[Xperia Z1 Compact General] slannmage:
So I have a Nokia 808 vs Z1 both taken at the same range and both in bright white cloudy conditions. The Z1 suffers from cartoony colours, it doesn't always but it falls into the trap they all do of wanting to oversaturate to make images look more appealing to the mainstream. The 808 was so natural and nice, but people think it looks dull, when it is just exactly what your eyes are seeing. The 1020 I just sold did a similar thing in that it made every picture yellow...

Any ways both are 100% zoom at a pretty similar range as you see his face is around the same size and both in the same lighting condition.

808: http://s4.postimg.org/abqpbj2ct/image.jpg 8mp

Z1: http://s4.postimg.org/63vx2s0x9/image.jpg 8mp

Now at full resolution and the same distance and lighting, though the 808, both are at 100% but the extra 14mp of resolution gets you up closer. 1020 I've added as it was the same but I had problems with it because I found it would focus super hard on something in the centre and even by the eyes it would blur out, so the nose is really in focus, yet the rest is a blur. Also though the 1020 suffers from the same lighting problems the Z1 does in that it wants to oversaturate everything, though the 1020 turns everything yellow too. You can see what the extra resolution gets you though...

808: http://s14.postimg.org/ks6tj0841/233.jpg 34mp

Z1: http://s14.postimg.org/mipukhpn5/image.jpg 20mp

1020: http://s21.postimg.org/lmyon6yjr/1020.jpg 34mp

That said it isn't all bad, the 808 has sun light here blurring the nose a bit so this isn't a great comparison and I had to reduce the size of the 808 image by 70% to get the file size down to upload it...

Z1 full picture: http://s29.postimg.org/n96ui3mty/DSC_0006.jpg

Z1 100% crop: http://s29.postimg.org/q20224n6f/DSC_00061.jpg

808 full picture: http://s23.postimg.org/9udbpyjh6/2013_04_21_0232.jpg

808 crop: http://s17.postimg.org/3ksrqu33z/2013_04_21_02321.jpg

The phone sits in a halfway house between the GS4 and 808; I remember doing this image here comparison the HTC One, GS4, 1020 and 808 all at the same distance and 100% crops. This is what you got for your resolution and you could see how simple the GS4 made it's colours....

http://s27.postimg.org/843w5fgqb/image.jpg

The Z1 when comparing seems to sit in the middle of the GS4 and 808/1020, though I didn't put the picture on here.

HTC One on the left, GS4 right, then 808 bottom left and 1020 bottom right... again turning everything yellow even though there was no sunset.

So all in all the camera can hold its own, sadly though the software holds it back, the auto mode makes pictures too blurry and inconsistent and limits you to 8mp, I'm not convinced their oversampling is there or working well. So I'd recommend manual and full resolution, only you lose tons of options and you see the phone start to struggle framerate wise. Even then there are major issues, Landscape shots suck, and it struggles to focus on the correct things, I can take the same shot many times and it always comes out different. You'll end up having lots of lacklustre pictures, ones that look worse than other phones such as the iPhone 5...

With the GS5 on the horizon, I'd be interested to see how that holds up as it is 1/2.6 in sensor size and 16mp, so it could end up looking better because Samsung will surely have better software. The 1520 is 1/2.5 and 20mp and looks way better than the Z1, purely because the software is better, I'm really disappointed by how the Z1 camera is optimized... the software is so bad!

I do not recommend the 1020 though, the camera is too slow, lacking features, you'll always miss shots because it takes 4 seconds between shots, it turns everything yellow and Windows Phone sucks.

Edit: I've just noticed the site I uploaded the pictures to has made the first two 808 pictures look a bit odd