Nokia Lumia 1520 review

The Shelf – one swipe to the left of your default home screen – is one of the best ways of handling widgets and quick actions that I’ve seen on Android, Hidden Space is an easy way to hide apps from prying eyes without making it too tricky to get back to them yourself and the rich functionality of the apps tray works like a charm. There’s little more I can say that I want from OnePlus’ take on Android here. I’d like a one-handed mode that actually shrinks the entire UI but I think I’m in the minority there, and I’m curious to try out the promised fingerprint-sensor based shortcuts feature but beyond that, perhaps a few fewer of OnePlus’ own apps stepping on Google’s toes wouldn’t hurt. OnePlus 6T – Camera The camera hardware at play here appears to be identical to that of its predecessor, with a dual 16/20-megapixel snapper taking point, rocking a respectably wide f/1.7 aperture and PDAF (phase detection autofocus), along with OIS (optical image stabilisation) and enlarged 1.22µm pixels on that main 16-megapixel sensor. There’s also a 16-megapixel front-facer which leverages EIS (electronic image stabilisation).

It’s a promising hardware setup, albeit one we’ve all seen before, begging the question, what’s ? OnePlus has placed a focus on improving the HDR and low-light shooting capabilities of its device’s snappers, while also adding in a handful of extra settings to play with. One nice addition is Auto Nightscape Detection, which automates the phone’s more advanced low-light photography mode when it detects that ambient light is hard to come by. The promise of “industry-leading HDR shots” is one bold claim and naturally, I placed the 6T up against a handful of other top snappers to see just how good it really was. At 100% crop, the 6T was one of the best for preserving detail throughout the scene. The Huawei P20 Pro’s HDR was the most aggressive, it also has to be accessed as a separate mode, unlike on the 6T. The iPhone XS lacked detail in the distance and miscoloured the image quite heavily compared to the rest of the group.

Nokia Lumia 1520 review - A Spotlight On Simple Solutions Of accessories for smartphones

The Pixel 3 suffered from the weakest detail and harshest contrast of the bunch but still created a pleasing, natural-looking shot overall. Based on this OnePlus 6 sample, it’s hard to see what tweaks OnePlus has really made to HDR on the 6T. Moving onto Nightscape, it certainly proves it’s worth in the right situations; it brightens up cityscapes without issue but if hard light sources are in-frame, such as lamps, it struggles to balance things out, usually blowing out the brightest areas. Off and on: Nightscape has its uses but brightened areas often suffer from apparent noise (above) and bright elements become blown out (below).

In natural light the 6T’s main snapper is undoubtedly capable, with decent exposure control, nice macro range, pleasing depth of field and good (although not perfect) edge detection when snapping portraits. Even with auto-HDR, the limits of the camera’s dynamic range are clearly being tested. Colour and bokeh are unquestionably pleasing when taking macro shots.