New Android Phone in the house. Also, trying out an integrated phone
attachment that has "Hasselblad" written all over it. Not so sure
about spending that kind of money on a disposable camera, but it
actually is remarkably good.
Motorola Moto Z Force Droid (motomods)
Hasselblad True Zoom (motomods)
Verizon Wireless
I'm undecided on the return the camera attachment, but if I do, I will
give it a bit of a workout and test before then. A couple of brief
observations though:
1. The built-in camera of the Moto Z Force is exceptional. VERY high
resolution (21mp) and the lens has OIS (optical image stabilization).
It isn't as good as the image-stabilization in a top-flight Olympus
body, but it is certainly comparable to what was considered good five
years ago.
2. My wife got the S7, and I was going to get the Pixel, except there
were none available. The Pixel is an excellent cellphone with what
appears to be the same camera module itself, but a different
processing engine. In all honesty, at this point, I'm going to say
that the S7 and Pixel have better high-ISO performance, but the images
from the Z Force is much more detailed and the noise and artifacts are
pixel-level and the pixels are smaller and more numerous so the
results are better FOR ME.
3. Build quality. It's hard to say that any of the premium-grade
phones are junk, but comparing the iPhone 7, Samsung Galaxy S7, Google
Pixel (and XL) and the Motorola Moto Z Force Droid, my reaction is
that the moto is the best built and most robust of them all. It feels
solid and doesn't have any sense of flex, flimsiness or plastic. It
feels like a slab of aluminum with a glass faceplate. Even the
included back cover (held on with magnets) is solid. But it does weigh
more. (more to that in a minute). In the race for build quality, the
iPhone is obviously right there with the moto, but the S7 is middle of
the road and I thought the Pixel felt really flimsy. However, that is
misleading because it is a solid phone, but it just didn't balance
right in my hand.
4. Battery. Holy cow. The moto Z Force Droid is the phone to get JUST
for the battery and batteries. The built-in battery is huge (3500mah),
which is comparable to my Note 3's battery. Motorola has done a lot of
power-management improvements and the battery life looks to be even
better than the Note 3 by at least 50%. If 3500mah isn't enough, just
change the backs to the battery one.
5. The back plate of the phone is held on with magnets. Snap it off
and replace it with JBL speakers, battery, projector or camera. The
magnets are strong and the only way to remove the attachment is prying
it loose at a little gap on the end. I have no issues with the
design--I consider it a design and engineering success.
6. Which leads me to the camera. The Hasselblad True Zoom camera. This
snaps on and the the phone becomes a pretty decent P&S camera. No
launching apps, no jumping through hoops, no, none of that. It is a
very seamless transition on it has essentially replace the built-in
forward-facing camera. It's got a 10x optical zoom, with OIS and a
12mp sensor. There is even a REAL flash, not an LED pretend-flash. The
handling is a little strange and the camera/phone combination is a bit
thin, but it has a grippy rubber grip to it and the shutter-release is
in the right place.
7. RAW shooting. The built-in camera is able to shoot RAW and is
supported by Open Camera and the Adobe Lightroom Capture app. But the
Hasselblad camera isn't fully supported by either. However, the
phone/camera/Hasselblad app does allow you to shoot RAW.
8. What is not visible without a RAW converter, is just how much
processing the Hasselblad camera is doing. The optical correction is
massive. That 10x lens has a 55 gallon barrel distortion that the app
has completely wiped out. The result is very good. In fact, the image
processing for both the built-in camera and the Hasselblad camera is
very good in all regards.
9. The camera controls of the native phone apps miss a lot of doodads,
but actually give you control over everything but aperture.
More to come
AG Schnozz
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