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I was messing with a Galaxy 2 today, and noticed that it had a 8mp camera on it. I thought the quality of the pictures were also really nice. How does the Nexus's camera compare to the one that is on the galaxy 2? Also, why would the downgrade the camera? I know that mega pixels isn't everything when it comes to pictures, but is the nexus 5mp camera better somehow that the 8mp that comes on other recent devices?
Thanks
Unfortunately there is nothing special about the 5mp camera on the nexus.
I can't speak for the galaxy s2, but coming from a Droid 1 which also has a 5mp camera I can say the nexus completely blows it away, very sharp too. Same MP, big difference. There are many discussions on what makes a 8mp camera suck and say, a 5mp be better, ill avoid that road but say it is more than just MP!
And as a second thought, its a phone! The nexus camera is more than adequate, and if you really need top quality, buy a real camera
Galaxy Nexus Bugless Beast 4.0.3 cdma
While there is more than MP the best unfortunate truth is that most high end phones have better sensors AND more MP
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
I'm not 100% sure but I believe megapixel has to do with the size of the photo?
Quality of the camera doesn't really depend on the megapixel.
Despite saying that, the galaxy nexus camera isn't that good. The software is ok but I think its worse then my 5megapixel camera that used to be on my galaxy s captivate.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. Just my thoughts.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
my old htc Dinc got a 8mp camera, to compare the both, i dont see any differences beside the GNex came are godly fast.
I can coax better shots out of my Dinc...
That and stock software takes terrible shots, not even at the expense of speed, just poor decisions in noise reduction.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
I wonder if they choose to use a smaller sensor to keep the camera so fast. Maybe the larger sensors weren't performing as well speed wise. But I agree others, it isn't the best out there.
zeke1988 said:
my old htc Dinc got a 8mp camera, to compare the both, i dont see any differences beside the GNex came are godly fast.
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Click to collapse
staticx57 said:
I can coax better shots out of my Dinc...
That and stock software takes terrible shots, not even at the expense of speed, just poor decisions in noise reduction.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
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Click to collapse
bummer. the camera is one of the main deciding factors for me. i'll be upgrading from a Dinc, and while it served me well the past two years, I really would like to upgrade to a better phone cam, since the Dinc's cam is terrible at low light situations and can overexpose at outdoors. the flash on it is terrible also, being overly bright, which just washes out the photo. do i have another option in verizon, or is the iphone 4s my only other option? my upgrade is due now by the way. thanks.
MP is just the size of the photos. How good a camera is has a lot more to do with just the MP count. However, MP count does play an important role in phone photography. 99% of the phone camera lenses have no optical zoom. All the "zoom" are digital zoom, which just means cropping and enlarging the original picture. In this case, all else equal, the higher the MP, the better the "zoomed" result. Moreover, and very unfortunately, MP count aside, the lens and the sensor on the Galaxy Nexus are pretty poor.
The camera isn't amazing, but I would definitely not suggest anything but the GNex since it's all round just a perfect phone, you'll regret not getting it IMO.
radiohead14 said:
bummer. the camera is one of the main deciding factors for me. i'll be upgrading from a Dinc, and while it served me well the past two years, I really would like to upgrade to a better phone cam, since the Dinc's cam is terrible at low light situations and can overexpose at outdoors. the flash on it is terrible also, being overly bright, which just washes out the photo. do i have another option in verizon, or is the iphone 4s my only other option? my upgrade is due now by the way. thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I were you on verizon I would get the Rezound. It has a really nice camera compared to the Gnex and it also has a 1280x720 screen and even a more powerful GPU (but not CPU). I had it before I switched it for my gnex but I can't stand not having an AMOLED screen otherwise id still have that phone.
staticx57 said:
If I were you on verizon I would get the Rezound. It has a really nice camera compared to the Gnex and it also has a 1280x720 screen and even a more powerful GPU (but not CPU). I had it before I switched it for my gnex but I can't stand not having an AMOLED screen otherwise id still have that phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea i was trying out that phone in store. it's a bit of a brick though, and i wasn't impressed with the screen as well. any other ones coming out soon that i should wait for? will verizon get the galaxy S3?
Im impressed with the GNex cam. I do a lot of custom paint and mostly metallics so i like to take very close pics and they always come out great
When HTC was announcing the One X, it made it sound as if the new ImageSense camera is the best camera on a phone you may get. Well, since we now have the One X in our hands and have been using it for a while, we decided to put his new camera to the test. Winning this comparison, though, won't be easy, as we've chosen some of the best camera phones out there to be its competition: the Samsung Galaxy S II, Galaxy Nexus, Nokia N8 and Apple iPhone 4S. Let the games begin!
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Details:
The devil is in the details, and when it comes to taking photos, having great level of details is indeed one of the most important elements. Interestingly, the new ImageSense camera of the One X performed terribly in this area, presenting us to muddier-looking images compared to all of the other contestants here. Here's how all five handsets rank in this category:
1. Apple iPhone 4S
2. Nokia N8
3. Samsung Galaxy S II
4. Samsung Galaxy Nexus
5. HTC One X
Color reproduction:
This was a very close one, at least for the first 3 positions. The N8, Galaxy S II and Nexus manages to produce very natural colors, with the N8 excelling slightly overall. The iPhone 4S snatched the 4th position here since it's images are quite warm, but still closer to reality (and more appealing) compared to the pics from the One X, which were too cold.
1. Nokia N8
2. Samsung Galaxy S II
3. Samsung Galaxy Nexus
4. Apple iPhone 4S
5. HTC One X
Exposure:
We're once again seeing some pretty equal performance here, although there are still some anomalies observed. While most of the smartphones tend to deviate from the natural exposure by overexposing the image at times, the One X is the only one that underexposes it, and thus comes up with an overall dark photo. Interestingly, this also happens with normal daylight shots, which aren't taken in some more specific lighting situations that would make it difficult for the phone's camera to do its thing properly. Nope, the One X's camera simply underexposes the pictures, making them somewhat less pleasant to look at, compared to what we get from the other contenders here.
1. Nokia N8
2. Samsung Galaxy Nexus
3. Apple iPhone 4S
4. Samsung Galaxy S II
5. HTC One X
Indoor shots:
Ranking our five handsets in the Indoor shots category wasn't very easy, because they achieved different results when shooting in different light conditions. The ranking you see below represents their overall score. The Nokia N8 is our favorite here, since it manages to retain a pretty good detail and overall quality level throughout all lighting variations, whereas the shots from all the other handsets become much worse when the lights get weaker. We think the One X performs equally to the iPhone 4S and Galaxy Nexus in this respect, since all three are good in a different respect – the Nexus has the most natural colors, the iPhone 4S capture more detail than the Nexus, but its exposure is a bit off, while the One X has an OK exposure, good details and colors that are a bit off. The Galaxy S II is last here because its colors were too yellowish, save for those pics taken in very dark conditions.
1.Nokia N8
2.Apple iPhone 4S, HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy Nexus
3.Samsung Galaxy S II
Night shots:
Choosing the best handsets for taking night photos wasn't that hard. It's clear that the One X is a top performer in this category, along with the iPhone 4S, which produces similar results. They excelled in color reproduction and details, plus both of them offer easy exposure setting when doing touch-to-focus, which helps them in various situations. In the samples below, we've used touch-to-focus on the cathedral, which made the handsets set the exposure in such a way that would have the cathedral properly exposed. Both phones may produce varying results when using this function, so it's best to experiment in order to get to know your handset's behavior. The Nokia N8 couldn't top this category, since its photos are somewhat greenish and not as sharp.
1.HTC One X, Apple iPhone 4S
2.Samsung Galaxy S II, Nokia N8
3.Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Macro:
When it comes to macro, we managed to achieve best results with the N8 and Galaxy S II, where both devices captured some wonderfully-details shots, but the N8 had the upper hand thanks to its higher resolution. The One X wasn't too far behind, although its somewhat smoother images couldn't compete with the first two.
1.Nokia N8
2.Samsung Galaxy S II
3.HTC One X
4.Samsung Galaxy Nexus
5.Apple iPhone 4S
Video:
Of all five smartphones, the iPhone 4S has the best video-recording capabilities. Its 1080p video simply looks great and is very smooth. The second place is shared by the Galaxy S II and N8. Although the N8 is limited to producing 720p video, its clips are incredibly smooth, and of very high quality overall, whereas the Galaxy S II is competitive, but a bit choppier and inconsistent. The third place is shared by the One X and Galaxy Nexus, which produce pretty much the same results – mediocre.
1.Apple iPhone 4S
2.Samsung Galaxy S II, Nokia N8
3.HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Ease of use and speed:
In terms of ease of use, speed, and overall greatness of the camera UIs, our favorite one is the HTC One X, as it is very comfortable and features some cool additional stuff like filters and various settings. Then comes the iPhone 4S with its ultra-fast and ultra-simple design. We'd place the Nokia N8 third here, because of its dedicated camera shutter, which makes the process of taking photos feel a bit more natural and straightforward.
1.HTC One X
2.Apple iPhone 4S
3.Nokia N8
4.Samsung Galaxy S II
5.Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Conclusion:
This was it, shutterbugs. Apparently we don't have an ultimate camera phone here, but even if we had one, it wouldn't have been the new HTC One X. The handset did arrive with a very fast ImageSense camera, which made photo-taking very intuitive and fast, but it's not up to snuff when it comes to the quality of the actual photos and video. You'll be able to achieve much better results with the iPhone 4S and even with the oldie-but-goodie Galaxy S II. The real shock actually came when we saw the Galaxy Nexus beat the One X in many of the categories, which wasn't really expected. If you are taking a lot of photos and video with your cell phone and hoped that the One X's ImageSense camera will raise the bar in this respect, better look elsewhere.
Phonearena
Quality of Nokia N8 images still can't be beaten by the others in this test.
But i am really surprised by these results,what the hell is wrong,is the camera that bad on htc one x or phonearena is doing bull****
Wow interesting. I was looking to perhaps sell my Galaxy Nexus for a One X. I was hoping for a better camera and originally thought the one X was superior in that section. This was my excuse and buttering up to the GF letting me lay down the extra cash lol. As she's uses my camera phone a lot when we are out and about and snap pictures of the dog. Damn
I know our cell phones aren't appose to replace point and shoots but they say the best camera is the one that always with you. And most of the photos I take are spur of the moment when I'm out and about.
The pictures that I saw in the "Post your best picture" thread were very good imo. I wonder if the reviewer knew what he was doing.
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk 2
Vcolassi said:
Wow interesting. I was looking to perhaps sell my Galaxy Nexus for a One X. I was hoping for a better camera and originally thought the one X was superior in that section. This was my excuse and buttering up to the GF letting me lay down the extra cash lol. As she's uses my camera phone a lot when we are out and about and snap pictures of the dog. Damn
I know our cell phones aren't appose to replace point and shoots but they say the best camera is the one that always with you. And most of the photos I take are spur of the moment when I'm out and about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
really its a pain to see it performing like this
Phonearena have had a massive negative attitude about this phone from day one - wouldn't trust a word they say.
The camera in my experience is fantastic and considerably better than the Galaxy Nexus that I had!
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
WhiteHartMart said:
Phonearena have had a massive negative attitude about this phone from day one - wouldn't trust a word they say.
The camera in my experience is fantastic and considerably better than the Galaxy Nexus that I had!
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
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Click to collapse
Guess its based on user opinion. You said you had a Nexus and the One X performs better. As long as it looks good and the colors are good works for me. In reality I'm not going to be zooming in and having 4 phones next to me to compare lol.
Damn, and I sold my N8 for this. Haven't had time to test the camera so much, but it's sad that a phone 1.5 years old still isn't beaten.
Wanted all the popular apps which Android offers and a decent camera, but I'm already bored of the apps. Guess I'll go for the next Nokia with Windows and a good camera.
finduz said:
Damn, and I sold my N8 for this. Haven't had time to test the camera so much, but it's sad that a phone 1.5 years old still isn't beaten.
Wanted all the popular apps which Android offers and a decent camera, but I'm already bored of the apps. Guess I'll go for the next Nokia with Windows and a good camera.
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Click to collapse
If you want the best apps/ camera combo the iPhone is gonna be the way to go, even though I hate to say it. I use a Android phone daily but have a 4s laying around. And as far as games and app support it's clearly dominant.
Not saying the Play store doesn't have a lot of Apps. But you can literally sit around for days and download different iOS apps that the Play store does not have and there good ones too. The play store has the apps for my needs though.
I'd trade ya a new Samsung Galaxy Nexus for you One X hahaha.
Pls read this thread in this forum to see how amazing One X camera.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1585398
Even if you think that PhoneArena comparisons are utter BS, I doubt they would doctor the photos themselves, and they are perfectly lined up for direct comparison. You can clearly see how dark and unnatural looking colorwise the One X photos are, and how bad it performs in low light. It's also hard to blame shaky hands and such when the shutter lag is so low. It's really sad when people in these forums will jump for joy when PhoneArena does a very positive review of the phone they love, and then quickly turn a 180 when they give a negative review. They don't change staff on a weekly basis. There many more negative reviews of the camera elsewhere on popular sites. It's not some anomaly. Just abrasive fanboys who can't take criticism of their baby. HTC is known for their bad cameras. Why would a 9mm phone suddenly change all that?
The Nokia N8 is a real camera-phone, meaning it doesn't care about your tight jeans. The bigger the sensor, the better the camera, no duh. That's why it's 13mm. No 8-9mm phone is gonna be able to compete. Physics. The PureView is also very chunky.
If you think the pictures from the picture thread are good enough, well good for you! But this is about comparing cameras on high-end phones, and making expensive buying decisions based on these comparisons, so the minutiae is what matters. For people who prioritize the camera, the One X is probably the worst choice among the bunch tested.
The Cam on the One X is certainly not the best among the tested Devices.
I had the SGS2 before I switched to the One X, but to be honest, I am more pleased with the One X Camera than with the Galaxy S2 Camera.
The SGS2 Cam takes better photos in bright daylight. Its a "great weather" camera, because it needs some time to focus and shoot. Only in good light conditions it outperforms the One X Camera noticably and only if you got a few seconds to spare to take a shot.
With the One X on the other hand, its actually made for quick snapshots while you're on the go. It works quite well, and if you take some time, it even produces some great quality photos. You just need to adjust focus settings and quality settings. In bad day conditions or light conditions, it easily outperforms the SGS2 Camera, hands down. I was able to shoot some impressive indoor photos whereas the Galaxy S2 would've had a hard time.
The N8 still seems unbeaten, true. But its chunky. Thats the downside of a good camera phone, like katamari201 said, its all about physics here. I dont like the N8 in general, and if I was out to take some serious shots, I would grab my digital camera instead of my Smartphone.
Quality-Wise and even maybe Color-Wise, the One X Camera isnt the best of the best - But it still fits perfectly my needs for things "On the go". Its a good balance of being mobile and take some good shots. Macro shots with the One X Cam are still impressive, and detail sharpness even beat the photos I took with other Smartphone Cameras.
But to be honest here: I certainly, and honestly think, that the quality of photos and recorded videos will improve later on. As far as I understand, the photos are currently compressed pretty badly. You take a photo in RAW, then it's being sent to the PureView Chipset where its compressed and processed. HTC stated that with the next Update, Camera Quality and Performance is meant to improve.
With kernel sources I am pretty sure quality can be significantly improved as well, maybe even as far as getting RAW output files. Other phones already got patches from the community to dramatically improve photo and video recording quality, I think its also possible with the One X Camera, as the Hardware isnt bad at all.
I am completely okay with the One X Camera. I dont need a fancy pants cam in a smartphone to outperform my digital camera. A Smartphone is not meant for high quality photographs, its made for awesome mobility and performance.
Regardless we all have different eyes so what one sees the next won't - not defending the One X as I'm always changing phones anyway but still think PA coverage has been negative - some of the comments they make in their YouTube videos are laughable.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
Phone just got launched. If you want a camera that is going to take picture perfect shots then go for an actual camera and not take pictures on your phone. second. updates i am sure will come thick and fast. and once the development starts picking up and kernels start dropping i am pretty sure that will shall see a lot of improvements.
i still say the camera on my galaxy s2 outperforms the HTC one but there are more features to the phone than just the camera. But phonearena are known not to like HTC phones so i would not worry about what they say....90% of reviews out there are praising this phone as the king of android. until the next one that comes out that is..but anyway regarding pictures it is down to choice really. if this performs well for you then great. if not then maybe exchange it.
but most important phone just got launched so maybe in the future with future software updates maybe we shall see an improvement to the camera app..i still say it takes great pics and videos though
android_master said:
The real shock actually came when we saw the Galaxy Nexus beat the One X in many of the categories, which wasn't really expected.
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Click to collapse
Im coming from a Galaxy Nexus, and it literally has the WORST camera ever build on a phone ... My nokia 6303 takes better pictures
Shu. said:
Im coming from a Galaxy Nexus, and it literally has the WORST camera ever build on a phone ... My nokia 6303 takes better pictures
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Click to collapse
Well, I personally think that there is a image processor running over the taken photos on the Galaxy Nexus to brighten things up.
I can do the same with Photoshop on my One X captures. Auto Brightness and Auto Contrasts already do alot of things.
IMO, the One X Photos do look more natural, even the ones I shot with my Galaxy S2 mainly looked a little oversaturated / overbright (but not too much, Quality still is great!) compared to what I saw when I shot the image (the real world motive).
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
Another review here:
ht tp://bit.ly/HTp9Su
BTWm I don't trust PArena.
I have to say that the camera quality isn't as good as I thought it would be from the reviews and when compared with my iPhone 4 the images seem much more grainy/noisy. The One X lens is great though, very bright indoors, much brighter than the iPhone lens and the camera app is much better than the iPhone camera app.
Nos0x said:
I have to say that the camera quality isn't as good as I thought it would be from the reviews and when compared with my iPhone 4 the images seem much more grainy/noisy. The One X lens is great though, very bright indoors, much brighter than the iPhone lens and the camera app is much better than the iPhone camera app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As already stated by multible users and even HTC themselves, PureView is compressing the RAW captures of the camera pretty bad, maybe because of filesize and speed of photo saving (NOT capturing since the cam already captures images in RAW format). That's the cause of the "grain" in our photographs, tho its not as bad as some ppl say it is.
nVidia / HTC stated also, that the next firmware upgrade is supposed to improve both image quality and camera performance.
I sure hope that HTC keeps their word and they really improve those 2 mentioned points. Remember: With a rooted phone and kernel sources almost every phone got increased photo/video recording quality due some devs always figured out how to increase bitrates and reduce compression levels.
Latest example for me was the Galaxy S2: Video Recording bitrate was awful with stock Gingerbread ROM and recorded sound in videos was @ 96kbit with Mono. A patched camera application increased video bitrate, as well as audio bitrate from 96kbit mono to 128kbit stereo. It was really noticeable.
Hi all,
Quick question about the quality of images on my HOX.
They are absolutely terrible, for a HOX, especially when one of their major selling points was the apparantly, amazing camera?
The quality of images out doors, is acceptable, but again for a camera such as the HOX I think they should be better.
But indoors, they are almost un-viewable they are that bad.
Im no camera expert, and don't know much about what to do to produce a good image.
Has anyone else experienced terrible HOX images?
Is their anything I can do to improve the quality of the images?
Thanks all !
In my experience indoor performance of the One X camera is as good if not better than other well regarded smart phones out there. I have personally compared indoor performance against the Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 4S; picture quality in most cases turned out to be better than 4S and on par with S3. However, having said that, don’t expect the quality of a DSLR or even a cheap point n shoot compact camera.
What exactly is the problem with your indoor photos? Are they too dark, noisy or blurry? When taking photos indoors try to hold the phone as stable as you can, because under low light conditions the shutter stays open longer to take in more light, this causes even the slightest movement to make your photo very blurry.
PhoenixFx said:
In my experience indoor performance of the One X camera is as good if not better than other well regarded smart phones out there. I have personally compared indoor performance against the Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 4S; picture quality in most cases turned out to be better than 4S and on par with S3. However, having said that, don’t expect the quality of a DSLR or even a cheap point n shoot compact camera.
What exactly is the problem with your indoor photos? Are they too dark, noisy or blurry? When taking photos indoors try to hold the phone as stable as you can, because under low light conditions the shutter stays open longer to take in more light, this causes even the slightest movement to make your photo very blurry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, thanks for the reply.
I compared with the S3, and the HOX looked like a disposable camera compared to the S3.
Indoors they look very pixlated and blurry as you said.
I hold it as steady as my hands allow me.
Im not sure what noise etc is.
Thanks for the reply mate, is there anything I can do to improve?
Wilks3y said:
Hi, thanks for the reply.
I compared with the S3, and the HOX looked like a disposable camera compared to the S3.
Indoors they look very pixlated and blurry as you said.
I hold it as steady as my hands allow me.
Im not sure what noise etc is.
Thanks for the reply mate, is there anything I can do to improve?
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Click to collapse
Same issue here on my gf's htc one x.
Blurry pictures. Setting iso to 800 manualy helps a bit but still not like my note 2.
And the low light setting I have been reading about is night setting I presume?
My note 2 has a low light setting and with it you make awesome pictures.
Doesn't work like this on one x.
Real shame because outdoor pictures are great.
If you advertise with it make it f***** work.
Focus is wierd to. Note 2 flashes long for focus then again short and adjusted during the shot.
The htc focusses in darkness then flashes and takes the shot.....no wonder they're out of focus.
Anyway we are not happy. Especially when we heard they don't take it back.
Now she's stuck with a crappy indoor phone camera for 2 years.
Htc better update on this issue quick
Nathalex27 said:
Same issue here on my gf's htc one x.
Blurry pictures. Setting iso to 800 manualy helps a bit but still not like my note 2.
And the low light setting I have been reading about is night setting I presume?
My note 2 has a low light setting and with it you make awesome pictures.
Doesn't work like this on one x.
Real shame because outdoor pictures are great.
If you advertise with it make it f***** work.
Focus is wierd to. Note 2 flashes long for focus then again short and adjusted during the shot.
The htc focusses in darkness then flashes and takes the shot.....no wonder they're out of focus.
Anyway we are not happy. Especially when we heard they don't take it back.
Now she's stuck with a crappy indoor phone camera for 2 years.
Htc better update on this issue quick
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here, gutted.
Can't understand how they can advertise a man jumping out of a plane with it, and getting focused stunning shots, but yet us trying to take a picture of a dog in our bedrooms is not stable enough and comes out blurry.
Yet again, HTC successfully blags its consumer base.
Anything we can do?!
Wilks3y said:
Same here, gutted.
Can't understand how they can advertise a man jumping out of a plane with it, and getting focused stunning shots, but yet us trying to take a picture of a dog in our bedrooms is not stable enough and comes out blurry.
Yet again, HTC successfully blags its consumer base.
Anything we can do?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I called with htc customer service and they said if enough complaints come in that they'll update on the issue.
So report it and hope for the best
Edit: I had mine replaced with a galaxy s3.
Better flash, more functions ( that actualy work and do what they should do. )
Very sharp indoor pictures.
With flash is perfect but without and low light mode is perfect too.
I'm just gonna stick to samsung phones from now on.
Save myself the trouble of going through countless discussions with htc and customer service to replace a phone.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using XDA Premium HD app
So, I picked up a Desire Eye on launch day. I feel like I was one of the few people intrigued by this device when it was announced. Since then, it has received almost zero attention: Few reviews, no posts on XDA, very little buzz on the internet in general. So, if you're even remotely considering this device and want a little info, here's a personal perspective from someone who bought the phone.
Disclaimer: I have owned dozens of flagship phones over the last several years. I'm also quite a fan of Sense UI and HTC in general. I did not buy this phone for the front facing camera. I don't care about selfies, so I'm probably not the target audience. I really just wanted an M8 with a better camera.
Display
The display is probably my one gripe about the device so far. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it looks washed out to me. When I first turned it on in the store, it immediately looked dull. A lot of the HTC wallpapers and themes are a sort of pastel, so it's really hard to tell, but next to my iPhone 6 Plus, and even a Windows M8 in the store, it just doesn't look as vibrant as I'd expect. Compared to my Note 4, it looks positively depressing, but that's to be expected. That said, it does get plenty bright. I just wish I still had my M8 to compare it with because I swear the M8 had more contrast and vibrance.
Camera
My only real beef with the M8 was the camera, mainly the low megapixel count which made cropping nearly impossible. It also had trouble with exposure and focus. I was really hoping that they fixed that with this phone. I know it's not their flagship and is, in fact, marketed as mid range, but it's really just an M8 with a different build and cameras. I have taken quite a few photo samples and compared them online to the Z3 Compact, iPhone 6 Plus, OnePlus One, G3, and Note 4. There is definitely more detail and you can crop in much further than the M8, but it still gets soft when you do. I also noticed the same issues with exposure. If you're not careful about where you tap to focus, you'll get a blown out sky or dark subject. Focus is fast, but not always accurate. It sometimes blurs the subject instead of the background. Definitely not on par with the focusing systems found in the Note 4 and iPhone 6 Plus. Colors are good, if not great. They lean toward the warmer and more vibrant side, which I personally prefer. Overall, it's an upgrade over the M8 and on par with phones like the OnePlus One and G3, at least in my testing.
Build
I know a lot of people are fans of metal, but there are advantages and disadvantages to metal and plastic. The advantages here are water resistance and weight. This is a light phone and it feels good in the hand. Coming from my Note 4, it is significantly lighter and easier to hold. It's also fairly grippy. I don't feel the need for a case. My one complaint about build is the size. This thing is big. It's nearly as big as the iPhone 6 Plus and Note 4, which is kind of sad when you consider the 5.2" screen. Part of this is the 13mp front-facing camera. Part is the speakers, even though the grills are much smaller this time around. They still needed that blank "HTC" strip on the front for components and that adds to the overall size. The camera shutter button is very difficult to press. I only see using this thing under water. If you try to use it for normal pictures, you'll get blur because the phone will move when you try to press it. I find this to be a problem on a lot of phones with dedicated shutter buttons, but it's much more pronounced here.
Battery
My other primary concern with this phone was battery. It's the same internals as the M8 with a bigger screen and a smaller battery. While disappointing, so far it's not as bad as I expected. It seems to be about on par with the M8, though I'm not sure how. Standby time is pretty good (in my limited testing so far) and it doesn't drain horribly fast when the screen is on. Since HTC doesn't show screen on time and I had to install GSAM, I don't have any screen on results yet, but I will be testing that over the next few days.
Performance
This is the reason to get an HTC phone, in my opinion. Sense and stock Android are easily the fastest, best performing versions of Android, in my experience. But Sense brings some nice enhancements to the table that I think are worth it over stock Android. There's no lag or delay anywhere on the phone so far. Everything is fast and fluid. It makes my Note 4 look positively slow. Just the gallery lag on the Note 4 alone is enough to drive someone mad. HTC is doing it right. I'm actually a fan of Blinkfeed, too, though I know other people hate it. Since the introduction of Blinkfeed, I almost always end up putting a widget on my left most homescreen of every other Android phone that gives me a full page of news, though nothing quite compares to HTC's solution. I like their enhancements to the gallery, contacts, etc. Very nice overall experience.
Misc.
1. Minor annoyance, but the stock email client makes you tap to show images on every HTML email. Since I actually use it, it's kind of annoying. I wish they would at least give an option in the settings to "always show".
2. Some of the camera features are really need, like face merge and photo strip. I do miss slow motion video and 4k recording, though.
3. Internal storage is only 16gb. You have a little over 9 free out of the box. This is the only other con to this phone, in my opinion.
4. I'm a pretty big fan of the screen on gestures. I basically never have to use the power button. And now we can launch straight into the camera, too.
5. I received an update yesterday and it auto installed. There's no info anywhere on what it was. The phone just rebooted and installed with no warning.
6. There is a ton of bloatware on this thing (AT&T). Seriously, brace yourselves. It's even more insulting with only 16gb to start with.
7. Bootloader is unlockable at HTC Dev so, there's at least hope that we'll get root soon. The main issue will be S-Off, as usual. But I really only want/need root.
8. The front-facing speakers are every bit as good as you'd expect, despite the water resistant membrane and smaller grills. It's pretty impressive how small and unnoticeable they are.
Wrap Up
Overall, I really like the device. My main concerns are camera quality and battery life, which I will continue to test. I really like the user experience overall, though, and it's one of my favorite phones of the year. I don't think this phone is really getting the attention it deserves. Even the tech bloggers seem to be ignoring it. I hope this helps anyone who's on the fence about this phone and/or looking for more information.
Obligatory Camera Samples
Here are some camera samples. XDA is compressing them, but you get the idea.
Thanks for the review and photos. The camera was better than what I was expecting from the sensor HTC is using, to be honest. The only downside from what I've read in your review is the screen: while I don't like oversatured screens, I also don't appreciate "dark" screens (it hasn't to do with brightness, but with the white tone).
Regarding the speakers, I know you don't have a M8 to compare, but do you notice much of a difference between the devices?
Can you please confirm that it has MHL and it works?
For what it's worth, I held my One M8 side by side with a Desire Eye in store and compared the screens while displaying the same images and websites. They looked pretty much exactly the same to me other than a slight difference in size. Didn't think it looked dull. Of course, the lighting in AT&T was pretty harsh so it wasn't the best environment for comparison. Maybe you just got used to the super punchy over saturated colors of the Note 4?
gtg465x said:
For what it's worth, I held my One M8 side by side with a Desire Eye in store and compared the screens while displaying the same images and websites. They looked pretty much exactly the same to me other than a slight difference in size. Didn't think it looked dull. Of course, the lighting in AT&T was pretty harsh so it wasn't the best environment for comparison. Maybe you just got used to the super punchy over saturated colors of the Note 4?
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Click to collapse
That's actually what I was thinking too. Not a bad display by any means.
Thank you for this mini review! Really helpful.
Could you please state in which degree you can use the phone with one hand?
Would it feel closer to the use of a One M8/Galaxy S5/LG G2 or would it compare more to a One Plus One / Iphone 6 Plus (which is for me slightly to big).
The 5.2 inch of the LG G2 is of perfect size, but that phone had way smaller bezzels, so this is in fact something that scares me of the HTC desire EYE.
Waarez said:
Thank you for this mini review! Really helpful.
Could you please state in which degree you can use the phone with one hand?
Would it feel closer to the use of a One M8/Galaxy S5 or would it compare more to a One Plus One / Iphone 6 Plus (which is for me slightly to big).
The 5.2 inch of the LG G2 were perfect.. but this phone had way smaller bezzels, so this is what scares me of the one M8.
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Click to collapse
It's definitely closer to the OnePlus One or iphone 6 Plus size wise, but it is MUCH lighter, which does make it easier to handle with one hand. Unless you have gorilla hands, though, you definitely won't be able to reach all four corners of the screen with one hand.
It's tall, rather than wide.
I got the Desire EYE in the mail 2 days ago, it's a really good phone, really fast, takes nice pictures, overall I'm happy about it, the only downside about it is the internal storage, it has like 7 gb out of the 16 dedicated to the OS and stock apps... But other than that, really good phone!
To start off, I will say I am a big HTC fan. I talked about 7 people into buying the One M8 over the S5 this year. I love Sense, Blinkfeed and the snappiness of their devices. I have since sold my One M8 earlier this summer, around May, and have been jumping around to different devices. I strayed from the One M8 mostly due to the camera and the fact that I like to try the latest and greatest devices. I have been using an iPhone 6 since it launched. When I saw the Desire Eye was announced, I got excited. I was really hoping for an M8 Eye, which I think would have been the perfect smartphone for 2014, but this was almost as good. I picked one of these up on Friday at an AT&T store. The guy kind of looked at me funny when I said I wanted one, I don't think he was trained on the device or knew what it was. I didn't open it until Saturday night, but in the store, when playing with it, the first thing I said was, this screen looks washed out. I think it has something to do with the default theme, when I changed it back to one of the same Sense stock themes on the One M8, it didn't look as bad. It is something to do with that pink color they are using. I am torn on the device, it is like 2 steps forward, a couple steps back. I didn't like the first few indoor pictures without flash I took of my 3 month old daughter, so I switched back to the iPhone 6 yesterday because it was her baptism and I didn't want to miss any shots, or risk them coming out badly. One thing that Apple knows is how to make a camera that focuses fast and gives you good pictures. The Boom Sound is also a bit of a disappointment. The bass and clarity seems to be lacking compared to the M8. I played some Vevo music videos on the demo models in store. I am currently thinking about trying to find a second hand M8 Google Play Edition in mint condition (so I have full T-Mobile support for the $30 SIM I have for my play phone line), and keep either it or the Eye and my iPhone 6.
Y2J
Thanks for the review!
The camera doesn't seem bad but for some reason i was expecting it to have a bit more "wow" factor, don't know why and they the shots seem good enough.
You mentioned no-slow motion (i had actually talked about this in the other thread) and the info i read was that it didn't have. However, i was just watching a video review of the desire eye and in the settings i noticed the slow motion icon and the review actually pressed it and it sayed it was slow motion (its an italian video, i actually looked it up to see the translation lol). It was in the camera interface under the " ... " icon and on the modes (it usually says auto) it has the slow motion icon/cartoon - Here is the video @ 11:45
Still no mention of 4k, so that is not from stock but maybe with a mod.
griffin_1 said:
Thanks for the review!
The camera doesn't seem bad but for some reason i was expecting it to have a bit more "wow" factor, don't know why and they the shots seem good enough.
You mentioned no-slow motion (i had actually talked about this in the other thread) and the info i read was that it didn't have. However, i was just watching a video review of the desire eye and in the settings i noticed the slow motion icon and the review actually pressed it and it sayed it was slow motion (its an italian video, i actually looked it up to see the translation lol). It was in the camera interface under the " ... " icon and on the modes (it usually says auto) it has the slow motion icon/cartoon - Here is the video @ 11:45
Still no mention of 4k, so that is not from stock but maybe with a mod.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't see a slow motion option anywhere in the settings. The only video options are for the resolution (MMS, 1080, etc). One thing they did do right, though, is put the video record button back on the main interface full time next to the camera shutter button. They were crazy to ever take that away.
Quality is okay. It's about on par with the OnePlus One and G3, in my testing. Most of the shots I took were on an overcast day, so not the best testing environment, but overall I think it's acceptable. I think I'd still grab my Note 4 or iPhone 6 Plus if I was going somewhere to take a lot of pictures, but I don't feel like I'm carrying around a bad camera when I have this phone.
griffin_1 said:
Thanks for the review!
The camera doesn't seem bad but for some reason i was expecting it to have a bit more "wow" factor, don't know why and they the shots seem good enough.
You mentioned no-slow motion (i had actually talked about this in the other thread) and the info i read was that it didn't have. However, i was just watching a video review of the desire eye and in the settings i noticed the slow motion icon and the review actually pressed it and it sayed it was slow motion (its an italian video, i actually looked it up to see the translation lol). It was in the camera interface under the " ... " icon and on the modes (it usually says auto) it has the slow motion icon/cartoon - Here is the video @ 11:45
Still no mention of 4k, so that is not from stock but maybe with a mod.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, I was totally wrong about slow motion. I just found the option. It was not where I expected, but I'm stoked to see that it's there!
Great Slow motion on htc is good, at least if its like on the m8. I think only htc and sony in Android lets you record 120fps and then edit what parts to slow down, which is how slow motion should be. Glad to see its there and websites like gsmarena should mention it and update the specs info with that.
battery update?
G1_enthusiast said:
battery update?
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Click to collapse
Battery is really good for the capacity. Idle drain with my apps and setting was about 3%/hr. With the screen on, it does seem to lose battery pretty fast, but I was still able to get about 10-13 hours of use with around 3 hours screen time. That's not much worse than most of my other phones do, actually.
I would post screenshots, but I no longer have the phone. As much as I really liked it, I just couldn't live with the camera quality. I was really hoping for better. But if camera isn't your #1 priority, this is a great all around phone. Camera is definitely better than phones like the Moto X. I was just hoping for closer to Note 4/iPhone quality.
How do the camera quality and pictures compare to Samsung S4 or S5?
Thanks.
struff said:
How do the camera quality and pictures compare to Samsung S4 or S5?
Thanks.
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My mom has the S5 And I prefer the Eye´s camera, It´s just... sharper and more clear.
sidle said:
My mom has the S5 And I prefer the Eye´s camera, It´s just... sharper and more clear.
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I'm going to politely however completely disagree. There's no comparison. S5 is one of the best cameras you can get.
Sent from my HTC Desire Eye using Tapatalk
robstunner said:
I'm going to politely however completely disagree. There's no comparison. S5 is one of the best cameras you can get.
Sent from my HTC Desire Eye using Tapatalk
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And yet, I like this one more.
Front HTC Desire Eye:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143110-image/HTC-Desire-EYE.jpg
Front Galaxy S5:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143127-image/Samsung-Galaxy-S5.jpg
Back HTC Desire Eye:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143113-image/HTC-Desire-EYE.jpg
Back Galaxy S5:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143130-image/Samsung-Galaxy-S5.jpg
Let the photo's speak for themselves. The HTC Desire Eye clearly wins this battle, or even HTC in general. The S5 is litteraly crap in low to medium-light area's.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Firs...-HTC-One-M8-and-the-Samsung-Galaxy-S5_id61506
Fair enough, but in better lighting the s5 proves much better and rarely overexposed the pictures.
Coming from M7 I know it's camera limitations and one thing I was expecting that shifting away from Ultra Pixel sensor would mean a much better performance. Unfortunately looking at the images from Barcelona I was scratching my head if what I saw was M9 images. The lower light photos in my opinion look quite bad. Lots of artifact, nasty noise, blotches of unprocessed information. So to say about normal daylight images though not as bad but still below average. So what's your take on this matter? Will the software update sort it out , is it worth waiting for couple of months? I don't think I am going to upgrade to M9 which I sincerely want to. Camera is deal breaker for me.
I honestly wouldn't base an opinion of this device with its current software situation, its gonna get hot, this is a pre release model. Also I bet its been on charge all day with the screen on, tester after tester messing with it. Not to mention the kernel and rom probably aren't optimized to deal with heavy load, I can see HTC making this a great device with further updates, I look forward to having it.
nebulaoperator said:
Coming from M7 I know it's camera limitations and one thing I was expecting that shifting away from Ultra Pixel sensor would mean a much better performance. Unfortunately looking at the images from Barcelona I was scratching my head if what I saw was M9 images. The lower light photos in my opinion look quite bad. Lots of artifact, nasty noise, blotches of unprocessed information. So to say about normal daylight images though not as bad but still below average. So what's your take on this matter? Will the software update sort it out , is it worth waiting for couple of months? I don't think I am going to upgrade to M9 which I sincerely want to. Camera is deal breaker for me.
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Click to collapse
You're not the only one making a question out of the camera performance of the M9. The big issues with the new sensor is the increased resolution of 20mp vs the 4mp on the HTC One M8, which (as you noticed) makes images in low-light conditions quite bad. This has nothing to do with HTC though, it's the same story for everyone who cramps in such a high resolution in a sensor that is way to small. A normal DSLR camera (Canon 600D, Nikon D7100 etc.) struggles with the same thing although they got a massively bigger sensor to cope with the resolution. Based on this, I guess they may be able to fix the daylight quality quite a bit along the way. The low-light however, not as convinced due to the issues I said above. They may very well be able to make it BETTER, but not as good as it was with the M8 in my mind. Just look at the Note 4 and Z3 (and Z4 I guess) with massive resolutions on their cameras aswell, the Note 4 (16mp) is brilliant in daylight although it's worse in low-light compared to the iPhone 6 (which got a 8mp sensor). It will get better along the way, but I don't think we will ever see the M9 do low-light shots without some of the issues you asked about, like artifacts, noise and details failing to stand out. Although I do hope I am wrong about it
I hope Jonny too but I can't entirely rely on hope here. Can you give me reasonable example of how HTC improved camera in the past? I am not here to bash the brand that I love but I want to be reasonable. I still have purple fringe on my M7 for that reason I sent it back just a couple of days ago.
n3tr0m said:
You're not the only one making a question out of the camera performance of the M9. The big issues with the new sensor is the increased resolution of 20mp vs the 4mp on the HTC One M8, which (as you noticed) makes images in low-light conditions quite bad. This has nothing to do with HTC though, it's the same story for everyone who cramps in such a high resolution in a sensor that is way to small. A normal DSLR camera (Canon 600D, Nikon D7100 etc.) struggles with the same thing although they got a massively bigger sensor to cope with the resolution. Based on this, I guess they may be able to fix the daylight quality quite a bit along the way. The low-light however, not as convinced due to the issues I said above. They may very well be able to make it BETTER, but not as good as it was with the M8 in my mind. Just look at the Note 4 and Z3 (and Z4 I guess) with massive resolutions on their cameras aswell, the Note 4 (16mp) is brilliant in daylight although it's worse in low-light compared to the iPhone 6 (which got a 8mp sensor). It will get better along the way, but I don't think we will ever see the M9 do low-light shots without some of the issues you asked about, like artifacts, noise and details failing to stand out. Although I do hope I am wrong about it
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As far as I know M9 has Toshiba sensor which being used for the Nokia High end Lumias which perform quite well. The other thing is I can set my camera permanently to 16 Mp or even less so to relief sensor from strain if that helps to get a better image. It's perfectly fine to have 8MP, personally speaking. For instance Iphone 6 Plus currently outperforms pretty much most of the phones in the market.
nebulaoperator said:
As far as I know M9 has Toshiba sensor which being used for the Nokia High end Lumias which perform quite well. The other thing is I can set my camera permanently to 16 Mp or even less so to relief sensor from strain if that helps to get a better image. It's perfectly fine to have 8MP, personally speaking. For instance Iphone 6 Plus currently outperforms pretty much most of the phones in the market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure it is developed by Toshiba, i am not sure if its the same they use in the Lumia series though. The fact that "reducing" the camera down to 16mp or even less to make the images better is something I doubt highly especially with a mobile. I dont see how that would change the outcome when it's still a 20mp physically in there. Might be wrong here, but I don't see right away how that would make images in low-light any better. In my experience with the Z1 it didn't help much dumping the resolution from 20mp down to 8mp (which was the auto-mode setting). Another thing I see as a potential issue for HTC compared to Sony is the fact that Sony makes and develops their sensor themself, and that should make it easier for them to optimize it and make it better. HTC on the other hand does not make it's own sensor and has "learn" or whatever I should say the Toshiba sensor compared to Sony who made them by themself. That should, at least in my eyes, give Sony an advantage in the optimization part. Which they never figured out properly in the Z1 (and Z2 & Z3?) as far as I know.
Let me look in the future..
*starts rubbing my Crystal balls...*
.....
It's getting warmed....
Okay I am seeing something...
The answer for which you are looking for lies within you. You may not know it now but you will in the near future. The key is to follow your heart and don't make weird threads on xda.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
I am looking forward to the M9 as i currently own a M7. To the point, after M7 came out nokia came out with Lumia 925, which had 8MP sensor and took better low light photos than the UltraPixel, One would think that in the last 2 years Htc would have gotten better or improved the MP count of the UltraPixel sensor, but that didn't happen.
As far as the current 16MP sensor is concerned, i hope that reducing the resolution slightly say 8MP and increasing the exposure/shutter time would atleast be able to provide results similar to UltraPixle in a 8MP resolution.
n3tr0m said:
Sure it is developed by Toshiba, i am not sure if its the same they use in the Lumia series though. The fact that "reducing" the camera down to 16mp or even less to make the images better is something I doubt highly especially with a mobile. I dont see how that would change the outcome when it's still a 20mp physically in there. Might be wrong here, but I don't see right away how that would make images in low-light any better. In my experience with the Z1 it didn't help much dumping the resolution from 20mp down to 8mp (which was the auto-mode setting). Another thing I see as a potential issue for HTC compared to Sony is the fact that Sony makes and develops their sensor themself, and that should make it easier for them to optimize it and make it better. HTC on the other hand does not make it's own sensor and has "learn" or whatever I should say the Toshiba sensor compared to Sony who made them by themself. That should, at least in my eyes, give Sony an advantage in the optimization part. Which they never figured out properly in the Z1 (and Z2 & Z3?) as far as I know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am looking at some oversampling info on wikipedia. Thats exactly what Nokia did with pure view ,for instance, combining pixels into cluster to make one better pixel with improved characteristics . Then technically speaking reducing mp size can enable sensor to perform better. Thanks for bringing it out about Sony. Your thoughts so much parallel of mine about they inability to nail their camera performance taking into account they sensor plus all experience. This could due to the reason they don't actually work close enough to Sony photographic department and more or less on they own. Not sharing the love between themselve From my observation it's a lot about soft optimization, as you mention in your post , and here I can not to finish my post without mentioning 1+1 camera transformation that occurred in period from release date up until now. Camera performance is very good.
RaXxaa said:
I am looking forward to the M9 as i currently own a M7. To the point, after M7 came out nokia came out with Lumia 925, which had 8MP sensor and took better low light photos than the UltraPixel, One would think that in the last 2 years Htc would have gotten better or improved the MP count of the UltraPixel sensor, but that didn't happen.
As far as the current 16MP sensor is concerned, i hope that reducing the resolution slightly say 8MP and increasing the exposure/shutter time would atleast be able to provide results similar to UltraPixle in a 8MP resolution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If they do something like Nokia did with oversampling pixel it might work ( just an idea) but taking into account they didn't succeed in ultra pixel technology , given two years, I can only hope. I don't really know much about new toshiba sensor and what is it capable of.
badboy47 said:
Let me look in the future..
*starts rubbing my Crystal balls...*
.....
It's getting warmed....
Okay I am seeing something...
The answer for which you are looking for lies within you. You may not know it now but you will in the near future. The key is to follow your heart and don't make weird threads on xda.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"Weird "is a strong word but taking into account the amount of humour you used in your reply I take it lightly with a smile on my face
nebulaoperator said:
I am looking at some oversampling info on wikipedia. Thats exactly what Nokia did with pure view ,for instance, combining pixels into cluster to make one better pixel with improved characteristics . Then technically speaking reducing mp size can enable sensor to perform better. Thanks for bringing it out about Sony. Your thoughts so much parallel of mine about they inability to nail their camera performance taking into account they sensor plus all experience. This could due to the reason they don't actually work close enough to Sony photographic department and more or less on they own. Not sharing the love between themselve From my observation it's a lot about soft optimization, as you mention in your post , and here I can not to finish my post without mentioning 1+1 camera transformation that occurred in period from release date up until now. Camera performance is very good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alrighty then. Thats an awesome feature! Really hope that HTC can make the same magic as Nokia did with their Lumia series based on what you found out on Wikipedia etc. I will be more than pleased if the camera on the M9 outperforms the camera placed in the Z4, that should tell everybody that HTC did an amazing job optimizing it when they beat Sony and their own sensor
I've looked at some comparison photo's from gsmarena and personally I don't think it's much worse than the iPhone 6 shots they posted.
Think the day light pictures will probably be great, but the low light ones may be not so much. Without being any company's fanboy there is a great chance that the M9 camera won't be the best.
I have no idea what HTC did but images are getting very good ...at least in this series : http://www.sogi.com.tw/mobile/articles/6239319-HTC+One+M9、M8兩代旗艦機相機實拍對決！