Camera test: iPhone 12 Pro Max vs. Mate 40 Pro vs. Xperia 1 II vs. Galaxy Note20 Ultra

27 November 2020


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Shanti Dope, 28 Nov 2020Not everyone allows unlocking bootloader though. Sometimes ... moreI believe Xiaomi and Huawei also allow users to shoot RAW in all camera modules on their phones from the stock camera apps.

    VectorR, 29 Nov 2020I don't know what are you talking about, sorry. Aggres... moreNot to mention that Pixel 3-5 and iPhone 12 Pro/Pro Max gives you an option to shoot in stacked RAW format which will give extra flexibility to those who are keen to edit their photos extensively. Some people really seem to be obsessed with this stupid "Computational photography = bad" ideology when they never tried out phones with that kind of technology.

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      • Anonymous
      • LHe
      • 29 Nov 2020

      Anonymous, 28 Nov 2020RX100 was already surpassed by 2019 flagships with computat... moreThat's simply not true in any form, all you have to do is use one and the other to see the difference in quality. Computational photography is nothing but a term for autimated amateurish photoshop hack job that you can also do yourself on any image RX100 outputs.

      What people are obsessing with and call falsely dynamic range is HDR photography, something you can as easily do on any RAW output with even greater control and not as amped looking as Samsung, Apple and Huawei do it. What they do reminds me of 2005 HDR photography tone mapping when that look was trendy if you were a Photoshop user. That dirty clouds, bland contrast and sharp high frequency textures look got old real quick. Portrait shots just slam some cheap blur around the subject, they cant even produce proper bokeh, it's way too obvious its fake. Computational photography is very far away from producing proper photography. If it's good for you than fine but it's not good enough to replace physics.

        Shanti Dope, 28 Nov 2020Depends on what you are judging a camera's capabilitie... moreI don't know what are you talking about, sorry. Aggressive HDR, enhanced photos??? HDR can be controlled on Pixel 3 by the way. Apart from a bit contrasty look, I can't see anything artificial, "enhanced" in Google Pixel photos. But what I saw is unnaturally muted, too neutral than reality photos coming from previous Xperia 1 / 5 when I had them on hands. Also I noticed that making any good low light shots from handheld Xperia was pretty much impossibe. I didn't try new Xperias so far but looking at numerous photo samples I see very little improvements, sorry. I believe that Sony's ignorance of computational photography is blatant stupidity considering smartphone lenses size. Proper implemented computational photography does not mean actificially looking photos, you know.

          Samvel , 29 Nov 2020ONE NOTE: Why you guys didn't use the Huawei Mate 40 p... moreDid you seriously expect GSMArena to import ALL of those 3 devices that are extremely hard to get (especially Pro+) even for people living in the mainland China???

            Anonymous, 28 Nov 2020You want a phone using a 44mm2 sensor to outperform the two... moreSony's poor camera performance has nothing to do with sensor size. Pixel 5 with old shitty sensor makes better, true-to-life photos than most modern flagships with huge sensors. Sony ignored the fact that computational photography / proper processing is absolutely necessary due to smartphone lenses size. And computational photography does NOT always mean unnatural, not true-to-life photos at all. Just for fun I've got Pixel 1 for $40 and... it's trashing $790 Xperia 5 in nearly every situation without overdoing HDR. I couldn't believe my eyes!

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              • Anonymous
              • JT5
              • 29 Nov 2020

              hansip87, 29 Nov 2020i wonder how much bokeh can be generated with telephoto mod... moreUnless you select portrait mode, there is no blur.

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                • Anonymous
                • JT5
                • 29 Nov 2020

                Nick Tagataka, 29 Nov 2020It's actually the other way around, RX100 series has h... moreOpen the module of cellphone camera.
                All elements have same shape.
                Cameras have elementes of different shapes to deal with all optical issues.
                Check the scheme of any lens patent to see it.

                JPEG of RX100 is better than jpeg from phones.
                The fact many phones edit the photo after taking it, does not make it any better.
                Just compare both on a decent 4K screen.

                My humble W830 does not have corner softness.
                It does not turn scene into wax, plastic not oil painting like phones.
                It also does not do to grass what iphone does.

                I have seen a 4K video test, new ZV-1 vs s20 ultra.
                Joke compared to real camera.

                  Anonymous, 28 Nov 2020LOL .... Not even RX100 mark I can be outperformed by c... moreIt's actually the other way around, RX100 series has had a 1 inch sensor which is *only* 56-60% larger than the largest sensors used by modern smartphone cameras. RX100 V/VA would win against them IF AND ONLY IF you compare the image quality of a single-frame RAW image setting all parameters equal, but even then VI/VII will struggle gathering more light than most flagship smartphones at the widest end due to its narrow F2.8 aperture.

                  "phones use all elements equal."
                  What do you even mean by this? Of course each of lens elements used by any phone camera is different.

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                    • MrHong
                    • xZI
                    • 29 Nov 2020

                    Pedram10, 29 Nov 2020Only iphone 12 pro max everything perfect and best Doubt that's true, but the result is still solid. Though GsmA did not cover the sensor-shift OIS aspect against other stabilisation in rival phones in this article, which I would really like to see.

                    Samsung is still probably the most balanced in terms of camera and best of all in my opinion. There aren't too many compromises. Don't know if using Snapdragon SoC will improve camera quality or not.

                      i wonder how much bokeh can be generated with telephoto module. don't really care for actual zooming though.

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                        • Anonymous
                        • pj8
                        • 29 Nov 2020

                        Its always hard to forget that these are the same guys who slways punished apple for their advantages like non-removeable battery, even in the 12 mini review they list ridiculous disadvantages: big notch, need better file management, lack of touchID. How many photo flaws were invented, and how many flaws on the others were forgiven? Think back of galaxy note 2 and Galaxy S4, both had very terrible cameras EXCEPT when used in perfect light and in perfect conditions, Xperias and iphones of the same time took a lot better photos on average but the Galaxy models always won here in this bias-site.
                        History proves them wrong, i dont trust this review at all.

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                          • prab
                          • Dkb
                          • 29 Nov 2020

                          @gsmarena
                          In conclusion tab please write which phones are good for particular mode in short lines.

                          Thanks

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                            • Tipu
                            • 8vA
                            • 29 Nov 2020


                            I love Motorola.

                            Tried all including iPhone.

                            I was introduced to Motorola after listening to a friend's suggestion, "Motorola is good bang for the buck, quality is the same as compared with other top brands and it stays away from controversies"...

                            Motorola Turbo 2 with 21 Mega Pixels ram 64gb rom 3GB was the best experience, then I switched to another Motorola having 4gb ROM and the experience is awesome.

                            Sharing for those who need

                              Regedit, 29 Nov 20201). There's nothing "wrong" about my persona... moreI never claimed that your opinion is "wrong" unlike you did to me, though. And the OP acted as if his opinion is a commonly accepted fact and even stated that's what the author said even though there isn't a single sentence that suggests so in this article. He made up some random stuffs so I criticised him for it, simple.

                                Shanti Dope, 28 Nov 2020If one solution doesn't work, then it's best to f... moreThat's the problem, you BELIEVE "for sure" there "would be at least one out there" that "would" work well with Xperia 1 II. IIRC there isn't even a port that has Night Sight for the original Xperia 1 and I can tell that the situation is even worse for the Mk II. If you look around XDA and can't find a single person reporting the latest version of working GCam with all features enabled on threads for Xperia 1/5 series, then it's highly likely that there exists no such port for those devices.

                                  Android Authority, 28 Nov 2020Mi 10 ultra is mighty good. It is offering premium experi... moreWell if its so brilliant, Xiaomi should have released it globally. Marking a Phone exclusive to china and then expecting to be in global comparison is not fair.

                                  and I dont care about the iPhone

                                    Nick Tagataka, 28 Nov 20201). There's nothing "wrong" about my persona... more1). There's nothing "wrong" about my personal opinion, as well. and yes you should have thought the same when you said the same about the OP.
                                    3). Good for Samsung and its fans

                                      JDK, 28 Nov 2020I'm waiting for the iPhone haters to swarm, what about you?You really should do something with your life man, i see you in every apple related review trying so hard to defend every aspect of the iphone:))).

                                      It's pretty lame to be onest, the fanboy thing is so 2010, let people have their own opinons.

                                      If you really like kissing apple feet so much, open a blog, maybe make some money of it, instead of waisting your time arguing for nothing.

                                        YUKI93, 29 Nov 2020If you want to use it as a secondary device, that would be ... moreReally miss refocus and all in focus feature from lumias...
                                        As for single sensor performance, S20/note20 can capture 64mp raw, in hdr with gcam, so I wouldn't go to older hw.

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