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End User phones

Nokia Lumia 920 camera compared with Samsung Galaxy S3

snow on railway lines taken with Nokia Lumia 920I’m not going to go into a detailed comparison/review of the Nokia Lumia 920 camera compared with Samsung Galaxy S3 camera but I will share a few observations.

First two photos:

Alex Whitworth taken with Lumia 920Alex Whitworth taken by Galaxy S3

 

 

 

 

 

The one on the left was taken with the Nokia Lumia 920 and the one on the right with the Samsung Galaxy S3. I have no complaints about the photo quality of either camera but you do have to say that they look different. They were both taken at the same time – the Lumia in my left hand and the S3 in my right. I personally think the Galaxy S3 looks more natural.

The  S3 camera definitely has more functionality out of the box. For example panorama mode is an additional app download for the Nokia and the S3 has far more variables that can be modified in its settings. Having said that I guess the Nokia stance is that the simpler the camera, ie the fewer settings you have to play with, the less likely things are to go wrong.

I don’t feel that the increased functionality of the S3 has been detrimental to my photo taking though. The Lumia 920 is a lot faster in bringing up a photo on screen once you have taken the picture. It’s just a sideways swipe of the finger. I’m wondering whether the reaction time of the S3 is because I’ve got a lot more running on it. It’s something I’ve begun to notice recently. Both camera apps  take the same amount of time to fire up which is important because I often find myself wanting to take a quick photo of something – Lancaster bomber flying by etc1.

The header photo is “snow on the line at Newark Northgate train station” taken with the Nokia. You will be relieved to know that this light dusting was not enough to cause railway chaos though it did mean we were slightly late into Kings Cross as the driver was taking a tad more care than he normally would – good to know we were in safe hands. Arrive alive and all that!

Alex Whitworth, the model shown sitting down is one of our excellent product managers. Which photo do you prefer? The people shall have their say!

1 I should point out that I don’t often take photos of low flying Lancaster bombers. I was merely using that situation as an illustration of the kind of scenario that demands quick reaction time with the camera. I could have used a low flying spitfire as an alternative. That of course would have required even faster reaction time being a fighter and therefore designed for speed and agility instead of bomb carrying capacity and range.

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End User phones

BlackBerry Z10 smartphone comparison with Samsung Galaxy S3 and iPhone

trefor with blackberry10We have a BlackBerry 10 and have put it through some rudimentary comparisons with the Samsung Galaxy S3 and iPhone 4s1. The iPhone5 may perform differently but I don’t think it hugely matters as the comparisons are not particularly scientific.

Bootup

  • iPhone4s 38seconds
  • BlackBerry10 79 seconds
  • Samsung Galaxy S3 26 seconds

Galaxy S3 wins hands down but reality is that most people keep their phones on 24×7 and the BlackBerry has to perform a handshake with the BlackBerry Enterprise server so it is no wonder it takes longer. This test is therefore probably not hugely relevant but seeing as we had done it I’m not going to waste the info.

At this point the iPhone4s left the room and we continued testing:

Web browsing

BlackBerry10 ZThe BlackBerry10  is supposed to major on speed of web access and this would appear to be the case. We tested the BB10 versus the SGS3 on two websites. Initially we chose a random site europafastenings.co.uk – speciality fasteners and screws – you know it makes sense. Both devices loaded this site in around 6 seconds though there is a lot of room for error in the measurement with this method – clicking on start buttons on timers and also trying to ensure that both of us did it simultaneously on two devices.

We moved on to html5test.com which gave us a reading as to the speed of our web access – at least for html5. For good measure we also threw in Google chrome running on my laptop.

  • BlackBerry10 485
  • Samsung Galaxy S3 390
  • Chrome on Windows7 448

Higher is better here so at first glance, and with only a small set of comparison points BB10 is, as it claims to be, a fast device for accessing tinterweb.

Couple of videos for your delight and delectation. Firstly Timico Engineer Dean Asher talking about his first impressions of the BB10 which are very good.

The second vid is Dean showing off BlackBerry Flow which does seem to have some very nifty features in allowing you to switch between applications.

All in all the BlackBerry10 is likely to be a device that corporate IT managers can give to their staff that won’t make them complain about its functionality. To a large extent it is going to be all about the timely availability of apps. Time will tell whether the BB10 turns around RIM’s fortunes but it looks like it could give them a sporting chance.

1 I couldn’t find an iPhone5 around the office and not being an Apple fan I don’t care if someone comes along whinging saying that the iPhone5 is much better than the iPhone4s. iPhone5 sales are disappointing the markets anyway and it’s no wonder I couldn’t find anyone with one 😉