During the press presentation of the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra, we had the opportunity to take some shots with the new Samsung HP1 sensor. Here is the result.
Motorola has just introduced three new smartphones to complete its Edge lineup. On paper, the most interesting of the three is the Edge 30 Ultra, for the simple reason that it’s the first phone with a 200MP sensor. We were able to try it for a few hours.
This is a completely standard design phone for its price range, with the design attention being in the choice of materials, the satin coating on the back or the curved edges of its edges. But what interests us today are the image characteristics of the main sensor.
HP Isocell Sensor Season 1
Before we move on, let’s finish the presentations. This is the Samsung S5KHP1 sensor, often referred to as the Isocell HP1. This is the first generation of sensors with this definition developed by the Korean giant.
At 1/1.22 inches, it integrates 0.64µm photographs and can combine 16 of them simultaneously to create 12MP photos, with 2.56µm pixels. On the Motorola edge 30 Ultra, it is accompanied by a lens with an aperture of f / 1.9, a field of view of 82.3 degrees, optical stabilization and autofocus starting at 14 cm.
Our first shots
The first note that immediately jumps to the eye: 200 megapixels in no way revolutionizes smartphone photography. We expected it, we can now confirm it.
Let’s be clear on one point: the Motorola edge 30 Ultra takes pretty decent photos. But we’re having a hard time detecting the 200MP contribution during our first grip.
We can never be reminded enough that today’s smartphone photography isn’t so much about the hardware as the quality of the algorithms that support it. This new Moto may be equipped with a completely new sensor, we are finding the photo flaws we already knew on other phones of the brand: small problems with colorimetry, especially in blue, red or skin tones.
If we compare it with a competitor, the Oppo Find X5 Pro, which, let’s remember, is also much more expensive, we see that the sharpness and HDR management are still worse.
Here HDR and details in the background or in the car.
Oppo Find X5 Pro
Motorola Ultra
Here in a photo, look at my hair or at the sun to the right of my face.
Find X5 Pro
Motorola Ultra
The benefit of this sensor on paper, in theory, is to get night shots with less noise. Never mind, that’s what gives it a very low brightness.
The result is frankly well controlled, even if we find some corners of the image a bit bare and a slight lack of sharpness here and there, the image captured as a whole is rather aesthetic. Motorola may have a hand in this.
And what about the crop?
One of the promises of multi-pixel sensors is that you can use ultra-fine mode, which does not fuse the pixels together and thus allows, in theory, a higher level of detail. This allows in particular toHarvestIn the image, any crop inside the image as desired.
There are two concerns to prevent this use: the first is that the gain in terms of sharpness, in other words the fineness of detail in the image, is not really evident, particularly on the sides of the image.
Then the high resolution mode seems to lose some of the normal shooting mode algorithms. Here is an example below, where we can clearly see that HDR is breaking down.
12MP mode
200 megapixels mode (compressed, otherwise the site manager will be angry)
Despite these few drawbacks, being able to crop more easily in photos is always a good thing, and introducing the iPhone 14 Pro with a 48MP sensor will definitely push manufacturers to improve their algorithms to take better advantage of it.
Note that the phone we took the photos above does not have the software version that will be on Motorolas once it is marketed. Obviously we expect improvements from here on the release.
The number of pixels does not make the photophone
So, overall, the 200MP sensor as used here by Motorola doesn’t add much to the photo experience on the flagship. Chromatography, sharpness, dynamics management, everything seems a little behind the competition. Even the fact that the image is cropped by taking shots at maximum definition leaves us a little pensive, given that this mode leads to a drop in overall quality and uncontrolled HDR. The level of detail we’re supposed to recover doesn’t justify adding such technology.
In the end, this new sensor confirms a firm rule in smartphone photography: the number of pixels does not determine the quality. Remember that the iPhone, up until the latest iPhone 14 Pro, monopolized the ratings of the best photophones with a 12-megapixel sensor.
This article was written as part of a Motorola press trip.
#megapixel #smartphone #hand
