While the Droid X [portal page] beats the iPhone 4 [portal page] in a straight-up megapixel to megapixel comparison by 3 megapixels (Droid X’s cam is 8 MP while iPhone 4’s is 5 MP), the iPhone 4 uses a fancy back-illuminated sensor, which enhances it’s ability to capture light, according to Apple.

The Droid X supports 720p HD recording, just as the iPhone 4, and interestingly, the Droid X has a mechanical shutter. The Droid X also has a dedicated two-stage camera button which focuses and captures, as well as a dual-LED flash. The iPhone has a single LED flash. Additionally, the Droid X can upload HD video directly to YouTube, whereas the iPhone 4 has to have the video put onto a computer and uploaded to YouTube for HD quality (Apple plans on updating this at a later time, so it’s a software restriction, not hardware).

Below I’ve taken some shots with both the Droid X and the iPhone 4 for comparison. The videos were both taken from the respective devices and uploaded to YouTube through a computer, just to ensure that no compression was taking place during the phone upload process.

Because this is a camera comparison post, I’ve bumped up the click-through pictures to a larger than usual resolution, so be sure to click on them for a more detailed view.

General

Macro

High Light

Medium Light

Low Light

Low Light (with flash)

Video

If you have a powerful computer and you’d like to watch these videos side-by-side, give this link a try. Slower computers will likely stutter if you try to run both in HD at the same time.

The iPhone has somewhat of an unfair advantage as it has auto-exposure adjustment, while the Droid X requires manual adjustment in the settings menu of the camera app. All pictures taken with the Droid were at an exposure of 0 (it ranges between -3 and +3) but just for comparison’s sake, here is the Low Light Droid X shot with the exposure turned up to +3 along side the same iPhone 4 Low Light shot that you saw above.

It’s hard to say which of the two has a better dynamic range, but the iPhone 4 seems to have more vibrant colors (not necessarily more accurate, however). The iPhone 4’s HD video also looks noticeably better than the Droid X’s in terms of sharpness and framerate, though the Droid X doesn’t seem to focus its camera before shooting HD video which is somewhat odd.

Samsung has four new Android phones that they are preparing to release for the four major US carriers. The list is as follows:

• Captivate AT&T (launches 7/18)
• Vibrant T-Mobile (launches 7/15)
• Epic 4G Sprint
• Fascinate Verizon

Each phone has it’s own styling but the Epic 4G stands out the most as it is the only one featuring a sliding QWERTY keyboard and 4G connectivity. The Captivate and Vibrant have HSDPA (7.2 Mbps) and HSUPA (5.76 Mbps), and the Fascinate will likely have EVDO Rev. A, and all three lack a hardware keyboard:

All four of these devices have a 1GHz Samsung Hummingbird CPU, 512MB of RAM, 8/16GB of internal storage, and a microSD slot for expansion of up to an additional 32GB. All four also run Android 2.1 with Samsung’s custom TouchWiz UI, and are capable of 720p HD recording with their 5MP autofocus cameras. Included in the UI is a Swype keyboard, which our very own Guy demoed for you earlier this week.

Samsung is really pushing the displays on these phones which are 4 inch @ 800×480 and using Samsung’s own Super AMOLED displays which they claim to have better and brighter colors than any other phone on the market, as well as a full 180 degree viewing angle something that we’ve seen with the iPhone 4’s IPS display.

Tnkgrl has an fresh unboxing of the Samsung Captivate, shown below. Also be sure to head to her site for the Captivate’s first power on video.

In the keynote that announced the iPhone 4 [Portal page], Steve Jobs told the world that the iPhone 4 features a 5MP camera. A decent bump from the previous iPhone 3GS’s 3.2MP camera, but still a far cry from some of the latest phones out there which are rocking 8MP cameras (see: HTC Incredible). Jobs was quick to also say that the iPhone 4 uses something called a back-illuminated sensor which is designed to capture more light than traditional smartphone sensors, to enhance low light performance. The iPhone 4 is also capable of recording HD video at 720p (1280×720) at 30 FPS, according to Apple.

Here I’ve got some comparison photos and videos from the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS cameras:

Video Recording

At the end of the video there is a link to the same video taken with the iPhone 3GS. Make sure you are watching in HD.

Real HD video and flash (YouTube) HD video are a bit different. The raw file is certainly of a better quality than what YouTube is showing, but you should still be able to get the gist of it.

Photos

I’ve taken a variety of shots with the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. Be sure to click on photos to enlarge them for full detail. The iPhone 4’s flash is turned off in all photos. The iPhone 4 takes photos at a resolution of 2592×1936 while the iPhone 3GS takes them at 2048×1536.

General Use

Close Ups

Extreme Close Ups

Low Light

Extreme Low Light

For one, it looks like the iPhone 4 has better contrast than the 3GS. This is particularly apparent in shots of the pen, where there is a more broad range of blacks and whites in the iPhone 4 shot; on the corresponding 3GS shot, you’ll notice that the darkest black on the photo appears to cover more area instead of fading through a series of shades as the light and colors change.

Probably the best picture to see the difference in resolution is of the belt in the Close Ups section. This was semi-dark shot and the iPhone 3GS’s photo suffered because of it.

Special back-illuminated sensors are great, but just how much better is the low light performance on the iPhone 4? I might be able to dig up a technical answer, but let’s look at what it means in real world terms. Take a look at the first two photos in the Extreme Low Light section. On the iPhone 4 shot, you can see the lilies toward the bottom of the pond a bit better than the 3GS shot. Additionally, the pond’s surface is not as noisy in the iPhone 4 shot as it is in the 3GS’s, due to the enhanced low light performance.

Is this really a significant improvement? I would put my money on the fact that the majority of iPhone 4 users will not notice the difference between the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS cameras when it comes to photographs. Most user’s photos will either stay on the device, or be uploaded or sent somewhere at reduced quality. But for those who really use their camera, I think they’ll be quite please with the iPhone 4’s camera. On the other hand, the HD video recording capability on the iPhone 4 is a pretty clear improvement. The flash is also something to consider, though because the iPhone 3GS doesn’t have one, we didn’t use it in these shots (if you are interested in flash info, you’ll find it in our upcoming full iPhone 4 review).

Here’s a quick look at the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS facing off head to head. I didn’t cover too much stuff in this video, so if there are more comparisons that you’d like to see, speak up in the comments, and do it soon; the iPhone 3GS is going away (far away) very soon.

Looks like we were one of the lucky people that got our iPhone 4 [Portal page] a day early, and fortunately that means you get to take a look at it a day early with us. Check out the video unboxing below as well as some photos. Just to note, I mentioned that the iPhone 4 doesn’t come with a SIM ejector, but I didn’t say that it also doesn’t come with a polishing cloth as the iPhone 3G once did. Stay tuned for more.

It’s hard to imagine that anyone is unfamiliar with the largest massively multiplayer role playing game (MMORPG, for short) in the world – World of Warcraft, but for those of you who are not… well I just described it. World of Warcraft is certainly not the most graphically demanding computer game, but I’d still be impressed to see it running at 30 FPS on a Moorestown device. Sadly, the demo given by Intel showed the game running at something like 5 FPS… which is low enough to render the game virtually unplayable. With a few interface add-ons, you’d likely be running closer to 1 FPS!

Still, it isn’t like World of Warcraft was written for this platform; it was written for full fledged computers. The video from Netbooknews.com also shows some other graphical applications running on the demo device:

Is it fair to be comparing a $250 5 inch tablet with a $500 9 inch one? Yes because a) people have been asking about it b) comparing anything to a device that gets people thinking, talking and experimenting is worthwhile in my book.

Thanks to the German blog, TouchMeMobile I’ve got an iPad this week and although I don’t intend to do a full review, I am taking the chance to learn and compare as much as possible. This video is a detailed look at the differences and the overlap between two home-focused devices. Music, Video, Internet and E-Reading are at the heart of both the iPad and Archos 5 but each one delivers it in a different way. The Archos 5 is the very personal, lightweight 30cm experience with a lot of flexibility. The iPad is a 1-meter experience with a refined user interface but misses out on some connectivity and flexibility. One is easy to hold in one hand; the other needs two. One has an industry-leading application store; the other something rather disappointing. One can ‘play’ the web and 720p video out via HDMI, the other is limited to analogue video.

In the 25-minute (get yourself a cuppa!) video I discuss the form-factors, the weight, the video capabilities, the app store, communications and e-reading. The two devices do ‘internet entertainment’ in very different ways so I hope this video helps you refine your gadget ‘wanted’ list or buying decision. Feel free to feed back on YouTube or below. For the next week I’ll track it closely and try and answer queries ASAP.

Last time we saw something about Neofonie’s WePad slate [product page], all we got to see was an emulated version of the interface. According to netbooknews.com, “Neofine finally got sick of hearing how its product didn’t work and provided a working sample inch. And thus netbooknews has lots of footage of Neofonie showing off some actual working devices at a recent press event. Watch below as they demonstrate that giant widget filled home screen (which I absolutely despise), among other things. You’ll see that they actually have an iPad on hand to compare the device to, which is rather brave of them, though I’m not sure they’ve got me convinced (they are comparing an ARM based device to an Atom based x86 device to begin with). Also be sure to jump over to netbooknews.com for two additional videos of the WePad. Maybe now would be a good time to brush up on your German skills as well….