T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide Review - Photographers Wanted
by Vivek Gowri on August 12, 2011 8:45 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Snapdragon
- HTC
- 4G
- Mobile
- T-Mobile
- MyTouch
- Slide
How does all this actually translate to taking pictures? Quite well, actually. I took the Slide with me to a BMW CCA Concours event with a friend of mine, and it gave me some really, really impressive looking images. I had the G2x with me at the same time, and while the G2x camera isn’t particularly good, it looks downright bad next to the MyTouch. Great cars, great pictures. The conditions were absolutely perfect that day, especially by Seattle standards, so it’s unsurprising.
Aston Martin V8 Vantage @ 12PM. Taken in Automatic mode.
When you take pictures in more mixed conditions, they’re not quite as stellar, but still significantly better than a vast majority of smartphone cameras. I’d still put the Nokia N8 at the top (and the N9 even higher when it releases), but this definitely in the conversation for second best, along with the Galaxy S II (which we’re still testing). I’m willing to say the Slide can replace a point and shoot without too much difficulty during the day, it really is that good.
Seattle Skyline @ 12AM. Taken in Night mode, fully automatic settings
Seattle Skyline @ 12AM. Taken in Manual mode, incandescent white balance and ISO 800
The problem is night-time photography. The white balance in low-light situations is way too red in any of the automatic modes (auto, night, HDR), but you can set the white balance and ISOs in Manual mode. That fixes the light balance, but there’s still a lot of noise in the images when viewed at full resolution. It’s a bit disappointing, but there’s simply no way to get enough light to a sensor that small. I shouldn’t complain too much though, because it’s better than most of the other cell phone cameras out there.
Chicago downtown @ 6PM. Taken in HDR mode, fully automatic settings. Image courtesy of Nitin Seemakurty.
ClearShot HDR basically takes three pictures in quick sequence with three different exposures, then digitally merges them to get high dynamic range. Unfortunately, this issue with white balance means that HDR is basically unusable at night. I really like the night-time HDR effect, so I was a bit crestfallen, but the HDR effect is pretty gorgeous at dawn and dusk, as you can see in the image above. The friend I mentioned earlier took the that picture in downtown Chicago at around 6PM, and I honestly found it difficult to believe that came out of a phone camera. My own HDR images, while not necessarily as stunning as my friend’s picture, are decent. I noticed some overdarkening with clouds in the daytime, but it's not too big of a deal.
Seattle downtown @ 10PM. Taken in HDR mode, fully automatic settings.
Also, if you’re not necessarily very good at keeping a steady hand with the physical camera button, you might end up with something like what you see below. Yay for ghosting....this is why I stick to software buttons. This is also true if you’re shooting a dynamic object, like the water in the first downtown Chicago picture.
The view of Lake Union from my apartment @ 3PM. Taken shakily in HDR mode, fully automatic settings.
BurstShot is just a rapid fire, 5 frame burst. It’s good if you want to capture a quick motion sequence, but also if you’re trying to get the best picture out of a set.
SweepShot is a fancy marketing term for a digitally stitched panorama. Hit the camera button then slowly rotate either left or right, and it’ll just fill the bar for you. 5 seconds later, you have a panoramic image of the Seattle skyline (in my case) or whatever else suits your fancy.
The view from the roof of my apartment building @ 5AM. Taken in Panorama mode.
Now, for the other sensor. All of my sample images were taken with the Sony IMX105 sensor, which shoots 8MP pictures at 3264x1840 in widescreen and 3264x2448 in 4:3. My friend’s widescreen pictures come out at 3232x1824, even though the camera application specs the same resolutions as with the Sony sensor. His pictures don’t tell me much, other than he’s a better photographer than I am (or he shoots more picturesque subjects than I do - metropolitan skylines will always be better sample images than cars, but hey, I like cars more than buildings). It also reaffirms my feeling that given the right conditions, the Slide can take really, really brilliant pictures.
Images courtesy of Nitin Seemakurty.
The front facing camera is the same Micron/Aptina MT9V113 1/11” VGA CMOS sensor as the Sensation. Unlike LG’s front facing cameras, this one is oriented such that the output isn’t flipped, as demonstrated by the image sample of my Barcelona jersey. As with the Sensation, quality is pretty mediocre, but it’ll be solid enough for videochatting.
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Impulses - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
" Anand is going to do a deep dive into the dual-core Snapdragon microarchitecture in our forthcoming EVO 3D review. "Been hoping it'll come out already for a while! Any ETA? Also, can you share some specifics about how the battery tests are run? I'm not doubting the results, I'd just like to do my own testing here, my EVO 3D (which I'm still unsure if I'll keep) doesn't seem to be in the same league as the Sensation despite nearly phenyl identical internals.
Impulses - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
Great review btw, as always from AT... You guys go into way more detail than anyone else out there, it's really appreciated. I think the software side could use even more depth tho, ultimately people will customize phones and install their own apps, launchers etc but if you're gonna harp on manufacturer skins for what they get wrong, you should also highlight some of the value that some of them do add, beyond the obvious (lockscreen, camera interface, etc.).Take the print feature for instance, I dunno if the MT4G has it but the Sensation and EVO 3D sure do, and it's really really handy... True Wifi printing that works without a computer or a cloud service and seems to work even with older printers (at least it worked with my 5+ year old HP AIO).
Or how about the ringer settings for pocket mode, speaker on flip, and quiet on pickup? How about the power saver mode? Sense's FB contact integration tho done in a less-than-elegant manner (adds a tag to your Gmail contact notes) at a technical level still works better at a user level than FB's own app imo. The calendar is a vast improvement over past versions of Sense, tho I guess that's not saying much since they had really butchered it.
My biggest beef with Sense, besides the launcher (easily remedied) continues to be the browser. Generally it works pretty well, I like the big previews of open windows and bookmarks, the couple extra settings HTC tucks in, and the full screen mode... But why do they continue to limit you to four open tabs/windows at a time?! It's maddening, to an extent it keeps me from leaving stuff I intend to read/do open in the browser forever, but AFAIK everyone else is doing 8 no? 16 on tablets?
FrederickL - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
"But why do they continue to limit you to four open tabs/windows at a time?! "
I cannot of course say for certain but might it not be that the average smartphone even high-end still has a relatively limited amount of RAM (max currently AFAIK is 1Gb) and they are concerned about the browser crashing?
Impulses - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
Crashing or getting cached out of memory? I rarely see my stock browser crash on Gingerbread, I don't think it happens more than once a month... I used to see it get closed and tossed out of memory a lot on my EVO 4G whenever I switched to other apps (games, gmail oddly enough, or a combination of various apps would often do the trick). On the EVO 3D it seems to rarely happen thanks to the extra memory, which is really nice.I haven't taken notice of how much memory each tab may consume while open, but the browser as a whole usually hovers at around 100MB; higher than most other daily use apps but low enough that it still leaves 100-200MB free (while also having another dozen apps loaded I'm memory, totaling about 150MB). It seems the OS itself and Sense + the stock widgets consumes a beefy 400MB...
I've avoided customizing it too much while I make up my mind about it, freezing the Sense launcher and using ADW with some lighter widgets would probably free up a decent chunk of that 400 MB.
FrederickL - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
Yep, I suspect you are right as far as the amount of RAM being used by Sense in Gingerbread is concerned (although I have not had any big issues with my updated Desire Z). Certainly the less than stellar offering from HTC to its original Desire customers of a crippled Gingerbread/Sense upgrade, "install at your own risk", would seem to confirm my suspicions that the producers are (all of them) currently putting the absolute minimum RAM in most of their phones that they think that they can get away with at the time. Until there is a bit more customer pressure over the issue I do not see the tactic changing any time soon. The current attitude of the producers appears to be "if you want more than one upgrade, buy another phone". Given that the price of a modern high end smartphone lies in the range 650 - 800 dollars (unlocked), I find that attitude pretty contemptible. The only reason they can get away with it IMHO is that the US market is the leading market world wide and most in the US buy on a "plan" from the carriers. If a significant proportion of the customers in the US bought unlocked then the producers would probably be experiencing a much more negative attitude from their customers than they currently get.
Impulses - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
Problem is there is no incentive to buy unlocked, plans cost the same on all carriers regardless of whether you got a subsidized phone or not. T-mobile's the only exception to that and a) the discount is only like $10 b) it looks like they'll soon be part of AT&T.Nevermind that buying unlocked isn't even an option for customers withe two other major carriers (Version and Sprint), since they use CDMA.
FrederickL - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
Indeed, I see your point. That then raises the question of what is going on here with regard to prising. How is it, that there is no "bonus" in regard to plan costs if you buy unlocked? There is something very wrong and illogical with a "market" where that could possibly be the case. It is very strange that a deal that involves signing up for a "plan" which in *addition* provides you with a phone should (apparently) cost you the same as if you bought unlocked and *then* bought your plan. A market where such a phenomenon is possible ought to be the subject of *very* close investigation by the federal competition authorities. There is something that smells here and it is not pleasant.
andrewbuchanan - Sunday, August 14, 2011 - link
Yeah. I am pretty upset with the attitude that one or two upgrades is all you get. But I'm also upset that htc cuts corners.I had an htc dream with android 1.5, it never got any upgrades. Even though the dream got 1.6 on other carriers... The phone had very little internal flash which didn't leave much room for upgrades.
I have an htc desire, which is a nice phone, but they cheaped out on flash so it doesn't have room for htc's version of android 2.3 (the desire z, desire hd, got it because they came out slightly later and have more internal flash).
Anyways, if I had known they would stop supporting the phones after 6 months, I wouldn't have bought them. Carriers push 3 year contracts, but then the phones are only supported for 6 months. I'm sure a motivated individual could sue. And hopefully somebody does.
I'm not much of an apple lover, but they support their stuff for at least 3 years. And the microsoft ones seem to be as well.
Impulses - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
It'd be interesting to get those kinda memory usage stats in reviews, it'd probably explain some of the performance drags that manufacturer customizations often incur.FrederickL - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
Agreed, that would be most useful information.