Of course, for a business use case, you might not need flagship camera performance, but hey, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, so what about outside of the office? Anyway, the resolutions are close enough and the DTEK60 being here for review was too good an opportunity to miss.
On paper the Lumia 950 XL has the technical edge for imaging, but the DTEK60 looks promising, the two devices are very much equivalent in a number of ways:
| Microsoft Lumia 950 XL | Blackberry DTEK60 | |
| Camera specs |
20MP f/1.9 1/2.4" sensor Phase Detection Auto Focus ZEISS-made optics Optical Image Stabilisation triple LED flash |
21MP f/2.0 1/2.8" sensor Phase Detection Auto Focus dual LED flash |
| Other specs (for context) |
Snapdragon 810, 3GB RAM 5.7" QHD AMOLED display Mono speaker on back USB Type C comms/charge |
Snapdragon 820, 4GB RAM 5.5" QHD AMOLED display Stereo speakers at either end USB Type C comms/charge |
The Blackberry DTEK60 and Microsoft Lumia 950 XL (here with optional Mozo back replacement cover)
Notes:
- The Lumia 950 XL also shoots in 'PureView' oversampled mode, at 8MP. I prefer this mode for general shots since there's extra purity and lower noise most of the time and some lossless zoom when needed. But the default on the Lumia is, in fairness, also 16MP at 16:9, just as on the DTEK60, so it's a perfectly fair fight.
- All shots were on full 'auto' (including Auto-HDR), except where stated.
- In some cases, in addition to 1:1 crops, I'm showing the scenes as shot by both phones, since colour balancing is often very different.
| Note that the interactive comparator below uses javascript and does need to load each pair of images. Please be patient while this page loads, if you see a pair of images above each other than you've either not waited long enough or your browser isn't capable enough! |
Test 1: Sunny scene
My local golf clubhouse, a favourite test subject, here lit by low (but very bright) sun. With the angle, there's plenty of dynamic range needed here. Here's the overall scene, as shot by the Lumia 950 XL:
Let's move on to detail and 1:1 crops. In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and DTEK60, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:
The Lumia 950 XL camera just about wins out here, with greater dynamic range and with the higher quality optics producing a slightly clearer photo. I still think that Windows 10 Camera over-sharpens too often and that the DTEK60 image looks more naturalistic (e.g. see the bushes here in the crop), but 99% of people would class the Lumia's photo as better, so let's go for that as the winner.
Lumia 950 XL: 9 pts, DTEK60: 8 pts
Test 2: Sunny macro
A challenging and arty shot, crouching down low and shooting into the sun. Here's the overall scene, as shot by the Lumia 950 XL first and then the DTEK60 below it:
Although the colour balance is very different, it's hard to pick a winner - the Lumia shot looks a bit too 'cold', while the DTEK60 shot looks too 'warm' - the truth is somewhere in between!
So let's move on to detail and 1:1 crops. In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and DTEK60, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:
I'm going to call this a draw overall - both phone cameras do an excellent job in terms of focussing under tricky circumstances, albeit with different colour interpretations.
Lumia 950 XL: 9 pts, DTEK60: 9 pts
Test 3: Ultimate sun
Let's try and fool the camera units - shooting straight through a pretty red-leaved tree. Here's the overall scene, as shot by the Lumia 950 XL:
Let's move on to detail and 1:1 crops. In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and DTEK60, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:
Maybe I'm being unfair expecting either phone camera to do much with this test shot, plus it was never going to be easy to get the framing of the two shots 100% identical. In fact both phone cameras did really well, producing a pleasing effect as well as nice colours and detail on the leaves. The DTEK60 didn't seem to focus as well as the Lumia 950 XL mind you, which is why I'm giving the win to the latter.
Lumia 950 XL: 9 pts, DTEK60: 8 pts
Test 4: Saturation overload
I include this test shot, also in the sun, because of the significant differences in colour handling again. Except that this time it's the Lumia going over the top in terms of colours and saturation! Here's the overall scene, as shot by the Lumia 950 XL first and then the DTEK60 below it:
Admittedly, at web resolutions here the differences aren't quite as dramatic as when viewing the images full-screen, but the Lumia 950 XL manages to turn wintry Woodley into the torrid Tropics - the tree really isn't that orange, the lamp post on the left is a very pale green, just as the DTEK60 shows, and the sky was blue, but not that blue.
Let's move on to detail and 1:1 crops. In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and DTEK60, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:
The 950 XL fares much better when looking at detail - that 'pro' lens and the larger sensor, plus the better dynamic range, and the 'right on the edge of being too much' sharpening algorithms, all help, though you can still see in the tree trunk that there's yellowing creeping in... Overall I'm giving this to the DTEK60 because it nails the colours across the scene, even if it doesn't quite have the pixel-level detail.
Lumia 950 XL: 7 pts, DTEK60: 8 pts
Test 5: Indoor low light
A typical indoor scene, incandescent lighting and some nice still life subjects. Here's the overall scene, as shot by the Lumia 950 XL:
Let's move on to detail and 1:1 crops. In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and DTEK60, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:
Add better (and stabilised) optics to a larger aperture and more mature image processing algorithms in the Lumia, and the result is evident above - the extra noise and degraded colours in the DTEK60 low light shot are ugly indeed. In contrast, the Lumia 950 XL produces a terrifically clear shot, made more impressive by this being the full resolution, i.e. non-oversampled mode - if I'd been shooting in 8MP, there would be almost zero noise.
Lumia 950 XL: 9 pts, DTEK60: 5 pts
Test 6: Late dusk
Getting very dark, about 15 minutes after sunset. Here's the overall scene, as shot by the Lumia 950 XL first and then the DTEK60 below it:
Wow. The Lumia 950 XL manages to turn night into day, almost literally. The scene to my eyes, was halfway between the two shots above, but the DTEK60's is so dark and dim as to be unusable. And the exposures were similar - I took half a dozen shots with the DTEK60, even focussing manually, and this was the best of the results. And no, I can't explain why it's so terrible in very low light. I have to guess that it's a software issue and that Blackberry will fix it, but in the meantime you can forget arty night shots.
Although it's something of a formality, let's still go to detail and 1:1 crops. In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and DTEK60, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:
Again, the Lumia 950 XL camera, in low light, is just amazing. AMAZING. And the DTEK60's is far worse than it SHOULD be. Again I have to emphasise that I took a bunch of photos with the latter here and this was the BEST. Gulp. And then I took a bunch more with different subjects and equally as terrible results.
Any DTEK60 owners should press for a camera-fix-up software update from Blackberry.
Lumia 950 XL: 10 pts, DTEK60: 1 pts
Verdict
Adding up the points scores gives us an overall winner, in the usual way, though you know the result already, of course:
- Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 53/60
- Blackberry DTEK60: 39/60
The Blackberry DTEK60 was doing so well until the sun went in, too.... You could argue that it's not fair to compare a DTEK60 on its first public firmware with a Lumia that's had a year of updates. On the other hand, the older device is only two thirds the price, so the caveats even up overall, I think.
In other aspects, the DTEK60 is impressive, with premium (if slippy) build, decent-ish speakers, lightning fast processor, and so on. Would you like me to pitch the DTEK60 directly against the HP Elite X3? And not just in imaging? I feel they'd compare very well together.
Thanks to Clove for the loan of the DTEK60 - look them up for all smartphone stuff!