I think Steve Jobs would have told them to go to a larger sensor a long time ago as well. Overall the details in these images are severely lacking.

Okay

@MarcoKoehlermkh
Are you a real person or a troll bot? But yeah I agree, I'm also better than Lebron James, it's undeniable!

i got a 1300d laying around, almost any new phone smashes it in dynamic range. sure phone do some software stuff but in the end a single phone image has more dynamic range than a 1300d jpeg and a 1300d raw. also, the kit lens is barely as sharp as good phones, like most of the time less sharp.
no im not a troll, thats just what it is

Well, if you use "dynamic range" in the same context as HDR, then yes... But try to shoot a picture with a smartphone without using HDR, then you're happy with any big sensor camera. I also use my Huawei in several occasions where i don't have the camera with me or if it's the usual - still nice though - snap. But i would never trade in my Panasonic FZ1000 optics, quality image and zoom for a smartphone... (apart from HDR maybe..:D)

low quality bait

@JhvaElohimMeth: No baiting or trolling here. It's just entertainment if you let it be. No different than yelling at your television screen during a football (calcio) game. In the end, it means nothing. Enjoy!

Maybe all the photos on his website were made with a fantastic iphone 8+

I interpreted the entire original post as sarcasm, not a serious comment on the state of iPhone vs D850 photography. Maybe you and I read it differently. If I do not detect sarcasm, I roll my eyes, smile, and move on to the next post. If it is indeed sarcasm, I roll my eyes, smile, and move on to the next post. In the end, it means nothing.

Anyway, I still see everything here as little more than mild entertainment. Enjoy. :-)

many companies innovate along these lines ..... my zte axo7 is superb in both its speakers' loudness and clarity ... and are pleasant to even enjoy music with and also a great DSP to process sound with great fidelity .... it is apple and samsung standing still or going backward along this front

Good to know that some companies are providing good sound. Apple surely isn't. I think I'll write a letter directly to Tim. Might help. Otherwise ... and as much as I love my iPhone ... I might even consider going to another brand.

The Alcatel Idol 3 and 4 have dual front facing features and the sound it great. I have hearing loss and this phone was exactly what I needed. When on speaker phone it's like a small boom box! Excellent value too.

As far as sound quality goes for a phone conversation, I hope it's not that good. Maybe that will keep people from using the phone feature. I hate talking on the phone. Sure, the phone is necessary, but I use that feature about as often as I did with my first cell phone, very rarely.

Send me a text or email. I don't want to talk on the phone. If you can't say it in a few short sentences then it better be darn important.

That doesn't apply, of course, to people who just fell in love. In that case, yes, you need a clear signal and a long battery life.

Correct me if I'm wrong editors of DPR, but this is 'predominantly' a site for reviewing digital photography products, not a general digital photography site where the basic talk is photographers and their different styles, photography techniques, advice etc. I don't care if the iPhone is the number one camera. Just as I don't care if Beyonce and Katy Perry are the best selling pop musicians. In this site people have every right to call it as they see it, technically. These photos look like watercolor and I repeat, my 100$ Lumia takes at least as good jpegs. Now go on and mock me like another guy did ("enjoy your Lumia, you and the two other guys who have it"), this just shows the herd mentality that make people pay way too much for what they actually get and need. They buy iPhones because basically think "it's the most expensive, therefore the best and it's the must have phone". And when samples like that come out, any critical eye ability goes down the drain basically.

Absolutely agree. Also saving about 1000$ (by buying a cheap phone that takes as good pictures to email), money that you can then use to go on a fantastic trip that you will remember for the rest of your life, is the thing that stuffy, snoby old iPhone users of any age seem unable to comprehend!!

I guess some iPhone users have money to buy smartphones AND make a fantastic trip.
Speaking about traveling : why would I pay $1000 for a plane ticket when I live in one of the most beautiful place of the planet and have visited 1% of it ? Give a backpack, a tent, a car (or two bikes) and my wife and I can make a fantastic trip during 3 weeks for much less...

Link to your 100$ Lumia please (I hope you don't compare a second hand market discontinued phone price to a brand new phone ?)

PS : I own a 250€ 3 years old Android phone.

And the Sultan of Brunei has money to eat in golden plates (and probably owns a golden Leica). Is that a commendable thing? Money can always be spent in better things. How about helping someone in need? Does Bill Gates eat in golden plates?

As for living "in one of the most beautiful places in the world", that made me chuckle...yeah, I do too, but beauty and culture come in many different shapes and if you're not interested then good for you.

Here's my phone, bought it brand new for 104 euros, discount price as the sheeple deemed this to not be worth more (while the think a 1000$+ iPhone taking nice watercolour jpegs is absolutely worth it "because that's what I have with me all the time!"
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/57770695

- not priced at 104€ around me (refurbished and second hand > 150€) and 104€ is already more than $100 by a good margin...
- discontinued product with dead OS
- 640XL camera is nice for the price but clearly not as good as iPhone

I'm interested in different shapes of culture and I traveled a lot. But truly speaking, there are already MANY shapes of culture to discover in your own country (and even city). And the less expensive is your travel, the more you discover...

I still don't understand why dpreview should not cover smartphone photography... And why a $1000 smartphone is a shame whereas a $5000 camera + $2000 lens combo is OK.

You cannot look at prices now that the product is discontinued, they always seem higher. For a good few months before the stock run out, these were selling for 105-110 euros in my country (Greece). Yes, exactly my point, it's discontinued and the OS is dead BECAUSE people behave like a herd and feel better about themselves if they buy the brands that everybody has and considers a status symbol. so of course, if nobody is willing to buy a perfectly valid alternative that costs only a fraction of the iPhone, the platform is going to die. "It did't have the apps I wanted" Don't even get me started on this nonsense. Actually the OS is pretty alive on my phone and will serve me well for as long as I intend to keep it, which is a few years.
104€ is about 21$ more than 100$, but does that invaldiate my point? Which was that it costs a small fraction of the price of the iPhone but its camera quality is a big fraction. I take your traveling point though.

Windows Mobile had more than 10% market share in France few years ago. I had friends, and family with Lumia / Microsoft phones. And you know what ? The software and the lack of apps make them switch for cheap Android phones or even dumb phones (not iPhones).

Lumia 640XL was priced at 250€ at launch, the fact you bought it for 104€ only translates the fact that nobody wanted to buy it and the iPhone vs cheap phones should also take into account that Apple still release more "affordable" devices (with powerful SoC, huge App Store, software updates, compatible accessories...).

TL;DR : you can't judge the price of a product based on ONE feature.

You didn't contradict anything I said, your relatives and friends I don't want to comment on, as I did before in general.
Who said I was only judging it by the camera? Those Lumia phones that your friends found so useless, had the best GPS navigation available and it was free. That's probably the second most useful thing on a smartphone. I can't remember how many times I had my friends looking me in disbelief when my Lumia was driving me spot on everywhere for free, maps downloaded beforehand and no internet data needed, while their iPhones and Samsungs needed internet connection to use the maps and there was no good free navigation app either. Even dedicated GPS devices didn't work better than the Nokia navigator. But sure, I cannot switch off the light with my 640XL, bummer!

Are you talking about Here Maps or Windows Maps ?

"no good free navigation app either." Waze ? Google Maps ? Those apps are free, quite good (Google Maps works offline too) and up to date... (there are others apps of course, including the successor of Here Maps)

Light switch are an extreme example. What about bank, transports, browsers, social apps ? Both iOS and Android offer superior versions and it will become worse with the abandon of Windows Phone... The fact you use preterit is a neat indicator of this OS state.

But you are confusing what I'm saying. I was talking about the near past, when your friends were abandoning the OS and their Lumias, like 4-5 years ago. THEN, those phones had both cameras that were at least as good as the competition (usually better) and navigation much better than the competition (talking about what was initially Nokia maps and then became here maps). THEN those worked like a dream, while there was no such good option offline on iPhones and android. And THEN the sheeple did not put any value on those but got duped by the whole apps negative media talk. Banking on your phone...jeez, as if all the active people do not use a laptop everyday at work and have to do their banking while they're having lunch. Browsers...only a geek could find a flaw in the internet explorer on WP., "oh wow, it's average response time is 120milisecs and not 100 like the iPhone".
Of course now the OS is dead, duh, does this contradict the reasons I'm giving as to why it came to be?

My friends were perfectly happy with Lumia phones 4-5 years ago. There were not happy 1 or 2 years ago and most made the switch. Talking about the 640XL (discontinued phone with discontinued OS) today is irrelevant and I'd not advice my worst enemy to buy one.
In fact, a Nokia 808 probably produce better pictures for a lower price too and is enough for basic stuff (text / call /...).

W8 mobile was a good OS but all the Nokia debacle and W10M transition lost all the third party developers (and the Microsoft one judging on the emphasis of windows app on non-windows OS and the disappointing stability of W10M...) : sad but true.

Talking about browser, it's not 100ms vs 120ms, it's correct rendering vs incorrect rendering, ad-blocker vs lack of.
Banking on a phone is really handy when someone ask you for a credit transfer or you want to fast-check. You also can pay with your phone. That's what all 2015+ smartphones should be able to do. Why should I need a PC if I can do this on the go ?

i find lack of raw unfortunate and yet another example of apples contempt for their customers ....

"might confuse them" that sounds like it might well describe apples position and low opinion of their customers ... in this case photographic sophistication itself

RAW is available since iOS 10 / 6s or newer as Jeff stated. The "might confuse them" is his theory, Apple never stated this. The fact that RAW as been made available to interested customers proves quite the opposite. I'm using Lightroom Mobile but there are many others if you prefer an Adobe alternative.

Before this, I essentially couldn't not get myself to use the iPhone as a camera (other than taking visual notes) as the quality was below my minimum acceptable standard (detail smearing). This has changed profoundly and RAW capture is actually pretty good considering the small sensor size. The different in detail between JPEG and RAW is staggering because Apple's JPEG engine uses very aggressive noise reduction / compresses too much. In contrast, Apple JPEG colour and overall look is great, often quite laborious to match in a RAW workflow.

i hear you ..... the issue, I think, is not offering raw in the native camera app...which begs the question why. it is done deliberately by apple ....to what end?

I've long felt that apple dumbs down and tries to insulate customers from the nuts and bolts aspect of computing ..while this approach makes apple os an elegant stable and easy to navigate environment ... it is, for me, maddening
in its control and limitations ..... while" not confusing customers" is just a theory[ like gravity ] it strikes me as a valid one.

You are kidding me, an LG G4 was the all around best phone in 2015!! It does EVERYTHING an iPhone 8 does. The resolution of the iPhone 8 is less than that of the Nokia N8 from 7 years ago! It had only 12MP, but a much bigger sensor. I can get 4ft wide noise-free images from my LG G4 (if well-exposed) and its 16:9 sensor suits me better than the squarish one the iPhones have. With the LG you must use the RAW file option as its jpegs are oversharpened blocky messes at 1:1 magnification onscreen. Of course small they look great, but you only get good results from an LG using RAW. They never learned to leave the jpegs alone for YOU to sharpen, if you so desire. Stupid, but most makers copy them. All are of course outclassed by the 808 and 1020 Nokias for photos only.

I think that DSLRs in particular are so good at this point that people get carried away making a big deal out of small differences.
But in the case of the iPhone if you compare it to other phones it's not nearly as subjective. My Nokia 1020 took better photos and it came out 4 years ago!

Raw -> HEIF -> JPEG
Would that affect quality? Can HEIF images be used directly on social?