K850i vs N95

Introduce the 5 megapixel series in phone arena. This year several GSM cameraphones have already reached the 5 megapixel barrier. The Nokia N95 has been out long enough now that it's even got an update - an 8GB version with a larger screen and a larger battery so obviously it will stick around as a Nokia flagship for quite some time. The Sony Ericsson K850 will be out selling really soon and it's surely going to be the Sony Ericsson cameraphone of cameraphones. And since we were curious probably as much as everybody else out there, we didn't lose any more time and we set off our GSMArena heads-on 5 megapixel cameraphone shootout - we thought that it would be fun and we really like to… well, shoot things. And it really turned out to be fun.

Before we start though, we should point out that it's really hard to tell which of the 5 megapixel shooters is the best. First off, our Sony Ericsson K850 test unit is actually a pre-release version (expect our detailed review really soon), so changes in the camera algorithm are likely to be made. They all pack top-notch camera performance and there's not an easy way to announce a clear winner. As each of them has its own quirks we've tried to apply a scoring system that would evaluate their overall performance based on their particular performance in different shooting scenes. Each handset can get a maximum of 5 points for its performance in the individual tests. But bear in mind that we haven't applied any weight factor to these tests which simply means that shooting in the dark is equally important as shooting under bright sun. In real life however this is not always the case - many of you shoot only during the day, while others will find themselves with the lens cover open only at night-time parties. So in the end, it's up to you to decide which cameraphone will suit your shooting preferences the best. Enough small talk, let's get to work.

Nokia N95 kept the ISO 200, just slowing the shutter to 1/17 sec. K850 used even slower shutter - 1/10 sec and increasing the ISO to 125. Note, that with shutter speeds like this you will usually end with unusable photos, because of the motion blur. Anyway, here Nokia is a clear winner, not much to explain. K850 vs N95 - 2:4

N95 shoot

K850i shoot

Even from the thumbnails you can see the different color reproduction from the two photo mobiles. Neither of the phones is spot-on, but the real poster looks closer to what Nokia N95 shows. Sony Ericsson auto mode chooses 1/30 sec and ISO 64, which is a good choice, while the Nokia strangely prefers to shoot at 1/111 sec and ISO 200. No idea why N95 needed the ISO boost.

At first look N95 surprises us with a cleaner looking image (look at the first crop or at the sky). Very good ISO 200 performance indeed. However, looking a little bit deeper we've noticed the price paid. Nokia has implemented some clever noise suppressing technique, which delivers smooth image. In some cases however, it also results in a loss of detail, look at the second crop - the fine texture of the chair is missing and the sand looks very strange. The noisier image of K850 presents the sand a lot better. The file size of the K850 is twice as big, which is not a surprise, the noise reduction in Nokia N95 loses a lot of fine detail. You can see the same effect in some outdoor photos if you look carefully at the foliage. Overall, we've decided that the Sony Ericsson approach is slightly better, as image noise can be fixed with specialized software, while the lost detail in the N95 photo cannot be recovered.