What phone has the best camera?

[The-Real-Deal82]

I couldn't say which is the outright best, but having recently made an album of the first 6 months of our daughters life, the vast majority of photo's have come from our mobile phones. The quality is very good indeed! I think unless you are printing photo's to bigger than A3, most of the top end phones are perfectly adequate. I've heard the Nokia's are the best, but that is just one feature and isn't enough to sway my choice of what phone to get next.

 

[Menneisyys2]

How does the Nokia N9 compare with these phones camera-wise? I remember it having a pretty good camera, but it might just be comparable to the iPhone/Android flagships rather than the 808. Either way, that 808 camera looks amazing and I am seriously considering it now.

It's pretty close to that of the N8 - see http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Nokia-N9-Review_id2861/page/3 . Too bad, while it does have some improvements (e.g., brighter lens), it lacks the Xenon flash of the N8. Which also means it's a far cry away from the 808.

 

[Cod3rror]

Unlikely to happen, regrettably. The 808 was a tech demo targeted solely at the hardcore tech / camera enthusiasts. An Average Joe don't wanting the best possible image quality would never purchase such a thick and heavy phone. This is why the 1020 and, particularly, the 1520 and the 930 are far thinner.

Basically, it's the same as Apple's striving for the thinnest possible iPhone even on the expense of the image quality of their camera. With a thicker phone, they could put a significantly better sensor and/or wider / brighter lens and/or OIS in the iPhone. Still, they cater for where the money is: the Average Joes (particularly the female and/or non-tech-savvy ones) and not us tech geeks.

I'm really sorry to see Nokia's going the Apple way in this regard.

It's disappointing that Nokia gave in to the mainstream and did not release a proper successor to 808.

In a way it worked against them because the mainstream still did not switch, yet they alienated their core audience, Nokia fans that like cameraphones.

Nokia 808 PureView was the pinnacle of their accomplishments; amazing sensor, amazing optics. If 1020 was as good I'd have bought it, but when you look at 1020, you can see grain, noise, overprocessing and something is not right, images look artificial, it is trying too hard. 808 produced amazing images effortlessly.

evleaks (the famous twitter leaker) posted the codenames of 6 upcoming Nokia phones, I wonder if a successor to 1020, the 1030 is among them? And if they will finally be able to beat the mighty 808?

 

[MRU]

^ The 1020 has had a lot of updates that correct many of the compression artefacts & grainy shots and it is much improved where it is now than where it was only a few months ago.

I'd be interested in seeing a 1030 too.

 

[Menneisyys2]

^ The 1020 has had a lot of updates that correct many of the compression artefacts & grainy shots and it is much improved where it is now than where it was only a few months ago.

It's indeed improved a bit but still considerably worse than the 808, particularly WRT
- noise (much smaller pixels)
- edge / corner sharpness (particularly visible in the wider, 16:9 mode, where 10% of the left/rightmost area is pretty much blurred and CA-ridden)

And, of course, there's no way of making use of all 41 Mpixels (on the expense of some vignetting / standard aspect ratio) or improving the microphones, unlike on Symbian, where it's possible even w/o any kind of hacking.

 

[PDFierro]

It's pretty close to that of the N8 - see http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Nokia-N9-Review_id2861/page/3 . Too bad, while it does have some improvements (e.g., brighter lens), it lacks the Xenon flash of the N8. Which also means it's a far cry away from the 808.

Cool, thanks. I really had no idea a phone camera like the 808 was out there. I remember hearing about the PureView back then, but must have forgot about it. From what I've seen of the camera now, it looks amazing.

Looks like it is going for $500 USD on eBay, brand new. Thanks for the recommendation if I go that route. Good thread going here.