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In this gallery I show several photos taken with three high end smartphones in typical summer time situations. Even though the HTC One uses a unique ultrapixel approach, it still holds its own against Nokia 8.7 megapixel cameras.
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HTC One: Seattle Waterfront
There is no better smartphone hardware than the HTC One and I have no intention of giving it up. However, given the fantastic Nokia camera technology, and my desire for a good test Windows Phone 8 device, I just picked up the Nokia Lumia 925 on T-Mobile. I went on a short photo walk to see if the camera could sway me to use the Lumia 925 more often than the One. I also included the Nokia Lumia 928 since the 925 has an extra lens and I wanted to check if that made a difference too.
This gallery of images is not a scientific test and I will leave that kind of detailed testing up to those sites who have the tools and resources to conduct those full tests. My intent and purpose was to just capture several photos that a typical consumer might take along the Seattle waterfront, near the Clink, and around my yard. Everything was left in auto with the two Lumia devices switched to macro mode for the close up shots.
Like many of you, I am not a fan of the ZDNet gallery design, but that's what I have to work with. If you want to see the original images then feel free to visit my Flickr set collection of the images.
Viewing and judging these photos is subjective as some people focus on clarity and detail, some on color replication, others on how much is captured, and more. If you zoom into the photos you will see that the ultra pixel method doesn't provide for much depth in the images. That said, for typical viewing online I found these images to show the HTC One shot the best in most cases (7/10 photos in my opinion), but the Lumia 925 could be chosen for many of those winning shots too. I did see that the Lumia 925 performed better than the 928 as well.
To get another person's opinion, I had my wife perform the comparison test and she too selected the HTC One as the best result for the majority of photos I posted.
I thought the Nokia Lumia 925 would be tops in nearly every photo with the six lenses and Nokia PureView technology, but HTC's One does very well and surprised me with its performance. I don't have to compromise on apps and services with the One while I still make tradeoffs with Windows Phone. It was good to see the HTC One camera stack up well and I will continue to use it as my primary device.
Which phone do you think performed the best, the HTC One, Lumia 925, or Lumia 928?
Caption by: Matthew Miller
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