Samsung M8910 camera-phone
A couple of years ago, I bought a Nokia 5800: it has been the worst phone I have ever used, but at least it helped me understand what I really need in a mobile phone. For example, I am not interested to install many applications; I don't care much about GPS (I prefer to use my old good TomTom 730), while I am very interested in good camera capabilities. Why? The reason is that I always carry the mobile phone with me, and sometimes it is the only way to take the photo. For example, many times I have seen awesome landscapes from the plane, but it was not possible to grab the reflex...if I had had a good mobile phone, I'd have some great photos I have missed. Maybe not the best image quality, but better than nothing :-)
So, when I decided to buy a new mobile phone, I looked mainly to high end camera phones, and I bought the best of the bunch: the Samsung M8910. It has a 12 megapixel sensor, 28mm equivalent lens, and a lot of advanced camera features; other than that, it has all I may need in a mobile: large and sharp touch screen, good video capabilities, music and video player (with DivX support), internet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and many other tools. When it was announced, it was very expensive, but nine months have passed and in the mobile phone world this means halved price: I paid it "just" 320 euros!
In this article, I won't cover the "Smartphone" part - for an all around review, give a look to
Samsung M8910 review on GSM Arena - while I'm going to focus on the camera part: I compared it with my old Nokia 5800 and, since this is an ambitious phone, even to the Canon 350D reflex. You will be impressed by the image quality of the Samsung little camera!
Camera specifications (compared with my old Nokia 5800 and with Canon 350D)
| | PHOTO | | |
| | Samsung M8910 | Canon 350D | Nokia 5800 |
| Resolution | 12 megapixels (4000 x 3000 px) | 8 megapixel (3456 x 2304 px) | 3.14 megapixel (2048 x 1536 px) |
| Sensor size | 5.4x4.0 millimeters (1/2.5") | 16x24 millimeters | 4.6x2.7 millimeters (1/4") |
| File format | JPEG | JPEG,RAW | JPEG |
| Aspect ratio | 4:3 | 3:2 | 4:3 |
| Manual ISO | yes, from 50 to 1600 | yes, from 100 to 1600 | yes, from 100 to 800 |
| Auto ISO | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Shutter speeds | from 1" to 1/1000 | from 30" to 1/4000 | from 1/5 to 1/16000 |
| Exposure meter | center weighted, matrix, spot | center weighted, matrix, semi-spot | center weighted |
| Exposure compensation | +2/-2 EV in 0.5 EV steps | +2/-2 EV in 0.3 EV steps | +2/-2 EV in 0.5 EV steps |
| White balance | Auto, Daylight, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy | Auto, Sunny, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy e altri | Automatic, sunny, cloudy, incandescent, fluorescent |
| Autofocus | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| lens | Samsung 4.6mm f/2.6 | interchangeable | Carl Zeiss Tessar 3.7mm f/2.8 |
| 35mm focal length equiv. | 28mm | dipende dall'obiettivo | 36mm |
| Apertures | f/2.6, f/3.6 | it depends by the lens | f/2.8 |
| Image stabilization | no | it depends by the lens | no |
| Min. focus distance | 10 cm | it depends by the lens | 10 cm |
| Flash | Yes, xenon | Yes, xenon | Yes, led |
| | VIDEO | | |
| | Samsung M8910 | Canon 350D | Nokia N8 |
| Resolution | 720 x 480px | - | 640 x 480px |
| Frame rate | 30 FPS | - | 30 FPS |
| File format | MP4 | - | MP4 |
| Bit rate | ? | - | 0.3 megabytes per second |
| Autofocus | sì | - | no |
| Light | Yes | - | Yes |
Image quality: photo (in comparison with Nokia 5800 and Canon 350D)
The photos are for sure one of the strengths of the M8910: I bought this phone because currently it is the best camera phone you can get in the European market. I have compared it to my old Nokia 5800 and to the Canon 350D (APS-C sensor, 8 megapixel). The Canon was in JPEG L and I have used the 18-55 IS lens. Keep in mind that the Samsung has a 28mm equivalent lens, while the Nokia 5800 has about a 35, so the Samsung has a much wider angle of view.
I highly recommend to download the full size photos, the differences between the cameras are much bigger than what it seems from the 100% crops!
Bright light test:
| Full photo, Samsung M8910 download | 100% crop, Samsung M8910 |
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| Full photo, Canon 350D download | 100% crop, Canon 350D |
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| Full photo, Nokia 5800 download | 100% crop, Nokia 5800 |
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Bright light test:
| Full photo, Samsung M8910 download | 100% crop, Samsung M8910 |
| | |
| Full photo, Canon 350D download | 100% crop, Canon 350D |
| | |
| Full photo, Nokia 5800 download | 100% crop, Nokia 5800 |
| | |
Here, I have compared the two phones in bright daylight. Both phones show low noise and relatively good sharpness, but the Samsung has clearly a big resolution advantage, it shows a lot more detail than the N5800 (and it has even a much wider lens and better colors).
The Canon 350D gives sharper images, but in terms of detail, it is about on par with the Samsung M8910. The M8910 gives less sharpness but it has a higher pixel count, so at the end the detail of the 12mp camera phone is about on par with the 8 megapixel SLR. In other words, in "easy" situations (daylight without strong contrast) the Samsung camera phone can come close to the image quality of an entry level reflex! This is an huge achievement for a cameraphone.
Low light, no flash test:
| Full photo, Samsung M8910 download | 100% crop, Samsung M8910 |
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| Full photo, Canon 350D download | 100% crop, Canon 350D |
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| Full photo, Nokia 5800 download | 100% crop, Nokia 5800 |
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In low light, it is always better to use the flash when you are shooting with a camera-phone. That said, sometimes it is not possible: for example, if you are taking a landscape photo, the flash won't help. This is a studio test that replicate similar conditions: the flash was turned off, and the ambient light was very low. Both phones show a strong noise, but the Samsung has less noise than the 5800, in spite of the much higher pixel count; it show no banding, more detail and much better colors.
The Canon 350D has less noise and more dynamic range than both phones; its white balance is not very precise, but if you shoot RAW you can get great colors.
Low light, with flash:
| Full photo, Samsung M8910 download | 100% crop, Samsung M8910 |
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| Full photo, Canon 350D download | 100% crop, Canon 350D |
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| Full photo, Nokia 5800 download | 100% crop, Nokia 5800 |
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Here, I have taken a photo in very low light, using the flash. There is really no contest: the xenon flash of the Samsung is miles above the small leds of the Nokia 5800. The Nokia photo has tons of noise and a strong green cast, while the Samsung gives natural colors, very low noise and a lot of detail. The Canon 350D of course is the best, but even the Samsung M8910 does not look too bad, at least at moderate distances (1-3 meters) where the smaller flash of the Samsung can give enough light.
Macro:
| Full photo, Samsung M8910 download | 100% crop, Samsung M8910 |
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| Full photo, Nokia 5800 download | 100% crop, Nokia 5800 |
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Due to its wide angle lens, the Samsung has a slightly worse magnification when you look at the entire photo; that said, overall you have more detail thanks to the higher pixel count, and if you crop it at the same resolution of the Nokia you actually have a little more magnification. The Samsung tends to give slightly cold colors, but you can easily fix it with with manual white balance or with Photoshop.
Image quality: video (in comparison with Nokia 5800)
There are some phones that have much more advanced video capabilities than M8910, but overall the Samsung seems good on paper: 720x480px at 30 FPS. That said, even the Nokia 5800 promised 640x480px at 30 FPS, but in practice it was crap: so-so in daylight, unusable in low light. It was even worse than my old Nokia 6120! So, I was curious to see the results from Samsung.
Daylight:
Fotogramma estratto dal video, Samsung M8910
Fotogramma estratto dal video, Nokia 5800[/DIDA
Even in daylight, the Samsung show more detail, more resolution and less compression artefacts.
Low light, no video light:
Fotogramma estratto dal video, Samsung M8910
Fotogramma estratto dal video, Nokia 5800
In low light, there is no contest. The Nokia is unusable, the Samsung is quite good considering it is not a video-oriented phone.
Low light, with video light:
Still frame from video, Samsung M8910
Still frame from video, Nokia 5800
When you use the video light, the difference is even more noticeable. The Samsung has a very powerful led, while the Nokia has two very, very weak led. The result is that the Samsung is pretty good, while the Nokia is, again, unusable.
In conclusion, the Samsung M8910 video capabilities are light years better than the Nokia 5800: more detail, more resolution, a lot less noise and a much more advanced video camera (the Nokia 5800 had fixed focus during video, while the Samsung has AF even during video recording). There are some phones that have better video capabilities, but the M8910 is at least usable in every condition.
Conclusions
In terms of resolution, we have reached all the resolution you may need in a camera phone. Actually, it is even too much: with a sharper lens and better image processing, it would be possible to get the same detail with just 10 or 8 megapixels, as the comparison with the Canon 350D has shown. That said, I have been positively impressed by the improvement in dynamic range and noise: in spite of the very high pixel count, the Samsung has lower noise and a little more dynamic range than the Nokia 5800, and overall it has the best image quality than every camera phone currently on the market (April 2010). In future, I hope to see even lower noise and more dynamic range!
The 4.6mm f/2.6 lens is pretty good, but in future I hope to see even brighter lenses. Camera phones have very limited high ISO capabilities, so a lens with a wide aperture helps a lot; a f/2.0 or f/1.4 would be awesome. Depth of field is not an issue because the very small sensor gives much more depth of field than APS-C or FF. What I really, really miss on the Samsung M8910 is a lens cover; the M8910 has a kind of internal shutter, but no real cover, so you have to pay attention to avoid finger smudges and scratches. (this is not a silly thing - in some mobile phones I have used the image quality has got much worse with time due to scratched lens)
An optical zoom would be nice (the Samsung W880, available only on Korean market, has already a 3x optical zoom, 6.3-18.9mm f/3.0-5.6), but nowadays the priority is aperture, so I prefer a prime lens with wide aperture rather than a zoom, that would result in smaller apertures and lower image quality due to the necessity of higher ISO sensitivities.
Video is light years better than the Nokia 5800, but it is not the best in the market; it has very good detail, pleasing colors, good quality in low light, but the frame rate is much lower than the claimed 30FPS; I'd estimate that the actual frame rate is something between 10 and 15 FPS, so the videos are not very smooth, even though overall they are not bad for a camera phone. Remember that the M8910 is focused on photography; if you want a phone with great video capabilities, there are various phones with 1280x720px (HD ready) resolution at 24/30 FPS, or 720x480 at true 30 FPS.
The phone overall is great; the user interface is easy to understand and responsive, it has all the features I need and an affordable price.
What's next?
The Samsung M8910 will travel with me around the world, and from time to time I'll add to the galleries some photos taken with this great camera phone. Other than that, I plan to publish some other articles while I explore its camera capabilities.
As of today, April 2010, it is the best camera phone on the worldwide market; the Nokia N8 may be even better, but it has just been announced and we will have to wait several months until it is available.
I hope to keep it al least a couple of years, until something with even higher photo and video quality reaches the market at a reasonable price (after being bitten with the Nokia 5800, I don't buy phones as soon as they are announced, the initial price is exaggerate and after few months it gets much, much lower).
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