Nokia Pureview looks like a failure

[desura]

Basically, if you look up comparisons between the Nokia Pureview and the Apple iPhone for pictures, it's a toss-up. The Pureview at best is marginally better on some things, but it is one of those things that requires close examination, not something that's obvious from a glance.

Meanwhile, the Pureview sensor must be massively expensive relative to other cameras since it's such a unique sensor size/denisty, the extra processing required (dithering from 40 mpxl to 5mpxl) slows down responsiveness, and it is physically bigger on the phone.

 

[shortylickens]

Its success or failure is determined by how well they sell it, not how good it is.

 

[desura]

Its success or failure is determined by how well they sell it, not how good it is.

Yes, I guess as a marketing thing, the Nokia Pureview is a big plus. but in terms of just technology it looks like the massively complicated approach doesn't really pay off.

 

[shortylickens]

Yes, I guess as a marketing thing, the Nokia Pureview is a big plus. but in terms of just technology it looks like the massively complicated approach doesn't really pay off.

nope.


thats why we have tech forums. I wanna know how stuff works outside of the advertising and lies and hype.

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

Sure, picture quality can be subjective, but according to this, the difference is not really marginal:
http://www.gsmarena.com/six_way_camera_shootout-review-998.php

It's the low light performance that's important. I am not taking nearly as many photos of flowers and trees as I am of family and friends indoors.

 

[Deeko]

The 1020 is pretty clearly the superior camera; the iPhone is just a little easier to use. Snobs on tech sites are always quick to try to frame a product as a "failure" - its the best smartphone camera available, so by technical analysis it is clearly not a failure. Sales wise? I guess that depends on Nokia's internal sales projections and what they actually gained or lost while developing pureview technology.

 

[StrangerGuy]

The 1020 is pretty clearly the superior camera; the iPhone is just a little easier to use. Snobs on tech sites are always quick to try to frame a product as a "failure" - its the best smartphone camera available, so by technical analysis it is clearly not a failure. Sales wise? I guess that depends on Nokia's internal sales projections and what they actually gained or lost while developing pureview technology.

The most indepth review of the 1020 I have come across praises the camera as vastly superior technically compared to virtually every phone out there, but falls flat when coming to the actual results.

 

[pantsaregood]

I haven't seen anything but praise for the Lumia 1020's camera.

Except for a CNET review that got posted. I completely discounted that review, since the reviewer had no idea how to even use the phone.

 

[biostud]

Maybe not an objective site but still.

Nokia Lumia 1020 — six months with the best smartphone camera

http://www.wpcentral.com/nokia-lumia-1020-half-year-later

 

[desura]

Maybe I was wrong then. Thanks for the links, guys.

What I'm really really curious about is how the pureview approach compares to cameras with sensors similar in size to it. it is a 1/1.5" while the Canon S110 is 1/1.7"

How do they compare...?

 

[desura]

BTW, this is the link I based the OP on

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/ph...020-vs-olympus-e-pl5-1174823/2#articleContent

 

[openwheel]

Lumia 1020 camera is superior to the camera found in iPhone.

 

[crashtestdummy]

What I'm really really curious about is how the pureview approach compares to cameras with sensors similar in size to it. it is a 1/1.5" while the Canon S110 is 1/1.7"

How do they compare...?

This is really your best bet for a sense of comparison. It's not comprehensive. There's a lot optically that you can do with a DSLR that you can't do with a phone camera, but in terms of raw image quality, it looks to be about 6-8 years behind DSLR tech.

 

[notposting]

Also, Pureview the name is not just that phone camera (the original 808 or the 1020 41mp versions). They have been using it for the high end series as well: 920, 925, 928, Icon, and 1520. The midrange phones don't get the Pureview moniker for their cameras. It was explained somewhere around 920 launch that they would be using Pureview for the ones with something premium -- for most of those, it's the OIS. The 925, Icon, 1020, and 1520 all have 6 lens optics. 928 and 1020 have xenon flash.

The reframing ability of the 1020 (and to a lesser extent, the 1520 and Icon) and the ability to downsample those to 5 mp clear shots is pretty impressive. Add in RAW shooting as well.

But it's 50/50 as to whether my wife gets an iPhone or a WP when she finally goes to a smartphone someday (she does have an iPod Touch).

 

[IamDavid]

I take 100's of pictures a week and all but given away my DSLR in place of my 1020. I've wanted to move to another phone but I won't be able to until another one comes along with the same results. My wife and I had the 920, she went with the IP5S, i went to the 1020, she now uses my phone when taking pictures of the kids and definitely when recording video.

 

[spyeagleeye]

yes it is, because it not only compatible with the other devices but also too slow.

 

[bearxor]

I take 100's of pictures a week and all but given away my DSLR in place of my 1020. I've wanted to move to another phone but I won't be able to until another one comes along with the same results. My wife and I had the 920, she went with the IP5S, i went to the 1020, she now uses my phone when taking pictures of the kids and definitely when recording video.

The 1020 was nice, but it screamed first-gen product problems. Really looking forward to whatever the successor is.

 

[notposting]

The 1020 was nice, but it screamed first-gen product problems. Really looking forward to whatever the successor is.

The lag definitely needs to be worked on. I hope with the Nokiasoft integration it may help them get the low level DSP integration they will need to handle the data.

Don't expect it to be as fast as an iP5S, but it certainly could be optimized a lot. Might require a dedicated fast memory buffer as well. I dunno

I *really really really* hope Microkia dumps the whole custom and exclusive variants and does phones across carriers (I want my Verizon model ).

 

[Belegost]

The lag definitely needs to be worked on. I hope with the Nokiasoft integration it may help them get the low level DSP integration they will need to handle the data.

Don't expect it to be as fast as an iP5S, but it certainly could be optimized a lot. Might require a dedicated fast memory buffer as well. I dunno

I *really really really* hope Microkia dumps the whole custom and exclusive variants and does phones across carriers (I want my Verizon model ).

The problem, as I understand it, was that the DSP the 1020 uses cannot natively support operations on 40MPs of data, I think it was designed for up to 20MP. To process 40MP Nokia had to write custom software to either do processing on the main processor, or to block up the image and present it to the DSP in multiple stages and reassemble after. Either method is going to take longer.

The good news is that the new snapdragon 805 is claiming at least 1GP/second of processing throughput on the imaging DSP (I think around a factor of 8 improvement on the older one in the 1020, but I can't find data on it right now) This should allow Nokia to run all the processing directly on DSP and hugely speed things up.

Now if they will just make it in cyan. The low end models have lots of color options, but the 1020 noooo just yellow, white, and black. I like my cyan 920

 

[IeraseU]

The problem, as I understand it, was that the DSP the 1020 uses cannot natively support operations on 40MPs of data, I think it was designed for up to 20MP. To process 40MP Nokia had to write custom software to either do processing on the main processor, or to block up the image and present it to the DSP in multiple stages and reassemble after. Either method is going to take longer.

I remember reading about this problem. In fact, I remember one particular reviewer mentioning that Nokia should have used a custom chip just for image processing to remedy the problem.

 

[Lil Frier]

Now if they will just make it in cyan. The low end models have lots of color options, but the 1020 noooo just yellow, white, and black. I like my cyan 920

I personally hate cyan, yellow, and white. I think they're all to effeminate for me. My 920 is black. I wanted to at least CONSIDER red,but the local AT&T store wasn't going to get them in for at least a few days after launch, and waiting was not something I was excited to do.

I'd like to see them offer colors in darker shades, though. They're all extremely light/bright hues, like cyan. They don't offer a dark blue. They're allegedly going to bring out a green 1520, and it'll probably be that lime-ish, bright green that they had the 520 (I think) out in. I'd like to see a darker green as well. The red is fine, though a blood red would have been cooler.

Heck, I'd even take a bright orange at this point. Their flagships basically come in black, maybe red, then a bunch of childish/effeminate colors I wouldn't dream of buying. I'd like some more masculine color options. Granted, I'd probably just put a blue case on it like I did with my 920 (mostly for grip), but I'd like to have the option on the table.

 

[bearxor]

The red one I got was kind of a bright cherry rd. I regretted asking for it. Luckily it didn't work and the replaced it with a black one for me.

 

[magomago]

moral of the thread: pureview is awesome on newer hardware that doesn't have the same amount of lag/delay. its improved performance becomes absolutely EPIC in low light.

 

[theeedude]

Low light performance is what it's all about.
Nokia:

iPhone:

I wouldn't call it marginally better and requiring close examination.

 

[openwheel]

1020's Pureview is simply the best travel camera imo.