Droid Turbo Pros / Cons

[Garemlin]

I don't think it's a crappy sensor, IMHO. A sensor manufacturer would likely not spend all the time, energy and effort on all the research and development for a 21mp sensor at this stage of the technological advancements and have it be a low quality. The manufacturer is going to be competing for the buy with other sensor manufacturers and will be looking to sell potentially hundreds of millions of sensors. Putting out an inferior quality sensor with an inflated pixel count would likely be passed up for a lower pixel count that was a higher quality at the same price point.

Everyone has heard that pixel count doesn't automatically translate into good images. There are some 8mp sensors that can take amazing shots but they can only be enlarged so much before the graininess begins to overshadow the subject.

I do believe that a great picture is first about light (aperture or f-number) then about refraction (lenses), then the sensor, and then about post processing, where each sets the maximum best you'll get out of the ones after it. That's not to say that post processing can't make even a moderately good image look better but it can only do so much before its positive impact is offset by distortion of color or contrast and loss of definition.

I also believe that we can expect improvements in the speed and quality of images with the sensor in the Turbo, with future updates.

C'mon Fox. They have to cut corners somewhere. You can go out and buy a 16mp point and shoot camera for $50. I can guarantee my 10 year old Fuji Finepix 3.2mp with a high quality CMOS censor will take a better picture than any of those. You can blow up a 3mp image to a photo quality 8x10 if it was taken with a camera with a good quality sensor. Realistically who is going to be taking pics with their phone that they would print and blow up any bigger than maybe a 3x5 or 4x6. Yeah maybe a few but it isn't the majority. Most people are taking pics with their phone to post to FB, e-mail to grandma, or maybe print out for a photo album. Not to print out an 16x20 family portrait to hang on the wall in the living room.

Point is, as I have said in the past, phone manufactures need to concentrate more on putting in quality sensors at a lower MP rate than worry about using a high MP count as a selling point. They know that the majority of consumers see that number and automatically assume that it will take a better picture than an 8mp.

Marketing 101 at it's best.

 

[wardo]

Seems like most reviews on Verizon's site like the camera.
People here say it's slow to focus and the files are huge.

I wish a Verizon store had a demo.

Will the pictures be to large for a text message

 

[Garemlin]

Seems like most reviews on Verizon's site like the camera.
People here say it's slow to focus and the files are huge.

I wish a Verizon store had a demo.

Will the pictures be to large for a text message

Yeah the files are pretty big. Average around 5mb. The bad thing is there are only two setting for file size. Supersized and ginormous. They really need to add some other choices with future updates. IMO 8mp would be fine.

 

[24c]

Just took a pic - 4.061 KB - opened it in MS PIctureit! - it measures 72.89 x 41.00 inches - OMG!

 

[Garemlin]

Just took a pic - 4.061 KB - opened it in MS PIctureit! - it measures 72.89 x 41.00 inches - OMG!

KB or MB???

 

[24c]

KB - that about 4 MB, right?

 

[Garemlin]

KB - that about 4 MB, right?

Oh ok. You had it as 4.061KB. Guess you meant 4,061KB. LOL

 

[24c]

Oh ok. You had it as 4.061KB. Guess you meant 4,061KB. LOL

OK - rule 1 - NEVER mess with people OVER 70 who did many funny things in THE 70s - it is a very nice clear picture by the way.

ETA - a CON IMO - the charging cord should be able to plug in either way, like iPad Air - old eyeballs have to strain too much to see the "right side up". Wireless charger arriving today - part of situation solved.

 

[popcenator]

It's generally not nice to mess with ANYONE

on the move..

 

[Garemlin]

OK - rule 1 - NEVER mess with people OVER 70 who did many funny things in THE 70s - it is a very nice clear picture by the way.

ETA - a CON IMO - the charging cord should be able to plug in either way, like iPad Air - old eyeballs have to strain too much to see the "right side up". Wireless charger arriving today - part of situation solved.

If you take a good look at he charging cable you will see it has a USB symbol on one side and is also curved inward on that side. If you can remember that the curved side needs to be facing up it will make it a little easier. You can do it by feel. Trust me my eyes are nowhere near as young as they once were. I rely on feel more than sight sometimes.

And was not messing with you. Seriously thought you meant 4KB at first. That caught me off guard.

 

[24c]

It's generally not nice to mess with ANYONE

on the move..

Of course it is not nice - it is also not fun...

 

[24c]

I rely on feel more than sight sometimes.

Right with you on this one.

 

[wardo]

So is it a issue sending the ginormous pictures in a normal text?

 

[FoxKat]

C'mon Fox. They have to cut corners somewhere. You can go out and buy a 16mp point and shoot camera for $50. I can guarantee my 10 year old Fuji Finepix 3.2mp with a high quality CMOS censor will take a better picture than any of those. You can blow up a 3mp image to a photo quality 8x10 if it was taken with a camera with a good quality sensor. Realistically who is going to be taking pics with their phone that they would print and blow up any bigger than maybe a 3x5 or 4x6. Yeah maybe a few but it isn't the majority. Most people are taking pics with their phone to post to FB, e-mail to grandma, or maybe print out for a photo album. Not to print out an 16x20 family portrait to hang on the wall in the living room.

Point is, as I have said in the past, phone manufactures need to concentrate more on putting in quality sensors at a lower MP rate than worry about using a high MP count as a selling point. They know that the majority of consumers see that number and automatically assume that it will take a better picture than an 8mp.

Marketing 101 at it's best.

Hey, I hear you about image size. Yes, the image size is humongous and nobody is going to be blowing them up to poster size or larger to print. What they will do however is crop them down to grab a face or two from a crowd and that's where more pixels becomes necessary. They are also often pinch zoomed into to view and again this is where MP rules.

As you crop an image you are essentially zooming into a small spot on that giant image and then the small spot is enlarged to fill the same screen size as the original image did. The net effect is that every pixel is now bigger to the eye, they are father apart, and the image is less in focus (or more correctly less defined).

I do this very often in my business... Take a picture of documents for a client while visiting their home. Then I crop and print. If I try to get to close to the paper when photoing, I run into focus issues and lighting (shadowed from my hands and the phone), so instead I take them from afar and simply crop top print. This results is far sharper prints.

The same holds true when taking pics in a crowd for instance. Facebook or other social media is often about a face in the crowd. With higher pixel count when cropped or zoomed into these faces aren't a blur of grainy and washed out, unidentifiable people, you can actually see who they are. The overwhelming majority of people (dare I say ALL), who take pictures with their phone aren't doing so to publish it in National Geographic, which is exactly why you'll likely not see a high quality sensor (one comparable to the one in my Olympus E-20), or a dozen or more element fully coated lens system of similar quality in a phone anytime soon.

They are also not professional photographers and so aren't looking to perfectly frame their subject in a portrait style picture for their biography. They are taking "scene" or "situation" shots and don't so with far less regard for proper framing, lighting, doing so without the benefit of a tripod, and basically to capture a moment in time.

So by way of the very primary purpose for the camera in a phone (key words... In a phone), capturing more pixels leads to more effective use of the camera on these phones. If they are looking for presentation or production, broadcast or archival quality, and they are using ANY phone to do so, they will likely be setting themselves up for failure. Instead they'll whip out their Nikon or Canon DSLR to take those shots. Still, with more pixels in camera phones, even low quality production or publication can achieve moderately respectful imagery by being able to crop down.

As for cutting corners, the few cents to dollar or so more that a high quality sensor will cost versus a lesser quality one doesn't translate into significant price difference for the finished product. And again I say that the sensor manufacturers and their competitors play a huge role in what the final product will look like. So, if public demands higher pixel count but also is looking for higher quality, I don't expect that the incredible cost and extreme complexity of developing a 21MP imager wouldn't be put forth without at least a reasonable amount of attention being paid to the quality of the image it (and the lens system), produces.

 

[Garemlin]

So is it a issue sending the ginormous pictures in a normal text?

Not really. They will be automatically resized. Just sent a test pic test to myself. First pic is the original size. Second is after received.

Tap'd from my Droid Turbo