5 megapixel face-off: Vox populi

Vox populi

GSMArena team, 05 December 2007.

It's been a while since our last cameraphone shootout and you know how much we love them. With all those 5 megapixel cameraphones around, our hands were just itching to make a grand 5 megapixel face-off with as many of the current 5 megapixel cameraphones as possible. The stars in this episode of our Shootout series are the Nokia N95 8GB, Sony Ericsson K850, Samsung G600, and LG KU990 Viewty.

They are all final retail versions, so odds are they will put their best effort to all make a run for the gold.

The Nokia N95 8GB is the revamped edition of the extremely popular Nokia smartphone. It features the same 5 megapixel camera and it also has the same image processing that we saw with the latest firmware version of the Nokia N95 classic - that means a little bit less sharpening and a lot more speed. The camera lens no longer has a cover, so always take good care of cleaning your lens. With the N95 you can count on good-quality VGA video recoded at 30 fps.

The Sony Ericsson K850 is the descendant of a much-admired line of highly successful cameraphones. Among the winning hardware features of this baby are the top-of-the-line xenon flash, the fast user interface and the integrated accelerometer allowing image auto-rotation. Video is not among its strong sides and probably that handed N95 the win in the last 5 megapixel shootout that we held - it was a close call however.

The Samsung G600 is another really popular 5 megapixel cameraphone. It's compact, it's stylish, and it's cheaper than the rest of the pack. It's also the single one of our contenders that doesn't have 3G support. The Samsung G600 however features the latest and most mature Samsung interface to-date. It also offers enough of the other essential goodies to be your money's worth.

The last in line is LG KU990 Viewty - a cameraphone with an oblique name that has several unique features. It sports a fully touch-based Flash user interface and features a fashionable Prada-esque looks. The 3-inch widescreen display serves as a viewfinder of a camera that allows manual focusing, flaunts sensitivity of up to ISO 800 and in the same time - a camcorder that can capture video at up to 120 fps (that's great slow motion clips for you).

So while we're working on this shootout we decided to give you the opportunity to play a bigger part in this edition.

We've prepared a brand-free test where you vote for the best image results without knowing which cameraphone produced it.

The images taken with the cameraphones are marked as A, B, C, and D. There's no connection whatsoever between the letters and the contenders (the order of the letters doesn't match the order of our presentation up so far). The only thing you can be sure of is that the A pictures are all made with one and the same cameraphone - the same holds true for the rest of the letters.

Spoiler alert!

Contenders finally revealed. You can find their real identities on page 2 of this article. There you can also see how other users voted. However if you want to give your judgement a test, steer clear of page 2 until you've assessed the images.

But enough small talk, let's get on to it. Browse the images, and have your say about how those letters should be ranked in terms of image quality. We will be rolling the results along with the whole nine yards of a shootout within a week or two.


Cameraphone A • Cameraphone B • Cameraphone C • Cameraphone D • 100% crops


Cameraphone A • Cameraphone B • Cameraphone C • Cameraphone D • 100% crops


Cameraphone A • Cameraphone B • Cameraphone C • Cameraphone D • 100% crops


Cameraphone A • Cameraphone B • Cameraphone C • Cameraphone D • 100% crops


Cameraphone A • Cameraphone B • Cameraphone C • Cameraphone D • 100% crops


Cameraphone A • Cameraphone B • Cameraphone C • Cameraphone D • 100% crops


Cameraphone A • Cameraphone B • Cameraphone C • Cameraphone D • 100% crops

Reader comments

  • Sdt
  • 10 Nov 2010
  • 2F2

The k850 was a pre-release unit guy unless u all didn't notice so may be because of that the results are like this. Moreover how many countless times has SE beaten nokia before.eg k750 vs n90or n70

  • yogan
  • 04 Jul 2009
  • wHU

hey guys ,, im using K850i,, its not bad,, i flashed it,, change the camera driver,, and its fuc*king rock man,, its the prefect cyber-shot

  • Anonymous
  • 29 Jun 2009
  • MUj

Samsung G600 shouldn't be on a second place because it oversharpens image and makes staircase effect which looks really bad.