Camera Test: Nokia Lumia 930 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 4

Steve over at AAWP compares the camera from Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 against the Nokia Lumia 930. I remember last year, a sales rep on the phone tried to sell me the Note 3 as having the best phone camera. LOL. I have the Note 4 and I’m just not that excited about the camera. Using the Lumia camera is a much more pleasant experience, and the results are often better. When I take a picture with the 1520, I have that confidence to know that I can zoom in and it’s still crisp. A lot of the times I do that on the Note 4, I’m felt with an empty dissatisfaction. Perhaps the lack of camera button just makes for bad auto-focus choices. There are times when it captures a picture and it can look crisp, albeit, too over processed, too sharp with an unnatural look about it (something Steve picks up on).

What’s Steve’s findings in overall quality? Well, pretty much just that. He actually finds that the Note 4 is pretty close to the 930.

I’ll be accused of being biased, given that this is AAWP, but overall the Lumia 930 camera just has the edge on the Note 4’s in terms of quality. Just. The 930’s output above is before the default oversampling – so use the PureView output instead, which most people would do, then sharpen or adjust that if needed. Plenty you can do. While the Note 4 is terrifically high resolution but has already had lossy sharpening and enhancement applied to it.

I’ve also found that regarding low-light, the 1520’s picture will always look brighter than what you can see in the viewfinder. The Note 4 is opposite.This is often due to having a longer exposure. This makes it a draw in low light sans flash for Steve. With flash, he gives the Note 4 a marginal win – again, the shorter exposure, less people blur. There are times when the overall picture with the Note 4 can look nice, but then zooming in at times, the over-processing creates weird artefacts so that fine pattern just gets jumbled up. I guess it’ll do for facebook sharing.

Source: AAWP

Cheers Alvester for the tip!

Category: Lumia, Nokia