We’ve seen the HTC One go up against some of the best smartphones in the market under various lighting conditions, but if there is one area where the Ultrapixel camera on the HTC One should excel, it is under low-light conditions. As such, we pitted the HTC One against two of the best smartphone cameras in the market: the Apple iPhone 5 and naturally the Nokia Lumia 920 (with the new Portico update installed).
Similar to our earlier shootout, all smartphones were set to the same settings and without any manual adjustments. All images in each scenario were also taken within seconds of each other for consistency. Find out how each smartphone fared after the jump.
Open images in new tabs for full-res shots.
Indoor Low Light, Automatic, No Flash
HTC One
Nokia Lumia 920
Apple iPhone 5
Indoor Low Light, Macro (where applicable), No Flash
HTC One
Nokia Lumia 920
Apple iPhone 5
Outdoor Low Light, Automatic, No Flash
HTC One
Nokia Lumia 920
Apple iPhone 5
Outdoor Low Light, Automatic, No Flash
HTC One
Nokia Lumia 920
Apple iPhone 5
From the test images above, it is clear that there is no clear winner in this low-light shootout. Firstly, while images shot on the iPhone 5 may not be the brightest and are certainly noisier, they had the most accurate representation of the ambient light in the area.
What about the Lumia 920? While the PureView sensor is indeed highly capable in low light conditions, it continues to struggle with white balance – which is evident in our indoor shots, where the ambient light was from incandescent light bulbs. Also, the Lumia 920 is guilty of taking in too much light – as is evident in the outdoor landscape image. We took the shot at around 7.30pm, but the image looked more like it was shot at 7.30am.
What is evident, though, is that the Ultrapixel camera does indeed capture a lot of light – just as HTC said it would. The sensor strikes a good balance in capturing enough ambient light without overexposing the image, which makes for a good low-light shot – even if the resulting image is sorely lacking in detail (which also plagues images shot in normal lighting). While the Ultrapixel is capable of relatively good images in any lighting condition, those who wish for a more capable camera may end up felling very underwhelmed with its low-resolution shots.
what? put in the Nokia Pureview i dare you guys.
Our review Unit was taken back a while ago =) I do think that the 808 will outperform the HTC One in the camera front though… The Xperia Z and the ZL use the same camera so the result will be similar
and please COMPRESS your web photos. dont put up 2.7 megs of individual pics wei.
lets put in Pureview 808 and Xperia Z, then we shall see again. the ultra pixel thing is overhyped by HTC, as usual and always.
@Tareh: We are fixing that tomorrow! Sorry about that! =)
EDIT: Fixed!
It seem HTC One provide us the most accurate and less distraction photos based on above example. Good review guy!
i like htc one image..warm and didn’t capture too much light as 920 cam. as for iphone5 came, no comment, 1st 2 seems good, last image seems too dark. just 2 cents from someone who didn’t know the actual area image is captured
@Lucas good to hear that man. that page alone was about 11 megs. my Digi mobile net was ststststutering trying to load that page. cheers man and good job!
The HTC One clearly won this one. Too bad it’s android.
lumia 920 has more accurate white balance for 1st and 2cd shot, but shutter too slow will spoil the picture…
@Nouda How is that a bad thing?
Clearly, HTC One’s ultrapixels has been over-hyped.
Really nothing outstanding (no wow) from the pics taken by HTC One.
I think this test is not accurate, you should take exact same picture, using all auto settings.
meaning, having the exact same picture angle and all.
its a good start, but not accurate results.
Thanks for the suggestion! While it is pretty difficult to replicate the exact same picture given the difference in focal length of the cameras, the settings were all set to as Auto and similar as possible. However, I do agree that next time we will need to take note of these things to even greater detail (4:3 vs 16:9 for example).
Really appreciate your comments!
Iphone 5 has too much noise
@Lucas 920 not using 4:3 to capture?
I think the One has been set to wide, not 4:3 =(
I would prefer results from dxomark.com
These tests doesnt prove that a camera is better than the other. This only means the auto setting is different in different situations. Thats why we have to adjust the camera manually to get the correct photos each time differrently.
That’s a very good point Syaheer! I will agree with you on that, however for the majority of mobile phone users, the Auto function is what stays on most of the time… I’ll do some more tests =)
iPhone wins. Enough said. HTC One was like meh… 920, I mean come on, the colors look so fake. iPhone has noise because it can capture more details!!!
What’s the details that Iphone has? LOL
maybe you need to use a tripod…the importance is pics were taken from the same spot under closest time difference as possible. then same resolution & ratio.
would be good to have a calibrated monitor as well.