8 megapixel mega shootout: Picture this

Individual performance summary

Sony Ericsson Arc S

The Sony Ericsson Arc S chose not to fight noise too much, which left some visible noise in the photos (especially in darker areas), but fine detail is preserved. Highlights are consistently overexposed so detail is lost there, but detail in shadows gets to stay (but there's noise there too).

The photos have a tinge of yellow to them (consumers typically prefer warmer colors). Colors are oversaturated and we saw a faint pink spot in the center of some photos. Also, there's noticeable blue fringing in high-contrast borders.

In the dark, there's a decent amount of detail captured but contrast is low and there's noticeable color noise. Its LED flash is average in performance.

Here come the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S camera samples:

Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S camera samples

HTC Sensation XE

Photos from the HTC Sensation XE are pretty noisy. The camera's dynamic range is limited, which means it loses detail in both shadows and highlights. The camera chooses the best exposure for its capabilities but that isn't much.

White balance trended towards yellow. On top of that, saturation is pushed a bit too high.

The Sensation XE turned in the noisiest photos in the dark when using the flash (which is the strongest of the six), which killed a lot of the detail. Shots in slightly better lighting without flash were surprisingly good though.

HTC Sensation XE camera samples

HTC Titan

The HTC Titan has a wider angle lens that its competitors, which gives it an edge in landscape shots, at the price of lower fine detail and more lens distortion when you get up close.

The noise reduction is too aggressive, giving photos that dreaded watercolor painting look. Fine detail is smeared over but even then, there's still some color noise visible. The Titan finds a better balance between the clipping of the highlights and shadows than most but it suffers from the same yellowish oversaturated colors as the XE. There was a noticeable pink spot to most of the samples too.

Photos in the dark with the Titan were noisy with decent detail. The flash was strong but but there's a tint affecting the whole photo. Other than that low-light shots are pretty usable.

HTC Titan camera samples