Will 5MP on the C902 be good enough?
By Ben Robinson on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at 9:15 AM PST In Imaging, Sony Ericsson
…. well probably is the answer. And why the question? Well, read on…..
Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) were kind enough to email me and let me know the C902 is now available (has been for a little while) - it comes with a much-touted 5MP camera. This is interesting to me, because I would contend that certain 5MP Mobile camera handsets do not take great photos (I’ve said as much before).
Oddly, the handset that I thought took the best pics (from the variety that I have had) was the SE K800i - it was only 3MP, but they were mind-blowingly good pixels from a very diminutive device! It’s successor, the K810i, didn’t seem quite as good to me. Moving on then to the K850i, again, I didn’t think it was quite as good - and that was a full 2MP more.
But of course the Megapixels only tell part of the story - the optics, and of course the camera module management software play a large part in deciding the image quality. So it was with great interest that received the email today, re-affirming that I could purchase the C902 - and my question still stands…. will the 5MP camera be good enough?
By good enough, I mean will it deliver everyday-usage shots that perceptibly are free from noise, have good colour balance - but most importantly - that I believe are good? Perception of quality is in the eye of the beholder, and if your opinion on anything is that the quality isn’t there, then you are right - and so is everyone else, with their own opinions. But only your opinion counts if it is your device!
In my opinion, 5MP camera modules on devices should be able to produce a reasonable picture - good enough to print out on a 6″x4″ paper at least. From my past posts, the consensus appeared to be that really the N82 from Nokia (NYSE: NOK) was the best all-rounder. So, I contend, will the C902’s 5MP camera deliver the goods? Anyone who is owning one and using the camera, please do feel free to add a comment to this post!
Ben
Been looking at the SE 902, but wondering if it will surpass the Imobile 902 (image quality wise) that came out long before it…
I had the chance to own the I-Mobile 902 - it has bar none been the best camera phone I have used - 5mp, xenon flash, auto-focus. And it came out more than 2 years ago. Pictures when viewed at their actual pixels were comparably as good as a so-so point n’ shoot - which is still very good considering this is a phone first, camera second. Sadly the sensor went wonky after 400 shots, and I returned it (no thanks to paypal, thanks to my credit card) - I then got the LG KG920 - what a piece of garbage that was in comparison - had the 5mp, xenon and autofocus - but dog slow and heavy in comparison.
There was a rumor that the 5mp sensor used in the Imobile was a Sony Cybershot module - but this was never confirmed. The Imobile 902 felt very similar to an SE though (menu wise)
Great post ben!
I also had owned a SE 2 megapixel cameraphone (w810i) which produced suprisingly good pictures for its time.
I then moved to a nokia n82 (black of course) and was pretty impressed but not blown away.
In my opinion the n82 took great pics but didn’t do anything spectacular as far as features were concerned.
I should note that the video recording on the n82 was phenomenal!
Unfortunately the n82 not only felt like a cheap piece of plastic, it was a cheap piece of plastic. After only a couple of weeks of use the exposed xenon had cracked.
I then moved on to another 5 megapixel contender, the samsung g810.
So far id say the colours are slighty more accurate on the n82 however the feature list on the g810 is amazing. Today i finally had the chance to test the camera and i was absolutely blown away with shots i took in macro.
The optical zoom does lose some quality when zoomed in all the way but no where near as bad as digital zoom.
Anyways those were my expiriences with my 5 megapixel phones. But from what i’ve seen the C902 took horrible videos and mediocre photos.
I would say it’s a poor mans 5 megapixel phone, or a chicks phone seeing as how it doesn’t really do anything else besides take photos and make phonecalls
okay ..
i’ve been using c902 ..
the camera wasn’t good.
n the flash..
OMG.
terrible..
the picture come out will look so so so yellow-ish..
seriously..
not good..