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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.
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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.
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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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Battery is really good for the capacity. Idle drain with my apps and setting was about 3%/hr. With the screen on, it does seem to lose battery pretty fast, but I was still able to get about 10-13 hours of use with around 3 hours screen time. That's not much worse than most of my other phones do, actually.
I would post screenshots, but I no longer have the phone. As much as I really liked it, I just couldn't live with the camera quality. I was really hoping for better. But if camera isn't your #1 priority, this is a great all around phone. Camera is definitely better than phones like the Moto X. I was just hoping for closer to Note 4/iPhone quality.
How do the camera quality and pictures compare to Samsung S4 or S5?
Thanks.
struff said:
How do the camera quality and pictures compare to Samsung S4 or S5?
Thanks.
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My mom has the S5 And I prefer the Eye´s camera, It´s just... sharper and more clear.
sidle said:
My mom has the S5 And I prefer the Eye´s camera, It´s just... sharper and more clear.
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I'm going to politely however completely disagree. There's no comparison. S5 is one of the best cameras you can get.
Sent from my HTC Desire Eye using Tapatalk
robstunner said:
I'm going to politely however completely disagree. There's no comparison. S5 is one of the best cameras you can get.
Sent from my HTC Desire Eye using Tapatalk
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And yet, I like this one more.
Front HTC Desire Eye:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143110-image/HTC-Desire-EYE.jpg
Front Galaxy S5:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143127-image/Samsung-Galaxy-S5.jpg
Back HTC Desire Eye:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143113-image/HTC-Desire-EYE.jpg
Back Galaxy S5:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143130-image/Samsung-Galaxy-S5.jpg
Let the photo's speak for themselves. The HTC Desire Eye clearly wins this battle, or even HTC in general. The S5 is litteraly crap in low to medium-light area's.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Firs...-HTC-One-M8-and-the-Samsung-Galaxy-S5_id61506
Fair enough, but in better lighting the s5 proves much better and rarely overexposed the pictures.
Coming from M7 I know it's camera limitations and one thing I was expecting that shifting away from Ultra Pixel sensor would mean a much better performance. Unfortunately looking at the images from Barcelona I was scratching my head if what I saw was M9 images. The lower light photos in my opinion look quite bad. Lots of artifact, nasty noise, blotches of unprocessed information. So to say about normal daylight images though not as bad but still below average. So what's your take on this matter? Will the software update sort it out , is it worth waiting for couple of months? I don't think I am going to upgrade to M9 which I sincerely want to. Camera is deal breaker for me.
I honestly wouldn't base an opinion of this device with its current software situation, its gonna get hot, this is a pre release model. Also I bet its been on charge all day with the screen on, tester after tester messing with it. Not to mention the kernel and rom probably aren't optimized to deal with heavy load, I can see HTC making this a great device with further updates, I look forward to having it.
nebulaoperator said:
Coming from M7 I know it's camera limitations and one thing I was expecting that shifting away from Ultra Pixel sensor would mean a much better performance. Unfortunately looking at the images from Barcelona I was scratching my head if what I saw was M9 images. The lower light photos in my opinion look quite bad. Lots of artifact, nasty noise, blotches of unprocessed information. So to say about normal daylight images though not as bad but still below average. So what's your take on this matter? Will the software update sort it out , is it worth waiting for couple of months? I don't think I am going to upgrade to M9 which I sincerely want to. Camera is deal breaker for me.
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You're not the only one making a question out of the camera performance of the M9. The big issues with the new sensor is the increased resolution of 20mp vs the 4mp on the HTC One M8, which (as you noticed) makes images in low-light conditions quite bad. This has nothing to do with HTC though, it's the same story for everyone who cramps in such a high resolution in a sensor that is way to small. A normal DSLR camera (Canon 600D, Nikon D7100 etc.) struggles with the same thing although they got a massively bigger sensor to cope with the resolution. Based on this, I guess they may be able to fix the daylight quality quite a bit along the way. The low-light however, not as convinced due to the issues I said above. They may very well be able to make it BETTER, but not as good as it was with the M8 in my mind. Just look at the Note 4 and Z3 (and Z4 I guess) with massive resolutions on their cameras aswell, the Note 4 (16mp) is brilliant in daylight although it's worse in low-light compared to the iPhone 6 (which got a 8mp sensor). It will get better along the way, but I don't think we will ever see the M9 do low-light shots without some of the issues you asked about, like artifacts, noise and details failing to stand out. Although I do hope I am wrong about it
I hope Jonny too but I can't entirely rely on hope here. Can you give me reasonable example of how HTC improved camera in the past? I am not here to bash the brand that I love but I want to be reasonable. I still have purple fringe on my M7 for that reason I sent it back just a couple of days ago.
n3tr0m said:
You're not the only one making a question out of the camera performance of the M9. The big issues with the new sensor is the increased resolution of 20mp vs the 4mp on the HTC One M8, which (as you noticed) makes images in low-light conditions quite bad. This has nothing to do with HTC though, it's the same story for everyone who cramps in such a high resolution in a sensor that is way to small. A normal DSLR camera (Canon 600D, Nikon D7100 etc.) struggles with the same thing although they got a massively bigger sensor to cope with the resolution. Based on this, I guess they may be able to fix the daylight quality quite a bit along the way. The low-light however, not as convinced due to the issues I said above. They may very well be able to make it BETTER, but not as good as it was with the M8 in my mind. Just look at the Note 4 and Z3 (and Z4 I guess) with massive resolutions on their cameras aswell, the Note 4 (16mp) is brilliant in daylight although it's worse in low-light compared to the iPhone 6 (which got a 8mp sensor). It will get better along the way, but I don't think we will ever see the M9 do low-light shots without some of the issues you asked about, like artifacts, noise and details failing to stand out. Although I do hope I am wrong about it
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As far as I know M9 has Toshiba sensor which being used for the Nokia High end Lumias which perform quite well. The other thing is I can set my camera permanently to 16 Mp or even less so to relief sensor from strain if that helps to get a better image. It's perfectly fine to have 8MP, personally speaking. For instance Iphone 6 Plus currently outperforms pretty much most of the phones in the market.
nebulaoperator said:
As far as I know M9 has Toshiba sensor which being used for the Nokia High end Lumias which perform quite well. The other thing is I can set my camera permanently to 16 Mp or even less so to relief sensor from strain if that helps to get a better image. It's perfectly fine to have 8MP, personally speaking. For instance Iphone 6 Plus currently outperforms pretty much most of the phones in the market.
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Sure it is developed by Toshiba, i am not sure if its the same they use in the Lumia series though. The fact that "reducing" the camera down to 16mp or even less to make the images better is something I doubt highly especially with a mobile. I dont see how that would change the outcome when it's still a 20mp physically in there. Might be wrong here, but I don't see right away how that would make images in low-light any better. In my experience with the Z1 it didn't help much dumping the resolution from 20mp down to 8mp (which was the auto-mode setting). Another thing I see as a potential issue for HTC compared to Sony is the fact that Sony makes and develops their sensor themself, and that should make it easier for them to optimize it and make it better. HTC on the other hand does not make it's own sensor and has "learn" or whatever I should say the Toshiba sensor compared to Sony who made them by themself. That should, at least in my eyes, give Sony an advantage in the optimization part. Which they never figured out properly in the Z1 (and Z2 & Z3?) as far as I know.
Let me look in the future..
*starts rubbing my Crystal balls...*
.....
It's getting warmed....
Okay I am seeing something...
The answer for which you are looking for lies within you. You may not know it now but you will in the near future. The key is to follow your heart and don't make weird threads on xda.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
I am looking forward to the M9 as i currently own a M7. To the point, after M7 came out nokia came out with Lumia 925, which had 8MP sensor and took better low light photos than the UltraPixel, One would think that in the last 2 years Htc would have gotten better or improved the MP count of the UltraPixel sensor, but that didn't happen.
As far as the current 16MP sensor is concerned, i hope that reducing the resolution slightly say 8MP and increasing the exposure/shutter time would atleast be able to provide results similar to UltraPixle in a 8MP resolution.
n3tr0m said:
Sure it is developed by Toshiba, i am not sure if its the same they use in the Lumia series though. The fact that "reducing" the camera down to 16mp or even less to make the images better is something I doubt highly especially with a mobile. I dont see how that would change the outcome when it's still a 20mp physically in there. Might be wrong here, but I don't see right away how that would make images in low-light any better. In my experience with the Z1 it didn't help much dumping the resolution from 20mp down to 8mp (which was the auto-mode setting). Another thing I see as a potential issue for HTC compared to Sony is the fact that Sony makes and develops their sensor themself, and that should make it easier for them to optimize it and make it better. HTC on the other hand does not make it's own sensor and has "learn" or whatever I should say the Toshiba sensor compared to Sony who made them by themself. That should, at least in my eyes, give Sony an advantage in the optimization part. Which they never figured out properly in the Z1 (and Z2 & Z3?) as far as I know.
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I am looking at some oversampling info on wikipedia. Thats exactly what Nokia did with pure view ,for instance, combining pixels into cluster to make one better pixel with improved characteristics . Then technically speaking reducing mp size can enable sensor to perform better. Thanks for bringing it out about Sony. Your thoughts so much parallel of mine about they inability to nail their camera performance taking into account they sensor plus all experience. This could due to the reason they don't actually work close enough to Sony photographic department and more or less on they own. Not sharing the love between themselve From my observation it's a lot about soft optimization, as you mention in your post , and here I can not to finish my post without mentioning 1+1 camera transformation that occurred in period from release date up until now. Camera performance is very good.
RaXxaa said:
I am looking forward to the M9 as i currently own a M7. To the point, after M7 came out nokia came out with Lumia 925, which had 8MP sensor and took better low light photos than the UltraPixel, One would think that in the last 2 years Htc would have gotten better or improved the MP count of the UltraPixel sensor, but that didn't happen.
As far as the current 16MP sensor is concerned, i hope that reducing the resolution slightly say 8MP and increasing the exposure/shutter time would atleast be able to provide results similar to UltraPixle in a 8MP resolution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If they do something like Nokia did with oversampling pixel it might work ( just an idea) but taking into account they didn't succeed in ultra pixel technology , given two years, I can only hope. I don't really know much about new toshiba sensor and what is it capable of.
badboy47 said:
Let me look in the future..
*starts rubbing my Crystal balls...*
.....
It's getting warmed....
Okay I am seeing something...
The answer for which you are looking for lies within you. You may not know it now but you will in the near future. The key is to follow your heart and don't make weird threads on xda.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"Weird "is a strong word but taking into account the amount of humour you used in your reply I take it lightly with a smile on my face
nebulaoperator said:
I am looking at some oversampling info on wikipedia. Thats exactly what Nokia did with pure view ,for instance, combining pixels into cluster to make one better pixel with improved characteristics . Then technically speaking reducing mp size can enable sensor to perform better. Thanks for bringing it out about Sony. Your thoughts so much parallel of mine about they inability to nail their camera performance taking into account they sensor plus all experience. This could due to the reason they don't actually work close enough to Sony photographic department and more or less on they own. Not sharing the love between themselve From my observation it's a lot about soft optimization, as you mention in your post , and here I can not to finish my post without mentioning 1+1 camera transformation that occurred in period from release date up until now. Camera performance is very good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alrighty then. Thats an awesome feature! Really hope that HTC can make the same magic as Nokia did with their Lumia series based on what you found out on Wikipedia etc. I will be more than pleased if the camera on the M9 outperforms the camera placed in the Z4, that should tell everybody that HTC did an amazing job optimizing it when they beat Sony and their own sensor
I've looked at some comparison photo's from gsmarena and personally I don't think it's much worse than the iPhone 6 shots they posted.
Think the day light pictures will probably be great, but the low light ones may be not so much. Without being any company's fanboy there is a great chance that the M9 camera won't be the best.
I have no idea what HTC did but images are getting very good ...at least in this series : http://www.sogi.com.tw/mobile/articles/6239319-HTC+One+M9、M8兩代旗艦機相機實拍對決！
For some reason when I shoot videos or photos, it's blurry if I try to shoot right away. OR I have to tap on the object just to focus on it. I remember being drunk at a concert and recording some video...it took about 10 seconds of a 2 minute video just to fully focus. Even my s3, m7 and old phones never had this problem. Anyone else have this problem?
btort1 said:
For some reason when I shoot videos or photos, it's blurry if I try to shoot right away. OR I have to tap on the object just to focus on it. I remember being drunk at a concert and recording some video...it took about 10 seconds of a 2 minute video just to fully focus. Even my s3, m7 and old phones never had this problem. Anyone else have this problem?
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Camera isn't great, people are probably going to say you're talking rubbish. But I agree.
You can take a good pic and video but not you have to prepare it in certain cases, clean the lens etc.
Camera is just great and it keeps getting better. Make sure you don't have a faulty device or maybe clean the lens and laser auto focus.
Camera experience on mine is awful.
Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk
Compared to my mother's iPhone 6 and my old S6E it takes better photos. I'm not doubting with a few more software updates it'll get even better. I saw that Taiwan got another update recently that reduced glare and further improved on exposure.
I'm going to be honest, the camera is terrible imo. But that's why I carry my DSLR with me if I want to take good pictures. Here is a video I took of my ride to work the other night and the lens was as clean as it could possibly be. Pictures come out the same way https://goo.gl/photos/SS7meVTv2tdA9EuX9
Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk
In low light condition it might still have the autofocus issue, but in bright situation it's been fixed, I think.
I agree with the fact that in the right conditions it's a great camera, it can take some decent shots. But if the situation doesn't permit then it'll takes some poor ones, this has been htcs issues for a long time.
Agreed.
I had the m7 and m8 and so I was used to tinkering with touching the screen to find the perfect focus spot and waiting and taking lots of shots hoping one or two were good.
Then I had the S7 edge for a few weeks. WOW! Never seen anything like that camera.
I returned because of the bootloader and was really excited hearing how the 10's camera rated nearly as good.
I have no idea what crack they are smoking, but focus is an issue and low light performance is worse than the m8, IMO.
After the Verizon update, the camera is faster to focus for me. I still have far too many optical flares though, and halo effects from fingerprints on the lens. They go away if I spend a minute cleaning it well with a lens cloth, but I'm not going to do that before taking every single photo. The lens is easy to accidently touch.
It's tragic because I feel this is a decent camera -- but they either put the glass too far away from the sensor or didn't coat the lens properly to prevent fingerprints from ruining shots. I've never had this problem with any of my other smartphones.
If I had to do it again, I think I'd likely go S7 (standard.) Unfortunately for me, I'm outside of my return window. My girlfriend has it, all of her photos are better, the phone is slightly easier to hold /much lighter, storage performance is much better, and the phone finally has enough power to overcome TouchWiz. Anyone wanna trade? lol
meringo said:
After the Verizon update, the camera is faster to focus for me. I still have far too many optical flares though, and halo effects from fingerprints on the lens. They go away if I spend a minute cleaning it well with a lens cloth, but I'm not going to do that before taking every single photo. The lens is easy to accidently touch.
It's tragic because I feel this is a decent camera -- but they either put the glass too far away from the sensor or didn't coat the lens properly to prevent fingerprints from ruining shots. I've never had this problem with any of my other smartphones.
If I had to do it again, I think I'd likely go S7 (standard.) Unfortunately for me, I'm outside of my return window. My girlfriend has it, all of her photos are better, the phone is slightly easier to hold /much lighter, storage performance is much better, and the phone finally has enough power to overcome TouchWiz. Anyone wanna trade? lol
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Click to collapse
Funny thing, the M9 camera "Could" take a decent pic. The sensor wasn't actually a bad one.
It just had poor optimisation and that's what let it down.
I have an iPhone for work (I know )
But the camera is superb, for a quick point and shoot, it's hard to beat.
Also a friend has the G5, camera is simply sublime. The wide angle is just amazing, still even with all this moaning I would swap any for my HTC.
Just something really cool about them..[emoji16] its a curse.
IMO the camera is the best HTC has made, but it's still no where close to Samsungs camera, even the original galaxy (SGS Vibrant) is miles better.
It's a choice, camera VS bootloader, mods, roms, etc.
SykesAT said:
IMO the camera is the best HTC has made, but it's still no where close to Samsungs camera, even the original galaxy (SGS Vibrant) is miles better.
It's a choice, camera VS bootloader, mods, roms, etc.
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Click to collapse
I agree completely, the camera is htcs best, but still behind the curve. They'll get it one day.
I tried to take a video a few days ago and problem was it kept and stayed out of focus no matter what I tried
Sent from my HTC 10 using XDA-Developers mobile app
meringo said:
After the Verizon update, the camera is faster to focus for me. I still have far too many optical flares though, and halo effects from fingerprints on the lens. They go away if I spend a minute cleaning it well with a lens cloth, but I'm not going to do that before taking every single photo. The lens is easy to accidently touch.
It's tragic because I feel this is a decent camera -- but they either put the glass too far away from the sensor or didn't coat the lens properly to prevent fingerprints from ruining shots. I've never had this problem with any of my other smartphones.
If I had to do it again, I think I'd likely go S7 (standard.) Unfortunately for me, I'm outside of my return window. My girlfriend has it, all of her photos are better, the phone is slightly easier to hold /much lighter, storage performance is much better, and the phone finally has enough power to overcome TouchWiz. Anyone wanna trade? lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean by storage performance? What kind of scenario in your case?
Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk
Sounds like a there must some defective cameras out there. My camera always focuses instantly and I have taken a lot of photos. Not one of my photos has been disappointing so far and I have taken them in a wide array of condition, both dark and light.
Sent from my HTC 10 using XDA-Developers mobile app
Sounds like a simple enough idea, and the reason I think it may work is because I think it's htcs optimization of the camera.
Do you think another app would work better? Might give a few a whirl tomorrow, bought a good one not long ago, will try it and let you guys know.
This is the app, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.riseupgames.proshot2
Has buttons similar to a DSLR.
richii0207 said:
What do you mean by storage performance? What kind of scenario in your case?
Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
emmc (HTC) vs usf (what Samsung uses.)
Reads are 35% faster on the S7. Writes are much faster on the HTC10 due to great SLC write cache, but far less important than read speed, in my book.
This improves not only general performance, but file transfers to your computer (real world example: get photos off device without cloud)
Sent from my HTC6545LVW using XDA-Developers mobile app
meringo said:
emmc (HTC) vs usf (what Samsung uses.)
Reads are 35% faster on the S7. Writes are much faster on the HTC10 due to great SLC write cache, but far less important than read speed, in my book.
This improves not only general performance, but file transfers to your computer (real world example: get photos off device without cloud)
Sent from my HTC6545LVW using XDA-Developers mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand that internal storage is faster on the S7, but I asked for a SCENARIO that affects YOU to the point where the speed of that difference shows.
Moving files such as movies, photos, and music to your internal storage seems a bit silly when you have an sd slot.
Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk
I feel like I can take decent to great pictures BUT the phone sometimes has a hard time focusing unless you tap on the screen. If you were trying to take a picture of something quick, most likely it will be blurry. And yeah, I do clean my lenses more than usual. This is my only problem with this phone. I came from a S6E and that phone had a great camera
too bad it's crippled with touchwiz and yes, it still lags from time to time.
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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Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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/
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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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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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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
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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.
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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