LG KG920 vs. SE K800 vs. Nokia N73: One more photo shootout

Outdoor photos

LG KG920 (full) • Sony Ericsson K800 (full) • Nokia N73 (full) • crops

The first thing we notice on this set of photos is the yellowish cast of the KG920 photos. The resolution advantage is here, but it's not as pronounced as in the previous samples. Sony Ericsson K800 shows the most accurate colors. Nokia N73 has troubles with the high contrast scene this time - look at the arcs, they are overexposed and snow white.

LG KG920 (full) • Sony Ericsson K800 (full) • Nokia N73 (full) • crops

First, let's look at the tree branches on this photo. Nokia N73 manages to show more resolution than K800 here and it's very close to KG920. Looking at how sharp the images from N73 are we start thinking that it just doesn't have a low-pass filter installed, or it's somehow tweaked. The low-pass filter exists in one form or another on almost all digital cameras; it improves the image quality in several ways, for example eliminating jagged edges, moiré and color shifting. The down side of the low-pass filter is that softens the image.

None of the phones in the tests managed to get the colors of this scene right. The real colors looked somewhat like the result of Nokia N73, but a lot less saturated. In fact the colors of N73 are so much saturated that the train looks like it comes from an animation movie. LG KG920 shows again yellow cast, while the K800 results are slightly reddish.

LG KG920 • Sony Ericsson K800 • Nokia N73 • crops

LG KG920 • Sony Ericsson K800 • Nokia N73 • crops

These two sets of images show almost exactly the same results as above.

 

LG KG920 • Sony Ericsson K800 • Nokia N73 • crops

Naturally, the image from KG920 looks smoother than the 3 megapixel cameras, but we just can't find any real resolution advantage over them. Sony Ericsson K800 presents this scene better than Nokia N73 - it shows the correct colors and handles the highlights in a more natural way.

LG KG920 • Sony Ericsson K800 • Nokia N73 • crops

Here again the Sony Ericsson K800 gets the colors right and shows about the same resolution as Nokia N73. LG KG920 gains some advantage over the previous image - it seems the closer the object, the better it performs.

 

LG KG920 • Sony Ericsson K800 • Nokia N73 • crops

LG KG920 shows good results here, you can see the resolution advantage in the crops. Both K800 and N73 shows also good results for their class, but look at the purple color between the branches in the Nokia N73 photo - maybe this sharpness comes at a price?