Peter wrote:
by selling a 128GB phone for £1200
256gb, but yes, get your point. There’s also a 256gb iPhone 8 for £849.
Peter wrote:
One could have done noise reduction in Lightroom, on the Samsung shot, but why is the Nokia so much better?I’m scratching my head over this result too. Both have the same pixel size 1.4 um. This guy did in more detail what you did, but with the same result.
Peter wrote:
there is no denying that phone camera quality has gone backwardsI tend to disagree purely for reason that I don’t consider the Nokia 808 a phone. It’s a compact camera that can make phone calls. The others are smartphones with a camera.
and there is definite progress but not with the order of magnitude we would like to see.
I ended up buying iPhone 7 128Gb for £580 pound recently. The “8” and “X” don’t offer the added value in my opinion for the extra money.
I tend to disagree purely for reason that I don’t consider the Nokia 808 a phone
It depends on one’s usage. The 808:
Justine has the 1020 (the windows version of the 808, same camera as the 808 but instead of a dedicated graphics processor it uses the phone’s processor). To re-use above table:
But very few new apps now.
The 808 was fine for e.g. EuroGA and any “basic” well-behaved websites. Unfortunately Autorouter uses some framework (code library) which does weird things which work only on Safari, Chrome and Firefox. But then that is the modern trend, and FF will soon be abandoned by web programmers as it now makes only about 10%.
The S7 is faster in use, despite running Java apps In this respect, 7 years makes a difference.
Ultimately the 808’s death was sealed by the reluctance of most N European phone shops to stock it. One reason I heard was that the great camera would detract from the phones they were then trying to sell (year 2011… relatively crap ones) and Symbian was rapidly becoming too obscure. Mine came from the Far East.
I now get reasonably acceptable results from the S7, via the RAW → Lightroom route. But will this improve in the next few years? I don’t think so. And I think this is the key to the topic title. DSLRs have advanced, phones have got stuck.
Ha, so in fact it’s a moving target Question: do DSLR’s need to be as good as they are today, or is a DSLR of 7 years ago acceptable as “DSLR target” for the millions of new smartphones?
Think about it: In 2016 11 mln DSLR’s were sold. Apple alone is putting 1 million iPhone 8 & X’s in peoples hands every day with a very advanced, very portable camera.
Have we just seen the next development appear? Variable aperture ‘announced’ for the Samsung S9. The lens has a stunning f/1.5 fast aperture, but can apparently switch to a f/2.4 in an instant.
What will that do? Just gives you a greater depth of field, but phones already have too much of that in most cases. A smaller aperture also reduces the effect of lens imperfections.
Peter wrote:
What will that do?
Let in less light. Your reading it the way the marketing guys wants you too 
I am reading it, we are using technology from 19th century because we are constrained by the same physics they had back then.
It all seems totally pointless to me. Two lenses, and a reduced aperture… Why not just put in a decent sensor and a decent big lens? I think they can’t, in the thickness.
There are still people buying the 808 on Ebay, just to get a good pocket camera which does some other stuff. I can see why, since nobody ever made a pocket camera with decent wireless functionality (gsm, wifi, bluetooth, etc).
Peter wrote:
It all seems totally pointless to me. Two lenses, and a reduced aperture… Why not just put in a decent sensor and a decent big lens?
Peter wrote:
[Larger aperture] gives you a greater depth of field, but phones already have too much of that in most cases.Not at all. It would be one of the few reasons I’d select a DSLR over my smartphone camera. To have awesome portrait pictures utilizing depth of field.
A lower f-number will allow more room to play with depth of field. Hence it’s nice they’ve pushed to f/1.5 on smartphones now. Hopefully even further in the future.
DSLR’s already had become less relevant in this area due to portrait mode! Faster apertures will add to this.
The other situation I’d select a DSLR would be low light shots with (fast) action. Mind you that a faster aperture helps the smartphone camera there too. If I’m correct this aperture lets in 30% more light compared to the previous f/1.7…?
