Apple picks at Bionic's slow camera speed

[amageus]

LMFAO. I'm reading the liveblog of Apple's conference and they are taking a shot at the Bionic.

Apple Iphone 4s' camera speed of 1.1sec vs our Bionic's 3.7sec.

"I don't know what Droid Bionic users need to do between pictures, maybe go get coffee." ~ Phil Shiller @ Apple

 

[trophynuts]

the camera speed is frustrating at least on my DX.


especially when i have to immediately retake the shot because the first one is garbage.

 

[amageus]

Oh it is. I just find it funny they only picked at just the camera speed which I hope Motorola fixes. Kinda like the problem we had with the OG Droid.

 

[xmr405o]

That's all they got on the Bionic??? A camera app diss?!? It's actually good that they mentioned the Bionic because it shows that they are scared! If the Bionic is this good, imagine when the Vigor and Prime come out. 3 monsters will be banging down Apple's doors.

This is gonna be a great year for Android fans.

 

[droidosis]

interesting that they even mentioned it. they must feel threatened by the bionic to even give it props, you know they've been messing around with it before this press conference for sure. let's hope the update brings .7 second shutter speed -droidosis-

 

[p8ntballah21]

Like as was previously stated, the fact that they even mentioned the Bionic is because they feel threatened by it.

My personal favorite was when he said something along the line of: "Our competitors have tried to copy the iP***4 but havn't come close" I thought that was odd, because if "nobody has come close" then why are you suing everyone that makes Android phones for copying them?!?!?!

 

[trophynuts]

i have to agree that this will end up being a big year for Android.

Hopefully with the Prime and the Vigor the camera response will be better.

 

[xmr405o]

i have to agree that this will end up being a big year for Android.

Hopefully with the Prime and the Vigor the camera response will be better.

Moto camera's are generally slower than HTC and Samsungs but with my experience with the D1, Moto usually corrects that or devs do. (crosses fingers)

 

[thetingster]

Apple also shortened the devs coffee breaks so they wouldn't lose the phone!

 

[dave1812]

LMFAO. I'm reading the liveblog of Apple's conference and they are taking a shot at the Bionic.

Apple Iphone 4s' camera speed of 1.1sec vs our Bionic's 3.7sec.

"I don't know what Droid Bionic users need to do between pictures, maybe go get coffee." ~ Phil Shiller @ Apple

it's typical of apple to highlight any other mfgrs perceived or real weaknesses, like they tried during antennagate.

 

[schembfs]

They'll have plenty of time to get coffee later while they're uploading the photos...

 

[Vehtemas]

Vignette!!! The phone focuses and takes a picture in a second!

Granted, it does cost $3-$4, I am trying out the demo as we speak and its pretty damn nice, although the demo is limited to 0.3 MP so I don't know how well it takes high resolution pics.

 

[jroc]

I wonder why Apple didnt go after the GS2's camera speed...the US versions just came out too along with the Bionic.

 

[Frisco]

Friendly reminder: Poking fun and making little jokes while pointing out device differences can be ok, but name calling ("douche," "insecure wannabes," etc) isn't.

 

[jarvik1394]

the camera speed is frustrating at least on my DX.


especially when i have to immediately retake the shot because the first one is garbage.

Try Camera Zoom FX on the Bionic. Not sure about the speed but much faster than stock. Also you can use the AOSP Google camera from other phones alongside the Motorola Camera. Works Great.

https://market.android.com/details?id=slide.cameraZoom&feature=more_from_developer

 

[jenlion]

I updgraded from the Droid 2 to the Bionic a few days ago. I love having a real keyboard, but it seems that the better phones aren't going to have them in the future... better learn to deal. I'm proficient with Swype.

So far, though, the camera is a HUGE bummer. I'm having wait times that are 10 seconds between pressing the shutter button and getting a picture. Worse, the shutter SOUND occurs, but the picture capture doesn't happen for three seconds more.

I have come to rely on my phone for most of my candid pictures of my kids. So easy to share with family. They're never going to be portraits, but this camera just can't focus or take a regular picture. I don't need it to be awesome, but I do need it to be adequate. I want the 4G, I want the 1080P, I want the HDMI, I want the gig of ram.

I'm also extremely disappointed with battery life. I've hardly used the phone for data at all this week - just Beejive and a little facebook, with notifications turned off. I take it off the charger about 7 am and it's dead by 6pm. Battery status claims nearly 40% is cell standby, another 30-some percent "phone idle", and if I have bluetooth on for a couple hours, 17% is that. That's really surprising. On my D2, nearly all the battery went to "display". On the Bionic, hardly any goes to display.

If it only took 3.7s for a picture, that'd be great. But I've repeated it over and over -- anywhere from 5 to 10s for a picture. For moving kids, that's the difference between "Thanks for the teddy bear! I love it!" and screaming face throwing toy away. And the quality of the pics is disappointing -- worse than the D2 -- I suspect because focusing isn't happening right.

Really, really, really disappointing. Nice fast phone otherwise. But what good is fast if it doesn't do basic things right?

 

[dave1812]

I updgraded from the Droid 2 to the Bionic a few days ago. I love having a real keyboard, but it seems that the better phones aren't going to have them in the future... better learn to deal. I'm proficient with Swype.

So far, though, the camera is a HUGE bummer. I'm having wait times that are 10 seconds between pressing the shutter button and getting a picture. Worse, the shutter SOUND occurs, but the picture capture doesn't happen for three seconds more.

I have come to rely on my phone for most of my candid pictures of my kids. So easy to share with family. They're never going to be portraits, but this camera just can't focus or take a regular picture. I don't need it to be awesome, but I do need it to be adequate. I want the 4G, I want the 1080P, I want the HDMI, I want the gig of ram.

I'm also extremely disappointed with battery life. I've hardly used the phone for data at all this week - just Beejive and a little facebook, with notifications turned off. I take it off the charger about 7 am and it's dead by 6pm. Battery status claims nearly 40% is cell standby, another 30-some percent "phone idle", and if I have bluetooth on for a couple hours, 17% is that. That's really surprising. On my D2, nearly all the battery went to "display". On the Bionic, hardly any goes to display.

If it only took 3.7s for a picture, that'd be great. But I've repeated it over and over -- anywhere from 5 to 10s for a picture. For moving kids, that's the difference between "Thanks for the teddy bear! I love it!" and screaming face throwing toy away. And the quality of the pics is disappointing -- worse than the D2 -- I suspect because focusing isn't happening right.

Really, really, really disappointing. Nice fast phone otherwise. But what good is fast if it doesn't do basic things right?

then get the extended battery. I can go over 24 hours with moderate usage. hell, I can get well over an hour when the phone first starts to report 5% left. LOL!

 

[krouget]

Like as was previously stated, the fact that they even mentioned the Bionic is because they feel threatened by it.

I don't see anything wrong with that, though. It's healthy competition. They're concerned with Android about as much as we're concerned with iOS.

However, they did touch on a good point, though...the Bionic camera is very slow and can be improved. If this is remedied via software update by Moto, after Apple bringing attention to it, then the better for us Bionic owners.

 

[schembfs]

@Jenlion... Under ideal conditions (adequate lighting,steady camera and subject), you shouldn't experience this severe lag unless there's something wrong. I've just tested this. It only took a sec or two to focus then a fraction of a sec of shutter lag. However, if you're moving around and trying to track moving subjects running around such as your kids, you will get much better results if you take it out of auto scene mode and set it to 'sport' scene mode. Auto scene mode doesn't seem to automatically detect conditions when you need certain scene modes. Hopefully this will be addressed in the next OTA update. Battery life really depends on how you use it. I have gone 12 hrs and only used 30% with light usage. I have drained it in 6 hrs as a 4g hotspot for a tablet and a laptop.

 

[larsenracing]

I agree the Camera on this thing is horribly slow and doesn't take 8mp pictures if you ask me. The zooming is terrible and very blurry. I sure hope they fix this because the camera on my 2 year old BB Storm 2 at like 3.2mp took better picture's.

 

[jenlion]

Larsen, I was just comparing this camera to the one on my old BB storm two phones ago!

I had tried putting in sport mode, or even multi-shot mode, but there was still a very long lag. It may well be my moving kids that are making it hard to focus... but moving kids are what I have to deal with, and I know cell cameras CAN handle them, so I expect mine to.

But seeing above that there are other apps that can control the camera, I went looking. Tried Vignette. It's much better! Once I turned off all the effects that I don't need, it seems to work pretty well, and the phone is very nice about letting me choose which camera app I want when launching camera. That's kind of surprising. Vignette lets me choose where to focus, and how sharp I want the pics to be. And I tried the sport mode there, which made it even better.

I don't think the 8MP quality is any better than DH's old iPhone 4 camera or even his current windows phone Galaxy -- probably a shade worse than either -- but at least with Vignette controlling it the speed is better. I'm not planning on blowing these up, they're just snapshots or grandparents and to capture the everyday stuff we'd lose otherwise.

$4 for the app certainly worth being able to keep the faster phone! Crossing fingers it works under more real-world situations... and yah, Motorola should fix that. Geeze. Sad.

Thanks!!

 

[Vehtemas]

Battery life really depends on how you use it. I have gone 12 hrs and only used 30% with light usage. I have drained it in 6 hrs as a 4g hotspot for a tablet and a laptop.

With light use (1-2 hours of screen on), I can get easily 17-20 hours with my extended battery, with 2 hours of GPS and 2 hours of screen on I can still get a good 12 hours out of the battery, and that would be considered heavy use for me.

 

[schembfs]

@larsenracing. Any kind of digital zooming will cause loss of detail which is sometimes perceived as 'bluriness'. Only optical zooming can maintain resolution. This is rarely available in current smartphones due to space limitations.

 

[dave1812]

I agree the Camera on this thing is horribly slow and doesn't take 8mp pictures if you ask me. The zooming is terrible and very blurry. I sure hope they fix this because the camera on my 2 year old BB Storm 2 at like 3.2mp took better picture's.

the zooming function will always give lousy results--it's DIGITAL; not OPTICAL.

 

[rdalev]

That's all they got on the Bionic??? A camera app diss?!? It's actually good that they mentioned the Bionic because it shows that they are scared! If the Bionic is this good, imagine when the Vigor and Prime come out. 3 monsters will be banging down Apple's doors.

This is gonna be a great year for Android fans.

Everyone benefits from competition !