HTC announced their new flagship phone, the HTC U11 last week and it was the spiritual successor to the highly rated comeback, the HTC 10. One of the key selling points for the phone was its camera where DxOMark, a company that tests and ranks dedicated cameras and smartphone cameras, gave it the highest score so far (90), which is higher than the Galaxy S8 or the Google Pixel.
The camera hardware in the HTC U11 is top notch. The primary camera boasts a 12MP sensor with relatively large pixel sizes (1.4µm), a wide f/1.7 aperture that it shares with the Galaxy S8 and S7 with both optical image stabilization and the extremely fast dual pixel autofocus. On paper, the HTC U11 promised great low light performance which is usually the Achilles heel of smartphone cameras and these camera samples prove that it is on the Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S8 level.
An early HTC U11 owner decided to upload several photos taken with the phone in low light conditions on Flickr. The light gathering capabilities of the HTC U11 camera on paper had promise, and it sure does deliver.
As you can see the camera is able to properly expose some of the elements in the pictures without having the camera lens flare issues that were shown in the HTC 10. The colours are vibrant and they look like they were taken with a dedicated DSLR. A camera like this can realize its full potential in the hands of an experienced photographer with a tripod and using the pro mode and RAW capture capabilities.
