[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tdodd:
Thanks to those of you who felt I needed egg sucking lessons so much that posting your opinions on the subject over and over again would somehow add value to this thread. Quite simply I never suggested that the Note should match the DSLR for quality on any level and my gripes aren't about that. The circumstances which led to this thread were.....

1. Having had a phone with a camera so poor that I refused to use it, I bought the Note in the hope/expectation of gaining something I would be happy to use when out and about and to reduce the need to carry my compact camera, never mind a DSLR, as well as a phone. Of course there were many other reasons for upgrading and the camera was not top of the list, but a strong persuader.

2. I took some pictures in good (bright) light and when I reviewed them on my laptop, without pixel peeping, I did not like what I saw. I saw suspect colour tones and haloing, caused by oversharpening of the image. Some people may overlook these things, but they leapt out at me. I did not need to make a direct comparison with a DSLR to form that judgement.

2. When I displayed them to others on my 40" HDTV I liked them even less. I displayed them to family members, as a series of pictures, and when the pictures from the Note appeared I quite literally felt embarrassed by the quality of the images.

3. A 28mm (equivalent) fixed focal length is extremely limiting. You can't always foot zoom and, if you can, you don't often get the perspective you want from getting that close to your subject. I tried using the zoom setting on the Note and immediately could see that the results were horrific, even on the Note's tiny screen. Back at home there was no option but to delete them immediately. They were junk. I cannot begin to understand why Samsung felt this would be a useful feature to include. It's actually just an annoyance, especially when I accidently nudge the volume/zoom rocker (see point 4).

4. I find the form factor of the Note, combined with its weight, relatively slippery finish and hard buttons placed as they are, that in order to hold the phone securely and steadily I was frequently pressing a button which I did not intend. It is very frustrating when you zoom when you don't mean to, or turn the whole phone off, or escape out of the camera when you are trying to take a shot quickly and efficiently.

5. The only reason I bothered to pixel peep at all is because I was disturbed by the results I saw at normal viewing sizes and wanted to see what was going on underneath. What I found was, to my eyes, quite an ugly mess. People here have been chastising me for my expectations from such a small sensor, but perhaps the real problem is that Samsung chose to cut that little thing up into more megapixels than made sense. Small sensor or not, in "perfect" lighting conditions I would expect even a 100% crop to look better than the output from the Note. If it doesn't then maybe there are too many pixels for its own good. Don't blame me because of their marketing driven approach to engineering. For all their faults at least Apple didn't foolishly jump on that bandwagon quite as badly.

So all in all I find the Note to not impress me as a camera substitute. I never said that it was rubbish, but there is no way I could describe myself as impressed. Sure I can grab the occasional spur of the moment photo when I have nothing better to hand, and no doubt the results will improve significantly on my previous phone/camera combo. However, if I suspect I will want to take photos when out and about I think it would be a mistake to leave a proper camera behind, even if only a compact.

And having said all that, the reason behind the thread is to at least raise awareness that as good as the Note is in other areas, as a camera it is not a necessarily going to allow you to leave your other camera(s) at home. Maybe sometimes. Often not. But we all have different needs, expectations and quality thresholds and just because the Note's images don't float my boat on a 40" screen, or even my 17" laptop, they may be perfectly well suited to posting on Facebook or blog sites.

So, no trolling here, despite what many of you may think, just a sincere attempt to clarify how the Note stands as a camera with respect to other phones out there, not DSLRs. I've already had that answered, so thanks for your time.