TechGreatest
Which Smartphone Has The Best Camera?: LG G3, Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One M8, HTC One Mini 2, Nokia Lumia 1520, Nokia Lumia 1020 AND… The Sony Xperia Z2 Compared
We compare imaging technology and photo quality from every major flagship on the market
There are so many reasons why you might want to grab a smartphone these days. Communication, whether via traditional calls and texts, or using the myriad of new options such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Skype, will likely still be the main motivator for many people. However, the merging of good quality camera hardware with the modern handset at large, stoked by social networking and sharing, has seen a massive boom in casual and ameteur photography.
With that in mind, we thought it’d be a good idea to look at the various high-end handsets on the current market to see how their imaging capabilities compare.
For this shootout, we grabbed the Nokia Lumia 1020 and 1520, LG’s brand new G3, Sony’s Xperia Z2, Samsung’s Galaxy S5, and both HTC’s One M8 and One Mini 2.
Round 1: Outside/Daylight Shooting
First, lets have a look out how the various handsets perform in a fairly straightforward scenario, shooting outside in the daylight.
HTC One Mini 2
HTC One M8
LG G3
Nokia Lumia 1520
Nokia Lumia 1020
Samsung Galaxy S5
Sony Xperia Z2
“Superior Auto”
Manual
Round 1 Analysis
As expected, Nokia’s Lumia 1020 is the Mac Daddy here and pretty much dominates the rest in terms of detail and clarity. The Lumia 1520 is not far behind, although the difference between the 20MP and 40MP sensors is difficult to discern, it is noticable as the 1520 does lack some of the extra-fine detail and sharpness, and the colour reproduction isn’t quite as good. It’s still extremely capable though.
LG’s G3 is very impresive indeed and on a similar level to Samsung’s Galaxy S5, there’s plenty of detail and good dynamic range on both handsets. Sony’s Xperia Z2 creeps out in front of both on the detail front and has more natural colour – however, some might prefer the Instagram-style over-saturated, high contrast look Sammy and LG have going by default.
Additionally, while Sony’s stuff is powerful it can be a little fiddlier than its rivals, with most other competitors in this shootout offering much more straightforward “point-n-shoot” usability.
HTC’s handsets bring up the rear with both having slightly squiffy colour reproduction – the One Mini 2 is slightly yellowish while the One M8 has a blue tint. Both setups are somewhat lacking in detail compared to the rest, but the One M8 certainly does a better job than its smaller counterpart thanks to a wider aperture and slightly larger sensor size.
Round 2: Close-Up and “Macro”
Now we’re going to see how the handset’s compare getting up-close and personal in similar conditions. There are some specific points to bear in mind with regard to Nokia’s handsets, but we’ll clear that up later.
HTC One Mini 2
HTC One M8
LG G3
Nokia Lumia 1520
Nokia Lumia 1020
Samsung Galaxy S5
Sony Xperia Z2
“Superior Auto”
Manual
Round 2: Analysis
Sony’s Xperia Z2 still offers more natural colour alongside the Nokias, however, the difference between Sony’s “Superior Auto” and Manual modes is noticable, with the Auto mode having adjusted to the lighting to offer slightly punchier colour and contrast than Manual.
That said, we were lucky on this occasion as the Auto mode managed to get the focus right, where quite often it will re-adjust at the last minute to give you a blurry picture – consequently I have found it is usually, though not always, better to capture close-up images using Manual mode on the Xperia Z2.
The Lumia 1020 still leads on the sharpness and detail front, while also offering the best focal depth of the pack. The 1520, S5 and G3 all sit in a fairly tight group offering decent sharpness and spectacular colour.
Round 3: Indoors
Now we’re going to show you how these devices stack up shooting indoors, snapping objects in a reasonably well-lit room with natural light.
HTC One Mini 2
HTC One M8
LG G3
Nokia Lumia 1520
Nokia Lumia 1020
Samsung Galaxy S5
Sony Xperia Z2
“Superior Auto”
Manual
Round 3: Analysis
This round really shows up the difference between the HTC One M8 and the HTC One Mini 2, with the flagship outperforming its smaller cousin by some distance – it’s sharper, has better dynamic range and better colour.
It’s still left behind by most of the others though, the Lumia 1020 easily outclasses everything else, although oddly enough it seems the 1520 fell over a bit, while the LG G3 and Galaxy S5 continue fairly neck-and-neck.
This round also shows up some of the foibles with Sony’s Superior Auto mode, with the Manual shot providing sharper details on the glass tumbler, better colour and better contrast.
Round 4: Low Light
Next up, we’re going to show you imaging performance in low-light. Now, of course, there are different levels of low-light, from being in a pitch black room, to out at a carnival at night, to being indoors at night with loads of lights on, or in a poorly lit room in the middle of the day.
We will likely add to this comparison with more varied low-light shots at a later date, but for now we have what will no doubt be a fairly common encounter – an area of the house with no windows nearby. It’s dull and there’s a distinct absence of light, but it’s daytime, and therefore not the darkest situation for shooting images.
In these conditions, it was quite variable whether the flash would kick in or not when set to auto. In some cases it would activate and have interesting effects on the picture quality – sometimes improving clarity while offering awkward contrast and colour – we’ve included both with and without flash in these instances.
HTC One Mini 2
Flash
No Flash
HTC One M8
Flash
No Flash
LG G3
Nokia Lumia 1520
Flash
No Flash
Nokia Lumia 1020
Flash
No Flash
Samsung Galaxy S5
Sony Xperia Z2
“Superior Auto”
Manual
Round 4: Analysis
The most glaring thing here is how much worse many of the pictures with flash look in terms of colour and contrast despite their ability to show a bit more detail on the glass. Plenty of the phones perform well enough without the flash though, including the Galaxy S5, LG G3 and, of course, both Lumias, with the 1020 once again being way out in front.
The HTC One Mini 2 performed fairly poorly compared to the rest, while the One M8 didn’t do too badly, with a much sharper and clearer picture than its stable-mate.
Interestingly, Sony’s Xperia Z2 didn’t do to well in either mode, the colour and contrast leaves things a bit washed out and there’s some discernable noise due to Sony’s post-processing.
Bonus Round: HTC U-Focus vs Samsung “Selective Focus”
We couldn’t include Samsung’s Galaxy S5 and HTC’s One M8 without taking a look at their respective selective focal point trickery. With HTC it’s dubbed U-Focus and uses the dedicated depth sensor, while on the Galaxy S5 it’s called Selective Focus and there is no additional sensor used.
HTC’s setup means that, provided you don’t cover up the depth sensor, every photo has a batch of spatial data stored in it, and you’re able to edit and re-edit the photo at any time dynamically through HTC’s built-in interface.
You’re able to select the focal point of the image anwhere, however, it’s a bit of a trick because it will simply render that part of the photo as it was captured while blurring out everything else.
This can mean the part you want to focus on in post-capture editing may also be a bit blurry, because it wasn’t the focal point at capture, it’s just that everything else around it will now be even blurrier – in other words, it cannot bring into focus anything that was not at time of capture, the way a true Lytro camera can.
HTC One M8 U-Focus Image
HTC One M8 U-Focus Edited Image
HTC One M8 U-Focus Image & Edit
Samsung’s setup requires that you activate a specific mode before taking the image and it operates rather like HDR in that you snap the scene, then the phone takes a moment to capture it all and process things properly.
Once an image is captured you can edit and re-edit the focal point between “near”, “far”, and “pan focus” – the latter of which renders everything as sharp as it was during capture, while the other two blur out either the background or foreground respectively.
Samsung Galaxy S5 Selective Focus “Pan Focus”
Samsung Galaxy S5 Selective Focus “Far Focus”
Samsung Galaxy S5 Selective Focus “Near Focus”
In this regard, it isn’t that different from the HTC One M8 in that the image quality is already preset at time of capture and all you’re doing is selectively blurring certain sections.
However, the point here is that Samsung’s sensor does a much better job of capturing most of what’s in the viewfinder at a decent enough quality – in other words, however you edit the image within Samsung’s limited selection you will probably end up with a usable image. The same can’t be necessarily said of HTC’s arrangement.
Bonus Round: Nokia Lumia PureView Oversampling and Lossless Zoom
I mentioned earlier that there were some specific points to cover on the Nokia Lumia 1020 and Lumia 1520’s close-up capture capabilities. Because of the way they’re setup, the PureView sensors are not particularly good in close quarters, they can get reasonably close, but where the others can get in closer and focus (or select a specific mode to aid focus very close in) the Lumias start having trouble.
It isn’t a design fault though, you can still achieve the same images, but you have to think about using the camera differently.
Both devices use something called oversampling to take in an extraordinary amount of detail and you’re actually able to zoom in and crop without any loss of visual fidelity. So, instead of taking a “macro” shot, all you have to do is get in close enough while being able to focus, snap an image, and then you can zoom/crop the picture to get that super-close-up shot as you would on any other camera.
You can do this directly on the phone with the built-in editing tools, or get cracking with an image editor like Photoshop on a computer.
Here are some examples from the Lumia 1020, which is the better of the two at this trick due to its larger and more complex sensor setup.
Nokia Lumia 1020 Original Image
Nokia Lumia 1020 Lossless Zoom Edit
Nokia Lumia 1020 Original Image
Nokia Lumia 1020 Lossless Zoom Edit
Wrap Up
It comes as no particular shock that the Lumia 1020 remains the very best camera phone on the market and is leagues ahead of its rivals, with Nokia’s similarly impressive Lumia 1520 coming not far behind. Of course, there is a trade-off here as both devices are quite bulky, and depending on what you’re after Windows Phone might not suit your tastes.
Sony’s Xperia Z2 is next in-line (and Sony’s Xperia Z1 is still pretty much the same setup), and is in many ways on a par with Nokia’s 1520 in terms of achievable image quality.
However, it’s a fiddly beast to get the best results from, and that’s another mark in Nokia’s favour: although it has offered some very complex controls via the Nokia Pro Camera app, the experience is rather scalable and remains very easy for less experienced photographers to get to grips with while achieving decent results. Sony’s handset also doesn’t fare so well in low-light.
Sony’s temperamental usability means that in some ways other models on the list become preferable for their ease-of-use. Samsung’s and LG’s devices, on the Android side of things, are some of the easiest to quickly shoot and get excellent results, with very user-friendly interfaces. The HTC camera interface and operation are very simple and straightforward, but due to HTC’s peculiar approach to sensors the results lack the same consistency and overall image quality of what you get aboard the G3, Lumias and Galaxy S5.
With all of this said, I do think that every camera on this shootout offers a great photography experience for the majority of users – if all you’re doing is grabbing holiday snaps and selfies for Facebook, you”ll likely be happy with any of the handsets here as they all offer fantastic image quality – especially if you compare it to what was achievable not very long ago.
The Nokia Lumia 1020 is undoubtedly the best, but I’ve heard Sony reps argue the trade-off in bulk isn’t what they think most consumers want – I’d be inclined to agree – but if you want the ultimate in smartphone imaging look no further than Nokia.
Ultimately, we hope the images posted here will speak for themselves in terms of helping your cameraphone buying decisions.