iPhone 3G vs 3GS Camera comparison

The iphone 3G was a huge success. It had everything you can wish for in a phone. It had a beautiful design, great mulitmedia and internet features. But everyone agreed that the camera was lacking. The 3G featured a 2 megapixel lens without auto focus and zoom. It also wasn’t able to shoot videos.

The 3GS was introduced early June of 2009 and it tackled most of the 3G’s short comings. The speed was increased thanks to a 200 mhz processor increase and an extra 128mb intern memory. It has a built in compass and… an improved camera. The camera lens now features 3.2 megapixels with autofocus. Also it can shoot videos at 30 frames per second. The software integration again is great. Just tap at the object you want to focus on. This can be a curtain carrot on a plate, or a logo on a hair dryer. You can focus on pretty much anything and the camera automatically adjusts the camera settings to best take the picture.  Question is: is the camera in the new iPhone a new killer feature? Or is it a minor upgrade to please the crowd? Today we’re doing a little comparison between the iPhone 3G and the iphone 3GS.

Phone 3G left, iPhone 3GS right.

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You can see that the picture of the 3GS on the right has slightly better colors. The lower part of the picture is clearly darker than the iphone 3G picture. But the difference in general is not that huge here. You can click on the photo for the real resolution version.

Again the iphone 3G is left and the 3GS is right. I think the colors are more natural on the 3GS but the difference is really small. When you look at the trees in the background I even think the 3G does a slightly better job of showing the small details. I think this is because the iPhone 3GS focused on the center of the picture, on the wall. Thus leaving the background slightly more blurry but the wall in better detail, which is the case here.

Wow huge difference in this one. The iPhone 3GS takes a clear lead with its auto focus here. The leafs are completely clear and crisp, while the iPhone 3G's photo is one blurry mess. The more natural colors on the 3GS also clearly show here. And look at underneath the plant, the iPhone 3G simply can't keep up.

The iPhone 3GS again profits hugely from its autofocus and more natural colors. The ketchup bottle is displayed in the red color that it has rather than the light washed out version of the 3G. You can also read the letters better on the iPhone 3GS version.

So there you have it. The iPhone 3GS can without a doubt take better pictures. Especially the closed up pictures are better on the new iPhone. In general however we feel that Apple could have made the camera a lot better still. We aren’t pixel maniacs but it’s clear that most 5mp+ phones out there make better pictures. But the compromise between the size of the lens and the picture quality has to be made. And in the end we take the smaller more beautiful lens of the iPhone that takes above average pictures above the big Nokia lenses any day.