The Essential PH-1’s camera is in pretty rough shape right now

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

Well, reviews of Essential’s new PH-1 smartphone have arrived and, long story short, it’s mostly positive but have one sticking criticism that seems common throughout most of the reviews I’ve read, and it’s a significant blow to the phone at launch; the camera is not where it should be.

Many of the issues stemmed from lackluster camera quality to the app being buggy and inconsistent in navigation and performance. Essential has stated that more updates will be rolling out to fix the camera, however.

Personally, I’m not really satisfied. Even though we can rightfully call Essential a startup (a billion dollar startup in that regard), many of the folks at Essential have tons of experience with smartphones and we even saw that blog post showing how they fine-tuned the algorithms for combining the standard and monochrome shot together for a better final photo. While I do acknowledge that it’s no easy feat to combine photos like this, that blog post really did it no favors.

So where does leave us? If camera quality is not a concern, then the PH-1 is pretty darn good in other areas. If you need a good camera on a smartphone, however, I would wait for a bit and see how Essential fixes the issues over time. If you can’t wait, however, the modified HDR+ Google Camera app seems to deliver better results.

For Essential’s sake, let’s hope it’s fixed, because this sort of camera performance on a $700 phone is borderline laughable at launch

 

[MSFTisMIA]

Well, reviews of Essential’s new PH-1 smartphone have arrived and, long story short, it’s mostly positive but have one sticking criticism that seems common throughout most of the reviews I’ve read, and it’s a significant blow to the phone at launch; the camera is not where it should be.

Many of the issues stemmed from lackluster camera quality to the app being buggy and inconsistent in navigation and performance. Essential has stated that more updates will be rolling out to fix the camera, however.

Personally, I’m not really satisfied. Even though we can rightfully call Essential a startup (a billion dollar startup in that regard), many of the folks at Essential have tons of experience with smartphones and we even saw that blog post showing how they fine-tuned the algorithms for combining the standard and monochrome shot together for a better final photo. While I do acknowledge that it’s no easy feat to combine photos like this, that blog post really did it no favors.

So where does leave us? If camera quality is not a concern, then the PH-1 is pretty darn good in other areas. If you need a good camera on a smartphone, however, I would wait for a bit and see how Essential fixes the issues over time. If you can’t wait, however, the modified HDR+ Google Camera app seems to deliver better results.

For Essential’s sake, let’s hope it’s fixed, because this sort of camera performance on a $700 phone is borderline laughable at launch

I'm not surprised, really. I actually expected average results from the camera anyways.

I got a sense that camera was never one of those features they wanted to ace from day one. I do think the pushing back of the launch date put them in a position to launch the camera app before it was ready.

The Essential phone and the Nexus One has a lot in common. For those who are in the game long enough, the advantage the Essential phone has over the Nexus One is better camera hardware. Essential, like Google back then, has zero camera experience. What people take for granted is how watching the Nexus line evolved camera wise showed how Google learned tough lessons and ended up with the Pixel's great camera.

Contrast with HMD, who in their "Nokia" phones is taking a similarly stock approach to software. Difference is, OZO and their eons of experience, which means HMD should be a leader in the camera space in Android within the next three years.

If Essential is smart, they need to constantly update the camera software and leverage their own partnerships. Otherwise, the Essential phone on the camera front will really feel like a Nexus line phone with a pre Nexus 5 style camera experience.

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

If Essential is smart, they need to constantly update the camera software and leverage their own partnerships. Otherwise, the Essential phone on the camera front will really feel like a Nexus line phone with a pre Nexus 5 style camera experience.

I hope this will be the case.

A $700 phone shouldn’t have a camera experience this inconsistent.

 

[MSFTisMIA]

I hope this will be the case.

A $700 phone shouldn’t have a camera experience this inconsistent.

I agree. But many an OEM have (and currently do) neglect in providing good customer service in the premium tier price point. The delays have really hurt this phone so far and the lukewarm camera performance doesn't help. We'll see what happens.

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

I agree. But many an OEM have (and currently do) neglect in providing good customer service in the premium tier price point. The delays have really hurt this phone so far and the lukewarm camera performance doesn't help. We'll see what happens.

I think the more concerning thing is the customer support.

Because right now, there isn’t really any. There is a number you can call but no reps are there to answer.

 

[modifier]

We need to test the camera using the Pixel HDR+ camera app to see how the hardware performs outside of Essential's own camera app. This is a known-good app and produces known-good results with the Pixel. If that works well then we know the hardware isn't the issue. If that app still shows lackluster results then the issue really is in the hardware and we can't write that feature off as a dud.

Cameras are important to many buyers but aren't important to all buyers. $700 still buys a lot of other features, although the camera was supposed to be one of them.

It's possible that the camera might have caused some of the shipping delays given how much weight they put on photo quality and the engineers behind it.

I think the more concerning thing is the customer support.

Agreed.

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

We need to test the camera using the Pixel HDR+ camera app to see how the hardware performs outside of Essential's own camera app. This is a known-good app and produces known-good results with the Pixel. If that works well then we know the hardware isn't the issue. If that app still shows lackluster results then the issue really is in the hardware and we can't write that feature off as a dud.

It’s already been tested, and the results are significantly better.

The hardware is seemingly fine. The monochrome setup in theory should be able to grab more fine detail and increase dynamic range. Seems that it’s not really there yet.

 

[anon(661246)]

We need to test the camera using the Pixel HDR+ camera app to see how the hardware performs outside of Essential's own camera app. This is a known-good app and produces known-good results with the Pixel. If that works well then we know the hardware isn't the issue. If that app still shows lackluster results then the issue really is in the hardware and we can't write that feature off as a dud.

Cameras are important to many buyers but aren't important to all buyers. $700 still buys a lot of other features, although the camera was supposed to be one of them.

It's possible that the camera might have caused some of the shipping delays given how much weight they put on photo quality and the engineers behind it.


Agreed.

So now we need a work around to get decent camera results?

 

[modifier]

So now we need a work around to get decent camera results?

If it solves the problem for some people then yes, it's a work-around. If you absolutely need Essential's own camera app to be the one and only camera app that you use then no, it's not a solution.

Either way, my point was in testing for debug purposes, not to discover a band-aid. But, that band-aid might prove to be a long-term solution for those who keep this phone.

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

So now we need a work around to get decent camera results?

Right now, yes.

 

[MSFTisMIA]

I think the more concerning thing is the customer support.

Because right now, there isn’t really any. There is a number you can call but no reps are there to answer.

A company's name is really tested with how they handle screw-ups, not successes. Let's see how Essential handles this. I'd like to try the phone, just not at the current price tag.

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

By the way, this is how the Essential performs with HDR+

Not quite Pixel-like, but a very welcome improvement. Just waiting on Danny Widget’s review.

 

[modifier]

If Google HDR+ or Open Camera solve the camera issue then that might be good enough for me personally, assuming Essential eventually gets their stuff together in their own app. I would like to see the RGB+BW combo working as advertised.

Windows 10 and iOS ship with Edge and Safari, yet most people install Firefox and Chrome. Windows 10 ships with Paint, so if you need something better you install Photoshop, Gimp or any number of drawing/photo editing apps. I'm personally approaching the PH-1 like I would a PC, thinking that what I'm paying for is the hardware knowing that I'll have to install my own software to get the best out of it. Being pure Android, that's pretty easy to do.

But, that's just my personal approach for now.

 

[anon(9918034)]

I sit in that small percentage of people who doesn't care about a camera in a phone. For myself it is the very last feature I Co Sider when buying a phone. I am over here sitting pretty haha.

Also if memory serves me right the pixel had some camera issues at launch that were ironed out with a few updates.

 

[anon(661246)]

I sit in that small percentage of people who doesn't care about a camera in a phone. For myself it is the very last feature I Co Sider when buying a phone. I am over here sitting pretty haha.

Also if memory serves me right the pixel had some camera issues at launch that were ironed out with a few updates.

Yeah but the pixel camera had good quality pictures to begin with. This is going to take a bunch of updates to get where we want it to.

After the recent update the essentials camera app still sucks and the picture quality is decent in daylight but horrid in low light

Look at some of the recent reviews hdr is a joke

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

Yeah but the pixel camera had good quality pictures to begin with. This is going to take a bunch of updates to get where we want it to.

After the recent update the essentials camera app still sucks and the picture quality is decent in daylight but horrid in low light

Look at some of the recent reviews hdr is a joke

It needs a lot of polish.

It's not where it should be for a premium product.

 

[ChuckG73]

There is an image floating around of a photo taken with the PH-1 using the Google Camera APK, and the picture is very good. Essential will get the software right and this camera will be one of the best

 

[ChuckG73]

Oops its above, ha ha my bad

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

True, but it's arguably better that the camera hardware be solid and the app need tweaking than the app be awesome but the hardware never be able to keep up. I'd take the former any day.

Same. At least we know that this is a fixable issue.

If it was bad hardware, ouch.

 

[anon(522296)]

I just uploaded the google camera apk 4.4 to my OPO3t and its literally night and day how good that camera app is, I'm assuming the same for the essential. Don't wait for them to get it right when you get the phone just use googles and I bet it will take great pics.