GSMArena does a blind survey of cameras...

KeithP

Diamond Member
Jun 15, 2000
5,664
202
106
Yes, many of you correctly guessed which phone is which. The wide-angle lens of the Xperia Z5 proved to be a dead giveaway.

If people are able to guess which photo goes with which device before they vote, the vote is rendered useless. On the same site, they had a survey where they asked their readers which of those three phones they prefer....surprise surprise, the order of the finish came out the same as their "blind" photo survey.

If they were really interested in a blind survey, they need to do a few things...

-They need more phones in the comparison. I would shoot for at least 5.
-They should not tell the people voting which devices are being compared.
-A particular devices photos should NOT be presented in the same order with each picture. In other words, the Galaxy should not always be the first photo presented. The presentation order should be randomized with each new picture subject.
-Finally, there should be no way to tell by looking at a photo's physical characteristics, which device was used. Each picture should have the exact same number of pixels and aspect ratio. Yes, that may involve some altering of the photos but it shouldn't be significant enough to affect picture quality.

Since such a test requires work and careful planning. I doubt many websites would bother. Most are in "shovel out the crap article as fast as possible" mode to their sites.

-KeithP
 

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
If people are able to guess which photo goes with which device before they vote, the vote is rendered useless. On the same site, they had a survey where they asked their readers which of those three phones they prefer....surprise surprise, the order of the finish came out the same as their "blind" photo survey.

If they were really interested in a blind survey, they need to do a few things...

-They need more phones in the comparison. I would shoot for at least 5.
-They should not tell the people voting which devices are being compared.
-A particular devices photos should NOT be presented in the same order with each picture. In other words, the Galaxy should not always be the first photo presented. The presentation order should be randomized with each new picture subject.
-Finally, there should be no way to tell by looking at a photo's physical characteristics, which device was used. Each picture should have the exact same number of pixels and aspect ratio. Yes, that may involve some altering of the photos but it shouldn't be significant enough to affect picture quality.

Since such a test requires work and careful planning. I doubt many websites would bother. Most are in "shovel out the crap article as fast as possible" mode to their sites.

Yeah I don't get it, it's really quite simple. Perhaps not so simple for one person, but for a tech site that does this stuff for a living, it definitely is simple. Not much of a blind test if people can figure it out before its revealed.
 

thilanliyan

Lifer
Jun 21, 2005
12,045
2,261
126
I myself did notice the differences in the aspect ratios, but can honestly say I picked whichever photo I thought was best. IMO most people would do the same.
 

JAG87

Diamond Member
Jan 3, 2006
3,921
3
76
As already stated, nothing blind about this comparison.

They should have cropped each photo for them to have the exact same FOV, and then down-scaled to the lowest common denominator.

And not told people which devices are being compared.

Then you'd have a blind comparison.
 

dawheat

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2000
3,132
93
91
As already stated, nothing blind about this comparison.

They should have cropped each photo for them to have the exact same FOV, and then down-scaled to the lowest common denominator.

And not told people which devices are being compared.

Then you'd have a blind comparison.

Still better than Android Authority who left the actual exif info on the images, had it mentioned in the first couple comments, but still left the poll up unchanged.
 

core2slow

Senior member
Mar 7, 2008
774
20
81
boggles my mind that they just left the picture as-is, aspect ratio and all. Though I'm always partial to GSMArena as they're the probably the only site out there other than AT that really put a lot of effort in their reviews and testings...this was a questionable blind test.
 
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ClockHound

Golden Member
Nov 27, 2007
1,111
219
106
How is this a valid smartphone camera test without even one selfie taken with bad lighting in the bathroom?

Still...it's good to know that the relentless march of technology and marketing has pushed smartphone image capture performance to just slightly above the $100 point and shoot camera level.