Apple iPhone 4S’s new eight megapixel sensor and f/2.4 aperture lens have enticed many to upgrade their smartphones into this one, though Siri is sweet, functional and all. You can take your sleek and smooth iPhone 4S for a photo session with your friends or loved ones, at the beach, park or near a garden fountain for an incredible backdrop. Along with the newest model from Apple, there are other smartphone models which have been rolled out to challenge the company that’s been raking in a lot of money even after the genius visionary Steve Jobs had passed away.
To test which phone delivers its promises of crisp and vivid images and videos, we spent the entire weekend shooting around the different parts of The Big Apple using the iPhone 4S, along with iPhone 4, Nokia N8, HTC’s Amaze 4G and Samsung Galaxy S II.
To achieve a consistent framing in capturing still photos and video footages among all five smartphones, a homemade camera phone mount was created to provide support and stability to the devices. This is the way to gauge each camera phone’s capacity and delivery of promises!
Now, let’s go to the judgment. Of course, iPhone 4S is such a pleasurable device to use when taking pictures and videos. Within the first few seconds of launch, it was ready to capture images. Focusing is fast and painless. Although the phone’s interface might appear too simple to other users, the iPhone 4S has third party apps if you want to have more options. The camera works the same as its predecessor, the iPhone 4 but it possesses f/2.4 maximum aperture lens which enables you to capture higher quality photographs even in low light! Now isn’t that amazing? Where image quality is concerned, the camera can compete with a number of point-and-shoot cameras in most cases.
On the other hand, if you want to manually control white balance, ISO sensitivity and over exposure, the Nokia N8, HTC Amaze 4G and the Samsung Galaxy S II will be your best buddies.
Although all the phones have performed quite well in the test, only one must be hailed as supreme. The team was most pleased with the images and footages captured by the iPhone 4S despite missing advanced features as the ones found in other phones. The photos were sharp and crisp, though not the same as the images captured by the Amaze 4G which adds sharpening by default to the photos. Exposure and white balance were very accurate.
After a few hours of shooting and a few minutes of HD video, the iPhone 4S left the team less impressed because the battery life was drained to around 30%. The iPhone 4 gives better battery performance. The Nokia N8 ranked second for having the longest span of battery while Galaxy S II was the top notcher. HTC Amaze 4G placed last because its battery was down to only 29% after all the shooting and wandering around New York.