The Nokia N8 is an immensely popular phone and we’re already hard at work on a proper review of the handset. Since the N8 camera is its pivotal feature, we’re interested how you'd rate it in a blind shootout with two other cameras - the Samsung Pixon12 and the Sony DSC-HX5v compact digicam.
Our comments section is full of your input about the Nokia N8 camera performance. Our latest article on the subject got more than 1000 comments in a couple of days.
The way we see it, there’s some strong brand awareness that surrounds the Nokia N8. One way or the other, both praises and criticism come down to the handset being a Nokia phone.
The N8 advertising campaign has set the bar of expectations quite high. It’s only natural that when you boldly brag about the qualities of your product, you will attract all the scrutiny in the world.
As a result, we see a lot of prejudice about the N8 camera performance. Another prejudice we see often is that cameraphones will never be as good as dedicated digital point-and-shoot cameras.
Introducing the blind test
So striking at both of these, we’re putting the Nokia N8 against both a capable cameraphone (the Samsung Pixon12) and a relatively expensive point-and-shoot digicam (the Sony DSC-HX5v Cyber-shot). And best of all, we’ll start with a blind test.
The contenders in today's blind test: Nokia N8 • Samsung M8910 Pixon12 • Sony DSC-HX5v Cyber-shot
We’ll give you camera samples from all the three cameras in random order. You are free to pick your favorite today – call it in our comments section. We’ll announce the true identities of the devices behind the photos tomorrow.
Since the Sony HX5v is a 10 megapixel camera, we’ve downsized all images to 10 megapixels just for this test. Don’t worry, it’s for demonstration purposes only. That kind of comparison is really alright and it doesn’t put the 12 megapixel shooters in a disadvantageous position. Just on the contrary – the downsizing would even help them by concealing some of the digital noise.
Here go the samples gallery
The sample images you see have been stripped of all EXIF data, but we haven’t done any other digital modifications to them (besides the obvious resizing). You’ll see the original full-resolution samples tomorrow so you’ll be able to verify that for yourselves.
Once again, this is not a guess-the-phone game. It's about picking the best camera regardless of brand loyalty.
And here's where it gets tense. As light levels fall, the cameras increase their ISO potentially leading to either increased digital noise or smudgy noise suppression.
Shot at ISO400
Shot at ISO800
Tomorrow we’ll also publish our first preview of Nokia N8. It won’t be the full-blown, detailed thing you’re used to but a shorter version. We’ll release the full-length article once we get through the streak of bad weather we’ve been having for a while. Cameraphones are best judged on a sunny day when they are at their greatest. And the Nokia N8 is a fine shooter that deserves the effort.
Contenders revealed
In the past twenty four hours we read numerous funny accusations thrown our way in the comments section. We've read about how we're doing a PR gig for Nokia, some suggested it's a PR stunt for Samsung, while other claimed we have a grudge with Samsung so that's why we included Pixon12 in the first place.
Now while those are some pretty wild guesses without any doubt, the people that suggested that we didn't include the Sony Ericsson Satio on purpose were actually right. We even had more than one reason to leave it out.
First off, the Satio would have spoiled the blind test we meant to organize. The three cameras we used all have wide angle lenses so you'd find it really hard to recognize their identities based on the angle of view. On the other hand the regular 35mm lens of the Satio would have allowed you to recognize it immediately. Plus, if you've read our Satio vs. Pixon12 shootout, you'd know that the Pixon12 is at least as good as or even better shooter than the Satio.
Which brings us to our next point - why we used the Samsung Pixon12 in the first place. Well, surprising as it may be, it doesn't have anything to do with us endorsing or hitting on Samsung. The Samsung Pixon12 is is simply the only cameraphone that's directly comparable to Nokia N8 - it's got a 12MP sensor combined with a wide-angle lens.
Here are the real identities of the three contenders:
A. Sony HX5
B. Samsung Pixon 12
C. Nokia N8
We went through your comments trying to make sense out of all randomly phrased preferences and here are all the votes casted in this blind test.
| Camera | |||
| A. Sony HX5 | 32 | 104 | 33 |
| B. Samsung Pixon12 | 24 | 36 | 115 |
| C. Nokia N8 | 161 | 36 | 11 |
We had more than 200 readers casting their votes. There is no doubt that the general disposition is that the Nokia N8 is the best camera of the three, followed by the Sony HX5v digicam and finally, the Samsung Pixon12. Yep, the numbers are pretty self-explanatory.
We must admit the end results are a bit surprising for us. We expected the N8 to win but not by that much. We thought the more pumped colors and contrast of the other two cameras would be more pleasing to the general consumer. But hey, what do we know!
We're not going to publish the full-resolution samples here, you can see them in our Nokia N8 preview instead. There you can also read our comment on the camera performance of all the three participants in this blind test. It's due for today and should hit our homepage within hours
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