LG's Optimus 7 & Samsung's Focus Reviewed: A Tale of Two Windows Phones
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 3, 2010 10:14 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Windows Phone 7
- LG Optimus
- LG
- Samsung Focus
- Mobile
Camera
Comparing smartphone cameras isn’t as easy as you’d think. You can take a bunch of shots in similar settings with different phones, but as with most things in this industry the manufacturers are all engaged in a high stakes game of tradeoffs. The obvious tradeoff up front is sensor quality vs. cost, once you make that tradeoff however there’s a lot more to worry about.
Much of how these cameras behave is up to software. There are certain things the iPhone’s camera does extremely well, and other things it just can’t ever seem to get right (e.g. white balance in certain types of CFL light). There’s also the debate of capturing reality vs. capturing what looks good. Oversaturating colors and employing TV-maker-style tricks come to mind here.
The Windows Phone 7 cameras we’ve played with have all been able to produce decent photos for web use. Given enough light and a very steady hand, you can even produce some sharp enough shots for small format prints.
I mention needing a steady hand because you are forced to use the physical shutter release button on the phone itself. The act of pushing down the button is often enough to blur a relatively slow rolling shutter.
Despite Microsoft mandating that all Windows Phone 7 devices have at least a 5MP camera, and supplying the default camera app, settings do vary between devices. For example, the HTC Surround allows you to set capture resolution but not compression level. The Focus and Optimus 7 let you do both.
The Optimus 7 adds a bunch of scene settings driven by LG’s own customizations, while the Focus has an option to enable “wide dynamic range”. The full breakdown of what you can do on these three phones is in the table below:
| Windows Phone 7 Camera App Settings Comparison | ||||
| HTC Surround | LG Optimus 7 | Samsung Focus | ||
| Scenes | Intelligent Shot | AF Mode | ||
| Effects | Beauty Shot | White Balance | ||
| Resolution | Panorama shot | Image Effect | ||
| Metering Mode | ScanSearch | Contrast | ||
| Flicker Adjustment | Photo Resolution | Saturation | ||
| Brightness | Sharpness | |||
| White Balance | EV | |||
| Color effect | ISO | |||
| Quality | Metering | |||
| Anti-shake | Photo Quality | |||
| Wide Dynamic Range | ||||
| Photo Resolution | ||||
| Anti-Shaking | ||||
It’s perplexing. Given how strict Microsoft has been elsewhere in the OS, even mandating what Start screen tiles OEMs/carriers are allowed to customize, this seems like a tremendous oversight. At the bare minimum all WP7 devices should have the same basic options to control things like JPEG quality and white balance.
The Focus has more normal camera settings while the Optimus 7’s settings are more geared towards scene control. The settings do tangibly change the image you get out of the camera in both cases.
Resolution options are also somewhat different between cameras. Although all three cameras have 5MP sensors the resolutions exposed vary among vendors:
| Windows Phone 7 Camera Resolution Settings Comparison | ||||
| HTC Surround | LG Optimus 7 | Samsung Focus | ||
| VGA (640 x 480) | 1M (1280 x 960) | VGA (640 x 480) | ||
| 1M (1280 x 960) | 3M (2048 x 1536) | 2M (1600 x 1200) | ||
| 2M (1600 x 1200) | 5M (2592 x 1944) | 3M (2048 x 1536) | ||
| 3M (2048 x 1536) | 16:9 1M (1280 x 720) | 5M (2560 x 1920) | ||
| 5M (2592 x 1944) | 16:9 2M (1920 x 1080) | |||
| 16:9 3.6M (2560 x 1440) | ||||
All three phones above feature a 4:3 5MP sensor. Only the Optimus 7 lets you shoot in a cropped 16:9 mode however. Samsung also crops its 5MP mode to 4,915,200 pixels, while the other two phones give you 5,038,848 pixels in their highest resolution mode. It’s not a big deal by any means, but curious nonetheless.
So how do these phones function as cameras? Both feature an LED flash, although the Optimus 7’s lens/flash cluster looks a bit fancier. As I mentioned before, I’d say both phones are easily capable of web quality photos; using the high resolution for detail in smaller photos vs. enabling huge images.
Samsung Focus
LG Optimus 7
Apple iPhone 4
I’d argue that the Focus generally produces better looking images, at least more colorful, better exposed and marginally sharper ones.
Samsung Focus
LG Optimus 7
Apple iPhone 4
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inighthawki - Friday, December 3, 2010 - link
Any news on the Omnia 7's US release date? I'd love to get my hands on one, as it's the only WP7 phone I'm really very interested in.Hrel - Friday, December 3, 2010 - link
I think 4" is the minimum size I'd buy. When I use the Galaxy S I always feel like justa little extra room would make using it perfect. But hey, maybe you're right and that's
not true for WP7; I've never used it. I still think 4" is the minimum size though. I'm 6'4"
and an athletic 240lbs and I have very large hands.
I think EVERY phone should have an SD slot, prefferably not micro, but if they must.
I mean, is it really that hard to fit a full size SD card slot in there? THey're not
very big.
I like the brushed metal design of the LG over plastic any day on any electronic anything.
A good screen can never be understated, good on ya Samsung. AMOLED FTW!
I like the 3 main buttons to be physical, personal preference here.
I really like the apps LG includes.
I want all the camera option of LG and Samsung Standard on all WP7 phones.
You dogs like to eat plants:) Hahaha, that one runs off with the stick so the other just keeps on
eating grass.
Have you guys ever looked into reviewing anything from Archos. They make a bunch of handheld
smart phone like devices that would be great for people who don't wanna be locked into
paying 100+ per month to use it. I've never used any of their stuff so I'd like a
good thourough review, who else could I ask really? They also have Windows 7 Tablet
that if it's done well could combat the ipad and galaxy tab.
strikeback03 - Monday, December 6, 2010 - link
There are reviews of Archos units around, just have to look a little more. General opinion (which I agree with based on my Archos 5 IMT) is great hardware paired up with flaky software. They also have a bad habit of promising things in software and then never delivering.And yes, a full-size SD slot would be huge on something smartphone sized, I would much rather have the microSD slot and have she space saved over SD used for a thinner device or a larger battery or something.
I like the ability handset makers currently have in Android to customize the OS, IMO allows it to be much better tailored toward individual markets. For example, on Windows phone I would have no interest in the Zune anything or Xbox anything, so it would suck to have a significant portion of the UI devoted to that. What I would love is if Android phones were able to (without rooting) dual-boot whatever the current vanilla flavor of Android is as well as whatever the customized version their phone maker came up with, have the choice of which experience they want. I do like that carrier programs can be easily removed in Windows phone though.
Voldenuit - Saturday, December 4, 2010 - link
The lack of mountable storage on WP7 is a deal killer for me.Anyone who's used a phone has probably experienced times when the on board (micro or otherwise) SD card simply refused to read. On a normal phone, you can usually fix this by removing and reinserting the card, or cleaning the contacts.
If a WP7 phone ever loses touch with its SD card storage (dust, dirt, loose contact, etc), it will corrupt your whole filesystem. This is a major failure in robust design.
Right now, I'd go so far as to avoid any WP7 phones that have an SD slot.
MGSsancho - Saturday, December 4, 2010 - link
You can remove and reinsert the same SD card no problem, the issue you are referring to is booting the phone with out the original SD card.I will agree with you sometimes you need to force reboot the phone but usually a simple removal works and others you need to remove/reinsert the memory card.
Voldenuit - Saturday, December 4, 2010 - link
Cool, that's good to know.I'm still waiting for the Nokia N8 review on Anandtech. We're on AT&T, and their phone selection is rubbish, so I'm thinking of buying my own unlocked phone and adding it to the plan.
strikeback03 - Monday, December 6, 2010 - link
Well, wasn't the internal card on the HTC Surround under a cover?bobjones32 - Saturday, December 4, 2010 - link
Thanks, Anand, as usual. Great reviews on WP7.I've owned a Samsung Focus for about two weeks now and in general agree with everything said here and elsewhere.
I've been an iPhone user for more than 2 years, and loved it. I know iOS inside and out, and thoroughly enjoy the application ecosystem. But my contract was up, I was going to spend ~$200 either way, so I figured I'd give WP7 a shot and keep my iPhone to use as an iPod Touch so I could continue using all my games and applications.
For all the bitching and moaning about the obvious things lacking, or how the back button behavior is "confusing", it's been nearly perfect for me. The back button always does exactly what I want it to do at a certain time, and even after using iOS for 2+ years, I don't really miss copy+past, fast app switching, or certain background processes at all.
Here's hoping that the updates are fast and significant next year!
ryedizzel - Saturday, December 4, 2010 - link
Another excellent review and the video was really helpful in understanding the navigation/ visual effects you talked about. Keep up the good work and hopefully MS adds the ability to do WiFi tethering- that's the only reason I would choose Android right now over Win7 and iOS.popej_ - Saturday, December 4, 2010 - link
"AMOLED displays are truly off when displaying black, so you technically get infinite contrast ratio."Well, no. You simply don't include reflected light into measurement. That way you can't measure AMOLED, transflective LCD, e-ink or compare matte with glossy screen. So what does remain? Maybe it is time to change your measurement to something more usable, that will correlate with real life?