4! Most on par with the iPhone 5′s camera!? The flash is even alright.
I think she’s standing in front of a white board? All of the photos have what appears to be dirt around her… Unless you’re referring to something else?
The image is very foggy, which could be caused by either a dirty lens or perhaps high humidity/sudden change in temperature causing the glass to fog up.
The effect seems to be apparent in varying degrees on the other cameras apart from the GSIII, which has produced an image of the quality you’d expect from the other phones operating under normal conditions.
Here’s a quick example I knocked up. The image on the left is my Nexus 4 with a clean(ish) lens. The one on the right is after I’d fogged up the glass a little by breathing on it.
http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/1183/monkeylenstest.jpg
Yeah, I’m really not sure to be honest. Mario does a lot of reviews for Giz, including DSLR, so it’s not like he would forget to check that the lens was clean. And as for the commenter T’s assertions that we might be showing bias here, well, hopefully you guys know us better than that.
It might have just been a case of the person testing having hot hands. Possibly caused by Ms Lindsey smiling at him.
Notice the GSIII shot is the only one where she isn’t smiling and without fogging…
scary that you had a monkey to hand
I have many monkeys…
A lot of these photo’s are taken at different distances, that is especially noticeable with the Nexus and the iPhone 5. I wonder if someone is getting a freebie from Nokia. Also looks like they are deliberately leaving pics out of focus. I smell bullshit.
The cameras have different focal lengths making it seem they are closer to / further from the scene, also they are set to auto (except when the flashes are forced off) so if the phone fails to focus then that is just another point against that particular device.
No surprise there, being said that there are tons of image rendering apps
I’m embarrassed for my Nexus 4
I’m not, considering how much the Nexus 4 embarrasses phones in other areas, and at a far lesser cost.
Spot on!
I’m sorry but what?
The only thing is has over other phones is price….. Give me some specs it has over the other phones that arent neglible differences…..
I mean theres bumming google and then theres this…..
The chip is the fastest in this lineup and the build quality and materials are superior to most of these phones.
The camera is pretty lousy and the lack of SD card slot is grating, but those are the only areas where it really loses out.
So you would like to argue that your nexus 4 has a better build quality than my 920?
Perhaps you would care to meet up some time and we can both drop our phones down some steel steps and see what fairs best?
Chip speed is nothing, i have never experienced a single piece of lag on my phone… As long as it can opperate 100% thats all that matters…
It doesnt even beat other Androids in benchmarks let alone the Iphone5 – http://www.androidauthority.com/nexus-4-nexus-10-benchmark-tests-128193/
The chip is a 1.5Ghz quad core Krait. It’s technically the most powerful chip there. You asked for a spec that was better, and there it is.
The benchmarks are often skewed by the fact that the Nexus throttles down the chip as it gets hot (something that happens in benchmarks, but not in the ‘real world’). Most reviews don’t pick up on this, but Anandtech did:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6440/google-nexus-4-review/3
As for quality, it’s largely subjective, and I didn’t say that it was the best construction there, I said it was better than most of these. I just like that the external materials feature very little plastic – they’re mostly glass and rubber, and that lends it a classier image, certainly better than the GS3 IMHO.
Nexus 4 has a Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset, meaning you get a quad core processor running at 1.5 Ghz (a lot of other phones are dual core) and an Adreno 320 GPU (which is pretty much the most powerful GPU in any phone currently).
You may say this only names a negligible difference, but combined with this it has 2GB RAM (most phones have 1GB) which makes the phone extremely smooth to use and allows very snappy multitasking, which endless reviews have stated, which is a very noticeable day to day difference.
It has an IPS display which you can see in all lighting conditions, unlike a lot of AMOLED screens. The screen resolution is also above 720p HD and has a great pixel density of 320 ppi.
It is pure Google, so you get Android updates first, as well as a non-bloated install of Android.
The build quality and design of the Nexus 4 is very solid and understated, without plastic all over the place, or cameras protruding out of the back, which gives it a quality feel; It will probably age better than other handsets, upping the resale value.
It also has wireless charging.
1 – Only android phones need lots of ram and processing power to operate smooth….
2 – Screen on 920 rapes it sideways… Dont even try to compare…
3 – Despite all stats its benchmarsk are poor compared to Iphone 5…
1. Not sure if later versions of Android need much RAM for OS smoothness, not since project butter. The Galaxy S3, for example, is smooth and only has 1GB RAM, similar to a lot of Android phones.
2. The Nexus 4 has a very easily viewable screen with a good pixel density and it shows; I think they’re both fair points. I’m not trying to say the Nexus 4 beats ALL phones in ALL areas, just that the Nexus 4 beats a lot of phones in terms of performance and features, as well as price.
3. Compared to the iPhone 5, yes, the Nexus 4 is slower in benchmarks and general frame rates in games, due to the hardware/software harmony found on Apple products. In terms of performance I think the iPhone 5 is the only higher performer at the moment though, correct me if I’m wrong. But come on, the iPhone 5 is nearly twice the price of the Nexus 4; you’ve surely got to take that into consideration in this case.
So yes, the 920′s screen beats the Nexus 4, and the iPhone 5′s performance beats the Nexus 4, but for such a relatively cheap phone you have to admit it’s a top-end premium smartphone and is better than most phones.
Are your photos as bad as the portrait one?
Mine aren’t that bad. My low light photos are also much better if HDR mode is on, but be prepared for some epic blurring…
More like the one on the left or the right?
http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/1183/monkeylenstest.jpg
HDR is off.
Portraits in decent light are definitely closer to the one on the left.
My HDR comment was merely in reference to the low light (no flash) shot, which looks very dark. I find that switching on HDR mode improves things a lot in that regard. This was taken in a very dark restaurant, but because it’s combining multiple shots and using a long exposure, it’s pretty blurry. And no, I wasn’t paying
.
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/3518/img20130216231604.jpg
Not much of a shutterbug but the few I’ve taken have been better than the examples shown.
Greetings…from a very happy Lumia 920 owner!
Greetings Dean, we miss you in chat though.
Complain to Google and get them to release the APIs. It’s the only reason why I’m not using it…
No mention is given of testing methodology. It can be clearly seen in some pictures that the subject appears nearer than in others also the outdoor test is a complete sham. Sun passing behind thin cloud will produce totally different light levels for each pic.
I’m not actually accusing anyone of bias. Just sloppy work which and leads to incorrect conclusions and invalidates the point of the test.
Very sloppy indeed!
really want to see how the new sony Z will perform, think it could be the best camera on a phone when its release
I did have my doubts about my Nexus 4 camera and it’s just been confirmed. Hmmm luckily I dont really use it as my main camera, although it would have been nice to have something not quite as bad. More than anything, I really dislike the camera app interface. I cam from an 4S so this is a bit of backwards step (in camera terms anyway)
These aren’t the best shots. Try looking for Nexus 4 photos from somewhere like XDA before judging too quickly.
Here’s a thread where people post their shots.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2000602
i like your campaigning for the nexus i really do… but seriously this guy owns a nexus 4… he doesnt need you to show him your photos…. which you could have done anything with….
I must have misread his comment. Didn’t realise he had one.
I haven’t got any photos on there, the only photo I’ve uploaded is the monkey one in these comments.
Got a Nexus 4 back in Jan and haven’t really used the camera much to be honest but compared to my last phone camera (small jittery guy etching it out in pencil would have been better!) it’s perfectly fine for everyday use as, no doubt, all the other cameras in the test are as well.
Unless you need to take pics in some professional capacity I always see it as a nice feature but not a key selling point when buying a phone when other features like the ecosystem, hardware and battery life are my prime considerations (as well as price).
Based on each of the tests, in order of how the reviewer rated the products, the Galaxy S3 should have come second rather than fourth, unless low light counted more than say portrait.
Also I’d say the S3 image of the cityscape looks the best, whereas in the Lumia the city is more underexposed to compensate for the bright sky.
(biased S3 owner, but also my original point stands)
The 808 I have is amazing, I’m not going to get a 920 but if they make an 808 on WIndows Phone, I’ll buy that and sell my Symbian version.
why is she pulling a face? tryna show cheekbones?.. women & their insecurities -_-