HTC One vs Nokia Lumia 925 Camera Comparison

HTC One camera vs Nokia Lumia 925 camera

Smartphone camera technology is becoming increasingly focused on improving low light photography and new methods for addressing this are touted as major selling points for both the Lumia 925 and the HTC One.

While other manufacturers have increased the pixel count in their sensors as much as possible, Nokia and HTC have taken the attitude that it’s not about how many megapixels you have, but how you use them.

Nokia has already released its own samples comparing the 925 against other handsets (including the HTC One), but we’ll provide some comparison photos once we’ve had a chance to take them on both the One and the 925. In the meantime, let’s have a look at how the two compare on paper.

Terminology

At this stage we’ll just take a moment to explain the various camera-related phrases that you’ll often hear when these two handsets are discussed.

The Lumia 925 includes Nokia’s ‘PureView’ technology. This refers to Nokia’s attitude towards providing the best possible camera technology, rather than a specific set of hardware features.

The PureView brand was first launched with the Nokia 808 PureView handset, but the PureView technology used in the 808 is not the same as the PureView technology used in the likes of the Lumia 920 and 925. Slightly confusing, but you just need to remember that PureView is a brand, rather than a particular set of specifications.  The 925 also features ‘Smart Camera’, which comprises of various post-production effects that can be applied to photos.

One other name that you’ll hear with regards to Nokia smartphones is Carl Zeiss Optics – the two have been hardware partners for years now. Carl Zeiss specialises in manufacturing high quality camera lenses and has an agreement with Nokia to provide the lenses for its smartphones. In the case of the Lumia 925, it has the Carl Zeiss Tessar lens.

The HTC One includes HTC Zoe and an Ultrapixel camera. Its camera technology as a whole is referred to as HTC ImageSense, although this isn’t quite so prominent with the HTC One as it was with last year’s range.

HTC Zoe is a shooting mode on the HTC One, which also includes various effects that can be applied to photos. It’s comparable to the Smart Camera on the Lumia 925.

The Ultrpixel camera refers to the various hardware features of the HTC One camera, which includes the Ultrapixel Sensor, HTC ImageChip2 and more.

Low light technology

The Nokia Lumia 925 tackles low light photography using state of the art Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) and the latest generation of Backside Illumination (BSI).  This hardware was first launched in the Lumia 920 as part of Nokia’s ‘second phase’ of PureView technology. The 925 features the same 8.7MP sensor as its predecessor, but it’s gained a sixth, glass lens element (the 920 had five elements to its lens), which also contributes to low light improvements and helps to increase the sharpness of images. While the Nokia Lumia 925 features the same image sensor as the 920, improvements have been made to its processing algorithms and this also contributes to better quality photos. There’s also support for higher ISO modes with an increase from 800 to 3,200.

For the HTC One, the Taiwanese firm took a gamble by going with fewer pixels that have a larger surface area, rather than more pixels that have a larger surface area. It calls this ‘UltraPixel’ technology. Thanks to their larger surface area, the pixels of the HTC One can capture up to 300% more light than rival 13MP sensors, which means that it performs better in low light conditions.  The HTC One’s sensor has the equivalent of a 4MP output. This means that the photos have a lower resolution than those taken with a 13MP sensor, but HTC argues it’s better to capture a clearly visible low-res photo, than a high-res photo that you can barely see.

Smart Camera vs HTC Zoe

The most exciting feature when it comes to the 925 is undoubtedly the new Smart Camera mode, which makes use of the Scalado technology that Nokia acquired last year. The Smart Camera is essentially a new app that can replace the stock camera app of the Lumia 925.  It offers features such as Remove Moving Object, Action Shot, Change Faces and Motion Focus. All of these features are also available on the One using HTC Zoe apart from Motion Focus, which can blur the background around the subject of a photo to create a fast motion effect. The effects are applied to the photos once they have been taken, as opposed to at the moment of capture, so you can always revisit them in your gallery and apply further adjustments.

How do Smart Camera and HTC Zoe work?

Both handsets take a burst of features in a short space of time. The Nokia takes 10 x 5MP shots (even though it has an 8.7MP sensor) whereas the HTC takes 20 x 4MP shots and a 3 second video. The extra shots plus the video probably give the HTC One the edge here, plus the fact that its UltraPixels are larger than those of the Lumia 925 (to let in more light) will also go in its favour. That being said, it’s hard to know how they square up without a fair photo test. Nokia has released some low-light comparison photos with the Lumia 925 pitted against the One and other market-leading handsets, but we’ll reserve judgement until we’ve taken a broader range of sample ourselves.

Uploads

Both handsets offer the means to upload photos to the cloud, although that may sound easier than it actually is. We’ve found HTC’s upload options to be slightly more complicated than they should be and its Zoe Share site will only store them for 30 days before deleting them. There are other third-party services that can be used, although you’ll want to keep an eye on the amount of data and storage that this uses up – uploading 20 photos and a video for each Zoe quickly builds up.  The Lumia 925 is able to upload them to Microsoft SkyDrive and other cloud storage services, but again you’ll need to make sure you have ample space for this.

Some of the early hands-on reports have suggested that the image processing can be a little slow when using the Smart Camera features on the 925, so it may lag behind the HTC One in this aspect, which has its dedicated HTC ImageChip 2 to make processing as quick as possible. It should be said that this lag with the 925 occurred on a pre-release handset though, so it may have been addressed by the time the handset launches.

One final aspect to mention in favour of the HTC One is the 30 second highlight reels that are created using HTC Zoe. These are made up of the short video clips and images that are taken in Zoe mode and are a great way to create a brief showcase of a particular day or event.

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