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The camera on the Samsung i8910 HD is among the best the company has put together, aping the raw ability of the Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition in terms of picture quality.
We placed it head to head with an Olympus SP-565UZ 'prosumer' camera, with a 10MP sensor and a dedicated zoom lens, and the as you can see in comparative terms, there's very little to choose between the two until the light begins to diminish.
In bright sunlight, the Olympus is better at capturing the deep hues of the sky, but both pick out the sharpness beautifully.
The Samsung i8910 HD
Olympus SP-565UZ
When stepping out of the sunlight to take some snaps, we actually had to check which photo came from which camera. In fact, we decided to put a picture from a 2MP sensor on the 5310 XpressMusic to show how washed out a photo can look from a cameraphone.
The Samsung i8910 HD
Olympus SP-565UZ
The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic
On a cloudy day amid the tube strike, we took these two pictures while walking over Millennium Bridge to highlight the prowess of both snappers in cloudy conditions.
The Samsung i8910 HD
Olympus SP-565UZ
As you can see, when the light drops the Olympus really comes into its own. The flash gives some nice even tones, while the LED effort on the Samsung i8910 HD make things a little sharp and dark at places.
The Samsung i8910 HD
Olympus SP-565UZ
When the flash is taken off, both night modes work very well, but the Olympus is clearly leading the way, although Samsung's i8910 HD works very well still.
The Samsung i8910 HD
Olympus SP-565UZ
Overall, if you're looking to use this as a main camera, you could do a lot worse. It's obviously not going to be the best in every category, but there are a lot, lot worse out there on the market.
The 720p video camera is a nice touch on this phone, although we found that not only did it eat up space on the handset, it was a little under-used as a 'flagship' feature. While looking at the videos we uploaded to the computer was great (and adding to YouTube in HD is a much nicer experience than dull old SD) we found that it wasn't as good as Samsung might have you believe.
For instance, a Mino Flip Ultra HD camcorder gives slightly better footage, and is much cheaper than this phone. Admittedly, you are getting boatloads more technology with the Samsung i8910 HD, but we can't help but feel the HD in the name is a little redundant.
Coupled with that is the fact that audio recording can easily get garbled on the device, with the rumbling of a tube sounding like a burbling brook for some reason.
Of course, we (and most of the people we know, so hopefully we're in the majority with this statement) don't use our phones much to capture video, and being able to record in 720p didn't persuade us otherwise. However, if you're partial to a bit of on the go footage, then you obviously can't get much better than the world's first hi-def camera on a mobile phone.
