First off CC, my original point was that in general, higher megapixel counts on phones equals better quality. Not because of the pixel count itself necessarily, but because if it's a high number the manufacturer has usually included reasonable optics (for a phone) and other good features. See my car analogy.

However, to answer your question, no of course I can't display the pictures full screen. But a resized/cropped image from my phone at 1920x1200 will look a damn site better than most other phone pics. I don't mean I use the full 5mp, sorry for the confusion. It also means that I can crop nicely to decent sizes post-shot if I want to highlight something or whatever. 3 doesn't afford me that. Besides, that's all irrelevant when you consider my first 'graph.

It's obviously not become the norm, otherwise Apple and HTC and a few other people would've bloody done something about it! Internet browsing should be an enhancement of a mobile, not a replacement for a computer, but they seem to have put enough effort into that.

I don't carry a camera everywhere. I can't afford a decent one and I probably wouldn't carry it all the time if I did. I do have a phone with me at all times. Also, I can't share my images with friends almost instantly with a point and shoot.

Perhaps it's not important to you, but it is to me and plenty of other consumers. I just wish the "smart-phone" people would pay attention to the rest of the market. If you're getting the top phone on the market, you shouldn't have to compromise anywhere.

I dont understand why some people believe that because a monitor cannot map a photo pixel for pixel then anything above your monitors native resolution is a waste (or in print too). Its rubbish. I've seen images taken at massive resolution (24mp) and you can see a visable difference in the detail captured on paper and screen than the comparision (which I believe was around 12mp).

Should smart-phones have cameras at all? Who are their main consumer? I'm guessing businesses?
Would you allow your executives into a meeting or a secure room with a video or still camera? I'm guessing not. Yet you'd happily allow them to carry their mobile? I'm guessing so. This could lead to breaches in security.
I know here that all the phones we give out either have no camera, or have been ordered specially to have no camera.

I have a camera on my phone, but it hardly gets used, and when it does it's usually a quick "har har, look at that", then I forget about them...Ideally I wanted a phone without a camera, but with Bluetooth. When I was in the market two years ago everyone told me nothing like that existed

Canon has announced their replacement for their "top end" point-and-shoot G10. That model had 15MP, the new one has 10MP.

Technology has moved on, and I can only guess the new sensor and associated jiggerypokery has improved over the previous model enough they can drop the pixel count.

So, it seems it's true that more pixels does not necessarily equal better images.

I seem to recall reading an article recently which stated that a lot of companies were reducing the "headline figure" and concentrating more on removing the electronic noise problems from the pictures.

Should of gone with the SE M600i. It had no camera and had bluetooth and I actually quite liked it

For cameras maybe......

Forquare, in my last job the company phones were iPhones because my boss thought they were "cool". However, in telecomms generally I found a lot of people were using them as they could connect to exchange with some fiddling, the web browsing is second to none (which is handy for maps and finding places when you're on the road) and the camera was enough to take shots of faulty things in comms cupboards and racks etc.

With the advent of the iPhone the smart phone is no longer the preserve of business people exclusively. It has become desirable to the consumer and unfortunately for me, it seems that all phones are going this way. So if they could just stick the camera from a C905 on a decent phone with a battery that lasts longer than a day, I would love that. It's unlikely to happen though...

Some of the higher MP sensors do suffer from more noise than their lower MP siblings. When the new full frame Nikon came out with whopping 24mp sensor it didnt control noise as well at higher ISO. That said though the detail captured on the sensor was amazing.

I bought a Canon Ixus for my girlfriend's daughter, the 8MP version, I bought myself a new 12MP version a couple of months later... In some conditions the cheaper, lower pixel count version takes better pictures.

It really is down to the optics. I tend to agree with Okenobi that the CyberShot type 'phones do offer better optics - it isn't the pixel count alone, it is the fact that, generally, they have a glass lens and a cover to stop it getting scratched. That is what makes the difference, not the pixel count, as such.

That said, the camera on the iPhone is more than good enough for the odd on-the-fly shot. If I want a proper shot, I'll use the proper tools.

No, no you can't. If the screen shows 2Mpx then that is all the detail you get. The optical quality of the lens may make a difference but that is all.

If you shoot at 10 Mpx it allows you to throw away 80% of your data and still have no loss of quality. But how often do you want to do that?

I think what Veato meant, is that when you start with more detail, when you reduce the image size, you can still end up with more detail in the reduced image. For example, if there is some very fine text, the 20mp will have a clearer image of the small text. When it is reduced, the algorithm has more detail to work with when doing the dithering, thus there is a chance that you might be able to better make out what the lettering said, compared to a 2.3mp or a 10mp original of the same image.

In general, and for the average user making a snapshot, it won't make much difference, but sometimes it is useful.

I took 3mp images and 10mp images of the photocopier control panel here. Although they are both displayed at around 1mp, the 10mp image looks much better at 1mp than the 3mp original - although the camer lens and sensor make a difference of course.

I'll see if I can take some examples with the same camera at different resolutions...

Thanks big_d

Yes, basically what I was saying is you will capture more (finer) detail with more mega pixels in the first instance. Of course there are lots of other factors involved but when doing a direct comparision with the Nikon D3 and D3x (12 versus 24 mp) and viewing a zoomed/cropped printout the D3x showed much more detail.

I'm not saying megapixels is a measure of quality alone. Or buying into the megapixel myth. But a 2mp image does not look as good on my monitor as one taken on the same camera/lens at 10mp (never mind being able to zoom and crop without losing quality of the smaller image). Thats not to say the 2mp looks bad, it doesnt.

Quote:"When all else is equal, our 10-megapixel models tend to produce better detail than lower-resolution models at print sizes of 8x10 (inches) and larger," said Chuck Westfall, director of media and customer relationships at Canon. That holds true even while holding other factors constant, he added. "For example, it's fair to compare the PowerShot SD900 Digital Elph at 10 megapixels vs. the PowerShot SD550 at 7.1 megapixels because both cameras have the same lens and sensor dimensions," he said.

I remain sceptical at this point.



Of that I have no doubt.





I would like to see the difference, Chuck does sell cameras so is a bit biased. Also what does he mean by "tend" to produce better detail? Does it mean that for example in some circumstances larger Mpx give worse images?

I honestly find it bizarre you haven't noticed it for yourself CC. Higher megapixel images at reduced sizes pretty much always look sharper on my PC. But perhaps as I mentioned in my earlier post, it's that the higher mp cameras/phones also get better optics/compression/whatever...