Lumia 950/XL still the best Camera in 2018?

[Windows Central Question]

Just wondering what those of you who have tried some of the newer phones think. Personally, from comparison shots by trying newer phones in stores and reading reviews on newer tech out there that the Lumia 950/XL has the best overall image quality.

It's the main (almost only) reason I haven't upgraded yet. I can't justify spending $300+ for myself and my spouse to upgrade to get matching or potentially worse camera performance.

The App gap doesn't bother me as I don't game and since I use Windows 10 on everything at the house along with my Bands 1/2 when working out it's a great setup.

I don't want to reinvest $1000+ per person to get the latest iPhone/Android + Smart Watches for us to upgrade when our Microsoft tech still works flawlessly.

Sorry for the ramble...

 

[sporosarcina]

Of course it is not still the best, advancement happens. Having said that I still feel like the 950 is a great camera that produces a great picture. In particular the three LED flash produces great results and still outperforms many cameras.

 

[Blomsternisse]

The 950 is too slow at taking photos and the white balance is often entirely off. My old iPhone 5s took better pictures 95% of the time. Comparing my 950 with my Samsung Galaxy S8 is not even funny. 12 Mpix (S8) beating 19 Mpix (950) in almost every situation.

 

[squeezy99]

I still love my 950xl, the camera is great. I use the raw with Lightroom and the results are terrific.
Come on MS lets have a commitment to develop W10 mobile.

 

[Dare2Blink]

I would say the top 2 cameras on phones right now are the pixel xl 2 and the note 8. The 950 is definatly not the best camera anymore.

Definitely not. I went from a lumia 950 XL to a Note 8 and the lumia's camera is definitely better, especially in low light. The only photos that can compete with the lumia in low light is probably the pixel 2

 

[Elky64]

I guess a better question might be is the 950XL still considered a smart phone in 2018?

Exactly. Since its initial intention was to be a smartphone first a discussion about its camera competing in 2018 feels kinda mute IMHO.

 

[realwarder]

Have to say I took my 950xl to the kids Christmas play to video it rather than using my iPhone. Zoomed video works very well on the 950 with good stabilization and the photos are still good but I used a DSLR for that that day.

More modern smartphones (Pixel2/Note8/iPhoneX) are now better for daily shots than the 950, but it still holds out well for its age!

 

[kurtd]

Living images on the lumia 950 worked absolutely amazing, especially how you could view them on your windows 10 pc without any effort.

 

[Jonathan Osachuk]

I just bought a new Pixel 2 XL to replace my 950xl a couple days ago. I bought an LG G6 last year and found the camera to be terrible and ended up using my Lumia whenever I went anywhere I'd take photos. I find that Lumia to be better in terms of hardware still (screen quality, reception, battery life...) and ended up using it most of the time because I just liked it better. Figured I'd just do it right amd go for the big guns (Pixel 2 XL 128gb) since I am starting to find problems with the Windows apps I use becoming outdated and so that I can still sell this phone for something. I'll definitely miss it.

 

[Player Piano]

The snark is strong with this one.

Honest question. How does one define a smartphone in 2018?

 

[anon(7929613)]

I've just bought Lumia 950. One striking aspect of it's camera is ACCURATE COLOR REPRODUCTION. This is different from older Lumia that over saturated the colors.

I am literally stunned by it's camera. It's different but it's awesome! I don't know how they did it.

 

[Great deal]

Jeez, just let it go, move on, pivot a bit and chat about enterprise services, rehashing dead tech is not the way to go unless you have too many staff and not enough to talk about..

 

[pdixon0]

Agree with Dare2Blink above, I moved from a 950XL to a Note8 in October, the low light photos in particular from the Note8 are embarrassing in comparison to the 950XL.

 

[Pritam Das]

I had the 950XL and there is no contest between the newer Pixel 2 and the 950. In fact Dec 2016 and Jan 2017 I used a 950 and the original Pixel side by side and even then the Pixel consistently crushed the Lumia 950. The Pixel 2 is even better. This HDR+ / Machine Learning thing that Google employs is amazing.

Best smartphone camera on a Windows smartphone. Nowhere remotely near best accross all phones. Last generation Pixel and iPhones way ahead. I'm not even mentioning this year's Pixel phones.

 

[G4Grandad]

Best camera on an obsolete smartphone. What an accolade!!

 

[neo158]

I think this is a very, very subjective question. I prefer the camera on my 950XL over the Nexus 5X that I also have any day due to the amount of options available on it. However, this doesn't mean that there isn't better camera software on phones out there but I have noticed that the hardware all seems to be around the 20MP mark that the 950XL was at when it was first released. For me it comes down to the feature set in the camera software, I want the option of full DSLR style manual control, something that still isn't standard even on high end Android smartphones, and that's what the 950XL gives me.

 

[Stephen Townsley]

I had the 950XL and there is no contest between the newer Pixel 2 and the 950. In fact Dec 2016 and Jan 2017 I used a 950 and the original Pixel side by side and even then the Pixel consistently crushed the Lumia 950. The Pixel 2 is even better. This HDR+ / Machine Learning thing that Google employs is amazing.

Nokia sold the Lumia on smartphone photography. Not having a flagship phone for 2 years means the Lumia 950/XL is now lagging way behind.

If you are buying a smartphone in 2018 for picture quality then Windowsphone isn't the best.

However if you compare it with the average and general affordable Android device in 2018 then the Lumia could still be viable. Of course it's not a like for like, flagship to flagship, comparison.

 

[Steve Litchfield]

Steve here from AAWP, so I've been doing 950 vs the rest camera comparisons for two years now. The new iPhone X and Pixel 2 range are the first two competitors which have bested the 950/XL in terms of results (and factoring in things like zoom, in the iPhone's case).

Obviously the newer chipsets and sensors are much faster (not least in focussing!), but the 950 range's camera STILL is competitive in terms of high quality photos with the best in the world - as long as the subject is relatively compliant(!)

:smile:

 

[erzhik]

Nope, not really better. May be better in the dark and when zoomed in, but overall 950XL camera lacks too many features to be called the best cameraphone.

 

[Allen Rhodes]

What is with all the Uncle Rico's(watch Napoleon Dynamite) still on these forums? Of course a camera from 2015 is bested by 2017 phones. There aren't many tests needed for this. It may beat some phones but holding onto a dead platform device bases on tech that I PROMISE will be bested by every phone released in Q3 and Q4 of this year is past sad, it's borderline pathetic at this point. If you CANT afford a new phone, guess what... You don't fall in this category. But the constant propping up of a defunct OS and obsolete hardware is mind boggling. Are y'all still playing with a Sega Dreamcast too?

 

[Cornelius Hardy]

For a 2 year old camera, it still competes with newer cameras and that's worth something. I am a photographer and I use my 950xl a lot for the fact it can fit in my pocket vs always carrying my Canon dslr. I just got a new battery and reset it last week so it's like new again. I have a gs7 that I use for just a few real estate apps. I don't particularly care for the camera though, and the phone lag makes me want to toss it out the car. My wife has a iPhone 7, and both of my kids have iPhone 8. The cameras are pretty good on the ip8 but I can still consistently get shots on my 950, that they can't get. I've even tried. Not sure what you mean about not being fast. You press the camera button and it opens instantly. I did a test with the ip8 and it's the same if not a . faster.

There isn't anything out so far that I would trade my 950xl for. I'm holding out until it completely dies, or a rumored Surface phone comes out and it better have a better camera.