[Galaxy S 4 General] BarryH_GEG:
It's kind of surprising how this thread's leaning toward a different conclusion on the cameras than the same disussion in the now closed One vs. SGS4 comparison thread and the results of two very detailed reviews.

Bottom line: 13MP (detail) vs. 4MP (bigger photosite) wins the marjority of comparisons. The SGS4's biggest ding is its smaller FOV and lack of image stablization. The latter we've all managed to take great pics and survive without until now. And it has no affect on the actual quality of the pics themselves. The smaller FOV is especially noticable on video as would be the lack of image stablilzation. So the One would be an excellent choice for someone who used the camera for video the marjority of the time. The One can take great pictures, but most of the best pics I've seen required modifying the standard settings and using auto enhance after the fact. 90% of people "point and shoot." In the majority of those scenarios using the default settings as most will the SGS4's camera would perform better.

From the One forum talking about how to get the best results from the One's camera.

One, One with pic "auto enhanced" after the fact, One X.

There's also been some discussion of an update for the One's camera. This is a review using a device with the update from the site that originally brought it up. It turns out their original device was pre-production and the "update" in their second device is actually the shipping s/w. It's a very detailed review if anyone's interested in the One's camera being used with different settings. Their summary is below.

http://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/review-htc-ones-camera-tested-updated/conclusion-679

Conclusion

HTC deserves recognition for taking a bold, unconventional step towards improving image quality with the 4MP HTC One. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and HTC's implementation of 'ultrapixels' doesn't convey any significant advantage to image quality over the better camera phones of today. There's more to image quality than just the size of a photosite, just as there's more to it than just megapixel count. There's also the matter of optics, and how the image engine processes the images coming out of a sensor.

It's not that the HTC One's camera is entirely bad, if you're using the pictures just for social media, we doubt that most will notice the loss in image detail when viewing on their desktop browser or on another mobile phone. AF is snappy and the shutter is generally fast to respond. But there's also no special need to abandon the 8MP camera phones of today for the 4MP on HTC One. You'd sacrifice image detail for no noticeable improvements in low-light.

There's also the archival question; years from now your 8MP photos will still look decent on a future, more pixel-dense monitor. Your 4MP photo will not. This reviewer still has 3MP photos taken way back when with his first Fujifilm digital camera, and they look woefully small today on his PC monitor. If you print however, the HTC One's largest image resolution, 2688 x 1520 will give you a maximum print size of 8.96 x 5.06 inches at 300ppi, nearly A5 size or somewhere in-between 5R and 6R, which is a decent size.

If you do already have a HTC One and it's shooting images with soft corners, watch out for the camera firmware update which HTC tells us is coming in April for the general public - you'll see a noticeable difference in image quality. With both the previous and new HTC One phones though, we observed the same weirdness happening at ISO 800 - pictures shot at that setting appear softer and noisier, even noisier than ISO 1600.

About the other smartphones - the Nokia 808 Pureview is the undisputed best camera phone you can buy. However, since it's running on Symbian and the auto-focus is decidedly laggy, it's also the camera phone that nobody should buy. Still, it's groundbreaking technology and we're surprised that one year after its announcement, we still haven't seen any other Nokia phone use the same 41MP sensor.

We'd have loved to have the iPhone 5 show up more in the tests, but without a way to control the ISO, we can't conduct a proper 1:1 comparison yet. All we can say is that it looks like the iPhone has the second-best lens in this selection behind only the Nokia 808 PureView, with consistently sharp corner to corner performance. But it does also have a well-documented purple lens flare issue.

So, discounting the iPhone 5, from our small comparison it looks like the Nokia Lumia 920 is the best bang for your buck when it comes to image performance. It's not perfect - images are a little soft - but it delivers the best balance between image detail capture and image noise. It also has optical image stabilization, which is not available on the iPhone (but is available on the HTC One).​

Here's some pics from GSMArena's camera comparison...

GSMArena's comparison of still performance...

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S4. It's pretty clear that things are going in favor of the Galaxy S4 here. It produces sharper photos with better colors and there's resolution to crop things out. The narrower FoV is not ideal but it's not a deal-breaker. The HTC One lost this round, though to be fair it was never expected to win a head-on fight in good lighting conditions. Its photos are certainly good enough if you'll post them on Facebook or show them off on a TV, but don't come close to the samples produced with its competitor today.​

And low light performance

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S4. Surprisingly, the Samsung Galaxy S4 has the better low-light camera performance. You'll have to snap several photos to make sure you have a good one, but the end result will be better than what the HTC One produces. The Galaxy S4 has a slight advantage in low-light video too. The HTC One is more reliable - thanks to its OIS you can snap just one photo and know it will be about as good as it gets. But the camera's performance is simply nothing to write home about, and there are cases when OIS just isn't helping at all (when shooting moving subjects).​

And video

Winner: HTC One. The HTC One takes this round thanks to its much wider field of view and OI. The Samsung Galaxy S4 can shoot great videos too, as long as you have steady hands and have enough room to take a step back.
​

And camera features

Winner: HTC One. Both phones have a lot going for them, but we're willing to rule in favor of the HTC One. It makes it very easy to make a cool collection of shots with Zoe and Highlights, with easy editing after the shot and easy sharing. It's also faster when taking pictures, especially when in a special mode. And the OIS is awesome to have no matter what. The Samsung Galaxy S4 does win out on a sheer number of features and we like the simplicity of the carousel interface. Yet most people will be shooting in auto mode and might not even see all these features.​

And comments specific to the One

So let's get down to brass tacks here - the image quality. The HTC One promises a lot but does it deliver? Well that depends on the scenario. When used in good lighting condition, the low resolution really takes its toll and while the per-pixel detail level is impressive the total resolving power is quite limited. Colors are quite decent and images generally look pretty nice when zoomed at 100%, but we were surprised to see that a lot of noise is present. There is some purple fringing, too, so it's not perfect either. Overall, the gamble HTC took with the ultrapixels certainly doesn't pay off when in good lighting conditions. Just about every other high-end smartphone will produce better stills in that scenario.​