[One (M7) General] Terminator19:
It is well known that GSMarena are bias towards Samsung products

- look at all the articles they write about samung VS other phones etc.

- they hardly ever report the bad news about samsung products or take forever to i.e. no news on Samsung paying people outside the company to trash the HTC phone online (pretty much every news site has an article on this, even sites that have nothing to do with android/tech) and took forever to report the sudden death issue with the gs 3, note II

- they speak so highly/enthusiastic about Samsung devices and the features of their phones where as with HTC devices they don't come across as excited at all and then they trash HTC for some things but not Samsung because you can change it around since it is android i.e. the power toggles in the notification bar, there are hundreds of apps that can do this.......

- they have bumped the GS 4 review to the top of the page because they got a final retail unit, I have never seen them do this with any other phone before, what about the nexus 4, htc one and all the other phones???

and the list goes on and on.

They use to be great but it is just becoming too obvious that they tend to prefer the Samsung handsets more.

Their camera tests are pretty crap in comparison to other sites anyway. However, I won't disagree with you there, gsmarenas photos look terrible, the worse photos produced from the one, however, chances are that this is down to early software and a pre-production model and/or faulty unit.

Secondly the camera is looking much better now, all the early reviews were using pre-production models with pre-release software as HTC have said and some of the sites have mentioned it in their reviews, the final units with the latest software are looking much better and this is still with problems i.e. sharpening being too aggressive, ISO bug that makes a huge difference as shown Brian also posted photos in his anandtech review showing the difference it can make (he knows the hardware/camera stuff better than anyone as has been shown through his work and reputation)

Not to mention that this is very new tech. to HTC especially with the OIS (only other phone to have this is the 920), there will be updates and the camera will improve, the 920 has had 2 big updates to improve the camera (with more on the way), the first one had drastic improvements i.e.

http://www.wpcentral.com/nokia-improves-lumia-920-camera-comparison

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/17/lumia-920-camera-fix/

Software is probably the most important thing there is, it can make or break a feature.

Not only that but all the newest reviews i.e. by anandtech, android police and other sites have shown the results to be very good overall i.e.

http://translate.google.com.lb/tran...obile-review.com/review/htc-one.shtml&act=url

http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/0...nt-smartphone-this-year-may-also-be-the-best/

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6747/htc-one-review/6

http://unleashthephones.com/2013/04...a-lumia-920-vs-the-htc-one-camera-comparison/

the macro shots are looking excellent going by android police review and the photo thread here, I would say the best for a phone camera that I have seen.

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=40282684&postcount=1155

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=40288241&postcount=1162

+ the above review sites

And as you can see here 1.28 VS 1.29, the photos are looking better, now imagine the difference when comparing that to the first/early firmware 1.26 or whatever version it was that the early review sites were using.........

Besides ignoring the picture quality in landscapes/bright scenes (which aren't "terrible"), the HTC one excels in low light/dark conditions, yes the images might look noisy in the very dark conditions but at least they are actually usable......... The one has a very quick shutter speed thus you have a better chance of getting a photo that actually has very little blur and also means you don't need as steady hands as you would with the GS 3, GS 4 etc. (this is a big problem with phones when you choose to use HDR/night mode)

You have to remember that a lot of review sites use tripods as well, which makes a huge difference.

To see if this is all true, check the anandtech review out again.

The colours on the one look more natural/realistic, you want the vivid/saturated colours of the GS 4 etc. then put the contrast or saturation up by one level in the camera app or use auto enhance in the gallery apps, not very hard to do and only takes like a second.

the video recording overall is much better than the GS 4, wider FOV, smoother, more detailed and better colours etc. (GS 4 will/should improve though as it looks worse than the gs3) Especially low light/dark conditions video recording. Again check the anandtech review.

The audio recording is also better, the one is quiet with normal noise levels, however, the gs 3 had a similar problem when first released thus chances are HTC will also improve it with a software fix.

Check anandtech review out as well as this thread.

The FOV is so much larger than the GS 4 too and personally to me is very important.

Not to mention you have all the cool/useful camera features i.e. built in filters (granted these can be done via 3rd party apps), slow motion recording (no app whatsoever on the market for this), zoe and all the features it comes with.

So the camera might not be as revolutionary as what HTC make it out to be, but it is a worthy opponent to the GS 4.

Unless you crop images a lot, print photos out on large paper or have a very high res. monitor then the extra MP will not be beneficial, as has been posted many times before pixel size is more important than MP, there are so many articles out there by professional photographers that back this up, they call it the "megapixel myth", more megapixels does not necessarily mean more detail, a proper 3-5MP camera would destroy a 8-13MP phone camera.

The GS 4 has a great camera but until we see a better/newer comparison from both phones, the title for the best camera phone is still up for grabs. IMO HTC have the most versatile camera phone there is to date, they have ticked the most boxes.