The Sony Xperia S And The Galaxy Nexus-a Review Of Still Photography
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the Sony Xperia S are two of the very best mobile devices
that make use of the excellent Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. Previously we took a look at the design and display quality on both of these models. We concluded that both models offered superb styling but the Sony eclipsed its rival for screen technology. Now we see how the models compare in terms of processing power and camera quality.
There is very little to choose between these two devices in terms of processing power with both handsets incorporating impressive chipsets. The Sony Xperia S uses a powerful Qualcomm MSM8260 Snapdragon processor which boasts dual cores and is clocked at 1.5Ghz. This chip helps the model to deliver excellent performance speeds and the dual cores are especially beneficial for multi tasking. An Adreno 220 graphics processing unit is also featured on this model to ensure the phone can handle the most demanding games titles that are available. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus also incorporates a dual core processor but one that is clocked at a lower speed of 1.2Ghz. This ARM Cortex A9 processor still manages to deliver super operation speeds and there is no noticeable difference between this model and the Xperia S in terms of performance. A PowerVR SGX540 graphics processing chip ensures that games titles and video playback is superb. The dual core chipsets on both of these models deliver excellent operation speeds and despite the slightly less powerful configuration on the Galaxy Nexus performance on both models is almost identical.
One area where the Sony Xperia S does impress us more than its rival is with its excellent photography features. Sony have always provided excellent cameras on their devices and this model in no exception. The Xperia S can capture photographs at a resolution of 12 mega pixels. Thanks to the excellent BSI sensor that is also used the image quality is superb. A secondary camera is also present on the model which can capture 1.3 mega pixel photographs. Some useful features are also present to help users in capturing the highest possible quality. An LED flash, smile detection and auto focus are all very useful while more unusual features such as a 3D Sweep Panoramic mode is a fun and innovative introduction. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus offers a still camera feature with a resolution of 5 mega pixels which is considerably lower than what the Xperia S boasts. The model does however still produce some high quality images thanks to a good quality sensor and some excellent features which include face detection and touch focus. Both handsets record video footage at 1080P resolution.
The Sony Xperia S and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus are both powerful phones that offer excellent operation speeds. The Sony model does offer more in the way of photographic quality thanks to an extremely high resolution and a superb BSI sensor.