Comparison 4

iPhone 5S - 1/2160 f2.2 ISO32HTC One - 1/2959s f2.2 ISO125There were a couple of difference between these two snaps right off the bat. Colour temperature and dynamic range. And on both counts, I plumped for the iPhone. The overall tone of the snap was more pleasing with a cooler palate overall, and the sensor did well inpreserving the highlights as well as retaining enough of the shadow to make the overall exposure just about right. Not perfect, but not too far off.

The HTC One on the other hand accentuated the harsh temperature of the sun on this late afternoon snap. As a result, the tone was orange brown, with a tinge of green. If you were looking for the 70s colour film tone, then this would be perfect, but not my cup of tea.

My vote went for the iPhone on this one.

Comparison 2

HTC One - 1/50s f2.0 ISO125iPhone 5S - 1/30s f2.2 ISO80There was a major difference between the colour temperature of both snaps. In terms of sharpness, they were both more than acceptable, considering that these were indoors, and both cameras utilised the image stabilisation system to enabe them to keep the shutter speed slow and low ISO. 

The snap on the iPhone (lower) looks much warmer, especially appreciated on the skin tone. But this was at the expense of the generalised orange tinge to the whole frame. I could make skin tone adjustment on Aperture if I wanted, but I thought I'd just leave it at it is to illustrate the point.

The scenes was taken last Sunday at Fahrenheit 88 main lobby. It seemed that one of the local college was holding an exhibition for their arts faculty.

Comparison 1

iPhone 5S - 1/30s f2.2 ISO 125HTC One - 1/33s f2.0 ISO 160As you can appreciate, the snap from HTC One - the bottom - seemed to be more exposed compared to the top. It also appeared to retain less of the highlights compared to the iPhone. In terms of aesthetics, the photos would be open to personal interpretation. In this snap, I prefered the iPhone since the snp appeared to be richer in terms of colour gamut. The HTC snap also appeared more yellow, although I think it was more of the eposure issue.

All That for 4G?

When I picked ip the new nano Sim from the Celcom store on Saturday, I was surprised to find out that it didn't enable LTE straight up. It happened automatically on my Maxis account. To activate, you'd have to turn up either at Menara Celcom - which only opened during office hours - or at Bluecube at Sunway Pyramid.

Luckily Sunway Pyramid was only 5 minutes away from my hospital. So, at 10 am on a Sunday morning, I gleefully made my way to the mall.

Yes, it was opened as advertise and I was the first customer. I have my account details, complete with presentation of my MyKad. They did something on the network, asked me to turn my phone off, restart it and walla. I was 4G.

Why can't they just activate it over the phone, or better still one could just apply through the internet via their phone. Imagine one had to waste their time just to turn up at Sunway Pyramid. Not even for a change of SIM. Rediculous! But then again, we were just customers. And the sad thing was, Maxis' network was way faster! Minus the hype. And I didn't even get to meet Usain Bolt!

The iPhone 5S Camera

So, the weekend had been spent taking the 5S through its paces and the main focus was on the camera. How much if an impact it was?

The quality of the 4 compared to 3GS was huge. And the jump was maintained when the 4S was released. I had been happy with the 4S until I got my hands on the HTC One and as a camera phone, the One was not short of awesome. But it remained what it was. A mobile phone with a camera. It's nowhere near my X-Pro 1.

So, in came the 5S. Does the camera present a big jump compared to its predecessor? Bear in mind that I jumped from the 4S, the quality increase was expected. I do not have a iPhone 5 to compare it to, so I did the next best thing. Comparing it to the HTC One. But I would leave that to the next entry.

Let's just look at the camera on its entirety. The snaps were good. And coupled that to the Camera+ app, the photos were really good. The focusing speed was faster and they tend to find the right focus points as well.

But I found that the snaps tended to be underexposed and cooler temperature-wise. Nothing that Camera+ couldn't fix.

Is it spontaneous enough? Unfortunately I did not. I found that snapping photos were fiddly for some reason. Compares to the HTC One, the photos tended to be warner and brighter. Maybe it was just the screen, but the same was seen on the computer monitors as well. I tended to like the HTC One snaps better, and tended to get the photos I wanted first time.

Maybe it was an unfair criticism for the new iPhone since I only had it for one weekend. I understood the HTC One's quirks better having used it since May. I might change my mind in a couple of months.

I will post up comparison photos between the HTC One and the iPhone 5S on my next entries.

Ed - the comparisons are here in not one, two, three or four, but five instalments!