Android phone with the best camera to rival or surpass iPhone 4?

[Jezston]

I had to abandon Android so I could get a phone with a camera capable of taking decent photos in low light. After being disappointed with my HTC Desire (although it wasn't awful, just not terribly useful), I had my heart set on the Motorola XT720, however no network in the UK wanted to know about it - and apparently that was because it was sh*t.

So ... I got a Nokia N8. What! Oh yes. The camera in low light is actually passable, way better than any other camera phone, even the iPhone4 with its artificial kludge they call 'HDR'. but still nothing on a half decent compact digital camera. And now I'm stuck with a phone for the next 14 months that will never have any decent apps ever. Result!

In conclusion, you want decent shots in low light? Get a digital camera. No camera phone really cuts it.

 

[dan330]

^^^ nobody never said.. a phone cam will replace a stand alone camera..

you gave up all the features of an android phone.. for low light pics...

 

[Eazail70x7]

Samsung has the best cameras for android imo. Once if ever strengths

 

[PlastickCouch]

I have the Samsung Galaxy S 4G and I am not happy with the camera. My roommate's got the my touch 4g and his looks just as good, but WITH A FLASH. the night time is awful, just awful. it works in low lighting, but NOT in minimal or no lighting.

 

[ari-free]

I have the Samsung Galaxy S 4G and I am not happy with the camera. My roommate's got the my touch 4g and his looks just as good, but WITH A FLASH. the night time is awful, just awful. it works in low lighting, but NOT in minimal or no lighting.

for the SGS2 they finally realized that camera flash is a good idea.

 

[ari-free]

I had to abandon Android so I could get a phone with a camera capable of taking decent photos in low light. After being disappointed with my HTC Desire (although it wasn't awful, just not terribly useful), I had my heart set on the Motorola XT720, however no network in the UK wanted to know about it - and apparently that was because it was sh*t.

So ... I got a Nokia N8. What! Oh yes. The camera in low light is actually passable, way better than any other camera phone, even the iPhone4 with its artificial kludge they call 'HDR'. but still nothing on a half decent compact digital camera. And now I'm stuck with a phone for the next 14 months that will never have any decent apps ever. Result!

In conclusion, you want decent shots in low light? Get a digital camera. No camera phone really cuts it.

The point of a good camera on your phone is so you can take pictures at any time, even if you forgot to bring a real camera. Sometimes this is critical: you witnessed a crime and need to take pictures of the culprit.

 

[s327374]

Speaking from experience.

HTC desire HD - great phone - shit camera. Yes. I have faced the truth it is shockingly bad. Despite using different apps as well, it constantly lets me down. I have stopped taking it out for photos. It's embarrassing.

I have decide to buy something else after three months (actually, it has recently been stolen - damn - as the only thing I hated was the camera). All the reviews conflict each other though.

especially worried about Guamguy's advice, as he seemes to know a bit.

What to do... Need to decide by tonight really.

I looked and looked ... then bought the same phone. I almost went for the motorola Chinese version MXE811 (or something).

sigh.

I wish Nokia made Android. The N82 was such a sweet camera back in the day.

 

[jayjay1122]

My .02 just from what I have seen and experienced with my own eyes!!

Current Generation:
I would say the Galaxy S (Fascinate, Captivate) have the best cameras
HTC Incredible has a nice camera

iPhone 4 is WAY overrated and in my opinion is not even as good as the Incredible!

That said, I was in a suite at the Prudential Center in Newark for UFC Saturday night and there were 20 people there and the phones ran the spectrum: Fascinate, Incredible, iPhone, Blackberry, EVO, Windows Phones (Samsung I think) and 1 Thunderbolt! We were all comparing phones and taking pics side by side (yes I know there was a UFC event going on but the opening bouts were boring and there were very hot women everywhere )

The Thunderbolt (which I consider next generation) was head and shoulders taking the best pics of all the phones there. Oh and the 4G speed was insane!!!!!!! (18 to 22Mbps down AND up)

****I am NOT an iPhone hater in the least and as a phone, I actually find it pretty nice but If either of the two guys who had the iPhone zoomed even a little bit, the resolution went grainy immediately! Also, they could not take pics of the ring because the lights around the ring washed out the screen as soon as they aimed at it!! All of the Android phone pics that I saw were much nicer!!

 

[Medion]

iPhone 4 is WAY overrated and in my opinion is not even as good as the Incredible!

I'll have to disagree. I own an Incredible, and my wife owns an iPhone 4. Speaking just of photos, hers come out noticeably better than mine. As for video, it's a blowout. She can do 720p @ 30fps, and it's respectable. Not as good as a dedicated HD camcorder, but again, respectable. The Incredible drops frames and it looks like it was taken by a 70s home use camcorder. 480p is actually better looking, IMO, but still nowhere near the quality of my wife's iPhone 4.

 

[zuben el genub]

I have the GS 4G, and I think my Nokia C6 had the better pictures (Same MP). I'm comparing outdoor pics where you don't need flash. The Galaxy will do, though. And it could be the screen protector.

 

[Brucew0617]

I think some mobile phones with Android system from Sony are good at shoot.

 

[mrspeedmaster]

My .02 just from what I have seen and experienced with my own eyes!!


iPhone 4 is WAY overrated and in my opinion is not even as good as the Incredible!

I would respectfully disagree.
I have both an iPhone 4 and an Incredible.
You just mentioned your friend's photos look horrible with zoom. Of course that will happen, zooms on cellphones are digital extrapolations. They're not real zooms. They're digitally blown up.

As for the iPhone 4 versus Incredible.
Incredible has badly blown highlights, oversaturation, off white-balance, and over-exposure. Files are highly compressed jpegs w/ artifacts.
You can take both image files and examine them under a digital microscope and 8 out of 10 images will be better on the iPhone.

Less noise, better wider tonal fidelity. And this is not based on biased opinion but under normal pixel-peeping file analysis. When I say pixel peeping, I am referring to opening up the files in Photoshop and actually measuring the curves and histogram. The proof is in the histogram.

They have both have the same size sensor made by the same company but the iPhone is 175um (5 megapixel vs 8) which means better light gathering capabilities and noise. When you over-pack the number of pixels in a teeny sensor, you will get more noise. In order for the Inc to match, the sensor needs to be at least 40% bigger in size to match the pixel density of 175um.
A typical point-n-shoot Canon has a 200um sensor. Your shitty cellphone sensor is 125-150um.
Also, the iPhone has a f/2.4 optics vs f/2.8 on the incredible.

If all the techno jargon is confusing, go to a camera forum and do some reading.

If either of the two guys who had the iPhone zoomed even a little bit, the resolution went grainy immediately! Also, they could not take pics of the ring because the lights around the ring washed out the screen as soon as they aimed at it!!

Sounds like they didn't know how to tap on the center to set the exposure. And like I said above, a zoom on a cellphone is not a real zoom (except on some Nokia phones w/ Carl Zeiss motorized lenses).

BTW, I posted a long thread on how bad the Incredible camera is here:

http://androidforums.com/htc-incred...bout-incredible-camera-picture-quality-2.html

It goes into detail w/ white balance examples, bad histograms. Even a Motorola Backflip takes better photos than the Incredible.

 

[jayjay1122]

^^^I can definitely appreciate all of that mrspeedmaster and I have no knowledge of the intricacies of photography such as light, exposure, noise etc so I have no basis to dispute anything you said. Actually, I really appreciate this very detailed explanation, I definitely learned something. Thank you!!

I was only speaking from what my eyes saw of the results and all I can say is that side by side, on Saturday night, the iPhone was taking worse pics than most other phones there except for the Blackberry!!


And you never have to "respectfully disagree" with me, just tell me "shut up jayjay, you know not what you say"!!!

 

[Member503510]

Megapixels have NEVER been the yardstick to measure the quality of a camera. I have printed 20"x30" using an image created by a dSLR at 3mpx, and it looked excellent.

The smaller the focal length (limited by the thickness of the phone), the crappier the image will be. It's optical physics. You're comparing a rotten apple to a rotten orange. Cramming more pixels on the sensor doesn't change the quality of light shining through that pinhole.

thank you!!! optics, ppl, optics. it's always been about optics.

 

[sonofaresiii]

Let's not discount megapixel/resolution entirely. An 8 megapixel camera is going to look better than a 2 megapixel camera. But I agree that people put too much stock in those MP's.

 

[ambientdroid]

There is an Android phone in Japan, and sold only in Japan that sports a 12mp monster.

Yep, I've got it

 

[Guamguy]

I like the photos i get with my Nexus S. It looks better than the Galaxy S i got but seems to have a slower autofocusing for some reason. In any case, the Galaxy S has a good sensor but lacks flash.

HTC improves with every new phone they build. In terms of picture quality in my collection, irrespective of MP.

Desire Z > Droid Incredible > Nexus One/HTC Desire > HTC Hero > HTC Magic > HTC Touch Diamond.

Still i got the overall impression that Motorola takes better pictures in general over HTC phones. I've seen pics on the Atrix, which despite its 5mp sensor, is quite sharp.

If you really like a good Android camera phone, look to the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, Neo or Pro, with the Exmor sensors. These are the same sensors used on the Sony Cybermaxes.

 

[rocky7012]

I'm bike rider, mostly at night, and like to take pictures of places, other riders in the group, street food we eat, etc.. Right now I carry my Palm Pre Plus phone along with a point and shoot camera in my pocket. I'd like to consolidate the two and carry a good camera phone. I need it to be able to shoot:

- good low-light (night time) pictures
- fast shutter speed would be good for action shots

Which Android phone is generally considered to have a great camera? I'm not talking just about the number of megapixels, but over-all quality of the camera, lens, and software to match?

if its camera that your after then no cellphone can beat Sony Ericsson Idou(Satio)..it has 12mp camera. It not only have huge mp but it is also of very great quality so there is no doubt this is the best camera phone at least for now..too bad it isnt an android phone

 

[ninja_reject]

Why do people think the iphone camera is so much better?? Ive never seen a photo and thought "holy crap, what camera is this?"

Is the picture that much better????

Just asking...

I don't like iPhones at all, but when I see my sister's clear crisp gorgeous shots she takes with her iPhone 3g, I feel a bit jealous. She let me look at all her pictures, never one bit of blurring because of movement or anything.

 

[zuben el genub]

What is the usual screen resolution of the phones? Are you printing the pics? If you are heavy into Photoshop or whatever, and printing 8x10 or larger, extra pixels aren't going to do that much. Your computer screen is either 72/96 dpi and that's what will show up.
I've decent 8x10 from a 3mp camera. If I post pix, I always decrease the dpi anyway and post between 72/96 dpi.
Plus the more mp you stick on a smaller chip will start to degrade the image with noise. Even DSLR fora are now debating about if we have reached the end of the mp race. And those are far bigger sensors than the phone cameras!

Sharpness is a different story. A lot of cameras will sharpen jpg internally so they look good on a device, but have all kinds of artifacts if you print them.

Nokia phones, especially the N8 are supposed to have Zeiss lenses. If some of the cheaper cameras use a form of plastic lens or a glass lens that isn't configured quite right, that is really a complaint. You should get something usable.

Looking through the camera setup - there's a lot of stuff there that would be better served by using the code space to improve the image. You don't need cutesy balloons, etc.

I'd like to see the phones shoot in RAW. If I'm going to use the picture for anything, I want the final say, not the camera.

 

[Teegunn]

I use the app Camera 360 on my Droid X for much better post processing. Really improves the pics. Also the new Samsung Droid charge is supposed to take great pics.

 

[AndroidSPCS]

I don't like iPhones at all, but when I see my sister's clear crisp gorgeous shots she takes with her iPhone 3g, I feel a bit jealous. She let me look at all her pictures, never one bit of blurring because of movement or anything.

This is strange. I have had the 3GS, the 3GS camera is awful, blurry and junky. The iPhone 4's camera, however, is amazing.

My best shots are taken with my Samsung Epic, a Galaxy S phone, that also has a flash. My Evo's pictures aren't too bad, but aren't as good as my Epic's camera.

 

[Gew]

Like I said, I like the lay-up. However, I like the lay-up in the sense that we're discussing which Android phones comes with the best cameras. What I don't like, is how iPhone 4 is considered to be the the thone of great deals, since it's really not. However, I can tell that the lower side phones from the (Samsung) Galaxy series (Mini, Gio~) are not so good. Alright, in daylight the take descent photos, but in bad lightning (indoors) or at night, not so good. I watched a photo taken by a HTC Desire. I thought it was alright. Any better ideas? What's up with ZTE, Huawei, LG and their models?

Newsflash, please!

 

[psychotron]

I love the camera on my Epic Touch 4G and I am hard to please being a pro photographer. It's worth pointing out that Samsung makes the optics and Sony makes the image sensor on the IPhone 4.

 

[Caloy]

Apple's iPhone 4 has a lot better camera than my HTC Evo 4G. If not for Android's free superior navigation and map apps which I depend on a regular basis, I would be thinking about getting an iPhone 5 when it comes out. I hope HTC is actually reading this forum and give us HDR capabilities, thank God HDR photography wasn't pioneered by Apple.

Based on my experience, HTC Evo 4G is good at medium lighting. Too bright and you see the whites glow, Video is also okay, but sound quality is horrible. If what you are looking for in a smartphone is a good camera, it will be very hard to beat the iPhone, then again, you pay a lot more for those capabilties as well.