Database Users

User review SGS2

Hi all im going to be giving my personal review / comparison ( ip4 ).
I hope you all enjoy.
Style/ Look / Feel
When i first picked up the phone i was in shock and disappointment, the gs2 feels light, cheap and weak, ( compaired to my ip4 ) however it has been almost a month now with the phone and i can say the phone still feels cheap but i like the weight when watching movies and browsing the web. However i dont like the weight when taking video and pictures i tend to shack a little more with the phone in my hand were with the ip4 it just had that extra weight to hold of the small shakes .( but thats a problem with me i guess not the phone ).
Speaker ports and holes are all normal with a flash of chrome around some parts breaking up the constant black , the speaker cuts are very bad in my honest opinion , they are to deep and sharp ( i worry dirt can get in after time ). The band around the screen also has a gap and ive already found that dirt falls in there and has made a home. The button feel for the home button is nice and solid same as the ip4, volume rockers and switch off buttons also feel good and are easy to access.
Overall the phone feels a good 3.5/5
Hardware
Speaker sound is really exceptional i would say just as loud as my ip4, however the placement of the speaker port blocks sound when it is placed on a bed or flat surface also another thing is that the sound is a little flat when listening to high bass music. I hardly use headphones for listening to music but i did use them for talking on the phone and they are very good and loud.
Call clarity is fantastic on speaker or on loud speaker, and ive asked people if the sound is clear on the other end and they did hear me very clearly.
Ok so the screen super amoled plus well what can i say the positives are 4.3 inch size big positive for moves and browsing and viewing pictures/movies also another plus is the colour looks amazing very rich but not over saturated.
Now the negatives of the screen and there is only one thats the resolution when viewing youtube hd videos it is just not as sharp as the ip4 and when viewing text on the web i find it very poor compared to the ip4.
overall speaker 5/5
call clarity 5/5
screen 4/5 ( watching streams and web are big part of my usage )
Camera
So this phone is amazing with taking pictures and video it is 95% perfect at it, now that 5% it does bad is auto focus and the lack of touch to focus in 8mp and 1080p hd video. Coming from an ip4 i guess i took this amazing feature for granted. Now if you are an artistic photographer like i am having the option to touch focus is very important so that you can pic were you want your depth of field and in focus areas. ( is there and app for this i would love to use it ? )
As for video touch to focus isnt as important but the auto focus does need to be fixed, it is very jumpy in low light and in direct light, also in low light it finds it very hard to focus sometimes taking 2-3 seconds ( the ip4 would focus really smoothly and accurately ).
One thing i will mention is that video recording outside in low like just after dusk you will get alot of noise and loss of detail, i dont consider this a problem because i can understand the limitation of such a small sensor, i just mention it so other that have not yet brought the phone will know.
Some crops and shots with the gs2
pic outside grass
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outside sunset
crop 100% outside sunset
crop 100% inside flash
crop 100% macro outside sunset
pic outside bush
Note : these pics look to have been doped in size by flikr but the detail is still there.
Video test at 1080p showing focus times and colour representation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=409whx1SjFs&feature=player_profilepage
Note: there seems to be some colour lose and detail lose in the youtube upload process but it still shows focus times.
Software
I can only talk about software that i use most of the time, i dont use the hubs or touch wiz, the first day i got the phone i put launcher pro on the phone the reason for this was because personally touch wiz looks like an iphone with the bottom 4 square icons and i just dont want to be reminded of the brain dead apple os ( sorry apple fans )
ok so wifi, for me wifi is stronger then on my ip4 it loads pages, videos on youtube and streams faster. ( this could also be due to the software on the gs2 ) but it still feels faster to me. Blue tooth on the other had is not as strong as the ip4, i use bluetooth in my car to listen to music and make/ receive calls and it has dropped out on three occasions were my ip4 did not drop out once.
GPS and 3g are all dependent on how close you are to towers , i have poor 3g in my area But in good areas my 3g is just as fast as my ip4 ( keep in mind i do view full web pages most of the time ).
One thing i have to mention is why i moved to android since it seems the ip4 was so good, and that is customization and OS i love the os and i love the customization.
Screen shot of my homescreen, could not do this with the ip4.
One thing i dont like about the youtube app is the subs menu? why isnt there a all subs option? and when i go to individual subs it doesnt show me thumbs? im a very visual person and i miss that.
Browser is superfast i love it, very responsive and i can do almost everything i want. It is not total flash support some sites i can not click on text boxes but that is just a small thing, over all very good.
And lastly i got to mention battery usage, Now i am one of many that have HAD yes i say HAD the os drain problem, but i said stuff it im gonna use and abuse my phone and now the battery is amazing the phone is lasting a good day and a half with heavy use ( video stream over wifi , youtube , web , camera/video shots ) to give an example i watch a 50 min stream on tv shows stream app and i loose around 10% ive done a side by side with my ip4 and it chews around 8% , so in saying that i would say its nearly there .
OVERALL
Well i love this phone, sure it may feel a little cheap and the res isn't as high as the ip4 or have the touch to focus, but you can do so much with this phone from watching streams of tv shows to taking fantastic 1080p video. the customization of the launcher is so much fun and the support you get from people on xda is amazing, who needs apple support when you can have xda support?
Thanks everyone for reading my review i hope my honest review has helped some with similar usage patterns with there decision on purchasing this amazing device.

Nice review. Would be perfect without the little potshots against apple. A brain dead OS and a streamlined one are two very different ways of describing iOS. I also wouldn't rely on an internet forum for any real support. You can like Android without hating Apple. I've seen a lot of user reviews where once 3GS and IP4 users suddenly do a 180 and trash talk the devices they've been using and loving for years, because they want to fit in with the group and champion the superiority of whatever phone they have by talking **** about the other, because it makes themselves feel superior. I don't think you meant to be offensive, but you should qualify some of your remarks anyhow. Then again, compared to most user reviews I've read, this is pretty docile and fair.

Wow i actually thought i gave my old ip4 to good a wrap, but u are right brain dead is harsh. it is an amazing phone just felt so liberated being able to Change what i want with the gs2. Thanks for the feedback

Camera Comparison of DOOM (Warning: if you have bandwidth caps, steer clear)

OK so here it is. I took some time this evening with an old Galaxy S, a new(ish) Galaxy S2, a shiny new Galaxy S3, and an iPhone 4S (for good measure).
Problem statement: Samsung has been accused of equipping some versions of the Galaxy S3 with an inferior image sensor, providing degraded low light sensitivity when compared to the Galaxy S2 and other top phones. This is bad because customers expect to be purchasing a tested and true level of quality with their new device, not buying into a game of chance "which sensor do you get with your $200 and two year contract?"
Background: Samsung, like most large companies, has a limited supply chain. Many times with a product launch such as large as this, they will take shortcuts. Usually, these shortcuts are not major problems. Apple does this all the time, they use memory modules from different manufactures, capacitors from different places, etc. Samsung does this as well. It only becomes a problem when something major, such as the camera/battery/glass/etc is enough different to change the user experience. It has been proven that on the Galaxy S2 and Galaxy S3 samsung has sourced their image sensor from two locations:
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Methods: Well, this is no lab test. I tested these phones side by side, one at a time. I took at least 3 pictures for each image shown and selected my favorite. The first images use auto everything because that is going to be the most common setting (and in the case of the iPhone, the ONLY setting, minus HDR mode). Following this I enabled night mode on the androids and took another set of images. Pictures were selected with 100% bias towards what I thought looked nice overall, nothing more. No tripod was used, but I tried to keep each phone as steady as possible. It's my job to perform microsurgery (on occasion) so I think I'm qualified to hold the phone still enough. No other settings were messed with.
I did not try to find good angles for the phones, instead I placed them in situations where the lighting was poor/hellish. The pictures were all taken indoors with few/no lights on, with ambient light messing up the shots, and no flash (which would have made all of these shots 10000x better). It was overcast and late in the evening.
First off, camera firmware for the S2 and S3
The iPhone should be shaking with all this epicness in front of it
In this set, the iphone would autofocus both outside and inside so both images are shown. No matter where I tapped to focus with the Galaxy's, I could not get the chair to come out clear. I could have adjusted the settings manually I guess. I re-sized the S1 image here accidentally (it's 5MP not 8MP). The iPhone, S1 and S3 all did well, with the edge going to the iPhone and S1 (surprisingly)... the S2 and S3 were very temperamental.
This set threw in some motion. I wouldn't try to quantify it, however. When that dog gets excited there isn't a camera anywhere fast enough to avoid motion blur. The framing was difficult as I was trying to keep the dog in the picture, but anyway, the S3 on auto had my favorite results overall. With night mode enabled
the S2 and S3 both looked good, I feel the S2 took the best shot with night mode.
In this set, the S3 night mode and HDR beat everything else hands down. The S2 looked good, but I had issues keeping it still, the S3 was very sharp each time despite the increased exposure.
Getting into pure darkness without a flash (who does this???), I only compared the S2 and S3. The S1 did surprisingly well here... but it's old tech so nobody cares. The iPhone was just black screen, nothing to compare. As for my take on these... yes, the S3 is REALLY red. That means the S3 has a crappy IR filter. But all hope is not lost... anybody that knows anything about night vision knows that IR and near-IR light is the most valuable. The fact that the sensor is able to collect this much IR really helps it "see" in the dark, even if it's primarily one color. While this may cause some minor problems at normal light levels (very minor, since this light is hardly present, remember the lights are almost totally off here), by passing the S3 image through some very minor filters in photoshop the image comes out beautiful. The third image looks almost identical to how the scene looked to my own eyes, slightly yellow hue from the dim lights, redish wood table. IMO at least.
Moving into some real situations, here is a macro shot of the S1 and S3
And in finale, my dirty car. The S1/2/3 all had good color reproduction, with the S2/3 having more detail, and the S3 the best overall. The iPhone kept trying to focus on the wheel (It either thought it was a face, or Siri was getting hot for the rims) which was the cause for the bad white balance.
In conclusion, in three generations of camera's, the biggest change is in detail. In all of the S1 images, noise is present in much higher amounts, although it held in WAY better than I expected for its age. As for the S3 being worse than the S2, for at least these tests I do not believe this to be the case. If anything they are very comparable. While some see the excess near-IR on night shots as a bad thing, remember it is always a tradeoff. Less IR (red) makes the shot more balanced naturally, but since the other wavelengths will be so sparse you will have little (or no) detail. At least with the red, you can regain vasts amounts of detail, and post process a little bit later to get a very nice picture. On a side note, I noticed the S3 compresses its pictures more than both the S2 and the iPhone4S. The only phone with smaller images was the S1, and it has a 5mp camera. This may not be a factor for anything, but I did find it interesting.
To not offend any apple fans, considering the fact they have zero control over the functioning of the camera, it did pretty well. Had the flash been used (like they should have been), I believe the S3 and iPhone would have been pretty much tied. I don't like apple, but I did try my best to be fair and take good pictures with all phones.
I do apologize for not having the GDxxxx firmware S3, as many were looking forward to seeing it in this comparison. I hope this helps somebody out there regardless. Lastly, unadulterated pictures can be found https://picasaweb.google.com/117440914475223218617/CameraComparison?authuser=0&feat=directlink with all the exif data you could ever need if you can sort through them.

hmm, looks like not many images are showing up... i'll add links instead
*edit* gotta give it lots of time to load

Nice review
Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk 2

thank you for taking the time to put this together, excellent job!

Great comparison shots. Thanks! :good:

How do you enable night mode? I looked in camera settings and I do not see it, I'm using the AT&T version.

newtoandroid99 said:
How do you enable night mode? I looked in camera settings and I do not see it, I'm using the AT&T version.
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Camera - > settings - > scene mode - > Night
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium

do you think there's a difference between the Samsung and Sony image sensor for the S3? If so which is better?

I don't believe that has been determined yet, but hopefully it will be soon. It seems like the general consensus is the Sony sensor has better low light performance and may have less blooming in bright light, but we are still trying to get a direct comparison so anything anybody says right now is just a guess. Hopefully I will be able to make a quick comparison this weekend if I can get away from my work for a while. Personally, I am happy with the samsung sensors performance as it is very good, but it's always nice to know which sensor is the king.

So how do I determine which Image sensor my S3 has?

Nice comparison. I feel like my wife's 4S takes better photos sometimes.
Thanks for taking the time
Sent from my SGH-T999

georgei11 said:
Nice comparison. I feel like my wife's 4S takes better photos sometimes.
Thanks for taking the time
Sent from my SGH-T999
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Click to collapse
Yup same here, some pictures look better in my wife phone. Sad thing is that iPhone 4s came out last year, now iPhone 5 will probably have even better camera this year, but I'm fine with the gs3 I only use the pictures for Facebook and mms
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

jdpdata said:
So how do I determine which Image sensor my S3 has?
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type *#34971539# in the dialer, then click Phone/CAM FW Ver Check at the top.
If the string of numbers at the bottom starts with a ZDxxxx you have a samsung it is believed, while a prefix of
GDxxxx is believed to be the Sony image sensor.
It doesn't surprise me that the iPhone4S takes better pictures in normal conditions for many, the camera, audio chip and video processor are the best designed pieces on the 4S imo and remain the bar. The camera app is totally automated and does a lot of processing in the background invisible to the user. These pictures were mainly set up to compare the cameras in situations that small cameras innately struggle with. I mostly put the 4S in as a type of standard/control since I felt a real camera would make them all look silly, and many are familiar with the 4S.
Comparing the 4S to the S2/S3/OneX in typical lighting situations is something that has been beaten into the ground by many, with everything from tripods to image analysis software with no obvious winner (depending on who you ask). The only things I feel comfortable saying are that the 4S is easier to take good pictures with, while our phone takes practice and skill due to many more options, and that the 4S is utterly useless in darkness while our phones are only somewhat useless. Anyway I'm no photographer, just a science nerd with some fancy phones

I posted this over on the international, but for anyone concerned about the camera. I'm going to attempt to swap out the camera for the other module. My Pebble Blue AT&T has the Metal Housing that people talk about along with the ZD firmware. I took my phone apart and checked, it's super easy. I went on Ebay and found what appears to be the Sony module based on pictures from the International forum and the iFixit page. The cameras, parts and the way these phones come apart are essentially identical. There were even some labels on the inside that said GT-I9300. I'll let you guys know when I get the parts.

duowing said:
I posted this over on the international, but for anyone concerned about the camera. I'm going to attempt to swap out the camera for the other module. My Pebble Blue AT&T has the Metal Housing that people talk about along with the ZD firmware. I took my phone apart and checked, it's super easy. I went on Ebay and found what appears to be the Sony module based on pictures from the International forum and the iFixit page. The cameras, parts and the way these phones come apart are essentially identical. There were even some labels on the inside that said GT-I9300. I'll let you guys know when I get the parts.
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Click to collapse
I have a 32gb blue Sprint version with the ZD firmware and im pretty upset about it. I exchanged it and got another one with a ZD firmware. I'm beginning to think that the GD Firmware (sony) modules are only in the 16gb versions. Are there any folks out there with 32gb blue's that have gd firmware?

spydc said:
I have a 32gb blue Sprint version with the ZD firmware and im pretty upset about it. I exchanged it and got another one with a ZD firmware. I'm beginning to think that the GD Firmware (sony) modules are only in the 16gb versions. Are there any folks out there with 32gb blue's that have gd firmware?
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i have 16gb claro panama blue and it ZD version. chill, there is not a huge difference in quality both are BSI
and ZD is only firmware, u may still ahve sony imx 175 bsi sensor

HTC One M9 Camera discussion (not for photo samples)

Albert Poon said:
May I ask you guys with M9 to take pics using manual mode? A tripod, phone holder, low ISO, long explosure to take some night views?
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This was missing in the flickr album. Long exposure 1/4, 1/2 or 1s shots. And please use flickr so we can see exifs easily. board attachments and imgur strip exifs out. I notice the phonearena samples have no exifs in them at all.
Though i have to say i like this one. Just enough silhouette to set the mood.
ISO 80 and 1/40 WHAT!!! for late afternoon Seattle in winter. I can't tell if its HDR or not.
---------- Post added at 09:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:43 PM ----------
xxquicksh0txx said:
https://plus.google.com/10388377056...6126393456474303042&oid=103883770561517758752 Link to the beetle picture on his Google+ with a resolution of 1108 x 625. Definitely cropped/compressed
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Taken with VSCO cam, ISO 50, 1/268. So ample light.
Also used flash. Sharpness is set to soft.
A nice photo.
---------- Post added at 09:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:17 PM ----------
vegetaleb said:
Here a comparison of crop between M9 and Note 4 in not very low light conditions taken by the Tweakers review, you can clearly see the superiority of the Note 4 in the details like the logos of Goodyear and the wheel:
I know it's not final software but this M9 camera is giving the same results the SE C905 could give 6 years ago
M9
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Note 4
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Note 4 is ISO 400, 1/10
M9 is ISO 640, 1/14
About half a f-stop difference.
What if the M9 tried to get that with ISO 300 ie ISO 200 +0.3 at 1/7 ? or go slower still ISO100+0.3 at 1/3 ? can't do these tricks with the note, slowest it will get is 1/8 and then its auto night mode kicks in which did not happen in this picture. S5 & note 4 have improved their low light capability over their predecessors in auto but i bet you can come close to matching it if not exceeding it with manual on m9.
Light in this shot is quite low btw.

th3 said:
This obsession is what makes every product better in every field, than its predecessor.
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That pair is not as important as you think it is and that applies for all with good light.
Where this 'trounces' occurs is in low light. I've already said what needs to be done.
Without this obsession, there can be no better or worse product, and you'll still be saying "good enough" to the HTC Desire camera
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with macros yeah i would because there is no difference there. I've seen three year old devices do excellent macros. Hint: macros are not a good demonstration of what the latest camera can do.
The only real innovation we've had in sensors is BSI over the last two years. More sensitive in low light. You couldn't do that with 2013 devices, m7 was the sole exception. The rest is processing, how much of it or lack thereof.
On a more general level the trick with these devices is to know when to compromise and when to be maximalist. There is no perfect device so what you end up with is what you can tolerate over what you cannot do without. Every device has this trade off. Unfortunately you are alone with making this decision. Unless you are lucky to find others whose requirements match yours closely. Now do you see why i said minor. its minor in a larger context.
What you're saying... 'Moving the goalpost' it's called. Common trick.
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no tricks. calling it straight.
i don't trust auto.That on some devices its always flawless is a myth. auto goes wrong even on dslrs. what will you do then ? blame the device or your own ignorance. better to understand why and what went wrong and then fix it. and you can.
What i'm sensing here is an unwillingness to do so. That is something else.
Your opinion is not supported by the data we all have.
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That does not make what i said wrong. Its up to people here to provide that data. particularly low light with manual.
Its right because i've seen the same done with numerous devices already. This is how cameras work. They need light.
Give them that and you get a good shot. simple.
---------- Post added at 10:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:14 AM ----------
tryfound said:
No, your whole post is invalid. I'm testing AUTO, feel free to grace us all with your superior photography skills when you get your M9.
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actually i should have said your tests were pointless and it was a waste of my time to go through them. test the note 4 in low light with manual in m9 that's what you should have done.
I wanted to see manual being used in the low light. You've got no excuses when the camera provides it. If you can't do that then its your problem not the m9.
bad auto does not mean bad camera. bad auto will be fixed. The Z1 took 3 months to get it right. What did people do, the lamers whined whereas the rest got busy with manual and got good shots from day 1.
make up your mind or sell.
---------- Post added at 10:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:19 AM ----------
vegetaleb said:
At last a camera comparison between M9 and Note4 http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/HTC-One-M9-vs-Samsung-Galaxy-Note-4_id3963/page/3
In daylight the Note 4 is significantly better, the M9 will smudge
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Show me smudge in daylight, i want to see how much. actually link the shots.
In low light even resized to 640x480 the M9 is very blurry and smudgy, the Note 4 is millions years ahead.
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All the low light shots have the m9 using high iso in guess what auto. The reviewer did not even try manual and blurred one of the shots because he could not hold a 1/7.
Conclusion: unless you want to use your photos only from daylight situations and only resized to Facebook and other social medias (of course no crop at all) . you should consider the Note 4 as a very good choice of camera phone in every situations.
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Do you realise that to display on a HD device you only need 1MP or on a full HD it only takes 2MP. Anything more than that gets resampled.
You don't let facebook or anybody else resize it you do it yourself then upload wherever.

tryfound said:
You're so full of yourself. How dare I waste your precious time.
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Look, you're not helping me, i'm helping you to help yourself as well as others in this thread.
Make up my mind or sell? Sell what? Some people here asked to see comparisons with the Note 4 and I gave them.
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And i'm pointing out why there were inadequate. They do not add anything above what reviews are saying.
I did not bother going through the imgur stuff since there are no exifs to see there. Assessing image quality let alone commenting without exifs is pointless.
To suggest that I should be tweaking manual settings on an M9 to achieve the quality of the Note 4's auto shots is beyond comprehension.
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auto shots are average x average, is this what people base their opinions on ?
manual means you take a test auto shot then see whether you can improve it in manual. That is how you will exceed what the reviews have shown and we get to see the best this camera can do. This is what any owner that wants to improve and exploit manual is going to do over time.
Why someone would not want to improve his shots is beyond my comprehension.

tryfound said:
Some more shots with the M9, large res then small res second. Had to use imgur because of filesize so these are compressed images, don't bother zooming for details, some of the higher res images I took have been reduced to a size smaller than the 'small' res images due to their original filesize, I guess that's imgur's way of compressing.
http://imgur.com/PeWfBMx
http://imgur.com/CNrpmW7
http://imgur.com/fOi00v3
http://imgur.com/dMQ1yXV
http://imgur.com/JmvdebB
http://imgur.com/MnF3Fue
http://imgur.com/2AtDjvr (HDR)
http://imgur.com/mP0g0aP (HDR)
http://imgur.com/NApwPvt
http://imgur.com/U8yHyuV
http://imgur.com/i04j8vr
http://imgur.com/1FPUAw7
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I just looked at images and they look really good. I am surprised M9 managed to capture that pristine detail I never seen before. White balance too looks so great not like previously green tint that was all over images.
One thing I am not able to find is camera data in adobe bridge and also colour space is untagged. That usually happens when photo being stripped of exif data. Have you by any chance gave some editing to them?
Thanks

I agree with a pack that camera should perform to the best on auto. If it doesn't , software has to be optimised if it's not then it's engineers faults Or hardware limitations.
it applies to the majority of the smartphone photographers . People want point and shoot.Even being enthusiast photographer and love digging my camera and phone camera I hate when auto underperforms when I simply want to take my phone out of the pocket and shoot.Every enthusiast can tweak but that defeats AUTO purpose .
There are average performers good and very good. Unfortunately M9 is not very good.Good ? Maybe....if light is favourable...at the moment it is consistently weak in certain situations. The usual wash out reminded me of the spill that when lets say camera lens gets in the studio shot or outside and for this purpose hood is used . This is one of the speculations I come up with. Somehow HTC phones consistently suffer from that. Could be they have same team of engineers that can't find the key to successful Software optimization or not so decent hardware just guessing here. Being visualphile that particular trade off with HTC devices just kills me.

nebulaoperator said:
I agree with a pack that camera should perform to the best on auto. If it doesn't , software has to be optimised if it's not then it's engineers faults Or hardware limitations.
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Click to collapse
.
I've seen this issue with other devices. xperias camera software was never quite ready at launch. Lots of bashing. Took them a few months to get it right. Mostly auto. Then shots come out with lower ISO which you could have got yourself if you tried. Image quality is better now. why ? iso is lower. So if auto is taking high iso then low iso will get you a better shot.
So when people say camera is not working its auto. No other issues i can see so far. They will fix it but in the mean time if manual settings are tweaked you will get the results you want today. Most do not know how to do that or worse do not want to.
it applies to the majority of the smartphone photographers . People want point and shoot.Even being enthusiast photographer and love digging my camera and phone camera I hate when auto underperforms when I simply want to take my phone out of the pocket and shoot.Every enthusiast can tweak but that defeats AUTO purpose .
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Click to collapse
General advice i give to people who cant take photos is go with the koreans or apple. if you want more then look at others.
First time i came across an iphone camera after seeing the usual controls in nokias and android was wtf do i do with this. Some shots can't be got with auto. when there is no access to manual then you are stuck. take it or leave it. its only a phone camera, you're not supposed to do anything more. Who said so ?
Many people take shots and figuring out who is at fault is a tricky business. Of course the tendency is to blame the device but the person taking the shot is the most responsible, always.
There are average performers good and very good. Unfortunately M9 is not very good.Good ? Maybe....if light is favourable...at the moment it is consistently weak in certain situations.
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Low light with auto. From what i've seen consistently boosts auto up. There are even night modes which to date i've not seen anybody even try. HELLO!
So auto is not picking these modes for some reason. Its a bug. But if you set it yourself then what is the result. Much better i bet.
The usual wash out reminded me of the spill that when lets say camera lens gets in the studio shot or outside and for this purpose hood is used .
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A lens hood decreases lens flare and saturates colours. Take a shot in shade of a sunny area. If you're getting lens flare then its clearly user error. Not just with this device but with any. I would just use my hand out of camera to block some of the light or avoid unwanted reflections. Here is a good example
https://www.flickr.com/photos/palmsolo/sets/72157651089646798/with/16274675233/
cloudy day, massive light box in the sky. Colours are all rich. Which is best. i cannot tell
interestingly enough the low end devices suffer less from this problem because the sensors are not as sensitive. They can take good shots in awful bright light which would be washed out with more capable sensors. Not much use indoors though.
This is one of the speculations I come up with. Somehow HTC phones consistently suffer from that. Could be they have same team of engineers that can't find the key to successful Software optimization or not so decent hardware just guessing here. Being visualphile that particular trade off with HTC devices just kills me.
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The ones typically from what i've seen blow out the sky. They are a little more quirky in getting those blue skies. Overexposed. HDR is one way to do it but it can be tricked also. i remember this work around from the m8 forum where this guy pointed close to the sun to lock exposure and then recomposed back on the scene. The picture was remarkably better. You don't have to do this all the time only in certain situations.

Review on bunch of cameras.
Gizmodo: The Best Smartphone Camera: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edition. http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIw4ZO08yA

tryfound said:
Some more shots with the M9, large res then small res second. Had to use imgur because of filesize so these are compressed images, don't bother zooming for details, some of the higher res images I took have been reduced to a size smaller than the 'small' res images due to their original filesize, I guess that's imgur's way of compressing.
http://imgur.com/PeWfBMx
http://imgur.com/CNrpmW7
http://imgur.com/fOi00v3
http://imgur.com/dMQ1yXV
http://imgur.com/JmvdebB
http://imgur.com/MnF3Fue
http://imgur.com/2AtDjvr (HDR)
http://imgur.com/mP0g0aP (HDR)
http://imgur.com/NApwPvt
http://imgur.com/U8yHyuV
http://imgur.com/i04j8vr
http://imgur.com/1FPUAw7
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jauhien said:
Some yesterday snaps here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/we88grvt72bldy8/4PDA_REQUEST.zip?dl=0
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One Twelve said:
.
Disclaimer: I should learn how to use quotes.
I've seen this issue with other devices. xperias camera software was never quite ready at launch. Lots of bashing. Took them a few months to get it right. Mostly auto. Then shots come out with lower ISO which you could have got yourself if you tried. Image quality is better now. why ? iso is lower. So if auto is taking high iso then low iso will get you a better shot.
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Whether it's ISO OIS or else it does not stop camera to perform well. Take A look at Iphone 6 it works wonders. Low light is not on the par with M7 m8. The thing you have to understand , strongly camera orientated phone should not come with a sticker on the box " want a better image use manual"
[/QUOTE]So when people say camera is not working its auto. No other issues i can see so far. They will fix it but in the mean time if manual settings are tweaked you will get the results you want today. Most do not know how to do that or worse do not want to.[/QUOTE]
A lot people say because AUTO doesn't work. Why would I have buy "they will fix it" if I pay 500-600 GBP for a phone. It doesn't work like that. And in most cases software improved performance but only to a point .I own M7 and know it's weaknesses.And I don't want to use manual though I know my phone from inside to outside.
[/QUOTE]General advice i give to people who cant take photos is go with the koreans or apple. if you want more then look at others.
First time i came across an iphone camera after seeing the usual controls in nokias and android was wtf do i do with this. Some shots can't be got with auto. when there is no access to manual then you are stuck. take it or leave it. its only a phone camera, you're not supposed to do anything more. Who said so ?
Many people take shots and figuring out who is at fault is a tricky business. Of course the tendency is to blame the device but the person taking the shot is the most responsible, always.[/QUOTE]
I saw ifone users don't even know AE/AF lock exist till I showed. Iphone 6 has the simplest UI that can be invented I also call it Dummy proof. I think you can get an app to have access to tweaks option otherwise it's a bit limited to my taste. I can blame phone camera without long hesitation for two reasons: if hardware sucks or software or both. Then no amount of tweaks can help you. M7 is notorious for washouts, poor dynamic range. I found HDR was never a strong suite of M7 neither M8 or M9. However if you can tweak settings you might get away bringing images to photoshop. That's what I do. On the other hand only minority people are enthusiast like we are and the majority should be at least faulted for what smartphone manufacturer didn't do in the first place. If iphone , nokia, samsung(from 2014) proved there is a lot more that can be done with camera.
[/QUOTE]Low light with auto. From what i've seen consistently boosts auto up. There are even night modes which to date i've not seen anybody even try. HELLO!
So auto is not picking these modes for some reason. Its a bug. But if you set it yourself then what is the result. Much better i bet.[/QUOTE]
Low light was nevera weak spot for HTC One line(until now M9) it was cloudy weather condition with little contrast, also situation when I have half frame window in and the other half room. It would go into extremes overexpose the light in the window or underexposedarks barely visible. Sensor and software is not coping with dynamic range. I kind of like night mode but found it to slow in some situation due to the shutter speed so I just used normal mode it did great though. I wish I could try RAW mode but unfortunately I am selling my phone today ( Not sure if RAW will be brought to lollipop for M7)
[/QUOTE]A lens hood decreases lens flare and saturates colours. Take a shot in shade of a sunny area. If you're getting lens flare then its clearly user error. Not just with this device but with any. I would just use my hand out of camera to block some of the light or avoid unwanted reflections. Here is a good example
https://www.flickr.com/photos/palmsolo/sets/72157651089646798/with/16274675233/
cloudy day, massive light box in the sky. Colours are all rich. Which is best. i cannot tell
interestingly enough the low end devices suffer less from this problem because the sensors are not as sensitive. They can take good shots in awful bright light which would be washed out with more capable sensors. Not much use indoors though.[/QUOTE]
I worked with photographer who used hood for the headshots and it was game changer.
For instance Iphone6 is least prone to that error but most Android camera phones I came across are. I was surprised by Note 4 results and S6 I would never think they can do so well. So it must be bug or hardware or both as I mentioned earlier. Nice photos from M9 but WB is somehow a bit off sometimes on the blue side( couple of weeks before it was to yellow green Funny enough you are the first I came across that used hand to block the light I do that too. I guess we both come from the same/similar trade.
[/QUOTE]
The ones typically from what i've seen blow out the sky. They are a little more quirky in getting those blue skies. Overexposed. HDR is one way to do it but it can be tricked also. i remember this work around from the m8 forum where this guy pointed close to the sun to lock exposure and then recomposed back on the scene. The picture was remarkably better. You don't have to do this all the time only in certain situations.[/QUOTE]
AE/AF is a very handy tool. I am glad smartphones have this simple yet very effective feature.

Quadrider10 said:
Review on bunch of cameras.
Gizmodo: The Best Smartphone Camera: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edition. http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIw4ZO08yA
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I didn't think the M9 looked bad. Need to use a computer instead of my note 4
Sent from a mobile gadget...
---------- Post added at 05:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:52 PM ----------
And guys, chill out. I don't think M9 will have the best camera, but it will hopefully be enough. What I'm worried about is the speed of the camera and SOT. I will probably buy it anyway because I love HTCs mix.
Sent from a mobile gadget...

You're not helping anyone mate. Pig with lipstick is still a pig. No matter how much spin you are putting on it.
Everything you are saying is your subjective opinion not backed by any reviewer or already debunked. No data at all.
I don't see any fruit in continuing this back and forth "I think" or "you can do this in software" discussion with you. I, and 99% of users, only care about how the product performs out of the box. A few may go further, with manual. That's it.
Lame apologist excuses don't hide that. If you can do x with M9, you can also do better with S6/iP6/N4 etc starting from a better base.
I'll have the M9 31st March. Then, we'll see.
One Twelve said:
Look, you're not helping me, i'm helping you to help yourself as well as others in this thread.
And i'm pointing out why there were inadequate. They do not add anything above what reviews are saying.
I did not bother going through the imgur stuff since there are no exifs to see there. Assessing image quality let alone commenting without exifs is pointless.
auto shots are average x average, is this what people base their opinions on ?
manual means you take a test auto shot then see whether you can improve it in manual. That is how you will exceed what the reviews have shown and we get to see the best this camera can do. This is what any owner that wants to improve and exploit manual is going to do over time.
Why someone would not want to improve his shots is beyond my comprehension.
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One Twelve said:
That pair is not as important as you think it is and that applies for all with good light.
Where this 'trounces' occurs is in low light. I've already said what needs to be done.
with macros yeah i would because there is no difference there. I've seen three year old devices do excellent macros. Hint: macros are not a good demonstration of what the latest camera can do.
The only real innovation we've had in sensors is BSI over the last two years. More sensitive in low light. You couldn't do that with 2013 devices, m7 was the sole exception. The rest is processing, how much of it or lack thereof.
On a more general level the trick with these devices is to know when to compromise and when to be maximalist. There is no perfect device so what you end up with is what you can tolerate over what you cannot do without. Every device has this trade off. Unfortunately you are alone with making this decision. Unless you are lucky to find others whose requirements match yours closely. Now do you see why i said minor. its minor in a larger context.
no tricks. calling it straight.
i don't trust auto.That on some devices its always flawless is a myth. auto goes wrong even on dslrs. what will you do then ? blame the device or your own ignorance. better to understand why and what went wrong and then fix it. and you can.
What i'm sensing here is an unwillingness to do so. That is something else.
That does not make what i said wrong. Its up to people here to provide that data. particularly low light with manual.
Its right because i've seen the same done with numerous devices already. This is how cameras work. They need light.
Give them that and you get a good shot. simple.
---------- Post added at 10:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:14 AM ----------
actually i should have said your tests were pointless and it was a waste of my time to go through them. test the note 4 in low light with manual in m9 that's what you should have done.
I wanted to see manual being used in the low light. You've got no excuses when the camera provides it. If you can't do that then its your problem not the m9.
bad auto does not mean bad camera. bad auto will be fixed. The Z1 took 3 months to get it right. What did people do, the lamers whined whereas the rest got busy with manual and got good shots from day 1.
make up your mind or sell.
---------- Post added at 10:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:19 AM ----------
Show me smudge in daylight, i want to see how much. actually link the shots.
All the low light shots have the m9 using high iso in guess what auto. The reviewer did not even try manual and blurred one of the shots because he could not hold a 1/7.
Do you realise that to display on a HD device you only need 1MP or on a full HD it only takes 2MP. Anything more than that gets resampled.
You don't let facebook or anybody else resize it you do it yourself then upload wherever.
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Sent using Tapatalk

th3 said:
You're not helping anyone mate. Pig with lipstick is still a pig. No matter how much spin you are putting on it.
Click to expand...
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Went right to the end for the punchline
I'll have the M9 31st March. Then, we'll see.
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Hah so despite the s6 camera 'trouncing' the m9, you actually went in for what ? .....<drum roll>....the M9 <applause>
Confirms what i said earlier, the image quality differences weren't enough to deter you.
Lame apologist excuses don't hide that. If you can do x with M9, you can also do better with S6/iP6/N4 etc starting from a better base.
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yeah so why didn't you get one of them then ? riiiiightt. Why the narrow obsessions with image quality somehow don't pan out in the end. Bigger forces at play.
With ip6+ and 3rd party camera with manual controls. you can improve over stock auto. With the same on the iP6 or even iP5x and a steady hand you can come close if not match the plus.
S6 & N4 or even the G3 don't offer shutter speed control so there is no way to tell how effective their OIS is, its just stated and i believe its there but no way to tell like say with the iP6+ that can do a 1/4 handheld. Night mode on the recent samsungs is good. Much improved over earlier versions. They boosting sensor gain and fiddling around. To get a similar shot would require an exposure two times longer with other devices including the m9. So you will have to work at it.
No idea when raw support will come for the above. But i bet you get it on the m9 before them. Your details issues will disappear at that point but you have to process each image yourself.
Everything you are saying is your subjective opinion not backed by any reviewer or already debunked. No data at all.
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So you do not understand that delaying shutter and lowering iso will improve image quality in low light ? This applies only with stationary subjects btw, forget doing it with people or anything that won't sit still.
Sop with any camera that allows manual control, i can show you manual lumia 930 vs note 4 where it gets pretty close and auto did not. When more people post later you'll see what i mean.
I'm most interested in the low light shots and rarely bother with daylight comparisons because they are pretty similar. In fact my problem with smartphone cameras is too much detail strange as that may sound. because it makes isolating subjects harder. Everything is so damn clear. Because its the equivalent of an f11 lens in 35mm speak. Depth of field is deeper. Great for macros but not others.
I don't see any fruit in continuing this back and forth "I think" or "you can do this in software" discussion with you. I, and 99% of users, only care about how the product performs out of the box. A few may go further, with manual. That's it.
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If you want better photos what i said works. 99% or not is meaningless. This is xda, do 99 % care about rooting, custom firmwares, or any number of hacks people share here ? So what 99% are you referring to and why do they matter. If anything i'm more interested in the 1%.
what i've said wrt to manual is no different. In fact its common knowledge to anyone who has a clue.
---------- Post added at 04:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:01 AM ----------
*Emix* said:
https://curved.de/news/galaxy-s6-one-m9-iphone-6-im-grossen-kameravergleich-236192
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Why they didn't use iP6+ ?
1. night shots all soft because iso got boosted on m9. 2nd shot wrong wb for m9. 4th shot all have blown lights, cannot do this without blending.
2. again iso got boosted on m9. second selfie, because background is brighter so iso drops and looks normal.
3. is about where you set exposure.
4. macros are similar. contrast can be improved in post.
5. panoramas, heh all not to my liking because of cylindrical projection. no straight horizontals with such a wide fov.
6. food, can be improved in post or use manual. That ISO is maybe close to 600 try to get it at half.

curiousgeorge1893 said:
Not quite on topic but I've got an M8 coming, I'm ditching my Xperia Z2 for it, is that a good idea do you think?
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What is it about the Z2 that you don't like ? You'd be trading fantastic video stabilisation for none.
The scene modes should help in low light if you use them right. However the lack of shutter control can be frustrating. A quick tweak can't be done. More trial & error.
I was put off by the 4MP camera as i admit I like to zoom and crop, however I like a phone that is good in lowlight.
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What does 4MP do ? sharpens the mind. You have to think more carefully about what you want to get it right. If you want to zoom & crop then you need to be closer to your subject. if you can't do that then 4MP is out.
Also, I like a phone that offers manual controls and shutter speed, HTC phones are the only ones that do this plus a like a phone that has a good flash and takes photos quickly.
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m8 is a fast shooter in auto. But this gap has been closed with the S6 and the S5 is fast too. Have you considered them ? No shutter control though. Given what they've done may or may not be that critical. These samsungs are primarily auto shooters. If they get what you want great, if not don't complain because you can't do much.
As for similar manual controls the hybrid zooms had them first and optical zoom is a plus. crop in camera not afterwards. K zoom or wait for the successor. Slower though. And apertures are smaller. 3.1 all the way to 6.3. Working OIS.
I was planning on getting a secondhand M9 later in the year but to be honest I am disappointed as I feel that HTC have go fowards then 2 steps backwards with the M9 camera. Whilst it's great it has a higher resolution, the f/2.0 aperature in the M7 and M8 is now f/2.2 on the M9, in my opinion it should have been f/2.0 or f/1.9, also lack of OIS is disappointing and it seems lowlight on the M9 isn't as good as the M8? Very disappointing if so.
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The difference between f2.0 and 2.2 is a quarter a f-stop. That's like getting a shot at ISO 200 instead of 250. Or 1/50 instead of 1/40. Its insignficant as one or the other parameter will compensate anyway so not really as notable as reviewers make out.
However the m9 isn't as fast a camera as its predecessors.See the camera speed benchmark. Almost twice as slow as the m8. And the Z2 is faster than the m9. Does this matter ? only if you're rushed. And if you are you're not going to get very good shots to begin with. Is the choice no shot or passable. In that case look at an advanced compact with a 1 inch sensor. Much more light, faster lens and better quality. For the same money.

BoneXDA said:
I do notice the white balance shifting sometimes on the goldish side around sunlit areas, and the M9 tends to underexpose in such conditions.
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I've noticed twice that it gets confused with halogen and neon lights, turning cream and red into green. With a yellow i can see how green can happen by wb adding blue, so just need to use a fluorescent wb or more. But cream into green is inexplicable for me. If its a bug then only a firmware update can fix it.
---------- Post added at 08:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:25 PM ----------
curiousgeorge1893 said:
I like the Z2 but not the post processing, it smudges details, I read on here that the Z3 does the same?
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Whenever camera has to produce a jpg and do it fast it has to make a call between preserving detail (ie more noise) or smoothness (less noise). I've seen smudging happen with vegetation, it happens with all jpg outputting devices to varying degrees. To make larger features look good means smaller are going to appear less sharp. Must have the lowest ISO with a longer shutter that means anything that moves is out unless light is good or smudging gets worse.
Only way is raw but you have to process every image yourself, and its a much bigger file so it will be slower than 4mp jpg.
Compare these two from nexus 5. Jpg vs processed RAW. Pull the full resolution and pixel peep all you want.
The originals come from fv5 site.
You control what should be more in detail or not instead of some average one size fits all algorithm with an impossible task that is optimised for speed by trading off image quality. Image quality here isn't file size but a function of how much luminance and chroma noise is preserved or not.
That algorithm and its implementation is the source of lots of heated argument over which is the better camera. Silly really.

SPreston2001 said:
The whole camera comparison may be silly, but 90% of users just want to pick up the phone and snap good pics. Most users don't fiddle around with the camera settings or even know what they do for that matter lol. All they see are which photos look the best when they pick up their phone and take a pic. The M9 camera seems to be alot better than the M8s camera but it still tends to fall behind Apples and Samsungs imaging abilities.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then those people should stick with the brands mentioned. Those brands are for people with no interest in photography. WHAT took the shot is more important than WHO took it. That is the mindset auto everything encourages, what did the owner do, just press a button. Still I would not be surprised to find people even on those boards complaining about something or the other.
Where i'm coming from is what if you don't want those brands for whatever reasons. What then ?
You wait for firmware upgrades and you learn how to get better shots. What went wrong and how to get around it.
My attitude is you are stuck with this thing and you are going to have to make the best of it. Few months later you will find people here doing just that. A review can never match it.

One Twelve said:
Then those people should stick with the brands mentioned. Those brands are for people with no interest in photography. WHAT took the shot is more important than WHO took it. That is the mindset auto everything encourages, what did the owner do, just press a button. Still I would not be surprised to find people even on those boards complaining about something or the other.
Where i'm coming from is what if you don't want those brands for whatever reasons. What then ?
You wait for firmware upgrades and you learn how to get better shots. What went wrong and how to get around it.
My attitude is you are stuck with this thing and you are going to have to make the best of it. Few months later you will find people here doing just that. A review can never match it.
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So HTC phones are for people who have interest in photography?? Lol they usually have the worst cameras amongst flagship devices yet theyre for photography minded people?? You act as of HTC is the only manufacturer that has the ability to tweak the camera settings. Most "serious" photographers won't use a cellphone to take a pic. The whole idea of cell cams is to capture quick and beautiful everyday life pictures. The ability to tweak the settings is just a added bonus for those who want to get a little more serious with it.
But to each his own I guess. When it comes to cell cams I just wanna pull it, out take a pic, and expect it to look good. If tweaking the settings to get the perfect shot is for you then that's fine. But all I'm saying is those same things can be done with other manufacturers cams too.

gavinfabl said:
This is a photos thread. We need photos! The weather for another day is gales and heavy rain here, so ruined my planned day of shooting again. Using manual settings I have captured some good shots (but private photos of family). Lowering resolution down a fraction helps in lower light. Auto is OK but when I take control even with a single tweak the difference is noticeable. I've used the S6 and S6 Edge and compared it with my Note 4. The S6 has a good auto mode.
This is my S6 and S6 Edge camera shots , and vs Note 4 camera. http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/03/19...sung-galaxy-s6-and-s6-edge-plus-camera-shots/
I will have more in depth analysis when it's stops raining .....
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Can't say my experience with the s6 / edge was similar. On the camera front yes the camera is fast. But I found a huge issue with white balance and somewhat heavier than normal post processing (pretty evident when you look at the photos on a camera). The problem is even in pro mode, the camera still struggles with white balance. I am a white balance whore to be honest and when I see a camera struggle, I shudder.
Touchwiz lagged for me. Immensely. I kept flicking through the homescreen, not many widgets above the stock ones, and there were multiple times the device just locked up. Even after rebooting the device quite a few times, there was lag. Off topic, I watched the verge podcast recently and they also affirmed a lot of the lag I experienced with my model.
So far, I'm semi disappointed. The devices are light (like physically, I expected something much heavier). The GS6 felt boxy and somewhat sharper for my tastes while the Edge just "fit" in my hand like a really nice glove. I was stunned that the edge was the more interesting feeling device. Both devices are fingerprint magnets though almost to the point of being disgusting. After 10 minutes of handling, I was in awe with the amount of smudges and oil the back of the device accrued from general handling.
Handling is something that the Edge excels in for the most part. It feels "natural" to swipe at an edge point and get a hamburg menu from Google. And you do in GMAIL, Google Play, and a myriad of other areas. It just feels like touchwiz didn't necessarily provide too many gesture driven tasks that would really take benefit of the edge display. II mean sure you get the call context menus and the light up gimmick, but that's about it sadly. The shame of it all is that above that, the GS6 is a beautiful iphone 5-5s ripoff and the Edge is something of a quagmire begging for a developer to put it to good use. It can be obtrusive but not so much to the point it ruins the user experience.
Overall, I'm left somewhat underwhelmed with the devices. Sure, the screen is gorgeous with marvelous viewing angle fitting for a flagship. But it feels like the GS6 / edge is a iterative step in a unique and bold direction that didn't fully deliver.
Shame actually. Most people will love the GS6 / Edge. Me, I'll be forever disappoint

SPreston2001 said:
So HTC phones are for people who have interest in photography??
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What purpose is there to provide manual controls then ? nokia started this btw.
Lol they usually have the worst cameras amongst flagship devices yet theyre for photography minded people??
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its a mindset that comes naturally to those that are into photography. They are going to try a great deal more before throwing in the towel.
Very obvious when i see Jesse's photos. You make the shot not the camera. newbies whenever they see a nice photo always want to know what camera took the shot. The person, well he just clicked. How hard could it be. They like to hide behind their cameras. Often i see shots that are horribly taken and well it was the camera's fault.
HTC is a bad camera with people who cannot take a photo. I've never bought into the 4MP was bad. A full HD screen can only display 2MP anyway. if you're not zooming or need to then you're focus is on how nice the shot looks rather than whether you can count hairs on somebody's head. I've seen people post nice photos here. if you need to crop your photos then you ain't thinking about your shots or your use case exceeds what 4MP can provide.
You act as of HTC is the only manufacturer that has the ability to tweak the camera settings.
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lets be clear on what manual settings i'm referring to here. Who else offers shutter speed control ?
apple only woke up to the fact in their latest OS. prior to which you could do squat cos um turtle neck deemed it unecessary. Nokia had them early and the cheapest lumias 635 ? do too. samsungs don't not even in their latest. neither does moto, or LG which went backwards with the G3 or Sony. The Chinese provide some more. So yeah HTC since the m8 was the only android offering on a fixed focal lens that offered shutter control. Makes it easy to fix things if you were so inclined. Samsung's galaxy camera is the only other that can claim to have had it first on android earlier and its a compact.
Most "serious" photographers won't use a cellphone to take a pic. The whole idea of cell cams is to capture quick and beautiful everyday life pictures. The ability to tweak the settings is just a added bonus for those who want to get a little more serious with it.
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A cam is a cam and you can learn photography with any cam and play more with one that allows manual settings. I don't have a DSLR because i've not got to the point where i need one. I take shots every day and i like to tweak them because auto cant get it right. Its very normal to have access if not always necessary. But i'd rather have them and not need them than the other way around.
If you drive a stick shift you won't enjoy driving a cruiser.
But to each his own I guess. When it comes to cell cams I just wanna pull it, out take a pic, and expect it to look good. If tweaking the settings to get the perfect shot is for you then that's fine. But all I'm saying is those same things can be done with other manufacturers cams too.
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Click to collapse
I never expect it to look good, if it does then conditions were perfect and i was lucky, i will usually take a auto shot and if it fine leave it at that or try to tweak things about and take a couple more. I always try to take more than one. A phone is going to get thrown into so many varied situations that would challenge a pro. To expect to get it right in one take with a phone camera when pointing at anything you can think of isn't realistic.

nebulaoperator said:
Whether it's ISO OIS or else it does not stop camera to perform well. Take A look at Iphone 6 it works wonders. Low light is not on the par with M7 m8. The thing you have to understand , strongly camera orientated phone should not come with a sticker on the box " want a better image use manual"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A tweak here or there will always improve a shot. How many people know that. Then there is the question of will. if its there and you don't use it then its not the camera's fault. It is there for flexibility.
iphone 6 no, but 6+ will get shots at 1/4. Apple thinks slower than 1/12 is not feasible for iP6. To go slower than 1/4 have to use 3rd party soft to tweak things. iphone camera has always been capable but until ios8 there was no way to access camera parameters so low light was never good.
I saw ifone users don't even know AE/AF lock exist till I showed. Iphone 6 has the simplest UI that can be invented I also call it Dummy proof. I think you can get an app to have access to tweaks option otherwise it's a bit limited to my taste.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes its useful there is also a way to do some exposure comp but it changes metering to spot from average or whatever apple equivalent is. A review was comparing 6 & 6+ and saying photos looked better with 6+ until i saw the exifs and pointed out both were using different metering. So of course shots will look different.
With the latest ios you have much more options than before. Curious apple did a u turn there. But not stock just with 3rd party software.
A lot people say because AUTO doesn't work. Why would I have buy "they will fix it" if I pay 500-600 GBP for a phone. It doesn't work like that. And in most cases software improved performance but only to a point .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So wait for a few months then decide. As for firmware improvements. If you take a shot with firmware a at ISO 200 and compare with firmware b at ISO 200, there will be little difference.
What i mean is they can lower ISO for lower light shots so it does not boost it so high. This will improve auto some. But to go further it requires manual. Possible now, if somebody would try.
They can improve white balance with auto but it will get tricked some times so only up to a point.
I can blame phone camera without long hesitation for two reasons: if hardware sucks or software or both. Then no amount of tweaks can help you. M7 is notorious for washouts, poor dynamic range. I found HDR was never a strong suite of M7 neither M8 or M9. However if you can tweak settings you might get away bringing images to photoshop. That's what I do. On the other hand only minority people are enthusiast like we are and the majority should be at least faulted for what smartphone manufacturer didn't do in the first place. If iphone , nokia, samsung(from 2014) proved there is a lot more that can be done with camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are trying to make it easy for the average person in the hope of selling more products. The traditional way is to learn how to use the product. I know the washouts you mean, blown skies etc. But once a person is aware of that you can improve it.
Low light was nevera weak spot for HTC One line(until now M9) it was cloudy weather condition with little contrast, also situation when I have half frame window in and the other half room. It would go into extremes overexpose the light in the window or underexposedarks barely visible. Sensor and software is not coping with dynamic range. I kind of like night mode but found it to slow in some situation due to the shutter speed so I just used normal mode it did great though. I wish I could try RAW mode but unfortunately I am selling my phone today ( Not sure if RAW will be brought to lollipop for M7)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So what are you getting ?
freedcam can already output raw on m7 & m8 and by the looks of it m9 too. htc made this easy.
I worked with photographer who used hood for the headshots and it was game changer.
For instance Iphone6 is least prone to that error but most Android camera phones I came across are. I was surprised by Note 4 results and S6 I would never think they can do so well. So it must be bug or hardware or both as I mentioned earlier. Nice photos from M9 but WB is somehow a bit off sometimes on the blue side( couple of weeks before it was to yellow green Funny enough you are the first I came across that used hand to block the light I do that too. I guess we both come from the same/similar trade.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was an accidental discovery. I was taking shot of somebody outside the house from inside with a tab (!) and wondered why the clothes were so saturated.
There is something up with the m9's WB i can see from numerous photos. But nobody is trying manual to fix it.
Was looking at latest world press photo contest. Many with pro dslrs and i saw one person entered an iphone photo and its in the list of winners. Out of 95k entries !!! smartphone photo..Can you believe it

Lol this thread is very entertaining to say the least

twoeleven99 said:
Lol this thread is very entertaining to say the least
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So what's your take on the M9 pictures, if I may ask?
Sent using Tapatalk

Sony's Camera isn't great, but it could be worse...

We all give Sony a hard time for releasing flagship devices with mediocre camera performance. I personally can verify that my previous HTC phones (One mini, One S, and even the Ville aka MyTouch 4G) dating back nearly 4 years all had better color reproduction, white balance, indoor performance, and faster focus and shutter response. None of those were even considered flagship devices at the time of release. We assumed Sony's problem was the software, so many of us searched for 3rd party camera apps such as Google Camera, A Better Camera, Camera FV-5, etc... and some even claimed to get better results using these apps. I've tried just about all of them (free versions only) and never saw any dramatic improvement to make me replace the default camera app. I finally decided to compare shots side by side on a couple of my personal favorite camera apps and here's what I noticed:
The 3rd party apps over-exposed the scene with far too much flash, giving it that cold LED light look, and washing out some of the natural colors. But worst of all, they weren't as clear when zooming in as the default app was. Pay close attention to the can of WD40 in the back. Only the stock app makes the word "Directions" visibly clear. All photos were taken using Auto Mode at 8MP - the setting the average person will use daily.
Sample Photos In Order (from left to right):
- Sony Stock Camera App
- Google Camera App
- OpenCamera App
https://goo.gl/photos/ihkstAg95Ag8rybX7
I took a few comparison shots in scenes that I thought would cause the stock app to falter, but it kept coming through and beating the competition. For example, when taking a picture of a poster that was covered by a slight shadow, the stock app was the only app smart enough to use flash; thereby making the words of the poster much clearer. In another indoor scenario, the competition once again over exposed the scene with too much flash, washing out the colors again. I may post these photos later if you request them.
Moral of the story:
Compared to other smartphones (especially flagships), Sony's camera is simply one of the worst performers. <-----(This is a click-able link to the results of a test article) There is no argument here and someone from Sony needs to do something about it. But as for the stock Sony camera app, it appears to utilize the camera better than 3rd party apps can. So if you want to make the best of out our bad situation, stick with the stock camera app.

I agree that the camera on the Z3C is somewhat lacking.
Outdoors in good light it can produce some really nice photos (some of the time) although even in good conditions it still seems to make a mess of things on occasions. Indoors and low light it's just plain terrible. I've done a back to back comparison with my rather elderly SGS3 and in most circumstances the SGS3 knocks the spots off the Z3C.
The problem is marketing.
In order to produce compelling marketing material, Sony developed the 20MP sensor and put this in all their flagship phones. This is way too many MP for such a small sensor and as such the quality suffers badly in anything other than bright sunlight. Even when interpolating the image down to 8MP you still see way more noise than the equivalent true 8MP sensor and the details are mushed to buggery. I'd be happy for the resolution on smartphones to top out at 10MP, which should be enough for 4K video and multiple aspect ratios (not that I think 4K video from a smartphone has much use).

sensor not bad, driver sometimes is...
Exmor IMX220 Shoot Out – Meizu MX4 Pro vs Sony Xperia Z3
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Wajk said:
sensor not bad, driver sometimes is...
Exmor IMX220 Shoot Out – Meizu MX4 Pro vs Sony Xperia Z3
indeed sony's pic are washed out but the looking at the "lay's" and "muji" comparision, meizu's pics are blurred.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

We all know auto mode sucks isn't that right? Well Sony hasn't designed this phone for you, i have taken some absolutely stunning photos that my friends think were taken with a proper camera. The truth is that I'm a photographer that tries to push the hardware and software to the limit and if your having a good day you can produce stunning works of art. Sure there's a bit of noise but you can't expect fullframe image quality on this sensor. Taking a backwards step from my Nex7 to the Z3 compact was a great learning experience. If you're a photographer that likes to push the limits of a camera this one is for you, if your the average joe your wasting your time. Think about it, when you buy a camera what is the point of using auto mode when it limits the amount of control you have over a photo. Its like driving an automatic transmission car at a drag race.

As a photographer, you of all people should understand that a camera phone is not likely to be used when taking serious photos. This is designed to be a point and shoot replacement for selfies, pictures of food, group photos of friends in a restaurant, etc... This phone's camera isn't a complete failure by any means, but it simply doesn't perform as well as phones from 2-3 years ago under the most basic condition (indoors). I'm just finding it difficult to explain why my $500 flagship phone takes overexposed, blurry photos when my old phones (none of which were even flagship models) did not.

Starlith said:
We all know auto mode sucks isn't that right? Well Sony hasn't designed this phone for you, i have taken some absolutely stunning photos that my friends think were taken with a proper camera. The truth is that I'm a photographer that tries to push the hardware and software to the limit and if your having a good day you can produce stunning works of art. Sure there's a bit of noise but you can't expect fullframe image quality on this sensor. Taking a backwards step from my Nex7 to the Z3 compact was a great learning experience. If you're a photographer that likes to push the limits of a camera this one is for you, if your the average joe your wasting your time. Think about it, when you buy a camera what is the point of using auto mode when it limits the amount of control you have over a photo. Its like driving an automatic transmission car at a drag race.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am also a photographer (enthusiastic amateur and no expert for sure) who has worked for a software company in the digital imaging industry for 7 years. I get to sample a lot of cameras; including pre-production test mules, some of which never make it due to unrecoverable issues. I have tried the Z3C in every conceivable mode and it's still a disappointment in low light and unpredictable when it's good light. A brief summary of the biggest issues I've seen would include:
1) Poor light performance - It's not even low light, the performance is poor in moderate lighting conditions (20MP is too much for such a small sensor and lens)
2) Unpredictable auto focus - It misses what should be an easy AF fix more often than it should do
3) Too much NR - TBH this is a personal criticism of almost every camera currently made, but the NR on the Z3C is a bit nasty
4) Even the best shots seem to lack "definition"
I'm not saying that the camera is a complete dead-loss, but for a flagship smartphone it's not as good as I would expect. I don't think that I've taken a single picture with it where I've got home, uploaded it to my PC and thought it was really good. I've checked back through my SGS3 pictures and at a glance the best images look like they've come from a "proper" camera, I can't say that for many of the Z3C images. I'd really like to be able to get RAW images out of the camera to see what is possible with decent post processing, but it doesn't seem like that is going to happen any time soon.
If you could give some hints about how to get the most out of the camera, then I for one would very much appreciate it.

mad-marco said:
I am also a photographer (enthusiastic amateur and no expert for sure) who has worked for a software company in the digital imaging industry for 7 years. I get to sample a lot of cameras; including pre-production test mules, some of which never make it due to unrecoverable issues. I have tried the Z3C in every conceivable mode and it's still a disappointment in low light and unpredictable when it's good light. A brief summary of the biggest issues I've seen would include:
1) Poor light performance - It's not even low light, the performance is poor in moderate lighting conditions (20MP is too much for such a small sensor and lens)
2) Unpredictable auto focus - It misses what should be an easy AF fix more often than it should do
3) Too much NR - TBH this is a personal criticism of almost every camera currently made, but the NR on the Z3C is a bit nasty
4) Even the best shots seem to lack "definition"
I'm not saying that the camera is a complete dead-loss, but for a flagship smartphone it's not as good as I would expect. I don't think that I've taken a single picture with it where I've got home, uploaded it to my PC and thought it was really good. I've checked back through my SGS3 pictures and at a glance the best images look like they've come from a "proper" camera, I can't say that for many of the Z3C images. I'd really like to be able to get RAW images out of the camera to see what is possible with decent post processing, but it doesn't seem like that is going to happen any time soon.
If you could give some hints about how to get the most out of the camera, then I for one would very much appreciate it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you, it does have its limits and they are really weird limits. For example when in manual mode anything that is set to auto including white balance and focus is either hit or miss, there is no touch metering, i have taken some stunners but they required me to work hard for it such as adjusting wb, iso, focus mode. Even the background defocus app which produced amazing photos btw i had to work really hard for. All that work on a phone is exhausting. Too many apps complicate the camera app and the post processing algorithm is inconsistent. Im interested what the results would be with a lens similar to the iPhone 6. The best thing about the camera is the wide angle lens but no one really cares for that.

Starlith said:
I agree with you, it does have its limits and they are really weird limits. For example when in manual mode anything that is set to auto including white balance and focus is either hit or miss, there is no touch metering, i have taken some stunners but they required me to work hard for it such as adjusting wb, iso, focus mode. Even the background defocus app which produced amazing photos btw i had to work really hard for. All that work on a phone is exhausting. Too many apps complicate the camera app and the post processing algorithm is inconsistent. Im interested what the results would be with a lens similar to the iPhone 6. The best thing about the camera is the wide angle lens but no one really cares for that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I personally don't even like the wide angle lens. It just forces me to stand that much closer to my subject to properly frame the shot. Then, if using flash, you blind them because you're standing 1 foot in front of their face. Anyway, I thought a sony branded lens/sensor was being used on most high end phones these days... even the iPhone? We just got stuck with poor image processing.

PuffDaddy_d said:
I personally don't even like the wide angle lens. It just forces me to stand that much closer to my subject to properly frame the shot. Then, if using flash, you blind them because you're standing 1 foot in front of their face. Anyway, I thought a sony branded lens/sensor was being used on most high end phones these days... even the iPhone? We just got stuck with poor image processing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you buy a phone you don't expect it to take pictures like an SLR Camera would, that being said though I still think 20 mp is more than enough for taking snapshots. If you complain about the camera quality then you shouldn't have bought a phone in the first place and buy a DSLR instead.

and if you came from a Nokia flagship this difference is even bigger ....

Revontheus said:
When you buy a phone you don't expect it to take pictures like an SLR Camera would, that being said though I still think 20 mp is more than enough for taking snapshots. If you complain about the camera quality then you shouldn't have bought a phone in the first place and buy a DSLR instead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've already got several DSLR's thanks very much. I don't think that anyone is expecting DSLR like quality, in fact you seem to be the only person who has brought this up.
I think that what people would like is the the camera on Sony's flagship smartphones to be comparable with other smartphones, especially the ones that have the same sensor hardware!!! It's a disappointment that the 2/3 year old SGS3 produces superior photos than the current Sony flagships, the current Samsung 16MP cameras are vastly superior.

Revontheus said:
When you buy a phone you don't expect it to take pictures like an SLR Camera would, that being said though I still think 20 mp is more than enough for taking snapshots. If you complain about the camera quality then you shouldn't have bought a phone in the first place and buy a DSLR instead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have completely missed the point of this thread. It has nothing to do with expecting DSLR quality from a camera phone. We just don't want pictures to look like they were taken from a flip phone from 2006 - which is what this camera looks like when taking photos indoors. A flagship phone needs a flagship camera, and Sony's image processing has left us without, while all other major manufacturers are using some form of Sony image sensor and getting much better results.
But as my original post indicates, the best photos I've been able to get from this camera are with the stock camera app. All others seem to fall short when viewed on a larger screen.

ray_J13 said:
Wajk said:
sensor not bad, driver sometimes is...
Exmor IMX220 Shoot Out – Meizu MX4 Pro vs Sony Xperia Z3
indeed sony's pic are washed out but the looking at the "lay's" and "muji" comparision, meizu's pics are blurred.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems to me the camera glass on her Z3C was a bit smudged... That would explain the haze.
And the small details on the Z3C look much better and cleaner at 100% zoom than on the Meizu, even if the Z3C was a bit out of focus.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I'm so disappointed in this camera. I took my Z3C and my old HTC Droid Incredible 2 to a concert last night. Inc2's pics were much crisper and cleaner. The videos were better as well (at 720p), though the sound on the Z3C's vids were better. Inc2 is what, 4 years old?
Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

Crewville96 said:
I'm so disappointed in this camera. I took my Z3C and my old HTC Droid Incredible 2 to a concert last night. Inc2's pics were much crisper and cleaner. The videos were better as well (at 720p), though the sound on the Z3C's vids were better. Inc2 is what, 4 years old?
Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, this is our point exactly! The Z3C camera has far more advanced technology in it, yet the results are sub par to midrange and outdated phones. Care to share any of your pics for reference?
Sent from my Xperia Z3 Compact

PuffDaddy_d said:
Yes, this is our point exactly! The Z3C camera has far more advanced technology in it, yet the results are sub par to midrange and outdated phones. Care to share any of your pics for reference?
Sent from my Xperia Z3 Compact
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can upload the vids and couple pics. None of the pics are really the same for comparison since i was in the crowd at the concert though. But you can get a general idea.

PuffDaddy_d said:
Yes, this is our point exactly! The Z3C camera has far more advanced technology in it, yet the results are sub par to midrange and outdated phones. Care to share any of your pics for reference?
Sent from my Xperia Z3 Compact
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's my vids. One is from my old Droid Incredible 2 (2011, running GB) the other is from my Z3C (2014, running LP). I'll let you guys judge which vid is better.

That concert looks like it was a lot of fun! I watched both videos on full screen and i personally think the top video looks better - less grainy and handled the bright lighting much better.

PuffDaddy_d said:
That concert looks like it was a lot of fun! I watched both videos on full screen and i personally think the top video looks better - less grainy and handled the bright lighting much better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, just cleaner and sharper overall. Thats the Droid Incredible 2 video (720 only as well, Z3C is at 1080 lol).

Overall love

Yes, yes, it's possible to love a phone. Heck, you sleep next to it, don't you? Rate this thread to indicate your love for the Sony Xperia 1 II, all things considered. A higher rating indicates that the Sony Xperia 1 II is an incredible phone that you enjoy tremendously. You love it.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

One of my all time favorite phones / camera's
So I have been able to play with and use the xperia 1 ii for over 4 days.
this will be a short review and perhaps I will add to it at a later moment.
Main Things I Didn't Test
* Gaming
* Video
Look and Feel
I personally really like the look and feel of this phone. It has some iPhone 4 qualities to it. By which I mean it feels like a device/tool with nice buttons, very high quality materials. It feels like a tool, like a device that is build for usability rather than build for the wow factor (if that makes sense).
It doesn't have a crazy high screen to body ratio. So something like S20 (or the S10 i used previously) is a bit more awe inspiring. But as soon as you slap a case on a S10 this will disappear any way. But what it has is a uninterrupted screen with no notches or punch hols, it has two front facing high quality speakers. It is function over form rather than form over function. That is not to say that it is not a good looking device it is very nice build it look really great. Although I'm not a fan of mirror polishing but you will not notice that as soon as you slap a cover on it (and it looks way better than the ugly blue s10). I have the official Sony case with stand which will still allow you to see the very nice sides of the phone; they are beautifully machined and have a nice color (especially with the purple one).
The buttons of the volume and the power feel really nice, they have a reassuring click to them. The only thing I'm missing is a click for the shutter button. Perhaps it is not implemented to make sure you don't move the phone while clicking. This has a bit of a downside when you don't have a shutter sound enabled. As the camera is crazy fast and it is therefor hard to see / notice if you took the photo or not. A click would have been nice. But when using the phone more often I got used to it.
Screen
The screen is absolutely amazing especially in creator mode. Colors are very accurate and it is a real joy to watch media on this phone be it movies, clips or photos. Because of the very high PPI reading news or books is possible with small letters it basically looks like it is printed. Compared to my old s10 which has a amazing screen as well I prefer the Sony as it has such natural colors and this printed feel to it. Also the colors are good with low luminescence something the s10 could not manage. That being said the max brightness is a bit less than the s10 and I feel that the display is a bit more reflective. But this could be caused by the fact I keep the brightness down with the Sony as thing look really good with low brightness. That being said I did not encounter any problems reading the screen outside on a bright day.
The screen ratio is really handy. I never used split screen a lot on previous devices. But since it is slightly taller than a s10 (while having the same width) it makes more sense to use it and I use it for more often now (watching YouTube while messaging). I don't feel it is a big phone. It is a bit heavier than the s10 but also it feels better build than the s10. Compared to a Note 10+ the height is similar but the width is significantly less.
Sound
Front facing speaker are great far better than the S10 or any other phone I used. Switching on Dolby Atmos is mandatory as without it is not that good. You really have stereo sound and both speakers are equal in terms of loudness positioning and quality.
The sound quality from the audio jack is good and you have quite a lot of options to set the sound to your tasted. As I mostly use wireless atm I have not tested this comprehensively.
Speed
It is fast, sometimes notably faster than the s10. I think is mostly because of faster memory as I don't to that much cpu intensive stuff. That being said I think the most phones for the last couple of years are fast enough for most of the tasks any way.
5G / reception
5G works no idea if it is faster than 4g. didn't run any test as 4g didn't give me any problems. Reception seems to be very good at least better than the S10. Some places where I did not have a great reception or didn't have any reception with the s10 I do have with the 1ii. Maybe this could be because of 5G (as it uses multiple connections), or maybe not, I have no Idea . WiFi is stable and fast. Bluetooth as well.
Call quality.
It is great, voice is really good, again better than the s10
Battery
it is good, I'm a heavy phone user as I use it for lot's of reading, emailing, work stuff, music and YouTube. No complains and even slightly amazed considering is has "only" a 4000Mha battery
Camera (and a little bit about pricing)
Properly the most important part of this phone it the camera. As Sony did not release a "cheaper" version of the phone with 64GB like the iPhone 11 pro it is a very expensive device and the camera is it's main selling point. Although you could argue it should be compared with a 11 pro max which makes the Sony cheaper than a iPhone 11 pro max (256GB) or similar priced to the 64GB version. I don't understand reviewers that give a lower rating because of the price. It should be compared to an 11 pro (max) or S20+ / Ultra. Personally I think it comes out ahead in many comparisons to these phones. The 1ii is a "pro" phone with a pro price. But than again a "pro" phone is a silly concept to begin with (the only pro phone I ever used was the blackberry passport, best professional / work phone ever, but bad at anything else).
First a small disclaimer. I didn't use the android camera at all (only for scanning a QR code) as you get a photo pro app which should be used if you buy this phone. Secondly I like photography I have used many camera's over the years and also may phones. Up till now my two favorite camera phones where the Lumia 950XL for color and the Mate 9 for b&w photography. The Lumia still amazes me to this day and Nokia/Microsoft did not get enough credit for there work. It was the only phone I knew that could really capture light. Also I don't care for AI powered camera apps. I understand that this is really handy if you just make snapshot and don't care about doing photography your self. I don't care for "HDR" images as all it accomplish is that it removes shadows and makes for a equal brightened image regardless of how the scene looks. If you like these things I'm not sure that this is the phone for you as Google, Samsung and Apple are better at these things
The camera app phone combination is amazing. It really gives you the feel that you are using a camera and more importantly that you are in control. It is a unbelievably fast combinations. For instance; I tried to take a photo of a dog and I was sure I mist it. As he started moving as soon as I pressed the shutter button but to my amazement the camera took the picture, it must have been less than a second between me clicking and the dog moving. I think it might be faster than my RX100m6. If you like to tinker and you know what shot you want and how you want it to look there is not better phone atm. (the Samsung pro camera is highly unusable and Huawei sadly doesn't have Google apps).
The 20fps works really good as well, it is amazing to use on a phone and to be so sure of the results (yes I know I'm using the word amazing a lot). Another surprise is the performance of the digital zoom it is far better than expected is highly usable. Also it is quit nice to have a 70mm option, although I feel that it doesn't perform on the same level as the other two sensor / lens combinations it seems a bit softer and not as sharply focused. The hero of this phone is the main 24mm sensor / lens combo it performs the best and has all the possible options. For the xperia 1iii I would like to see a 50mm included as well. The colors are natural and this gives you the opportunity to post processes the picture your self more easily than say a iPhone or Samsung.
There are some things I would like to see in a software update. Mainly the ability to zoom in normal focal lengths instead of continues (so from 24 to 28 to 35 to 50 etc). To change the shutter sound to a soft click sound. The ability to set sharpness , contrast and saturation. Last but not least RAW support. Also I had a couple of times the app freeze on me but as this is the first version I presume they will fix this.
a bunch of pictures with various focal length and lighting conditions:
https://we.tl/t-8rRytOUylm
Video
didn't really use it and on cnet there is a great review about its video capabilities including a nice short movie. It's great; one of the best reviews ever for any phone or product https://www.cnet.com/news/sony-xperia-1-ii-review-yep-thats-a-real-telephoto-lens/
If you have any questions I will try to answer them (I will not install apps to check stuff )

stefanve said:
So I have been able to play with and use the xperia 1 ii for over 4 days.
this will be a short review and perhaps I will add to it at a later moment.
)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
see link in original post for full rez pictures

Really great feedback, thanks. As a prospective buyer who mainly takes photos of friends/family/selfies, how does the 'shoot and point' on the camera pro app hold up? I'm
a big fan of the portrait mode on my Mate Pro 20, does this phone have a similar mode?

Tmel14 said:
Really great feedback, thanks. As a prospective buyer who mainly takes photos of friends/family/selfies, how does the 'shoot and point' on the camera pro app hold up? I'm
a big fan of the portrait mode on my Mate Pro 20, does this phone have a similar mode?
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I've had the phone for two days. I'd say this is not a phone you'd buy to be "point and shoot" camera. The main camera app takes good photos but not the best. To get best photos, you should use the camera pro app. It is a solid app/camera and I feel like I have a close to DSLR camera in my pocket. Colors are very natural and accurate compared to manipulated photos you get from Samsung or even Pixel camera app. It does have a portrait mode that works fine however in Camera Pro if you learn to adjust focus manually can have similar effect even better.

Thanks for the heads up. Any tweaks you'd recommend to the default settings on the camera pro app?

The pro mode has a auto mode which is quit good. And I used it for a couple of shots I shared. So it can work really well. I guess it is depending on the look of the auto mode settings and if the other pros of this phone are of interest to you

stefanve said:
see link in original post for full rez pictures
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OMG! Sorry man, I'm quite shocked by the quality photos form your X1 II. Seriously horrified! There are a couple of good pics from your sample bunch. All others are out of focus, under / overexposed, low detailed etc. I clearly recognize my personal experience with my current phone - Xperia 5 - hit or miss, around 50% of good outcome. Now I'm fully convinced to not even look at possibility of getting Xperia 1 II . Thanks

Love and Hate from me. Eagerly waited for it since announcement and first adverts. High expectations, not only because of SONY´s promises but mostly because of my experience with and long - term SONY user / devices. Most of my SONY phones delivered good images: my XZ Premium, XZ2 Premium, even my last addition, the X, gives me proper images. Not counting the older device along my lifetime (SE68, W-Series, K-Series and so on). But this MK2 is more Hate than Love. Gorgeous design, screen, speakers. Fast and, finally, more storage (novum at SONY!). But the camera - system is a no-go. Mediocre image quality from all but the main camera, even with the 24 lens it delivers inconsistent material. Videos are simply said...to forget. Focus is a hit and miss game when light conditions are different from sunny - outdoor. From 10 images half is usable, depending what lens was used. Not to talk about the front camera. I just informed Sony about my complain and offered them my image and video material to check it. Dunno if they will give me reply....

WarVic said:
OMG! Sorry man, I'm quite shocked by the quality photos form your X1 II. Seriously horrified! There are a couple of good pics from your sample bunch. All others are out of focus, under / overexposed, low detailed etc. I clearly recognize my personal experience with my current phone - Xperia 5 - hit or miss, around 50% of good outcome. Now I'm fully convinced to not even look at possibility of getting Xperia 1 II . Thanks
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I have to say I really like most out of camera photo's, but they don't sharp the photos or use HDR ( you can switch it on) but I guess in the end is about personal taste. to my eyes they look miles better than anything samsung.
just to show what you can do with the out of camera photos (I hope raw support will be added soon) look at the different versions of two photos.
But indeed this phone is not for some one that wants a camera that " just works"

That's fine then. For me they looks like made by Galaxy S5 really. Old dinky Pixel 1 makes a way better shots straight out of the camera to my opinion. Thanks for sharing photos anyway. You've stopped me from making a very costly mistake.

WarVic said:
That's fine then. For me they looks like made by Galaxy S5 really. Old dinky Pixel 1 makes a way better shots straight out of the camera to my opinion. Thanks for sharing photos anyway. You've stopped me from making a very costly mistake.
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Not sure if you looked at the images attached to the post. but keep in mind that XDA is heavily compressing the images. so pixel peaking is not advisable and I can understand you would say it seems to be at S5 level

stefanve said:
Not sure if you looked at the images attached to the post. but keep in mind that XDA is heavily compressing the images. so pixel peaking is not advisable and I can understand you would say it seems to be at S5 level
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I'm not an idiot or simply blind, mate . I downloaded your archive with full sized images and had a good look at them. Sorry man but it's just complete disaster, "unbelievable" photo quality. And it's not just subjective opinion or a matter of taste. If I spent $1200 on a camera-phone which makes photos like THAT.... I'd return IT without a second thought. It's hard to believe that future patches and fixes will help. Anyway, Sony has a tremendous job ahead. Otherwise I predict mass returns, very poor sales or significant price drop.

WarVic said:
I'm not an idiot or simply blind, mate . I downloaded your archive with full sized images and had a good look at them. Sorry man but it's just complete disaster, "unbelievable" photo quality. And it's not just subjective opinion or a matter of taste. If I spent $1200 on a camera-phone which makes photos like THAT.... I'd return IT without a second thought. It's hard to believe that future patches and fixes will help. Anyway, Sony has a tremendous job ahead. Otherwise I predict mass returns, very poor sales or significant price drop.
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Not saying or thinking you are an idiot, just checking
Funny how different people see different things looking at the same image. That being said if the main reason of this phone is to have a great camera than indeed it's disappointing and it's better to get a RX100V or what ever and a mid range phone for the same money. I guess no phone is worth 1200 it is way to much for any phone and perhaps especially for a android as the long term support is non existing.
I just have fun snapping with it and i am pleased with the output (considering that it is a phone

Noticed gaming performance is dropping, guess I've installed something....
Playing COD, every 10 odd seconds it shows, then goes back to normal.
Notice this in other games to, even silly idle games that should be pulling no demand. One of them even said, drop to low performance mode, your phone is struggling. WTF!
My previous phone, one lower chip model and g card model never had any problems.
Must be done software conflicts, but dunno how to find them

Am I the only one who doesn't see what's wrong with the pictures that have been posted?

They are perfectly fine. But if you are used to processed photos from Samsung, Google or Apple you might not like the look as these are basically not altered by some algorithm.

Burst shot of me Pooch : https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=18Os3AQ2j0TuqaFjJ6c9h-TvFGr2zyIk1

WarVic said:
I'm not an idiot or simply blind, mate . I downloaded your archive with full sized images and had a good look at them. Sorry man but it's just complete disaster, "unbelievable" photo quality. And it's not just subjective opinion or a matter of taste. If I spent $1200 on a camera-phone which makes photos like THAT.... I'd return IT without a second thought. It's hard to believe that future patches and fixes will help. Anyway, Sony has a tremendous job ahead. Otherwise I predict mass returns, very poor sales or significant price drop.
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This guy is not an idiot either
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zevK7xMsYdA&feature=youtu.be
---------- Post added at 03:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:24 AM ----------
I think the standard photo App is still a work in progress - a rushed unfinished bolt on that is likely to be improved over the next few updates - they wanted to get this phone to market before they lost the window - understandable
I expect improvements and will wait a few months to see if they materialise before I make a purchase
we need to remember what they are pushing in this phone - the Pro Camera availability and I am loving the idea, a new concept in the market
Think of it this way, what if they never included the standard photo app at all and just improved the auto functions of the pro app, that may have been their intention during development but decided to throw in the standard app last minute - you can't please everyone all at once

Geoffxx said:
This guy is not an idiot either
&feature=youtu.be
---------- Post added at 03:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:24 AM ----------
I think the standard photo App is still a work in progress - a rushed unfinished bolt on that is likely to be improved over the next few updates - they wanted to get this phone to market before they lost the window - understandable
I expect improvements and will wait a few months to see if they materialise before I make a purchase
we need to remember what they are pushing in this phone - the Pro Camera availability and I am loving the idea, a new concept in the market
Think of it this way, what if they never included the standard photo app at all and just improved the auto functions of the pro app, that may have been their intention during development but decided to throw in the standard app last minute - you can't please everyone all at once
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You can't use someone on the Xperia YouTube channel to counter the comment from someone criticising the quality as it'll just be massively biased towards Sony lol
If it's like the Xperia 1 you'll be waiting forever for the improvements to come so I wouldn't hang around.