TEST: Is the Nokia 808 PureView's camera any good in 2021?
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- Rkm
- DkZ
- 18 Jul 2021
That nokia lens was really good. Look at that 'joy station' full resolution sample. The billboards on that building is better resolving on the nokia despite it having lower pixels. That '100% pure grain' is actually legible.
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- beep bop boop
- cNP
- 18 Jul 2021
Nick Tegrataker, 18 Jul 2021Key takeaways: - Nokia 808 handles fine details much more ... moreit really shows just how advanced mobile technology has become, from software to hardware. its just crazy...
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- Shui8
- KZK
- 18 Jul 2021
kek, 18 Jul 2021I'm just gonna say that those "Night" photos... moreI call it mostly underexposed & darker than the real scene, given how 808 capable of. MiU on the other hand, brighter than the real scene.
That is how people value its low light capabilities. MiU can easily adjust the exposure & shadow later on without touching its details preservation to match the real scene, while 808 cannot, any brighter details will results with artifacts.
Let say in actual camera world, both Sony a7 & a7Siii are full frame, but a7Siii low light capabilities are way higher, brighter & better ISO performance. Does that make a7Siii unnatural & bad? Nope.
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- kek
- GBh
- 18 Jul 2021
I'm just gonna say that those "Night" photos from the 808 are probably how the scene looked in reality, overall.
Just look at the comparison in the wall photo: In the Mi 11, the wall seems all lighted up, like if it had a huge light over it.
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- IpsDisplay
- ri0
- 18 Jul 2021
Davy Jones, 18 Jul 2021At this time the innovation in camera phone department has ... moreNonsense low light still needs tones of work, both in photography and video
Zoom is STILL not truly variable, and the truly variable zoom range to come won't be the most mature
We haven't even touched the surface of machine learning with cameras yet
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- Anonymous
- fFA
- 18 Jul 2021
Well written article ... And I am impressed that Xiaomi able to improve their images processing through update ... Much better than earlier review unit.
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- Anonymous
- Khs
- 18 Jul 2021
May i have the image in 'final words' , it is really good as wallpaper
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- Nick Tegrataker
- Xpf
- 18 Jul 2021
Nick Tegrataker, 18 Jul 2021Key takeaways: - Nokia 808 handles fine details much more ... more*Mi 11 Ultra also lets you shoot in RAW
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- Nick Tegrataker
- Xpf
- 18 Jul 2021
Key takeaways:
- Nokia 808 handles fine details much more leniently than Mi 11 Ultra which is already known to be really good at doing so, giving its photos almost unprocessed RAW-like look. Mi 11 Ultra's shots are sharper but look a bit more processed in comparison.
-N808's tonal development in darker regions is richer than Mi11U's. Mi11U fails to retain colours in extreme shadows and ends up desaturating them, whereas N808 keeps the gradient really natural.
-N808 underexposes in most shots and suffers greatly from lack of dynamic range, an area Mi11U excels at due to many factors including sensor's built-in HDR.
-In full resolution mode, N808 and Mi11U suffer from lens softness and Quad Bayer remosaicing artifacts respectively - So N808 struggles to capture very fine lines that Mi11U can, but Mi11U cannot render high frequency details turning them into less pleasant wormy patterns.
-After the sun goes down, N808 just cannot compete with Mi11U at all. Mi11U's faster lens, OIS, BSI sensor with dual native ISO and much more computationally capable ISP mean it reigns supreme over N808 in pretty much any low light scenes no matter which mode you use (Even if you disable night mode/switch ot full res mode). N808 shots are borderline unusable thanks to soft details, a high noise level as well as a serious underexposure issue.
-When it comes to video.. which phone do you prefer, the one that is capped at FHD 30fps or the one which you can go all the way up to 8K 30fps? The latter again has significantly wider dynamic range and can capture decent footage in low light while stabilising them as well, by the way.
Conclusion:
Nokia 808 was the best camera phone when it was released, and still does better than 99% of the phones released this year when it comes to capturing small textures in the most ideal conditions (Well lit environment but no extreme dynamic range).. but it falls apart quickly once you get out of the comfort zone. Mi 11 Ultra is clearly more sensible choice due to how much easier it is to capture great photos in auto, and if you're into manually editing photos afterwards, Mi 11 Ultra can also lets you shoot in RAW in all of the 3 lenses through the feature-rich manual mode.
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- Shui8
- KZK
- 18 Jul 2021
This comparison just debunk the bias 'WillItBeatNokia' Youtuber.
* Safely choose environment that wont exposed Nokia weakness
* Give score point to Nokia eventhough the better part are the other phone
Nokia still the best on its era though. But the hardware & image algorithm is ancient compared to today's tech.
Great job, GSMarena! 👌🏻👍🏻
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- jamalu96
- QyF
- 18 Jul 2021
AnonD-986036, 18 Jul 2021For a quick reminder, the Nokia has a 41MP 1/1.2-inch senso... moreThe modern smartphone image sensors have four sub pixels grouped together. That is RRRR, GGGG, BBBB, GGGG. When binning it is 1 pixel and otherwise by combining the neighbouring sub pixel it is 4 pixels.
The old Nokia 808(and HTC One M9, 20MP) had regular RGBG sub pixel layout. Still they combines neighbour pixels for binning for 8MP, 5MP outputs.
- SuuperBaka
- q}I
- 18 Jul 2021
I really wish Nokia would drop another phone like this. I would love to have something like this especially now with better processing than the 1 GHz single-core processor it had.
Such a shame they got destroyed from the inside
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- Anonymous
- Lj$
- 18 Jul 2021
OhNom, 18 Jul 2021"Wtf ??? First they said it was a Bayer filter, not a ... moreQuadbayer does not "group " pixels.
4 are read out as one.
They are always physically together , each 4 of them under same colour filter.
They do not switch positions to get together.
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- Mikey
- nC2
- 18 Jul 2021
Thanks for this comparison. Much appreciated.
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- Anonymous
- Lj$
- 18 Jul 2021
Geeeez gsma, again saying 808 uses binning.
It is downsampling.
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- Davy Jones
- rKw
- 18 Jul 2021
At this time the innovation in camera phone department has been saturated
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- Anonymous
- pQr
- 18 Jul 2021
OhNom, 18 Jul 2021"Wtf ??? First they said it was a Bayer filter, not a ... moreYes, Quad Bayer phones use analog pixel binning whereas the 808 used digital pixel binning which is nothing else than resizing. Digital pixel binning is basically the same effect as looking at a photo from a higher distance. From a higher distance you can't see the noise in a photo. The same thing happens when a photo is resized. The resolution gets so low that you can't see the noise. So you don't really gain anything in contrast to analog pixel binning, which reduces read noise. Digital pixel binning does not reduce the total read noise of an image.