When it comes to smartphone cameras, all that matters is what happens when you press the button (/tap the screen), it's not about how good you can get the shot if you play around with the settings, it's always been that way and it's the right way to judge them because that's exactly how we all use them.
For the record this is the exact reason the cameras on the Lumia 800 & 900 are god awful, yes you have all the white balance and ISO settings right there to play around with, but if I just press the button, which is all I want to have to do, shitty results almost every time.
I disagree. A summary of why Engadget's test is horrible.
Test circumstances were in favor of Lumia 920:
From the start, the test was set up in favor of Nokia's smartphone. As we can see in the text body, the tester “[...]held each device perfectly still[...]“. Holding the device perfectly still or mounting it to a tripod is, in this test, something that will reflect positively
only on Nokia's results.
It can only positively affect Nokia's results because the other manufacturers don't change the shutter speed at all when in low light situations as proven by the EXIF data the original files come with.
The Samsung Galaxy S3's and the iPhones shutter speeds don't change compared to a daylight shot (1/17th of a sec & 1/15th of a sec). Nokia changes its shutter speed to 1/3rd of a second. The difference between 1/17th of a sec and 1/3rd of a second is huge.
ISO Values:
The iPhone picture is much brighter than the S3 picture, and that's most likely caused by the fact that the iPhone 5 jacks up the ISO Value all the way to 3,200. The Galaxy S3 is taking pictures at ISO 800 and it cannot go any higher than that, at least not without changing to “night mode”. Now I haven't really tried the night mode on the S3 but I'd assume that it does either change the shutter speed (to catch light for a longer time) or the ISO Value or a combination of higher ISO and longer exposure.
Why not using “night mode” is stupid:
Night mode would change how the camera operates and while it's nice to have a smartphone that automatically adjusts to the low light situation, the fact that the S3 doesn't do that has nothing to do with the quality of the sensor and doesn't – at all – show what the camera is capable of in low light situations. Having the smartphone automatically choose the setting has its upsides but also comes with negative side effects – it's the same with any other camera.
Engadged claimed fairness by saying “Well, we used auto-mode on all the devices” and while that seems fair, it really isn't.
So we know how Nokia achieves that kind of brightness but with that, we also know of at least one weakness the camera has. If Nokia doesn't set the ISO Value higher (which it doesn't seem to do in auto-mode) and relies completely on leaving the shutter open for a longer time, then any picture with humans will be blurry unless the objects don't move at all. 1/3rd of a second is a long time when taking pictures – of course, this is not important when you take a photo of something that doesn't really move.
In a situation like that, the iPhone would work way better because it doesn't rely on leaving the shutter open for a long time. It relies on high ISO, which does negatively affect the pictures quality but will mean that you at least don't have to deal with blurry images. The best image stabilization doesn't help you in any way if the thing you're taking a photo of is moving or not standing completely still.
So if all that's important is to press the button then get ready for getting blurry pictures on Nokia's device because their automatic low light setting is only good for things that don't move.
