The folks over at Engadget have been busy in Finland at many of Nokia’s offices there as part of Nokia World. Late yesterday, they had the opportunity to test out the prototype Lumia 920’s camera and video recording capabilities, pitted against the best smartphones currently out there right now: Samsung’s Galaxy SIII, HTC’s One X, and the Apple iPhone 5.
Hit the break for the results.
First up, they tested out the Lumia 920’s much-debated Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) technology. For that, they built a DIY contraption that securely held the Lumia 920 and another smartphone (GS III, One X, and iPhone 5 in turns) and they were held while the Engadget editor walked through an indoor hallway with steps, and an outdoor carpark.
The results were staggeringly in the Lumia 920’s favour. While there were some visible movements due to the walking motion, the OIS technology tremendously reduced shaking in the video.
Next up, PureView phase two. Just how effective is this new iteration of PureView at snapping low-light shots? For this test, they even threw in the 808 PureView in just for comparison’s sake. While the results were already predictable, it was also surprising to note that the Lumia 920 was even better than the 808 PureView. Of course, the photos were all shot in Automatic mode, and the extensively customisable settings of the 808 PureView would yield potentially better shots, but nevertheless the shots from the Lumia 920 were much better than the competition.
Have a look at more photos in the source links below, as well as the embedded videos where OIS on the Lumia 920 destroys the competition, especially the One X (more ammunition in its increasingly heated WP8 battle, perhaps?)
(Source: Engadget (Video test), (Low-light test))
