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...

 

[neo158]

Lets not forget the features that the Lumia range brought to cameras though before we start saying that the Pixel range have better cameras. High resolutions of 10MP+, the Lumia 1020 had a 41MP camera when most Android phones still had 5 and 8MP cameras, the Lumia 950/XL had a 20MP camera when most Android phones had 12MP cameras. Being able to choose resolution and aspect ratio separately, something Android still doesn't have and so forces you to choose resolution and aspect ratio as linked settings. Being able to shoot in HDR when Android couldn't do that. But perhaps the most important one for photographers is being able to shoot in RAW, something that has only been added to Android recently.

Not only the above but the 1020 brought full, DSLR style controls into the phone, something that the stock Android camera still lacks even today.

Granted some of these have been on Android before now but only as part of third party camera apps and not the stock camera app, unlike Windows 10 Mobile/Phone.

 

[nate0]

Round 2. HDR+ vs. Pureview
PureView 'take two' in 2018: Windows 10 Camera vs HDR+

What are your thoughts?

 

[MBytes]

Round 2. HDR+ vs. Pureview
PureView 'take two' in 2018: Windows 10 Camera vs HDR+

What are your thoughts?

Very close, both have ups and down.
I mean eventually the Lumia 950 (XL) will be defeated at a notable level (probably next gen), but still impressive that it still competitive today.

 

[raycpl]

Round 2. HDR+ vs. Pureview
PureView 'take two' in 2018: Windows 10 Camera vs HDR+

What are your thoughts?

Imagine that, I didn't have to buy a new phone for two years, and it's still amongst the top phones around!! I saved money!!!

... !

 

[nate0]

Imagine that, I didn't have to buy a new phone for two years, and it's still amongst the top phones around!! I saved money!!!

... !

Unless you are cell-phone-nut like me!

 

[darrell reimer]

I've moved on from my 950XL; now using an S8+; the cameras are very very close...I love Samsung cameras. My first Windows phones were the ATIV S and ATIV SE, both Samsung phones, with excellent colour and focus cameras . My older 950XL is starting to show its age, and is somewhat unreliable; not as stable as it used to be, so I have to give the edge to my newer S8+.

 

[MBytes]

I've moved on from my 950XL; now using an S8+; the cameras are very very close...I love Samsung cameras. My first Windows phones were the ATIV S and ATIV SE, both Samsung phones, with excellent colour and focus cameras . My older 950XL is starting to show its age, and is somewhat unreliable; not as stable as it used to be, so I have to give the edge to my newer S8+.

Stability issue on Lumia 950/950XL is due to old battery. The battery can't deliver a stable voltage anymore, and the OS is not doing like iPhones where it slows down its processor (SoC) to not require anymore as much voltage as initial. So the phone act funny and crashes.

The fix is to get a new battery. The good news is that because the phone was not a success and many are stuck with batteries for this phone you can get replacement for really cheap. Like 20-25$ or so.

 

[raycpl]

my 950xl has been with me for exactly two years.... probably will keep it til end of this year.
Battery usage was never been stellar (for Lumias, it goes to the 1520), usually 12 hours but I'm a very heavy user. But like @MBytes said, new batteries does wonders. I have bought two over the past 6 months, mainly as spares....

 

[unmorphed]

not even close.

 

[fatclue_98]

Easily top 5 which should put many others to shame considering it’s a 2015 model.

 

[MBytes]

Easily top 5 which should put many others to shame considering it’s a 2015 model.

What I don't understanding is why phone manufactures are so disconnected and mostly non-innovative. What I mean is that innovation exists, but limited. Mostly it is rushed to market Apple copied features, some select Chinese manufacture does innovate like full screen phones, and finger print behind the screen. All great stuff I expect Samsung or LG to make, not a Chinese company.

Now it seems it is the race on who can put the most cameras on the back. Feels like a Gillette razor (now with 20 blades!). But no one thought for 2 seconds on how it would be nice to have a 2 step physical button, and not.. well in the case of Samsung...non-configurable Bixby button (beside disabling it). How hard is it to put this? It's ridiculous. instead of having a nice button to take pictures with their advertised fancy camera, you get the tap the screen so you end up with blurry pictures.

 

[raycpl]

What I don't understanding is why phone manufactures are so disconnected and mostly non-innovative. What I mean is that innovation exists, but limited. .

The term innovation only truly applied to the L920 & 1020... there were so many groundbreaking stuff crammed into it. Now its new phone are all about incremental changes

 

[MBytes]

The term innovation only truly applied to the L920 & 1020... there were so many groundbreaking stuff crammed into it. Now its new phone are all about incremental changes

Very true.

 

[Pavlos Pavlou1]

My Microsoft Lumia 950 XL Dual (2015) is awesome phone.
And i wish Microsoft shouldn't abandon it or at least should give us a New SmartPhone with Microsoft Windows 10 Core OS.
It has the Best Photo and Video Camera since 2015 until today for me.
I take photos everyday and i compare it with my second phone a Xiaomi Mi A2 (2018) that has also 20MP sensor but all the photos are really low quality with lot of distortion and pixeling.
Specific when i do some zooming in the photos 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x.
The HDR in Xiaomi is very low in quality and in settings like Off, On, Auto.
Why all new SmartPhones have so bad processing and saving software?
I take the same photo with those 2 phones and 950 has better quality has the Live Photo feature has the Adjustment HDR Feature and the size of the file is almost 5ΜΒ but in MiA2 doesnt support all the above features the quality of the photo is low specific in zooming and the size of the file is 8ΜΒ...
I miss my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL Dual.
I wish someone from Microsoft to give us a New Windows 10 SmartPhone with Great Specs such us:
CPU: 8 Cores.
GPU: 8 Cores.
RAM: 12 GB DDR5.
SSD: 256GB RAM.
Front Camera: Dual 48MP O.I.S. with Wide and Ultra Wide Lenses.
Rear Camera: Dual 48MP O.I.S. with Wide and TelePhoto Lenses.
Display: Super AMOLED 6" Screen with 19:9 Aspect Ratio and HDR10+.
Display Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 6.
Sensors: Iris Scanner, Face Scanner, FingerPrint, AcceleroMeter, Gyro, Proximity, Compass, BaroMeter, Heart Rate, SpO2.
Speakers: Stereo with Full Range 20-20Khz.
USB: Type-C 3.1 version.
Battery: Li-Po 5.000 mAh.
There is no phone right now with those specs in the market yet.
Except Xiaomi Mi9T Pro with lower specs and cost 350€.
https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_k20_pro-9708.php

 

[Ryujingt3]

It's great that you still enjoy your Lumia 950XL. When I had one, I liked it too (although I preferred the HP Elite X3). Sadly, Microsoft and everyone else has moved on now though.

 

[sd4f]

What I don't understanding is why phone manufactures are so disconnected and mostly non-innovative. What I mean is that innovation exists, but limited. Mostly it is rushed to market Apple copied features, some select Chinese manufacture does innovate like full screen phones, and finger print behind the screen. All great stuff I expect Samsung or LG to make, not a Chinese company.

I suspect it's because a lot of phone manufacturers aren't really doing a lot of design work. I haven't got a clue as to how phones are currently made, but the reason they're all merging towards the same devices is possibly because they're at the mercy of their parts suppliers.

Trying to do anything a little different requires customer modifications to chips or deviating from standard board layouts. I don't know if the phone manufacturers have people who can do a board layout.i presume that they get a standard design from their chip supplier and then just let a computer organise tracks to fit the space they have.

Apple is a great example of really pursuing their vision and design goals. They have a design and use engineering to overcome the obstacles. A lot of android OEMs just try to up their specs, without really improving things.

Case in point is displays and pixel pitch. Apple very successfully marketed their retina display. Android OEMs only caught up when those displays were available from their suppliers, with the exception of Samsung, lg and Sony, as they make their own displays. But then what happened is that they kept on going, and going and going... Sony has had 4k displays for a while now. Completely pointless on a phone, but since targeting pixel pitch worked so well for apple, well then they had to try to get a piece of that action.

I sometimes wonder if the android OEMs just don't understand their own products...

 

[Ryujingt3]

Apple is good at pursuing what they want, you are right. Everyone else just follows them. And no, the Lumia is most likely not the best camera in any way by a long shot now.