In a Blind "Taste Test" the iPhone 5s camera blows major competitors away

[nathan]

You know, it's just astonishing how an argument is still being made here that it's illogical to decide to test the "most popular" individual smartphones (as in units sold) and then to exclude a phone (Nokia) that has a small percentage of the total market sales (few units sold). When, what would be illogical would be to include a phone that is not among the most popular by sales figures and include it in a most popular comparison.

 

We've already been through the whole market share argument, and what seems to still not sink in is the facts. The market share of a Nokia running WP might be 99% in some random suburb somewhere in the world. However, this is what the actual sales figures worldwide show, which is that WP (the OS not a particular phone) has a 3% market share.

 

2013 FULL YEAR OPERATING SYSTEM MARKET SHARES

 

Rank . . OS . . . . . . . . . 2013 units . . share . . .2012 units . . share . . 2011 units . . share

1 (1) . . Android . . . . . . 767.3 M . . . 78% . . . 452 M . . . . . 65% . . . 208 M . . . . . 43%

2 (2) . . iOS . . . . . . . . . 153.4 M . . . . 16% . . . 136 M . . . . . 20% . . . . 93 M . . . . . 19%

3 (6) . . Windows Phone . 33.3 M . . . . 3% . . . .16 M . . . . . . 2% . . . . 5 M . . . . . . 1%

4 (3) . . Blackberry . . . . . 23.0 M . . . . 2% . . . 33 M . . . . . .5% . . . . 52 M . . . . . 11%

Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3 M . . . . 1%

TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . 990.0 M . . . . . . . . . . . 695 M . . . . . . .. . . . 486 M

 

Communities Dominate Brands: Final 2013 Smartphone Market Share Numbers - Full year and Quarterly Q4 data by Top 10 brands, plus OS shares, plus installed base

 

Nokia as a company has 2.9% market share as of the end of 2013. So, at best a particular Nokia phone is going to have less than a 3% market share - if they only sold one phone. Which they don't.

 

What this comes down to is that the league of anti-fruits don't seem to like it when anything to do with the company named after a popular fruit is mentioned in a positive light, so the barbs come out and all rational thought seems to disappear in an instant.

 

As for me, I think Windows Phone has a lot going for it. It's original, quite intuitive, and Nokia is making some great phones lately. I'm not surprised they are steadily increasing their market share. The fact still remains though, that WP does not have a large market share and a particular Nokia WP even less so. So, deal with it. And, feel free to take a look at the sister review of smartphone cameras that did include the Nokia (with its 40MP zoom lens) - linked to by @ZeroHour - where it crushes all of the competition.

 

So because people dispute the merits of finding the "best smartphone camera" without actually testing all competitors your classing them as anti-fruits. The iPhone is a brilliant phone, i should know i have one. But i've also tested others and believe the cameras were better. It has nothing to do with disliking Apple or any other company which you seem to think - i just find it really odd that if your trying to find the best camera phone you would narrow down the choices.

 

Also "most popular" doesn't actually have to mean sold the most. Thinking a product is the best and actually buying it are two different things. I think an Aston Martin is better than my Audi but i have an Audi.

 

Heres a list of the actual marketshare (not that it actually matters).

 

Edited April 3, 2014 by nathan

[seawolf]

So because people dispute the merits of finding the "best smartphone camera" without actually testing all competitors your classing them as anti-fruits...i just find it really odd that if your trying to find the best camera phone you would narrow down the choices.

 

[sigh] OK. I'll give this one last try to explain it. The original article (by an objective, unbiased site as far as I can tell) stated that they had tested the iPhone 5s against its "five main competitors" (i.e. most popular models after the iPhone).

 

So, it was not an attempt to find the best camera phone money could buy. If it were, the iPhone 5s wouldn't have stood a chance of winning the contest (I have unreservedly stated that already). However, if you were one of the many people who had purchased one of the 6 most popular phones last year (a large number of people), the iPhone 5s actually takes better pictures than some of it's technically superior major competitors based on this "blind taste test". That was the point of the whole article and as far as their comparisons went. Full stop.

[localzuk]

Ok, lets settle on this - some of us think that the parameters used for model selection were too limiting as to make the test near enough pointless.

 

Yes, we can see the point that it was the most popular phones etc... However, we think that the list was still too limited.

 

What is the point of a test if it limits itself to an arbitrary list of phones based purely on sales numbers, rather than focussing on capabilities?

 

But then, we've now circled back to my earlier point that the test was flawed to say the least. No low light shots, no high contrast or low contrast shots etc...

[mac_shinobi]

Surely this 'debate' has to be over, I think we should all agree to disagree and send me some eduhobnobs because I'm poorly!!

 

How's about some eduhobnobs and a big bottle of JD or Evan Williams etc

[abillybob]

Now you can judge for yourself Samsung Galaxy S5 camera shootout versus HTC One M8, iPhone 5S - CNET

[LosOjos]

Now you can judge for yourself Samsung Galaxy S5 camera shootout versus HTC One M8, iPhone 5S - CNET

 

I can draw only one solid conclusion from those examples shots: the HTC One M8 camera sucks!

[tmcd35]

I can draw only one solid conclusion from those examples shots: the HTC One M8 camera sucks!

 

Looking at side-by-side comparisons I'd have to agree. Everything seems a bit purpley on the HTC. But I've been reading up on the phone a bit over the past couple of days and I must say I agree with this article: Don't blame the HTC One M8's camera | News | TechRadar

 

Do I really need more than 4MP? Probably not. I have a 12MP Canon Ixsus lying around that never gets used as well.

[featured_spectre]

I don't go for the camera quality, but if I were to pick, definitely a toss up between iPhone and GS5. GS5 has better definition on the green, yellow and orange colours, whereas the iPhone has better definition on the blues, purples and reds.

 

It is genuinely a difficult choice just based on camera alone.