Huawei joins Android elite with pricey, nocturnal 40MP flagship Over the years, very few phone makers other than Samsung have produced a phone that might tempt an iPhone stalwart to switch to Android, but Huawei may have just joined the elite. Huawei’s new flagship threatens to match or best any rival with its photography - particularly in low light. The Chinese giant took the wraps off …
I have got some really nice photos from phones that none of my DSLRs could get, mainly because I always carry the phone and the DSLRs were at home at the time I saw the shot.
Yes you can get better cameras than a phone one, but most of them will be more bulky than a phone and usually not around at the time and likely draw more attention than a phone when you take photos.
+1000, back in 2005 I "invested" in one of the first ever megapixel ( well 1.3 ) camera phones a sanyo m570. the reason, was we'd just had our daughter and whilst I had a great camera I knew I'd always have my phone and I have hundreds of OK, not great quality pictures but i HAVE pictures that I wouldn't have if I'd set myself only to use my camera.
"Can someone tell me how much a standalone compact camera, of similar size and with similar image quality, would cost?"
Well my SLR cost about the same, but that only gets taken out on special occasions or for deliberate photography sessions... The rest of the time it's my phone that's the main camera for photos of kids and random things when out and about.
Like it or hate it, having a decent camera on your phone is extremely convenient and it's how most images are taken these days... People who rate that as an important feature are more likely to pay the extra... I'm not really one of those people anymore, most smartphone cameras are "good enough" to me now.
A lot less cash
.. Because physics
Yes super sensitive and high density sensors can do amazing stuff with a small amount of light
But a "proper camera" has a massive lens in comparison to a phone, so even with more "low tech" sensors and image processing the huge (in comparison) amount of light more than compensates - so as long as fairly recent tech in a new compact camera then it will be better, but beware compacts using old tech.
But the image processing tech improvements do make a difference, especially when you compare old tech to new: I have a (very in tech change terms) old Nikon DSLR body and some very nice quality zoom lenses (that were back i the day used on a "film" SLR body).
Over a year ago the camera was being put through its paces with a few days of wildlife photography (often the "targets" quite distant, moving at speed).
I got some nice pics, but (at the time quite new) bridge camera was used by one of my friends (bridge has inbuilt (non changeable) lens, significantly smaller than smallest of my lenses, but as "new" (at the time) far better electronic "wizardry"): The resolution of comparable images was far better with his camera, as was focus / image stabilization on (hand shot - non tripod mounted) small targets at speed, showing that although light gathering is key (all things being equal) that the tech makes a difference and new tech can outperform low tech even when that low tech has better optics *.
It is very impressive seeing the improvements in image processing tech in digital kit over the years
* improvement more visible on JPEG images, as bridge had far beter conversion algorithm / tech, but bridge advantage still visible on RAW so not just an artifact of image format.
It's like a rundown of everythingI don't care about in a phone.
Even-more-stupendously-ridiculous camera features that I'll never use, and more cameras to use them on.
Stupid display ratio and "follow the crowd" design nonsense.
Slow-mo video, so people can piss about doing things that are totally useless for even more time.
No removable storage or battery.
No headphone jack.
LUDICROUS price.
"You would think they are deliberately copying Apple and their stupidly expensive iphone X with this. Hang on ........"
The P20 Pro will be on sale on the High St, SIM-free and unlocked, for £799, which is £200 cheaper than the X. So not quite so stupidly expensive, and it's hardly the only option out there. The P20 Pro is Huawei saying "look what we can do", and I for one see far more potential here than in animated turds or personalised emoji (*). This tech has useful real-world ramifications which will filter into mainstream devices in a couple of years.
(*) Google's AR Stickers excepted, 'cos photographing your 6 year-old nephew next to an Imperial Stormtrooper makes you the best uncle evar! :-)
The P20 Pro will be on sale on the High St, SIM-free and unlocked, for £799, which is £200 cheaper than the X.
£799. I can (and have) bought a decent secondhand car and a decent brand new phone for less than that. Being £200 cheaper than something that's already ludicrously overpriced is a fairly lukewarm achievement.
@ian Michael Gumby:"... you're getting in to the true cost of the phone itself."
Not even close. An iPhone X 64Gb that retails for $999 costs $370* to make. That's some SERIOUS markup but reports suggest that the X's sales are disappointing with Apple slashing production.
The problem for Huawei is that if people can't be persuaded to spend a grand on a phone from a 'premium' brand like Apple, they're sure not gonna throw down 800 or 900 on a Huawei.
*http://news.ihsmarkit.com/press-release/technology/iphone-x-costs-apple-370-materials-ihs-markit-teardown-reveals
>The gobsmacking photos it can take in low light are partly down to the hardware, and partly down to “AI image stabilisation”, with the phone taking an eight-second exposure then weeding out artefacts and blur. I’m not sure why it’s called AI when really it’s interpolation, but that’s modern tech marketing for you.
The reason is that before you interpolate you really should align the separate pictures, otherwise your interpolation becomes just another blur. You need to identify and then align common points or landmarks. This process is called stacking and has been used in astro-photography for years and year. The aligning is hard, otherwise all phone cameras would have had this the last 15 years. And this is where an AI might do the job.
If it has two sim slots, seems fairly common for phones in Asia to offer two SIM slots with the 2nd slot doubling as SD card slot if you don't want to use a 2nd SIM.
I could understand more dropping SD card if they lacked the 2nd SIM slot entirely. 128GB of storage may be passable for not having SD card.
My ~4 year old Note 3s which are my daily drivers have 128GB and 256GB SD cards. Storing thousands of pictures on those SD cards is slow but for tons of HD video it works well in combination with MHL for HDMI TVs when traveling(I have a Note 4 that I bring along on travel as well with another 256GB SD card). To think the phone I had before the Note 3 with (at the time) 96GB total flash(32GB base + 64GB SD), was a HP Pre3 with 8GB total flash(no SD card).
My SD cards, like my removable batteries aren't things that are swapped often, I change batteries probably once per year(to new battery), and SD card at this rate every 2 years(to larger size).
"...very few phone makers other than Samsung have produced a phone that might tempt an iPhone stalwart to switch to Android..."
Apple themselves did.
Their iPhone 7 caused me to replace the iPhone 4S with a lovely Asus Zenfone 3.
I wouldn't have even looked at the Android ecosystem if the iPhone 7 hadn't omitted the headphone socket.
Thank you Apple. I had no idea that the transition was so painless and the grass so green.
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KM complained, "...no headphone jack yet there's room for FOUR CAMERAS."
The iPhone 7 actually does have room for a headphone socket, as so convincingly demonstrated by the wonderful 'Strange Parts' gentleman on YouTube who, as an individual geek, retrofitted a headphone socket into the iPhone in a perfectly professional manner.
Point being, if he can do it, then Apple could have done it.
The *only* reason left standing is that Apple would prefer to have the several billions of dollars in wireless earbuds sales revenue to stash in the Cayman Islands.
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