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Camera phone comparison; HTC One, BlackBerry Z10, iPhone 5, Lumia 920, and Note II

You can't replace your point and shoot with most camera phones, but they do the job for social media and online sharing. As you can see, most any of these phones have decent cameras.
By Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer
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1 of 34 Matthew Miller/ZDNET

HTC One pier with flash

I am in the process of testing out the HTC One and wanted to post some photo samples to go along with the Zoes and video highlights I wrote about earlier this week. This is not a scientific camera test, but a test of typical scenarios where I might go around taking photos.

Also keep in mind these were all shot in auto mode or in macro/closeup for character pics and for most phones, other than the iPhone 5, there are a TON of custom/manual settings to get better optimization. However, I primarily take photos with my phone in auto mode and imagine most consumers do as well.

If you want to know more about the details of camera in phones, then I highly recommend you visit and read Brian Klug's excellent presentation on physical limitations and the current technology in phones. He also has a great article on the HTC One camera and I look forward to his camera phone test.

In the meantime, you can browse through this gallery to check out a few photos I took with the HTC One, BlackBerry Z10, Apple iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920, and Samsung Galaxy Note II.

Of course, the Nokia N8 and 808 PureView blow these out of the water and can be used instead of point and shoot cameras. However, no one is going to buy either of these older Symbian smartphones so there is no point in showing a comparison for readers looking for a new smartphone that happens to take decent enough photos.

The HTC One did very well and I can finally say I can get by with an HTC device as my full time phone. The BB Z10 held its own in some situations. The iPhone 5 software is the simplest, but I still do like most of the photos it churns out. The Note II did better than I expected, while the Lumia 920 disappointed a bit in night shots. The Lumia did a good job when you zoom in to see details though, but again this is not what people do with photos from their phones..

We have to resize images for the ZDNet gallery and I am sorry for the gallery setup, but feel free to go visit my Flickr set for full resolution images as they were captured.

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2 of 34 Matthew Miller/ZDNET

BlackBerry Z10 pier with flash

I am in the process of testing out the HTC One and wanted to post some photo samples to go along with the Zoes and video highlights I wrote about earlier this week. This is not a scientific camera test, but a test of typical scenarios where I might go around taking photos.

If you want to know more about the details of camera in phones, then I highly recommend you visit and read Brian Klug's excellent presentation on physical limitations and the current technology in phones. He also has a great article on the HTC One camera and I look forward to his camera phone test.

In the meantime, you can browse through this gallery to check out a few photos I took with the HTC One, BlackBerry Z10, Apple iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920, and Samsung Galaxy Note II.

Of course, the Nokia N8 and 808 PureView blow these out of the water and can be used instead of point and shoot cameras. However, no one is going to buy either of these older Symbian smartphones so there is no point in showing a comparison for readers looking for a new smartphone that happens to take decent enough photos.

The HTC One did very well and I can finally say I can get by with an HTC device as my full time phone. The BB Z10 held its own in some situations. The iPhone 5 software is the simplest, but I still do like most of the photos it churns out. The Note II did better than I expected, while the Lumia 920 disappointed a bit.

We have to resize images for the ZDNet gallery, but feel free to go visit my Flickr set for full resolution images as they were captured.

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3 of 34 Matthew Miller/ZDNET

Apple iPhone 5 pier with flash

I am in the process of testing out the HTC One and wanted to post some photo samples to go along with the Zoes and video highlights I wrote about earlier this week. This is not a scientific camera test, but a test of typical scenarios where I might go around taking photos.

If you want to know more about the details of camera in phones, then I highly recommend you visit and read Brian Klug's excellent presentation on physical limitations and the current technology in phones. He also has a great article on the HTC One camera and I look forward to his camera phone test.

In the meantime, you can browse through this gallery to check out a few photos I took with the HTC One, BlackBerry Z10, Apple iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920, and Samsung Galaxy Note II.

Of course, the Nokia N8 and 808 PureView blow these out of the water and can be used instead of point and shoot cameras. However, no one is going to buy either of these older Symbian smartphones so there is no point in showing a comparison for readers looking for a new smartphone that happens to take decent enough photos.

The HTC One did very well and I can finally say I can get by with an HTC device as my full time phone. The BB Z10 held its own in some situations. The iPhone 5 software is the simplest, but I still do like most of the photos it churns out. The Note II did better than I expected, while the Lumia 920 disappointed a bit.

We have to resize images for the ZDNet gallery, but feel free to go visit my Flickr set for full resolution images as they were captured.

spcamcompare04.jpg
4 of 34 Matthew Miller/ZDNET

Nokia Lumia 920 pier with flash

I am in the process of testing out the HTC One and wanted to post some photo samples to go along with the Zoes and video highlights I wrote about earlier this week. This is not a scientific camera test, but a test of typical scenarios where I might go around taking photos.

If you want to know more about the details of camera in phones, then I highly recommend you visit and read Brian Klug's excellent presentation on physical limitations and the current technology in phones. He also has a great article on the HTC One camera and I look forward to his camera phone test.

In the meantime, you can browse through this gallery to check out a few photos I took with the HTC One, BlackBerry Z10, Apple iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920, and Samsung Galaxy Note II.

Of course, the Nokia N8 and 808 PureView blow these out of the water and can be used instead of point and shoot cameras. However, no one is going to buy either of these older Symbian smartphones so there is no point in showing a comparison for readers looking for a new smartphone that happens to take decent enough photos.

The HTC One did very well and I can finally say I can get by with an HTC device as my full time phone. The BB Z10 held its own in some situations. The iPhone 5 software is the simplest, but I still do like most of the photos it churns out. The Note II did better than I expected, while the Lumia 920 disappointed a bit.

We have to resize images for the ZDNet gallery, but feel free to go visit my Flickr set for full resolution images as they were captured.

spcamcompare05.jpg
5 of 34 Matthew Miller/ZDNET

Galaxy Note II pier with flash

I am in the process of testing out the HTC One and wanted to post some photo samples to go along with the Zoes and video highlights I wrote about earlier this week. This is not a scientific camera test, but a test of typical scenarios where I might go around taking photos.

If you want to know more about the details of camera in phones, then I highly recommend you visit and read Brian Klug's excellent presentation on physical limitations and the current technology in phones. He also has a great article on the HTC One camera and I look forward to his camera phone test.

In the meantime, you can browse through this gallery to check out a few photos I took with the HTC One, BlackBerry Z10, Apple iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920, and Samsung Galaxy Note II.

Of course, the Nokia N8 and 808 PureView blow these out of the water and can be used instead of point and shoot cameras. However, no one is going to buy either of these older Symbian smartphones so there is no point in showing a comparison for readers looking for a new smartphone that happens to take decent enough photos.

The HTC One did very well and I can finally say I can get by with an HTC device as my full time phone. The BB Z10 held its own in some situations. The iPhone 5 software is the simplest, but I still do like most of the photos it churns out. The Note II did better than I expected, while the Lumia 920 disappointed a bit.

We have to resize images for the ZDNet gallery, but feel free to go visit my Flickr set for full resolution images as they were captured.

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6 of 34 Matthew Miller/ZDNET

HTC One pier no flash Zoe still

This particular photo is one captured frame from a 3 second Zoe. 20 still images are captured when you take a Zoe and this is just one of the 20.

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7 of 34 Matthew Miller/ZDNET

HTC One pier with no flash

Notice how much of the ferris wheel HTC One captures with no lighting. Great low light capability here.

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8 of 34 Matthew Miller/ZDNET

BB Z10 pier with no flash

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iPhone 5 pier with no flash

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Lumia 920 pier with no flash

Quite disappointed by the Lumia 920 in this shot.

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Galaxy Note II pier with no flash

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HTC One Zoe frame in daylight

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HTC One HDR mode in daylight

Wow, look at how much of the under pier detail was captured. You can see the pilings in this shot.

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iPhone 5 HDR in daylight

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Galaxy Note II HDR in daylight

The Note II HDR was better than that of the iPhone 5.

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HTC One auto daylight shot

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BB Z10 auto daylight shot

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iPhone 5 auto daylight shot

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Lumia 920 auto daylight shot

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Galaxy Note II auto daylight shot

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HTC One panorama shot

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iPhone 5 panorama shot

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Galaxy Note II panorama shot

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HTC One indoors lighted desk

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HTC One indoors completely dark

The HTC One captures quite a bit of light.

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BB Z10 indoors lighted desk

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iPhone 5 indoors lighted desk

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Lumia 920 indoors lighted desk

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Galaxy Note II indoors lighted desk

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HTC One indoors flash of characters

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BB Z10 indoors flash of characters

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iPhone 5 indoors flash of characters

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Lumia 920 indoors flash of characters

Even with flash on, not just auto, I couldn't get it to fire fully on the Nokia Lumia 920.

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34 of 34 Matthew Miller/ZDNET

Galaxy Note II indoors flash of characters

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