Phone smart

Quere said "For a new challenge, Id like to try to go one step further, and to target some hardware beyond the usual categories. Ive added a git project for the Sony LT26, i.e. Xperia S. This seems like a good target: its a powerful current GSM device, with an unlockable bootloader, from a manufacturer that has always been very friendly to AOSP."

The Sony Xperia S was an interesting device. It had a 4.3-inch 720p display in a market of Android flagship phones with larger 4.7 to 4.8-inch 720p displays. The only spoiler in the package, is that while its competitors came with new for 2012 chipsets, the Nvidia Tegra 3, Qualcomm S4 and Samsung Exynos Quad, the Xperia S came with a dual core Qualcomm S3 which we first saw in the HTC Sensation back in the first half of 2011. All-in-all, the Xperia S is like a sleek car with a mediocre engine under the hood. Still, Sony did a good job with the Qualcomm S3, squeezing out more performance from the chipset than any other OEM ever did. 

All of a sudden, the Sony Xperia S looks a lot more interesting. Priced substantially lower than its competitors, being a "mid-sized" offering and now with updates direct from Googles AOSP team. Even more interesting, it looks like the Xperia S will become the platform for a Google Skunkworks project for the creation of the next iteration of Android.

"Contributions are strongly encouraged, and there should be more freedom than usual to submit experimental changes since that wont impact the devices that Google is most directly involved in," Quere said.  

So, the somewhat boring Sony Xperia S, might now become transformed as the home of the latest cutting edge Android code.

Smartphones these days are getting to the point where everything is fast and capable enough. While buying a more expensive smartphone brings improvement in speed and display quality, these things are getting to the point that the average user cannot tell the difference all that much.

The average used wont notice the difference between the Qualcomm S4 Pro on a Google Nexus 7 and the fast Qualcomm S600 on the HTC One. The HTC has the sharpest resolution of any phone with a 4.7-inch display with a staggering 1080 x 1920 resolution. In every day use,many users may not notice the difference between the HTC One and its Full HD display and the 4.7-inch HD display (768 x 1280) display of the Nexus 4.

So while we pony up more cash for the fastest phones and the sharpest displays, more and more, the phones other features are becoming more important. Personally, the one thing I appreciate most about newer phones is better and better cameras. I no longer buy a compact digital camera, as a secondary camera to a DSLR (or DSLT).

GSM Arena has an excellent tool to compare phone camera image quality and looking for a replacement for my current phone it is a useful tool for making a buy option. The tool can compare up to three phones at a time. 

Using the tool I compared the average 8 MP shooter on the Nexus 4, with the improved 13 MP camera on the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the 4 MP Ultra Pixel camera on the HTC One.

Scaling the pictures down to match the test resolution of the HTC One as 3 MP, which is something you are likely to do when uploading images to the Internet or sending them by mail, the 4 MP camera on the HTC One looks disappointing, while 13 MP camera on the Galaxy S4 produced the best result.

The results are the same on the ISO 122333 Chart. The 13 MP camera on the Samsung Galaxy S4 seems to have the best low light capabilities, in addition to providing the sharpest images.