Originally posted by dylansalt The Samsung Galaxy S2 is even better!
My son's Galaxy spanks my IP4 in the IQ dept.
I think the jury's out on that. But here's what strikes me. Look at
Features and Specifications - Samsung Galaxy S? II, available at AT&T | Samsung Mobile, or the features/specifications page for
any Android phone. You get, as in this case, the camera features mixed in with discussion of the screen and overall thinness. In the specifications column, the amount of digital zoom is listed as a key feature. In the longer laundry list of camera details, ISO (not "high ISO" or anything, just "ISO") is mixed in with a bunch of random software features ("Online Image Uploading").
Now compare
Apple - iPhone 4S - Shoot amazing photos with the 8MP camera. — "The you-can't-believe-its-on-a-phone-camera". This page actually talks about the
optics (5 elements, f/2.4), touts the sensor tech and
why it's beneficial, and when it mentions the flash, stresses that you
can force it off (rather than pretending that having a built-in flash is somehow awesome rather than an unfortunate necessity.)
It may very well be the case that top Android phones rival the image quality of the iPhone 4 or 4S, but it doesn't seem like any of the Android makers really care about that. They're just hitting the marketing bullet points, badly. Kind of like back a decade ago when suddenly every phone had to play MP3s — you couldn't really tell if the devices were any good from looking at the specs, because making the specs look competitive was the only thing the manufacturers really cared about.
I won't pretend that Apple is some kind of magical company, but it's obvious that they
do place a value on the camera way beyond what any Android maker does.
The Nokia N series was pretty much the only hope for someone who went even beyond that — but given their sad sell-out story, that's pretty much dead in the water. Oh well.