Develop Bugs

HTC Desire Eye mini review

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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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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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.

Is it worth to move form N5 to N5X now?

Hi
I know that there is a lot of similar threads, but I read it and still don't know what should I do.
Is is worth to move? I believe that there is a lot of people which moved from N5 to N5X.
In daily using is there any difference in smooth and performance?
Big plus for mi is Android N

To be honest with you, it's even a downgrade.
I moved from N5 to Xiaomi Mi4C and then to N5X (because I love to tinker around) and if the screen on my old Nexus 5 wouldn't be broken, I would go back to the Nexus 5 without hesitating and I would look forward to it.
1. The camera is utterly crap if you want to make close-up pictures, otherwise it's just okay.
2. The cpu is janky, it lags here and there even with encryption disabled and even with custom kernel and custom roms. I would often like to smash the phone against the wall because it takes so long to do basic tasks...
3. The cpu, it gets so hot I could burn my skin with it from time to time (hotspot + using your phone? Burn your fingers...). Even browsing and listening to music seems to stress the cpu that much that it heats up extremely. Custom kernel and custom rom do indeed improve it a bit, but the problem is still there and noticeable
4. The sound is really quiet/silent and as soon as you turn the volume up it gets distorted. Listening to music with just the phones speakers is a huge pain.
5. The battery life is miserable, okay compared to the N5 it's at least not worse and it will get better with Android N as I already tested out for a week.
Honestly, keep your N5 and wait until they release the new ones, but don't buy the N5X. You will be so disappointed by its performance.
You can get Android N on the N5 without any big problems via custom rom which will be probably released shortly after the final Android N version is released . It's no problem to flash it to the N5 and you won't loose warranty (which I guess is already over)
PS; Nobody has to tell me my N5X may be defective, the 3 workmates who bought the N5X as well are complaining constantly about those points as well.

creambyemute said:
2. The cpu is janky, it lags here and there even with encryption disabled and even with custom kernel and custom roms. I would often like to smash the phone against the wall because it takes so long to do basic tasks...
3. The cpu, it gets so hot I could burn my skin with it from time to time (hotspot + using your phone? Burn your fingers...). Even browsing and listening to music seems to stress the cpu that much that it heats up extremely. Custom kernel and custom rom do indeed improve it a bit, but the problem is still there and noticeable
PS; Nobody has to tell me my N5X may be defective, the 3 workmates who bought the N5X as well are complaining constantly about those points as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definitely agree on most of your points as a 5x owner. But i never had problems with my cpu like you do. My phone is heavily filled with apps and stuff and it doesn't lag at all. Sometimes it's a bit jerky here and there but that's it. And on point 3. nearly all the smartphones have that issue it's the build material that makes it feel so hot. if you take for example a samsung phone with the same cpu but their build quality with the glass and metal it will feel far less hot. but yeah wait for the new nexus!

It's a noticeable upgrade in just about every way from a N5 and worth the upgrade IMO.
After 8 months I've seen no performance issues with my 5x and the graphics performance (gaming) is 2x higher especially over long gaming runs as the graphical performance doesn't hit rock bottom like it did with the N5 after warming up.
The camera is top notch. Same camera as the Nexus 6p, you'll see only praise for it around the internet. No other phone camera comes close at this price range.
Heat generation is actually a huge improvement over the N5. The N5 could see skin temperatures up to 10C higher than the 5x, so if people think their 5x gets hot then they haven't ever used a N5. Here's an exert from one of the few review sites that tests for thermals, skin temperature specifically.
With idle temperatures of just over 25 °C, the Nexus 5X hardly heats up noticeably in idle mode. The handset is also unexpectedly cool under load despite the relatively strong SoC. The hottest spot measured reaches just 37.4 °C here - other premium smartphones often surpass 40 °C. The review sample can even shine with the lowest rates compared with its rivals.
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Click to collapse
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Google-Nexus-5X-Smartphone-Review.155885.0.html
Size difference, the bigger screen is nice and even noticeable but the 5x is a lot taller than it needs to be so the N5 would win in total size and screen to bezel ratio.
External speaker. It sounds about the same but it gets 1 or 2 steps louder and facing forward is an improvement.
Back cover discolouration. My carbon black seems to get permanent smudges that can be seen under certain lighting conditions.

bokilz said:
Sometimes it's a bit jerky here and there but that's it. And on point 3. nearly all the smartphones have that issue it's the build material that makes it feel so hot.
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Click to collapse
You may call that jerky, we call it laggy, janky whatever. But you do agree it's not as fluid as the N5? Or could you even ever compare the N5 to the N5X? It is by no means fluid and for me not an acceptable performance. My N5 runs rounds around the N5X when it's not about gaming. And exactly that is my point. Why is the N5 in basic tasks (Menu, browsing, scrolling, animations) faster than the N5X? I didn't expect a downgrade in everyday task performance and it hit me hard in the disappointment section.
bblzd said:
It's a noticeable upgrade in just about every way from a N5 and worth the upgrade IMO.
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Click to collapse
It's just an upgrade if you are constantly playing games (performance wise). In the most basic tasks the N5 crushes the N5X performance. But the thread starter can decide that himself if he buys the N5X and I would really like to hear his opinion then after comparing the two devices
bblzd said:
The camera is top notch. Same camera as the Nexus 6p, you'll see only praise for it around the internet. No other phone camera comes close at this price range.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you kidding? I agree the camera is better than the one found in N5 but my Mi4C took way better pictures than the N5X and several levels better when capturing some close distance shots (really close distance) and you know what? The Mi4C is cheaper.
I don't want to sound like the camera is bad in every aspect, but top notch is fanboy talk...
Actually whenever I wanted to take a close distance picture with an N5X I always ended up with the picture being blurred to the point I couldn't even recognize what should be on the picture :crying:.
Some people also say the Nexus 9 is a very good tablet whereas my mate and I who bought the devices together would call it the worst nexus product until now
Now let me mention some things I like about the N5X because I don't totally hate the device and I'm just so disappointed that the performance is worse than on the N5 in almost every situation.
- Screen: I already got several compliments that the screen is well calibrated and looks pretty good.
- USB C: It's positive as well as negative. I like the new connector, but all of my friends who don't have it hate it because they can't use my charger nor my cable
- Front facing speakers (just don't turn the volume up too much, otherwise the sound gets ****ty)
- Quick Charging: Absolutely love that! Helped me out in many situations where I just needed like 20-30% more charge to get through the day or the night.
- Screen gets activated when you lift the phone from the desk or out of your pocket, pretty convenient
- You'll maybe be able to access the notification tray and quick settings panel with the fingerprint scanner in Android N

So it is really worse performance N5X than N5 in daily using?
Wysłane z mojego SM-T815 przy użyciu Tapatalka

atomic339 said:
So it is really worse performance N5X than N5 in daily using?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if I would go that far. I feel like with my N5, I had to choose between a smooth experience or battery life. With the N5X it that isn't so much the case. That being said, there are times where this phone will lag on even the most simplest of tasks with no explanation or reason. It's beyond frustrating. At this point you're better off waiting for the new Nexus phones to come out and snagging one of those instead.

I would (am) wait(ing). I wouldn't even replace my N5, but it's showing problems with modem and gps. It's been suggested that our N5X is defective because of the jerky/lagging touch responsiveness. When it's placed next to the N5, the color calibration seems off. N5 has much whiter whites and just appears crisper than what I see on the 5X. The 5X belongs to hubby who doesn't care about the off-white tint, but he really dislikes the fact that touches have to be repeated even 3 times before they respond. I would try a custom kernel, but he doesn't want me messing with his phone. He doesn't use his phone for much. If the new phones don't meet my needs/wants, I'll get a 6P. It's a little big but haven't seen any other problems with the one we have.
Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk

ritchea said:
I would (am) wait(ing). I wouldn't even replace my N5, but it's showing problems with modem and gps. It's been suggested that our N5X is defective because of the jerky/lagging touch responsiveness. When it's placed next to the N5, the color calibration seems off. N5 has much whiter whites and just appears crisper than what I see on the 5X. The 5X belongs to hubby who doesn't care about the off-white tint, but he really dislikes the fact that touches have to be repeated even 3 times before they respond. I would try a custom kernel, but he doesn't want me messing with his phone. He doesn't use his phone for much. If the new phones don't meet my needs/wants, I'll get a 6P. It's a little big but haven't seen any other problems with the one we have.
Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What you call "whiter white" is blue white and actually shows a bad calibration, just saying. If you prefer such color pallete then better go for samsung. Also there is an option in dev settings to "fix" it, though i have it disabled. No difference (unless you compare) in the day, while the blue white hurts my eyes in the night
Back to topic, stock 5x is a bit laggy but EX kernel with ghostpepper fixed that for me.
Battery is ok, similar to my G2 and people did not whine about that phone so i dont know why everyone is pissed with 5x
If someone (creambyemute ) believes that the camera is bad, then should get a eye surgery appointment soon. Just kidding, but you should tap your screen to focus at that distance/objec. If the blur persists just focus on something else and then back at your target
5x has great well-light photos, good low light ones, though no stabilizer so videos are shaky
All that being said new nexus phones should not be too far, so you might as well wait for them

For all the people complaining about daily performance... Just flash PA rom. Done. Phone is smooth now.

atomic339 said:
Hi
I know that there is a lot of similar threads, but I read it and still don't know what should I do.
Is is worth to move? I believe that there is a lot of people which moved from N5 to N5X.
In daily using is there any difference in smooth and performance?
Big plus for mi is Android N
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With the new Nexus phones coming out soon, I wouldn't upgrade to the 5X if I were you. I got my 5X when it first came out and I had a Nexus 5 before.
There are some improvements but nothing major despite a 2-yr gap. Better camera, better battery, better screen, but laggy and slow sometimes. I was kind of disappointed when I first got my 5X.
Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

You've waited this long with the N5, what's another 2 months for the next Nexus phones? Unless you can get some amazing deal and don't mind having 1 year old hardware, I suggest waiting.
Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

EeZeEpEe said:
You've waited this long with the N5, what's another 2 months for the next Nexus phones? Unless you can get some amazing deal and don't mind having 1 year old hardware, I suggest waiting.
Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agreed
i suggested waiting too as the new nexus build quality is definitly going to be better then the 5X build quality. HTC is gonna make it this time according to various sources.

Giorgos Chatziioannou said:
What you call "whiter white" is blue white and actually shows a bad calibration, just saying. If you prefer such color pallete then better go for samsung. Also there is an option in dev settings to "fix" it, though i have it disabled. No difference (unless you compare) in the day, while the blue white hurts my eyes in the night
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know all the commentary about the color palette/calibration/preference/true colors arguments which makes it a little difficult to determine if, in fact, one actually has a defective screen (as I had on my first N7 FLO which looked worse than my then current N7). I prefer the color tones on my N5. However, I did change to cool temperature option on the 5x, and I think it's more to my preference. I do like the amoled display on the 6P and think the samoled's are all right. It was big change from Galaxy Nexus to N4. Ultimately, it's all about the point you bring up (blue white hurts my eyes in the night). No two people see anything exactly the same way so all we can do is get what works for us. Actually, I prefer the displays on the ios devices, that and battery life, but that's it.
The pictures were taken with the N9 which no one can argue has a great camera; however, it shows the differences. One can also see that the 5x presents sharper images on the screen. I will say that I thought the 5 showed clearer text than the pics show. I'm sure someone (anyone) could have taken betters shots. The left pic is warmer display; the right is cooler.

ritchea said:
I know all the commentary about the color palette/calibration/preference/true colors arguments which makes it a little difficult to determine if, in fact, one actually has a defective screen (as I had on my first N7 FLO which looked worse than my then current N7). I prefer the color tones on my N5. However, I did change to cool temperature option on the 5x, and I think it's more to my preference. I do like the amoled display on the 6P and think the samoled's are all right. It was big change from Galaxy Nexus to N4. Ultimately, it's all about the point you bring up (blue white hurts my eyes in the night). No two people see anything exactly the same way so all we can do is get what works for us. Actually, I prefer the displays on the ios devices, that and battery life, but that's it.
The pictures were taken with the N9 which no one can argue has a great camera; however, it shows the differences. One can also see that the 5x presents sharper images on the screen. I will say that I thought the 5 showed clearer text than the pics show. I'm sure someone (anyone) could have taken betters shots. The left pic is warmer display; the right is cooler.
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Thus why i said that sammy phones are probably more in your alley, they also have a neutral color option if you feel like it too.
My friends like samsung so i have seen few of their phones and amoled is not really my cup, stunning colors but you can take picture of a bulb light room and it will be chock full of orange while the same picture on other phones looks white/yellow.
I heard that the s7 has not such aggressive saturation, but until i can meet with my friend to check his s7 edge i cant say for sure. I will update when that happens if you want

creambyemute said:
You may call that jerky, we call it laggy, janky whatever. But you do agree it's not as fluid as the N5? Or could you even ever compare the N5 to the N5X? It is by no means fluid and for me not an acceptable performance. My N5 runs rounds around the N5X when it's not about gaming. And exactly that is my point. Why is the N5 in basic tasks (Menu, browsing, scrolling, animations) faster than the N5X? I didn't expect a downgrade in everyday task performance and it hit me hard in the disappointment section.
It's just an upgrade if you are constantly playing games (performance wise). In the most basic tasks the N5 crushes the N5X performance. But the thread starter can decide that himself if he buys the N5X and I would really like to hear his opinion then after comparing the two devices
Are you kidding? I agree the camera is better than the one found in N5 but my Mi4C took way better pictures than the N5X and several levels better when capturing some close distance shots (really close distance) and you know what? The Mi4C is cheaper.
I don't want to sound like the camera is bad in every aspect, but top notch is fanboy talk...
Actually whenever I wanted to take a close distance picture with an N5X I always ended up with the picture being blurred to the point I couldn't even recognize what should be on the picture :crying:.
Some people also say the Nexus 9 is a very good tablet whereas my mate and I who bought the devices together would call it the worst nexus product until now
Now let me mention some things I like about the N5X because I don't totally hate the device and I'm just so disappointed that the performance is worse than on the N5 in almost every situation.
- Screen: I already got several compliments that the screen is well calibrated and looks pretty good.
- USB C: It's positive as well as negative. I like the new connector, but all of my friends who don't have it hate it because they can't use my charger nor my cable
- Front facing speakers (just don't turn the volume up too much, otherwise the sound gets ****ty)
- Quick Charging: Absolutely love that! Helped me out in many situations where I just needed like 20-30% more charge to get through the day or the night.
- Screen gets activated when you lift the phone from the desk or out of your pocket, pretty convenient
- You'll maybe be able to access the notification tray and quick settings panel with the fingerprint scanner in Android N
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I've had zero performance issues with my 5x since I bought it 9 months ago. There hasn't been a single instance where I've found it to be slower than my N5, and multiple instances of it being faster such as connection speeds, gaming performance and loading the camera. Storage speeds are also much faster than the N5 even with encryption enabled on the 5x and disabled on the N5 (less secure).
The camera on the 6p and 5x (same camera) was well regarded as one of the best cell phone cameras until this years devices started rolling out. Details with HDR+ are insane, low light performance is out of this world, and the pictures come out fast and snappy with the camera loaded and capturing scenes within 2-3 seconds from being locked. Most importantly: everything you take a picture of looks like it does in real life with your eyes.
It can't be a fanboy comment when every review of the camera on the 5x and 6p agrees: it is absolutely top notch.
It sucks that you haven't experience the 5x to its fullest, I'm not sure if you have a defective 5x or possibly are causing the issues with your 3rd party software but your experience is not typical.
My friend has recently acquired a Nexus 5x about 2 weeks ago and so far has had the same experience myself. Snappy, smooth, and the best phone at this price range by a large margin.
atomic339 said:
So it is really worse performance N5X than N5 in daily using?
Wysłane z mojego SM-T815 przy użyciu Tapatalka
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Not in my experience and I've owned the 5x since launch day and a N5 since its launch day as well.

I made the swap a month ago when Carphone Warehouse in the UK were clearing stock for £130 and don't regret it at all. Feels exactly like you would expect a two year newer N5 to feel, nothing earth shattering, just slicker all round. Put the Nougat DP5 straight on it which obviously helps but only downside for me is no wireless charging as mine lived on a wireless deskstand all day at the office but the quick charging and better battery life make up for it... just have to remember to plug it in for a bit in the evening.
Wasn't keen on how light it is but I always use a case and once that was on all was good. Solid recommendation for the Supcase if you get one, cheap, top quality and once you slit the buttons all is good.
I wouldn't have been looking if it wasn't so cheap or the N5 battery was going but very glad I did and have a got a much more up to date phone for a lot less than half the price of one of the new Nexi when they come out. I stuck a new battery in the N5 and now my youngest is even happier than I am.

Regarding the N5X camera discussion here....
Macro pictures are not important to me. I don't need close-up pictures.
In normal use, the camera is spectacular. I recently went on a trip to Italy with a real camera and, honestly, I didn't even use it. The N5X camera has a wide scope, high quality, and great color reproduction. It's the same camera as that on the N6P, same exact camera; the only difference is not EIS but that can be fixed if rooted (it's disabled by default to make N6P more premium).
Check out the picture thread for examples of users' photos.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-5x/general/excellent-camera-t3230797
Sure, it's no Samsung Galaxy 7, but few phones can compare to the 7's camera.
And who cares about macro?
One more thing about N5 camera vs N5X camera...
I had the N5 previously. If there was ONE thing I hated about the N5 is that pictures took 2-5 seconds to get taken after you press the button.
While on the 5X, it is practically instantaneous.
Last thing...
Come on, get the new Nexus which will launch in about 1-2 months.

This phone is great. I'm on N DP5 and 0 lag, great battery and performance.
Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

V30 First Impressions Thread

Figured we probably needed a place to put everyone's first impressions.
I'll start with first, this thing is small and light! Coming from a V20 and a Nexus 6 before that, this thing is tiny. Last time I felt like I had a phone this size was the Galaxy Nexus. (Yeah, I know. That one was probably actually smaller than this but still, this thing feels that small in hand to me. I've been using nothing but phablets since that phone.) It feels closer in size to my work iPhone 6s than my V20. That's going to take some getting used to. It's in a case now but still feels small.
Still trying to get used to some app behaviors that seemed to have changed. For instance, Weather Channel app is having all kinds of issues. Shows as a sensitive notification on the lock screen vs my V20 where it isn't, because it isn't. The widget doesn't display information without being cut off. I still need to go log into all my apps and get them set up.
Camera. Haven't really taken any shots with it yet but I did dig through it. First, I'm not happy that it always opens in auto mode. The V20 would open in whatever mode you last had it in. I prefer manual mode and liked that I could just open it, make a quick adjustment to the settings and shoot. Now I have to dive into a menu to get to manual then make adjustments and shoot. It'll slow things down quite a bit. I am happy that Graphy can be shut off. Also, noise reduction can be shut off in manual. It was actually disabled by default. Going to do a lot of test shooting today.
Hoping to hit up the museum I used to work in and always test every camera I own there. Also hitting up an outdoor night event here as well as the jazz club. It's going to get one helluva workout today! Going to take my V20 and Nikon V3 along too. Not sure how much I'll use the V3 outside of the outdoor event. Not going to bother taking my DSLR. (I'm actually in the process of downsizing my photography to smaller cameras. DSLRs have gotten way too clean and clinical for my tastes.)

Nice! I can’t wait to see the pics it takes.

I played with this at Verizon yesterday, and I'm still on the fence. The front facing camera was HORRIBLE. I held my G5 next to it and took a selfie, and the G5 was so much better. The rear camera did seem to take awesome shots, but still slow to take and delay in swiping between front and back cameras, something I really thought they'd have a better handle on by now since I had the same issues in the G4 and G5. I loved it otherwise, I think it's a gorgeous phone, I like the looks a lot more than the Galaxy phones.
I went in wanting the phone, but two separate Verizon reps were adamant in saying I should stay away from LG, that they have nothing but problems, they only sold maybe 2 G6's, they have class action lawsuits against them, and they tell customers to go take a hike when asking for a new phone after having multiple of them die in a row from a known defect. Theyd rather keep sending you defective phones repeatedly under warranty. So idk. I'm reeeally torn between this and the S8+ which has very similar specs and is cheaper at this point, but I don't like having only one rear camera.

Initial results at the museum are looking pretty good. I'm impressed so far for the most part. As for selfie camera issues, I was disappointed at first until I figured out those stupid settings at the bottom of the screen. After you turn off the skin toning and lightning, the images are much better. Then they work well with post processing.

Have you had a chance to play w Bluetooth, GPS, Wifi/Data connection? My G4 had bad bluetooth disconnections and busted gps in the G5. Just curious how the different antennae have been working for you. Good battery life?

ryanpm40 said:
Have you had a chance to play w Bluetooth, GPS, Wifi/Data connection? My G4 had bad bluetooth disconnections and busted gps in the G5. Just curious how the different antennae have been working for you. Good battery life?
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Haven't played with GPS yet. I can't really speak to how well or not how well it works. I used wifi during set-up. It worked but my wifi is slower than my network connection and I regretted using it. Not a knock on the wifi of this phone, it's just that my carrier network is that much faster than my home wifi. Only BT I've done so far is to connect it to my car. That went much better and smoother than my V20. It took me many attempts over an hour and a half to get my V20 and car paired. The V30 paired the first time. The next test will be to see if I have to restart my phone after a few days to keep the connection from going wonky. (Which is a ritual with my V20 that occurred at least once a week.)

I got mine this past Friday. It is slippery to hold, you will def need a case to keep it from sliding out of your hand. I'm still not sure why designers can make insanely powerful devices but can't figure out that you actually need to hold on to it to use it. I'll probably get a DBrand skin or equiv when they are available. It is super light. Kinda feels flimsy it is so lightweight even though it is not. My last phone was a Nexus 6P, before that an HTC M9, before that an HTC M7. All three of those feel like tanks by comparison. I'm not sure yet if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Camera is nice but uses a lot of noise reduction. It has endless options that will take some time getting used to. I'm not sure yet if it is as good as HTC's U11 which as an incredible camera IMO (my GF has a U11). Looks better than my Nexus 6p for sure though. Much faster too. I love the wide angle lens!
Audio from Headphone jack is insane. I'm using the BEATS headphones from my old HTC One, I can only imagine how good it would sound with high end headphones. Phone speaker is ehhh. Nowheres near as good as HTC or Google phones with front facing speakers. Or HTC U11 which seems to have crazy sound magically radiate into space.
As for speed, its as fast as any other 2017 phone I have tried, the hardware is all the same. The screen is amazing. I mean AMAZING! I can't really see a difference between 1080 and 1440 quality or speed wise. I thought at first there was but now think it is more of a placebo effect. I have been keeping it maxed mostly for the bragging rights of it being higher rez than Apple's silly Superduper mega retina display, what ever that means.
It is to early for me to tell if battery life makes a difference with resolution. I have read it is supposed to eat more power with the higher rez. It isn't as near bezelless as I thought it would be. It seems to be a marketing trend for company renders to show super edge to edge displays until you actually get it and there are good sized bezels. Not that I mind, it is just something I noticed. The screens are not any larger, the phone is just shrinking around it making the device seem small and the screen seem smaller than it is. My Nexus 6p dwarfs the V30 in the hand and the display just feels larger on the Nexus even though it is not. Kind of another odd placebo effect.
Speaking of battery, it seems to last well over a day of playing hard with it but is still to early to tell since I keep plugging it in to transfer files. After the newness wears off I think I will be able to get 2 days out of it.
The power button, or lack there of is great I think. Instead of a dedicated button, it is just the fingerprint scanner. You can click it, hold it to open restart options etc. Works great and is non intrusive by comparison to a dedicated button that I usually hit by accident all the time.
The UI is not terrible. It is fast and responsive. For the record I am a fanboy of Sense and Stock. LG's UI has a lot more options for customization over Stock but some things seem like they just changed from stock to say they did. Especially in the Settings menu where they feel extra pages of settings tabs is preferable than a simple list. The worst part is LG's apps that are mostly broken or limited.
Contacts doesn't work right and crashes sometimes when I try and edit a contact. You can not fully disable it. I'm using Google Contacts when it will let me.
Calendar is ok, about the same as Google Calendar. Again you can not fully disable it for some reason.
Camera app is good so far, or at least I like it.
Messaging app sux. It freezes sometimes and when it works you can't insert gifs. Again you can't disable it. I'm using Google's Messenger.
Keyboard is limited, I just use the Google Keyboard.
Gallery is simple and works for on device pix but doesn't allow cloud access. Since most of my pix are on GoogleDrive I just use Google Photos. And again you can't disable it.
Smart Cleaning is a cleaner app. The phone is so fast I can't see any difference after using it.
LG Health I haven't tried yet.
LG Smart World is just some LG app browsing thing. Haven't really played with it other than browsing themes.
So far I love the phone. Out of 2017 phones I have used the HTC U11 and Essential Phone I like the V30 best of those 3. My biggest complaint is I just wish you could at least disable the LG bloatware apps so they can't start up. Maybe there is a special way to do it aside from rooting the device and going that route.
Hope this helps anyone considering the V30
CHH2 said:
Figured we probably needed a place to put everyone's first impressions.
I'll start with first, this thing is small and light! Coming from a V20 and a Nexus 6 before that, this thing is tiny. Last time I felt like I had a phone this size was the Galaxy Nexus. (Yeah, I know. That one was probably actually smaller than this but still, this thing feels that small in hand to me. I've been using nothing but phablets since that phone.) It feels closer in size to my work iPhone 6s than my V20. That's going to take some getting used to. It's in a case now but still feels small.
Still trying to get used to some app behaviors that seemed to have changed. For instance, Weather Channel app is having all kinds of issues. Shows as a sensitive notification on the lock screen vs my V20 where it isn't, because it isn't. The widget doesn't display information without being cut off. I still need to go log into all my apps and get them set up.
Camera. Haven't really taken any shots with it yet but I did dig through it. First, I'm not happy that it always opens in auto mode. The V20 would open in whatever mode you last had it in. I prefer manual mode and liked that I could just open it, make a quick adjustment to the settings and shoot. Now I have to dive into a menu to get to manual then make adjustments and shoot. It'll slow things down quite a bit. I am happy that Graphy can be shut off. Also, noise reduction can be shut off in manual. It was actually disabled by default. Going to do a lot of test shooting today.
Hoping to hit up the museum I used to work in and always test every camera I own there. Also hitting up an outdoor night event here as well as the jazz club. It's going to get one helluva workout today! Going to take my V20 and Nikon V3 along too. Not sure how much I'll use the V3 outside of the outdoor event. Not going to bother taking my DSLR. (I'm actually in the process of downsizing my photography to smaller cameras. DSLRs have gotten way too clean and clinical for my tastes.)
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Deztroyah said:
My biggest complaint is I just wish you could at least disable the LG bloatware apps so they can't start up. Maybe there is a special way to do it aside from rooting the device and going that route.
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Yep. This method works on G6, so it should work on V30 also, be careful on what you disable, you could potentially brick the device.
BTW any display problems? And what variant did you buy?

Thanks! As for the variant, I have the AT&T 64gig one. There are a few AT&T apps, all can be disabled. I actually use a few of them. And no display problems that I have seen. I think the display is one of the best parts of the device.

Deztroyah said:
I got mine this past Friday...
Hope this helps anyone considering the V30
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Awesome overview :good: Although I already ordered v30 (black, 64gb) from South Korea, it was still nice to read, especially regarding the screen/size. I am not a fan of 18:9 in general since native support is still behind (cropped,zoomed videos), but I like what LG does - basically putting 18:9 screen in a more like 16:9 frame.. this makes it look much better than sausage-style s8/s8+/note8.

Here’s my V30+ first impressions. Will do a deep dive on the camera and audio soon.
https://gavinsgadgets.com/2018/01/0...adphone-jack-with-quad-dac-wireless-charging/

gavinfabl said:
Here’s my V30+ first impressions. Will do a deep dive on the camera and audio soon.
https://gavinsgadgets.com/2018/01/0...adphone-jack-with-quad-dac-wireless-charging/
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Interesting review. Where did you get your B&O branded V30+ in UK? I thought they only had the V30? Did you get it from Italy or elsewhere?
I watched your full YouTube review and I agree people are selling the camera on this phone short. Interesting that all your friends chose the LG V30+ pictures over the Pixel 2 XL pictures. That's one reason I'm not really going to mess with the Pixel camera port.

ChazzMatt said:
Interesting review. Where did you get your B&O branded V30+ in UK? I thought they only had the V30? Did you get it from Italy or elsewhere?
I watched your full YouTube review and I agree people are selling the camera on this phone short. Interesting that all your friends chose the LG V30+ pictures over the Pixel 2 XL pictures. That's one reason I'm not really going to mess with the Pixel camera port.
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Thanks. You’re right. UK only gets standard V30. Wondamobile supplied the V30+. The Pixel 2 will take better pics , but like everything it depends on the scene. I was out this morning with my Canon & V30+ and will get a post up next week with the results.

Ok. Audio review now done on the LG V30 covering speaker, Bluetooth, wired and type c. Over a dozen headphones used too.
https://gavinsgadgets.com/2018/01/1...-wired-over-12-different-headphones-compared/

I'm on my second Sprint lg v30 plus. Had to exchange the first one due to digitizer issues. On one side of the screen. It only responded to taps. My luck I guess.. Overall I like the device. It's light, fast and has a nice design. The camera sucks tho compared to my s8+ especially in low light. Not a bad camera but no where near the pixel 2 or Samsung phones. Was going to get the note 8 but I doubt that will ever get twrp. Hopefully this device gets root and twrp

Ok full review is finished now. Includes a camera showcase and 32 reasons why it's the best phone in the world, with the 32nd reason the best one.
https://gavinsgadgets.com/2018/01/28/lg-v30-review-camera-showcase-this-is-the-best-phone-in-2018/

Initial Camera Observations

Had my first day out with the V30 yesterday and just imported the photos and videos from it to my laptop for a closer look to make some initial evaluations. With some very interesting things to note and a lot to dig into further. There's definitely some realities that need to be addressed to better manage expectations.
1) I have no f'n clue what the HDR setting is doing other than making crappy photos. Which is about the same as it was on the V20. It's completely the opposite of what it was on the Nexus 6. On the Nexus 6, if you wanted the best photos out of the Google Camera you could get, you turned on HDR and forgot about it. With LG's Camera app, it's the exact opposite. Turn it off and forget it was ever there.
I still need to figure out the mess that the Google Camera app port has become and DL a copy and see how it does with this sensor.
2) If you shoot manual, there's a noise reduction on/off switch now. Unless you have some decent NR software though or know what you want to do with grainy photos (and I think it will have its uses, I just have to find the right subject), leave it on in very low light conditions. Not only does it tame grainy noise, it also tames a bit of purple fringe that will show up in high gain (high ISO) photos once the electronics start heating up around it.
3) As to that last part of #2: We have to be realistic here. This is a tiny cellphone camera packed in with A LOT of other electronics. If you're shooting several shots in a row or long exposures, either in dark conditions at high ISO, you will see amp glow or purple fringing. It's just a reality. Even DSLRs see it.
4) Digital zoom is digital zoom. If you aren't using just the standard view of each sensor, then you are going to see the limitations of a small sensor. I don't care what cellphone you're using. None of my larger/dedicated cameras have it for many good reasons. You shouldn't expect miracles from a smaller camera.
5) The wide angle sensor actually takes pretty good shots now in most conditions! The wide angle camera on the V20 was full of so many compromises that I avoided it at all costs. If I wanted a wider view than the standard lens, I would use the pano setting on the standard lens. Which is still a great option if everything in the frame is going to sit still but it takes time and patience. It still has distortion though, just not as much as before. You can't focus the wide angle in manual mode but you can in auto. Weird. It doesn't like to focus pointing directly overhead. That was hit or miss. Same rules about the NR and HDR apply here.
6) Video AF in low low light does miss sometimes. Again, just remember this phone doesn't have all the high end AF sensors that some DSLRs have to make sure focus is nailed every single time. Somewhere there's an article about the useful range of all the AF systems on the V20, I assume it still applies to the V30. I'll dig it up if I can to help manage expectations. If I remember right, laser AF is short range, maybe 7 feet.
7) During my import of files from my phone to my laptop, some of my videos lost their audio tracks. Not sure what that's about. I don't remember which ones were auto and which ones were manual but I suspect that's the problem. All videos have sound on my phone though.
8) I suck at video. Kinda hoping to kick myself in the rear with this phone and learn more about it. There's a lot more to manage and I probably won't be happy until I figure out the whole color grading thing and get the look I want. So the log file option ought to be a nice addition.
9) I remember telling someone that I swear I saw a video somewhere of a pre-unit that had the directional mics settings in manual video. Well, I can tell you that I must have imagined that because the unit I have does not have that setting. Just sliders and windcut.
10) And I don't know where LG is hiding it but I don't see 240 fps in any settings anywhere. The fastest video setting I see is 120fps. (Remember, only at 720p) I'm guessing 240 fps is reserved for the slo-mo mode and not available in manual or auto video modes.
11) Selfie camera. Yeah, I've seen the complaints. Are you sure your ugly mugs aren't breaking the camera? I posted this in the first impressions thread and I'll post it here. First thing I suggest doing is turning down the "skin toning" and skin lighting settings. Whoever renamed skin smoothing to skin toning should be shot as that's not what I thought that setting was at all. My first thought is that it adjusted the white balance of the skin to give you a rosier glow. Nope. Skin toning will butter face the heck out of you even on basics settings. Set it to zero. After that, the image held up well to some post processing and consistently gave me selfies I actually like. They actually remind me of something that might come from..... film.
I'm going to do some more shooting today and I'll try to figure out how to post examples without making you all click through to some other site. I also need to figure out how to get the videos over sound and all so I can give them honest assessments.

Ah, I just remembered something else to look out for.
12) If you shoot in manual and have the RAW option turned on, it isn't like on a real camera where you get the RAW file and a processed version of the RAW file. It shoots two photos. This does two things. One, it means you will see lag as it is shooting two photos for each press. This gets worse with longer shutter speeds. Two, this means unless you're shooting a still life that the RAW and JPG will not match. If you're shooting action like I was last night, you will get two completely different photos.

Interesting. Thanks for you observations.
I'm a pixel owner and I love the camera. It's ace. I really want to like the v30, but so far the real world observations and initial reviews haven't sung the praises of the camera. Are you happy with the camera or is it not worth the hype?

The camera is better than the V20 and I liked that a lot. Here's the issue in a nut shell. This phone is for those that aren't happy to just let the device to everything for you like an Apple product would. If that's what you want, that's what Pixels are about. Pixel is Google's iPhone. If you want control over the creative process, that's why the V's exist. The V series is more akin to using a DSLR and Pixels are more like a point and shoot. The Pixel series they're kinda hoping you're ok with whatever the phone spits out. The V series you tweak the initial settings and decide what the phone is even going to shoot so you can tweak it more to your liking later. The V30 gives us even more control than the V20 does.

CHH2 said:
The camera is better than the V20 and I liked that a lot. Here's the issue in a nut shell. This phone is for those that aren't happy to just let the device to everything for you like an Apple product would. If that's what you want, that's what Pixels are about. Pixel is Google's iPhone. If you want control over the creative process, that's why the V's exist. The V series is more akin to using a DSLR and Pixels are more like a point and shoot. The Pixel series they're kinda hoping you're ok with whatever the phone spits out. The V series you tweak the initial settings and decide what the phone is even going to shoot so you can tweak it more to your liking later. The V30 gives us even more control than the V20 does.
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Interesting. Thanks for the summary

I would like to but V30, all because camera. But I don't know is this camera one of the best in 2017 or it is just average camera. I see many bad comments on internet. And is front face camera really bad?

isko01 said:
I would like to but V30, all because camera. But I don't know is this camera one of the best in 2017 or it is just average camera. I see many bad comments on internet. And is front face camera really bad?
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I probably still have a few more days of testing but just based off of what I've seen in my standardized shooting at the museum, LG has pulled off a miracle with this tiny little sensor.
Like I said above, you have to have realistic expectations and know what the limits are of your gear. That's what a really good photographer does though. They know how the gear works and how to use what it does but also know when it's time to use something else or accept not getting a shot.
This is a tiny sensor. The largest sensor on this whole phone is only 1/3.09". It's smaller than the main one on the V20 but it looks better. That in itself is amazing but I'm not expecting a sensor that's 1/3 the size of the sensor of my smallest camera to match it. Yet that's what some people seem to expect . Which is asinine.
Really the only "failing" I had yesterday was trying to shoot overhead in extremely dark conditions with the wide angle camera and shooting performers wearing all black on an outdoor stage in the dark with just stage lighting (which was changing colors constantly) while moving around quickly. Neither of those surprised me at all. The second condition really is the realm of DSLRs still. The first one, I'm ok with too. That said, what I did get from the second condition, I'm still surprised with.
I've only had one day with it but I think I'm going to get some surprising images out of this camera. Now to teach myself more about video editing.
And again, about the front camera. Once you set those stupid settings to the bottom, you can get more skin detail out of a photo than most people would like to see. Every crease and furrow in my brow line and forehead ,pock mark in my nose, and hairs on my head and beard. From shooting models, I can tell you a lot of people wouldn't want to see that level of detail on their face. So I have no idea what people are complaining about. It's an f'n vanity camera that most people wouldn't want to use to its full potential.

Uploaded a couple of shots. All shots are my normal workflow with a cellphone camera. Shot with the V30 and the jpegs processed in Snapseed. First one is shot with the main camera overhead in a room not known for being well lit at the museum I used to work at. In fact the only real lighting is from some LEDs in the pearl at center. The LEDs are designed to be very soft so they don't degrade the paint and woodwork. The other two shots are selfies taken with indirect sunlight being the only light source indoors. The one with back background is indirect sun through clear glass. The one with the light background is indirect sunlight through very milky glass.
Main camera: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/36870848874/
Dark background selfie cam: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/37322765870/
Light background selfie cam: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/23728950428/
Seriously, I'm not sure I'd really want more detail than that. I'm actually quite please with how all of these images turned out so far. I'll try to work up some more shots from the main and wides.

Can you post some pics in a room at night with just a lamp on or something in auto mode?

EVOme said:
Can you post some pics in a room at night with just a lamp on or something in auto mode?
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I'll have to see what I can set up. That's not really a normal shot I have set-up or sitting around. I might be able to do something at work tomorrow before everyone else gets in and the whole place is blasted with light. Unfortunately, I no longer work at the museum but I might be able to make something work.

isko01 said:
I would like to but V30, all because camera. But I don't know is this camera one of the best in 2017 or it is just average camera. I see many bad comments on internet.
And is front face camera really bad?
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I'm not hijacking this thread, but you asked a specific question. There's another thread where the camera is discussed, along with other features, and @keithleger took all his in "auto" mode, to compare the two V30 back cameras, and he also compared it to the Note 8 camera which he's decided to sell.
Camera
-Excellent camera but not on par with Pixel line or Samsung. Don't get me wrong, it is a great camera and in the sunlight it is fantastic but low light it does not do as well as Note 8. Video or Stills. But it is very adequate for my needs and I prefer having the wide-angle lens over the zoom lens any day.
-The one thing that really bothered me was shutter lag at times. Sometimes when I snapped a photo it was almost instant and others I had to wait a second or so. Long enough to think I might not of pressed the button. Not sure if others have had this issue but it is troublesome. It was not isolated to taking multiple photos fairly quickly either. Sometimes first shot.
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However, he's selling the Note 8 to keep the LG V30.
He posted an album of his first weekend pictures, as well as the comparison shots to the Note 8. The V30 outside shots look FANTASTIC, and even though the Note 8seemed to do better indoors the LG V30 won at least one of the indoor shots, in my opinion.
As for selfies, he gives the same advice as @CHH2.. Turn off the enhancemet crap on the selfie camera.
keithleger said:
For selfies, if you set the skin tone and lighting effects to 0 then it is ok.
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CHH2 said:
Selfie camera. . First thing I suggest doing is turning down the "skin toning" and skin lighting settings.
Skin toning will butter face the heck out of you even on basics settings. Set it to zero.
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See, they say the same thing. The only reason I'm mentioning the other thread -- and I do not mean to hijack @CHH2 camera thread -- is because @keithleger has direct comparisons to the Note 8 camera was well as the f/1.6 and wide angle cameras on the V30. Plus he only shot in auto, and didn't do any post processing (to my knowledge).
I appreciate all the work @CHH2 has put into this thread!

CHH2 said:
I'll have to see what I can set up. That's not really a normal shot I have set-up or sitting around. I might be able to do something at work tomorrow before everyone else gets in and the whole place is blasted with light. Unfortunately, I no longer work at the museum but I might be able to make something work.
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Thanks! You don't have to go out of your way. I will have my phone tomorrow.

EVOme said:
Thanks! You don't have to go out of your way. I will have my phone tomorrow.
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I shot this real quick this morning. It's completely SOOC. Yes, you might notice something rather odd and be asking yourself, "Why didn't he rotate the image?" Well, I didn't rotate it because on my phone the image is upright and correct. Somewhere between the phone and Flickr, it got rotated. I'll be deleting this one at the end of today as it's not really something I'd normally shoot even as a reminder or novelty.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/36882784984/
And just because I got lucky this morning, a little close up:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/37593620881/

Going to add one more photo. This one shot in probably one of the most challenging places to shoot, a jazz club. This is probably the cleanest shot I've taken in there with a cellphone. I'm impressed.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/36883443574/

CHH2 said:
I shot this real quick this morning. It's completely SOOC. Yes, you might notice something rather odd and be asking yourself, "Why didn't he rotate the image?" Well, I didn't rotate it because on my phone the image is upright and correct. Somewhere between the phone and Flickr, it got rotated. I'll be deleting this one at the end of today as it's not really something I'd normally shoot even as a reminder or novelty.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/36882784984/
And just because I got lucky this morning, a little close up:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/37593620881/
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Wow man! I have restored faith in the camera. That office shot is very sharp. For the grasshopper, are you using one of the installed filters or is a post render?
Thank you for taking those.

EVOme said:
Wow man! I have restored faith in the camera. That office shot is very sharp. For the grasshopper, are you using one of the installed filters or is a post render?
Thank you for taking those.
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You're welcome. For photos, I never use the filters in the camera apps. I always use Snapseed. It has a lot more control and much more power once you learn how to apply the various filters in combination. The grasshopper only had typical post processing that most photographers would apply; a tad sharpening that is only really noticeable when zoomed in, B&W conversion, bump in contrast, and a bump in shadows to make them a tad darker. Oh, and a crop, maybe threw away a little more than half the overall pixels from the frame as I didn't want to scare it off.
And yeah, for being such a tiny sensor, I'm impressed with the low light shooting. I still want to try shooting in the basement of the jazz club. That's usually territory that I need at least my smaller dedicated camera if not my DSLR. I won't get to try that again until this next weekend.

Decided to try something a little different. This isn't final by any means but this shows what playing around for a couple of minutes in Snapseed with just a couple quick shots can get you: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/37605204891/
Looking forward to showing this to my curator friend and watching him fall off of his barstool when I tell him it was all done on one cellphone in under five minutes. (He's pretty much a film guy as is the guy who is the inspiration for this photo. Bonus points if you can name the photographer I'm copying for this photo.)

Main camera: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/36870848874/
Dark background selfie cam: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/37322765870/
Light background selfie cam: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/23728950428/
.[/QUOTE]
What camera was used for those selfies? I'm not a fan of selfies but love the ones you've taken. I'd like to experiment with it and my fiance would too.thank you. Btw love you test album. Talent for sure

lg3FTW said:
Main camera: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/36870848874/
Dark background selfie cam: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/37322765870/
Light background selfie cam: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chimphappyhour/23728950428/
.
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What camera was used for those selfies? I'm not a fan of selfies but love the ones you've taken. I'd like to experiment with it and my fiance would too.thank you. Btw love you test album. Talent for sure[/QUOTE]
I used the front selfie camera with all of those silly settings at the bottom of the frame turned off, set to zero, whatever their values are. Then I just did some quick processing in Snapseed. That's pretty much it. I don't get too complex. And thank you.

Finally figured out a work around so I can hear the audio on the videos I'm importing from the phone to my laptop and can't believe I didn't think of this before. Pulled the videos from their folder over into an empty Chrome browser window and Voila! they played complete with their soundtrack!
So the following is from shooting in a dark jazz club. (Notes, not footage yet. I'll try uploading something to youtube when I figure out what, when, and how.)
Probably the most important observation I see about video from the V30 (and this actually applied to the V20 too) is that loud music can end up jostling the OIS and introduce more shake than it removes.
Another observation is that recording video while in Auto mode, you better make sure you have plenty of somewhat decent light. Tonight while playing around, the screen would be plenty bright all the way up until I hit that little red record button. Then the screen squeezes down and went dark enough that the footage was unusable. Shooting in manual video mode, I was able to get some footage. It wasn't exactly ideal settings that I was shooting with though so the footage is so-so. (Best settings I could get were ISO 3200 and a shutter speed of 1/25. My understanding is that since I had my frame rate at 24fps, I should have had a shutter speed of 1/50 but that just wasn't happening inside that place.)
In manual video mode, it really doesn't like ISO 3200 for some reason. I'd play with a setting and come back and the ISO would be set to 3150 for some reason. I'd bump it back up to 3200, go do something else, come back to 3150. I would have to make sure that's the last thing I tweaked before hitting the record button.
The audio picks up pretty much all the sounds I'm hearing. I need to sit down with headphones and see if there's extra noise being introduced. I suspect dragging the videos into the Chrome browser is exactly the best quality test. It just lets me know the audio tracks are intact in the file which I was a little worried about at first.
I still have a lot more playing around with the video as most of it is new to me.

LG V30 vs S9/ +

Seen 2 videos so far of the V30 up against the S9 series and its holding its own quite well.
What are you guys opinions?

V30 for better battery and camera. End of story.
If you had an S8 right now you would be better off on both those parameters than with an S9
Sammy will fix things. The snapdragon seems to be ok with battery but the exynos variant doesn't do well for battery. Further optimisation needed especially for exynos
Camera issues will be the same for both
Fixes needed which is kinda strange because these aren't the kind of problems Korean phones have ootb

Had both, sold the S9+ after 10 days, couldn't get on with Sammy software and device was just a little too big and heavy. Very happy to have gone back to my V30.

Seriously, not sure how you can even think about saying that the V30 camera is better than the S9, unless you are talking about granularity of controls. The quality of the S9+ blows the doors off the v30..especially indoors/low light. I have both and the S9+ is being shipped back to Samsung tomorrow because I love my V30 size and feel, not to mention the wide angle lens. However, saying v30 camera quality is better than S9+ is laughable. V30 is still a decent camera though and I can't do without wide-angle lens. I'm not sure why others have not done it...oh wait, maybe we need Apple to do it first then EVERYONE else will. lol

i owned lg v30 plus for 5 months and i got S9plus from 10 days and i sold it back yesterday and returned to my lgv30 the reason behind that s9plus has a big problem with dropping calls and during the call i am loosing the connection and got silence for 5 to 10 sec on the same conditions i was using lg in i searched and found it's a common problem and they are waiting a fix through an update the second thing is battery life the s9+ doesn't hold for a day with the same usage , also the network switching between 4g and 3g is going crazy and so bad with s9+
sure the camera of S9+ much better than lg v30 especially the front facing camera which is a **** in low light in lg v30

souty666 said:
sure the camera of S9+ much better than lg v30 especially the front facing camera which is a **** in low light in lg v30
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Nobody picks a phone on the strength of the front camera.
---------- Post added at 04:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:46 PM ----------
bitwiser said:
Seriously, not sure how you can even think about saying that the V30 camera is better than the S9, unless you are talking about granularity of controls. The quality of the S9+ blows the doors off the v30..especially indoors/low light. I have both and the S9+ is being shipped back to Samsung tomorrow because I love my V30 size and feel, not to mention the wide angle lens. However, saying v30 camera quality is better than S9+ is laughable. V30 is still a decent camera though and I can't do without wide-angle lens. I'm not sure why others have not done it...oh wait, maybe we need Apple to do it first then EVERYONE else will. lol
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heh, what do you even know about cameras ? The V30 has a F1.6, the S9 is F1.5. So in what way does the S9 blow away the V30 again ?
https://youtu.be/NLsezWgArh4
I'm not seeing the 'quality' of the S9 blow away its predecessors here. Oh! they happen to be F1.7's btw Why's that ? F1.5 an all
https://youtu.be/lW1p8ONzmOY
Why is the S9 struggling to get focus in scenes the last three generations would not. You mean to tell me the V30 or any LG since the G4 would have trouble focusing in these low light scenes ? Forget LG, S6 up to S8 would have no problem in those scenes
The only place i give sammy the edge is faster focus with video. You do much video ?
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=75896403&postcount=9
Demonstrates the problem with dual aperture and stills within a certain range of light levels
First has a higher ISO than necesary and thererfore will lose at the pixel level in terms of details to every good camera that came out since 2015, the second blows out the image entirely with the oh so amazing f1.5
Numerous photos i see this overbrightening going on. Why. if HDR+ makes photos low contrast ie flat and boring then the S9 is making them worse for no good reason
Now, i have zero problems having to use manual if it means i get a better photo, in fact a camera that doesn't have manual is worthless as far as i'm concerned but try telling that to someone who just bought this phone for the camera. Paid big bucks for it

Oreo Update
souty666 said:
i owned lg v30 plus for 5 months and i got S9plus from 10 days and i sold it back yesterday and returned to my lgv30 the reason behind that s9plus has a big problem with dropping calls and during the call i am loosing the connection and got silence for 5 to 10 sec on the same conditions i was using lg in i searched and found it's a common problem and they are waiting a fix through an update the second thing is battery life the s9+ doesn't hold for a day with the same usage , also the network switching between 4g and 3g is going crazy and so bad with s9+
sure the camera of S9+ much better than lg v30 especially the front facing camera which is a **** in low light in lg v30
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
Did you get Android Oreo update for LG V30 plus? Any idea when it will arrive ?

I almost sold my V30+ for a S9+ but to be honest, I wouldn't be rushing out to buy an S9 or S9+ just yet. They have a world wide issue with dead spots on the screen... And of course their launcher sucks dogs balls.. Useability is high on my list, and after 5 min playing with the S9+ in store, I wanted to puke.
If you're keen on going Samsung, maybe wait for the Note 9... Samsung just can't get anything right at the moment - seems hardware issue after hardware issue..... Samsung need to take a break, and stop rushing phones to market
My V30+ has been flawless since picking it up in Nov 2017. I'll be sticking with it until the V40+ comes

One Twelve said:
heh, what do you even know about cameras ? The V30 has a F1.6, the S9 is F1.5. So in what way does the S9 blow away the V30 again ?
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Click to collapse
You know that's not how it works right? Aperture is only one aspect of the amount of light that a sensor picks up, the other being sensor and pixel size.
Although the S9 has more or less the same aperture the pixel size is nearly 50% larger than the v30 pixels, it also has a 1/2.5" sensor versus 1/3.1", this will have a very large effect on low light quality.
For example a full frame sensor has over a stop of extra light gathering ability vs an APSC sensor, equivalent to the jump from an F2.0 to an F1.4 lens, I have no idea what the exact ration will be with these sensors but it is likely to be quite significant.
There is nothing wrong with the V30 camera, but physics dictates it is going to be significantly worse in low light than the S9.

Aborto said:
You know that's not how it works right? Aperture is only one aspect of the amount of light that a sensor picks up, the other being sensor and pixel size.
Although the S9 has more or less the same aperture the pixel size is nearly 50% larger than the v30 pixels, it also has a 1/2.5" sensor versus 1/3.1", this will have a very large effect on low light quality.
For example a full frame sensor has over a stop of extra light gathering ability vs an APSC sensor, equivalent to the jump from an F2.0 to an F1.4 lens, I have no idea what the exact ration will be with these sensors but it is likely to be quite significant.
There is nothing wrong with the V30 camera, but physics dictates it is going to be significantly worse in low light than the S9.
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Agree with what you've said but LG manages to squeeze out a lot from a small sensor despite the smaller pixel size. Have you seen some of the photos from the AI camera that only the Korean variant has for now. They have improved clarity and sharpness over the past.
The V30 will be a more reliable shooter than the S9 in the examples i've cited. The V30 would not have the problems the S9 has.
Did you see Max's video ? i looked at every photo he took at the pixel level and was shaking my head over how the S9 couldn't get focus. What good is the biggest sensor going to do in that case
The S8 or Note 8 would be better competition to the V30. If you can handhold 1/2s you will beat what auto can do on the V30 because you let in two full stops of light in this case. That will exceed what a bigger sensor can do unless you repeat the same with it as well
Video isn't going to be too far off due to the small differernce in aperture, only focus will be quicker with samsung. And this is the strange thing, focus is fast on video but couldn't do it with stills

One Twelve said:
Agree with what you've said but LG manages to squeeze out a lot from a small sensor despite the smaller pixel size.
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Yes I think it is a great camera, with the best software implementation and interface I've tried.
But low light is not its strong point, in saying that mobile cameras are always so bad there versus my dedicated cameras that it doesn't matter that much, if I expect to want to take usable night shots I'd take a real camera. On the other hand the wide angle camera on this has amazed me for daytime landscape shots.

Aborto said:
Yes I think it is a great camera, with the best software implementation and interface I've tried.
But low light is not its strong point, in saying that mobile cameras are always so bad there versus my dedicated cameras that it doesn't matter that much, if I expect to want to take usable night shots I'd take a real camera. On the other hand the wide angle camera on this has amazed me for daytime landscape shots.
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The one camera that will dethrone all is potentially the P20 pro. You can take 4s handheld shots. Sharp. Get this it has no OIS!
Low light handling with huawei has always been good, the problem is you need a way to stabilise it. The image quality improves considerably if you let it have 10s say. It won't get brighter just better details
Course that is just the stills department, Video is likely to be another story.
I think low light has improved over the years in terms of how high ISO can go before you don't have a usable photo
Upto 2014 - no higher than ISO 400
2015 - goes up to ISO 800
2017 - now i think 1250 possibly 1600 is usable
No competition against your dedicated camera but you will always have your phone with you
That wide angle has a magic effect on people even those that don't like to take photos with phones
https://youtu.be/8fRGQ33Q4eU
Thats the G5 and you get the idea

Main reason i wont switch to Samsung is phone size dimensions and screen ratio. Dont like the long and narrow screen that samsung is using.
In my opinion the lg v30 has the perfect size.

Can't find any v30 vs S9 photo comparisons with originals to pixel peep. None out there
I want to see the S9 'blowing away' the V30

One Twelve said:
Agree with what you've said but LG manages to squeeze out a lot from a small sensor despite the smaller pixel size. Have you seen some of the photos from the AI camera that only the Korean variant has for now. They have improved clarity and sharpness over the past.
The V30 will be a more reliable shooter than the S9 in the examples i've cited. The V30 would not have the problems the S9 has.
Did you see Max's video ? i looked at every photo he took at the pixel level and was shaking my head over how the S9 couldn't get focus. What good is the biggest sensor going to do in that case
The S8 or Note 8 would be better competition to the V30. If you can handhold 1/2s you will beat what auto can do on the V30 because you let in two full stops of light in this case. That will exceed what a bigger sensor can do unless you repeat the same with it as well
Video isn't going to be too far off due to the small differernce in aperture, only focus will be quicker with samsung. And this is the strange thing, focus is fast on video but couldn't do it with stills
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Click to collapse
Sorry, I love my v30 and it is still my daily driver (shipped the S9+ back today) but in auto mode the S9 was better in almost every situation for me. Not by much except with low light. You can spout stats all day long but unless you are using manual mode the v30 did not come close to the S9. See album. It is almost like someone turns a light on with the S9 photos compared to the v30. I don't know about video since i don't use it much but in low light I can't see how the v30 could produce better/less noise in video either.

bitwiser said:
Sorry, I love my v30 and it is still my daily driver (shipped the S9+ back today) but in auto mode the S9 was better in almost every situation for me. Not by much except with low light. You can spout stats all day long but unless you are using manual mode the v30 did not come close to the S9. See album. It is almost like someone turns a light on with the S9 photos compared to the v30. I don't know about video since i don't use it much but in low light I can't see how the v30 could produce better/less noise in video either.
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Good, now we can have a conversation. I noticed both LG shots used AI shutter, this is LG's more intelligent night shot.
For a scene like this manual will get you a clearer shot, Been that way since the G4. Just go into manual and click, you don't change any settings at all. It just disables night shot. Will be sharper. Provided it gets focus which i think it did in your shots. Night shot is a mixed bag, there are times it will do quite well and others where it can make things worse
The one of the flowers is what makes you think the light got turned on. It's using spot metering there. The one with the trucks is using the default centre weighted. Note how the exposure is the same but the clarity is better with the S9.
The flowers is interesting because it used 1/5, the auto shots i've seen had it go no slower than 1/10. Well that's a stop's more light AND coupled with a high iso will turn night into day
Drop the LG down to 1/4 and you do the same compared to auto which won't go below 1/10
Pity you've sent it back it would have been good to try some more experiments

One Twelve said:
Good, now we can have a conversation. I noticed both LG shots used AI shutter, this is LG's more intelligent night shot.
For a scene like this manual will get you a clearer shot, Been that way since the G4. Just go into manual and click, you don't change any settings at all. It just disables night shot. Will be sharper. Provided it gets focus which i think it did in your shots. Night shot is a mixed bag, there are times it will do quite well and others where it can make things worse
The one of the flowers is what makes you think the light got turned on. It's using spot metering there. The one with the trucks is using the default centre weighted. Note how the exposure is the same but the clarity is better with the S9.
The flowers is interesting because it used 1/5, the auto shots i've seen had it go no slower than 1/10. Well that's a stop's more light AND coupled with a high iso will turn night into day
Drop the LG down to 1/4 and you do the same compared to auto which won't go below 1/10
Pity you've sent it back it would have been good to try some more experiments
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Click to collapse
I understand all that, I'm just saying full auto, which is how most users will use the camera. The v30 is lacking. I don't want to have to press buttons and adjust settings. I just want to pull my phone out and quickly snap a photo or I'll miss the moment. Again, love my v30 and won't give it up for the better camera. However, if I want the best all around quick/auto/consistent camera phone I'll just reach over and grab my wife's pixel 2.

bitwiser said:
I understand all that, I'm just saying full auto, which is how most users will use the camera. The v30 is lacking. I don't want to have to press buttons and adjust settings. I just want to pull my phone out and quickly snap a photo or I'll miss the moment.
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And you can do just that if it launches in manual for static subjects in low light. No adjusting settings. Everything is in auto.
The one quirk i've noticed with the V30 only is it doesn't always disable night shot. So even in manual this happens. Didn't happen with earlier LG's
That's the best you can get. So if you compare that with what the sammy does then you will know if any of this pixel micron thing makes a difference or not
Sammy doesn't use a nightshot and i've rolled my eyes as the years went on when comparisons were made with LG's by people who didn't know what to do. So this canard that LG can't do low light very well came up. Reviewers won't do it but users learn early on

One Twelve said:
And you can do just that if it launches in manual for static subjects in low light. No adjusting settings. Everything is in auto.
The one quirk i've noticed with the V30 only is it doesn't always disable night shot. So even in manual this happens. Didn't happen with earlier LG's
That's the best you can get. So if you compare that with what the sammy does then you will know if any of this pixel micron thing makes a difference or not
Sammy doesn't use a nightshot and i've rolled my eyes as the years went on when comparisons were made with LG's by people who didn't know what to do. So this canard that LG can't do low light very well came up. Reviewers won't do it but users learn early on
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know the v30 can do much better in low light. i'm saying I don't want to have to switch my phone to manual mode every time I want to take photos indoors or in low light. Even if it is just switching the mode. I always live it in auto. That is how I'm comparing the cameras. LG should do a better job with auto mode, plain and simple. I don't have that issue with Pixel 2 either.

bitwiser said:
I know the v30 can do much better in low light. i'm saying I don't want to have to switch my phone to manual mode every time I want to take photos indoors or in low light. Even if it is just switching the mode. I always live it in auto. That is how I'm comparing the cameras. LG should do a better job with auto mode, plain and simple. I don't have that issue with Pixel 2 either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They've clung on to the night mode thing for a while now. If that happens the LG's losing almost every time.
I've never understood why they wouldn't allow slower shutter speeds in auto. Getting a 1/4 handheld sharp isn't difficult. I guess they are trying to account for people who might not have the steadiest of hands. Same with sammy too from what i could see with Max's shots. What explains the inability of the S9 to get clear shots ? did you find the S9 wanting for focus when you used it in low light. Your macros were fine, but what about outdoors, a harder test
it's rare you will ever get consistently good low light shots in auto particularly if there's bright lights in them even with the best of cameras. Max likes to show how the pixel can do this. Yeah it can and so can huawei. But it isn't hard to do with manual. One day I went around town at night with one set of settings and clicked away. There wasn't even a need for focus. Shots were instant. Sharp, way better & faster than auto. Took over a hundred shots, sometimes in the road with traffic. I had no more than a second or two.
But the pixel flattens images as well. Getting creative with a pixel with HDR+ on is harder than either of the Koreans. Can't do drama with a pixel. And all its strengths reduce with video because its like any other that too with mono recording in audio instead of stereo. I can't get comfortable with a camera that reduces the owner to a button presser