***The Official HTC One Thread***

[V4NT0M]

Those crops make the one look terrible.

 

[Nexus18]

As I said before that is a very unfair/bias article/test, don't base anything on their opinion (unless you like to up scale your photos whilst sharpening them):

The thing I find weird is that they didn't mention a single thing about the portrait photo and that is without a doubt where the biggest difference is (in favour of the "one" by a huge chunk imo)........ :/

Plus it is to be expected that the photos on the iphone 5 or any other current phone will look much better in comparison when they up scale the photos of the htc one to 8MP, they are just degrading the quality by a huge chunk as shown. Should up scale the iphone 5 photos by the same amount and then see how it looks....

EDIT:

In fact they didn't even show the "original" images, just up and down scaled :/

Plus just noticed that they said "generous sharpening" (whilst also up scaling to 8MP), what the hell?!?!? That just makes things worse.......should have left the image untouched and only compared the original image without any adjustments and then compare the photos when zoomed in/cropped, test is completely stupid/biased, not like gsmarena to do such a poor article like this.


Hopefully will get some much better/proper tests with the final software/unit soon.

Why didn't they just set the iPhone to take 4mp instead?

Shame on them!

 

[Robbo]

Why didn't they just set the iPhone to take 4mp instead?

Shame on them!

Do you really think you can do that on an iPhone?

Well, you'd need a 3rd party camera app at least but I haven't tried any!

 

[dasyad]

As I said before that is a very unfair/bias article/test, don't base anything on their opinion:



Why didn't they just set the iPhone to take 4mp instead?

Shame on them!

They've made a response to those criticisms:

Update 1, Feb 24: We decided a bit of clarification is due here as we are seeing lots of objection against upsizing in the comments. It would be wrong to assume that in order to properly compare the photos, we should downsize the iPhone photos to 4MP. This way we wouldn't notice the advantage of the higher resolution camera, would we? You have got to understand that upsizing is not to the HTC One disadvantage - it simply makes the stuff on the picture equally large as the ones on the 8MP photos from the iPhone. It doesn't smear any of the available fine detail, it just enlarges it. Think of it as zooming in - just to make comparisons easier. Also ask yourselves this - the native print size for an 8MP photo is 115x86cm. What would happen if you print a 4MP photo on that paper size? That's right, it would get upsized to fit the larger paper. Hence the presence of upsizing in every comparison between cameras of different resolution. End of Update 1.

[EDIT]To be fair they are comparing photos taken by someone else. I am sure they will do a "better" test once they get hold of a One.

 

[Nexus18]

You can't!?!? OMG! I knew they were bad, but not that bad!

 

[Robbo]

You can't!?!? OMG! I knew they were bad, but not that bad!

Well, even on some Android phones you can't pick a specific resolution. Aside from tests such as this I don't see why you would anyway.

GSMArena have clarified their tests anyway as someone said above.

 

[Nexus18]

They've made a response to those criticisms:

Fair enough about the up scaling. Still, they should not have added any sharpening at all as it just makes things worse (why I never add any to my photos at all).

Also how many people print phone photos? I would imagine that most people just view them on the monitor, TV, share them via email, whatsapp/SMS etc.

They added another update:

Update 2, Feb 24: Even though the original source of the photos claimed they've focused on the model's face we find that hard to believe as we know it from first-hand that when you manually focus on a subject's face with the iPhone 5 camera, it would expose the photo for that particular region. In this case, the iPhone 5 severely overexposed the face making us doubtful that the author of the images correctly focused on the face. Even if this was the case and it was the face that's in focus, then we see no reason why the dress and the hair shouldn't be in perfect focus too, as they lie in generally the same vertical plane as the face. You can clearly see that even though the iPhone 5 significantly overexposed the shot (which we tried to counter in post-processing by toning down the exposure a bit), it still resolved much more detail in the hair, the gem stone and the texture of the dress than the HTC One.

Again, we got lots of comments saying that we've missed mentioning that the iPhone pretty much blew away the face of the model by overexposing the shot. We'd like to clarify that we consider the differences in the exposure to be operator-error and since we weren't there to confirm or deny that, we just have to work with what we have. We explicitly mentioned that we are only judging resolved detail and noise levels here - not exposure metering, color rendition or any other camera parameter. Indeed, it's not possible to sample resolved detail out of an overexposed area of a photo, so we skipped the face and went to pick a sample from the dress instead.End of Update 2

Did the guy who took the pictures not say that he just let the camera do everything, so pointed and took the shot, didn't manually focus? In some ways that is a good test imo as a lot of the time (if I want to take a quick snap of something) I don't manually focus, just press the shutter button and let the photo be taken and with my one S, if there are white/bright objects with bright light shining on them, then it would encounter a similar problem to the iphone 5 in that portrait shot but if I focus on the face then it would end up like the htc one photo except the background stuff would be either dark or lit up (depending on background and lighting).

Also "which we tried to counter in post-processing by toning down the exposure a bit", seriously just leave the photos alone......compare them at their original size with the up and down scaled comparisons, might as well go and tweak every photos colour levels, noise levels etc.....


Only just seen this here "What we are looking to compare here is resolved detail and digital noise." So fair enough there again, personally I still think the one looks better overall with regards to clarity/noise when viewing the original photos without zooming in.



Just have to wait for better/more accurate tests, shouldn't be too long, maybe start seeing some reviews within the next week.

Well, even on some Android phones you can't pick a specific resolution. Aside from tests such as this I don't see why you would anyway.

Every android phone that I have played with, you can pick whatever resolution/MP you want! True, there isn't really any need for that option as every one will always keep it set to the highest anyway

 

[stoosh]

Went to the local shopping centre and to the Phones4U. Unfortunately no HTC One on display to mess around with. So I popped over to the Three store and had another play with the Z instead. The screen wasn't as bad as people make it out to be.

 

[Robbo]

Went to the local shopping centre and to the Phones4U. Unfortunately no HTC One on display to mess around with. So I popped over to the Three store and had another play with the Z instead. The screen wasn't as bad as people make it out to be.

I've yet to try out a Z as there aren't any in the shop here but I fear I'll walk out with one if I do. I really like the design and if the screen seems okay I think I'd be tempted. The camera/video seems decent.

I want to see The Verge review first though. Also, no buying anything until we see the GS4.

 

[Nexus18]

Wait till you get the xperia Z in a room that doesn't have lots of bright lights shining on top of the display thus reflections too

I love the modern design of the xperia Z, although I don't like the way it is just a slab as it doesn't feel comfortable in the hand especially for the size imo.

 

[Jabbs]

They have caught up a bit Sony but I still feel they are off the pace a bit compared to the main 2, I should go into a shop and compare the screen against my DNA see what I think between the two.

 

[megakid]

I travel frequently and one of the biggest advantages of Virgin is that seemingly wherever I am, it is rare for me to have no signal. This was not the case for Vodafone who I previously used nor O2.

Then my advice would be not to go for Three.

In the last 6 months I've moved from GiffGaff (O2) to Three to T-Mobile. I live and work in Central London but travel frequently and found that T-Mobile/EE is best compromise for me.

O2 signal was completely dead in my flat and office (both Zone 1 London) - must be strange as generally O2 is good - numerous failures on GGs side as well as patchy 3G service (even when hooked up, it took ages to load pages etc) made me look elsewhere. ~£10pm for unlimited data, 200 mins.

Three had amazing 3G speeds (10+ Mbps) when hooked up but go off a motorway and quickly found signal died - signal in my flat was dead as per O2. ~£12.50pm for unlimited data, ~200 mins.

I've been with T-Mobile for about 2 weeks now and get signal everywhere I frequent as well as everywhere out of London. I have missed the exceptional 3G speeds on Three at times but the fact that I get phone signal at home and much wider coverage outside of London offsets that by far. And I get free wifi on the tube too which I use daily. ~£9.50pm (12 months) for unlimited data & mins.

 

[stoosh]

I've yet to try out a Z as there aren't any in the shop here but I fear I'll walk out with one if I do. I really like the design and if the screen seems okay I think I'd be tempted. The camera/video seems decent.

I want to see The Verge review first though. Also, no buying anything until we see the GS4.

I know how you feel! I almost did as well! Thank God it hasn't been released yet. I trust the Verge reviews implicitly as well and am looking forward to what they have to say about the Z.

Wait till you get the xperia Z in a room that doesn't have lots of bright lights shining on top of the display thus reflections too

I love the modern design of the xperia Z, although I don't like the way it is just a slab as it doesn't feel comfortable in the hand especially for the size imo.

I had a good look at the screen for 5 mins and moved the phone around, viewing angles weren't that great however the colours didn't seem washed out and were fairly bright.

Ergonomically however the Z is a slab and was uncomfortable to hold.

 

[Nexus18]

Yeah the colours aren't bad when viewed head on (much better than previous sony handsets) but when next to a great LCD screen i.e. the one X and iphone 5, I found them to be a bit "washed out". The screen is certainly very bright!

They could get away with a rectangle slab if it had a 4.3" or smaller screen, but not with a 5" screen

 

[Pabl0]

The problem is you can make a really big comfortable phone = The GS3 but it looks like ass or a really attractive phone = Xperia Z that is not as ergonomic. You can't keep everyone happy all the time!

 

[stoosh]

Yeah the colours aren't bad when viewed head on (much better than previous sony handsets) but when next to a great LCD screen i.e. the one X and iphone 5, I found them to be a bit "washed out". The screen is certainly very bright!

They could get away with a rectangle slab if it had a 4.3" or smaller screen, but not with a 5" screen

+1 Indeed!

Colours are great head on! It's a massive phone, I would find it unweildy if I were to use the Z every day.

 

[grudas]

this looks like my next phone - all depends on how bad the xperia z feels in hand and how the screen looks!

but i kinda want this..

 

[THMRK]

I saw one of these in the wild today. At first I thought it was a BB Z10, but after closer inspection (looking over some guy's shoulder) it was indeed a HTC One. It looked quite sexy, it has to be said. Wish I'd asked the guy if I could have a play. Don't think that's something you say to someone when you're waiting to cross at a set of traffic lights thought...

 

[Nexus18]

Supposedly stores that have a demo unit:

London, Bond St - P4U
London, Bond St - 3 Store
London, Islington Angel - 3 Store (ask to use at your peril! )
London, Kilburn - 3 Store
Birmingham, Bull Ring Centre - P4U

Also, apparently the phone might be released earlier than expected due to the GS 4 announcement..........

 

[stoosh]

Hence why there wasn't any demo units at my local shopping centre.

Just as a matter of interest why the comment in brackets regarding the 3 store at Angel? I've found them to be quite friendly in there!

Let's hope that HTC do push the release date forward, as I would like to get hold of this lovely phone ASAP