Steve Litchfield

Back in the day - 2007 to 2017, roughly, for a decade, I was one of the most active phone camera comparison writers in the world. Writing mainly on the All About sites (still largely up, though inactive for 18 months now), I pitched the trailblazer camera phones of the day against each other - and had enormous fun doing so. There were leaps forward every year - and these were evident on the screen, with 1:1 crops from phone camera photos showing dramatically better results, especially in low light, as time went on. But there came a point (around 2012) where, in good light, any phone camera can produce good shots. Then there came a point (around 2018) where, in low light, ditto - you'd really have to pixel peep to see differences.  Fast forward to 2023 and the quality of a phone-shot photo depends far less, I contend, on the actual phone being used, and far more on the skill and imagination of the person taking the photo. In other words, the phone camera hardware isn't really t

I'm a sucker for gadget elegance. And the thought that a lump of tech, with no wires, could be clamped to the back of my smartphone and start recharging it, is elegance personified. As with Apple's (still expensive) original version of the idea and as with Voltme's version , there are caveats, but I think they're minor in the grand scheme of things. Anker is a tried and tested name in tech power, of course, and I've bought various things from them over the years, all of which are still in use. The Anker 521 , also known, somewhat confusingly, as the PowerCore Magnetic 5K, is a small and tough rubberised brick, with an internal 5000mAh Li-Ion battery and a MagSafe (/Qi 2) ring of aligned magnets on one side. Clamp the 521 onto the back of a MagSafe (/Qi 2) compatible phone and press the button to start the charging and you're done. Admittedly, the Qi wireless charging is only at a stately 5W, but then even Apple's official (and much more expensive) version o

Apple's ProRAW system on the iPhone 12 Pro series (onwards) is rather interesting, in that you get all the Apple 'smarts' but without the populist edge enhancement and sharpening that goes into Camera's default JPG output. But, a lot of the time, you may not see the full benefit. Yes, you can fiddle around with the ProRAW DNG files in Photos or indeed any other compatible photo editor and have a lot of fun, but what happens when you want to share around a full quality JPG with the world? For example, on the phone itself, emailing an image to someone or sharing it via iMessage or via a social media app? Happily, iOS is clever enough to convert the ProRAW DNG file 'on the fly', so you never need to worry about this. But, and here's the (really interesting) rub: what if you want a standard JPG on your MAC? Either for space reasons or because you want the desktop file to be as compatible with other apps as possible.  In my case it has been to directly compare JP

Phone selection at the top end of the market is a minefield these days, in 2023. Or perhaps you're spoiled for choice. It depends on whether your glass is half empty or half full - or on the depth of your wallet! And I made a curious decision recently that surprised me - I rejected the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Google Pixel Fold in favour of the two year old Microsoft Surface Duo 2 . I should emphasise that this wasn't a specs-based or wallet-based choice - I had the Pixel Fold in hand at the same time, and only recently had a month with the Galaxy Z Fold 4 (the 5 is only a minor update). So I had experience galore with the concept and form factors. Shane Craig is big into these devices too and I recommend you check out his YouTube channel . The device I hadn't played with, perhaps surprising given the sheer number of 'gift' devices showered on other tech YouTubers, was the OnePlus Open , but although this is a super slice of technology, its insistence of tryin

In my three weeks of Pixel Fold video review Shorts , I'd been slowly coming to the conclusion that, despite being slightly outgunned in the raw specs department (screen brightness, chipset, charging speeds), Google absolutely nailed the form factor. What's needed is a phone that's manageable in the hand and yet which unfolds to a decent tablet size. Samsung's Z Fold series gets all the basics right but is over-tall and over-slim when folded, while OnePlus' new Open foldable is almost as tall and wider, making it a large phone to start off with. Plus the latter omits a 2023 essential - Qi wireless charging and isn't waterproof... See my concluding Short in particular (a blog embed isn't perhaps the perfect container for a portrait video, but hey...), in which I list all the reasons why the Pixel Fold is the foldable right now: The key phrase in my video is perhaps 'compact'. Although heavy, the Pixel Fold sits just right in a pocket and in the ha

It remains a mystery to me to this day. Why don't other phone manufacturers and their cameras use the tricks that Google pulls off? An issue of patents perhaps? Or just lack of software expertise? Regardless, the two 'tricks' demonstrated here are Sensor Fusion and Super Res Zoom. You'll find them on any Pixel in various combinations. On the Pixel 7 and 8 Pro and on the Pixel Fold (below) you'll find both techniques employed. And yes, I already said that most people don't need to zoom more than 3x in normal life , but hey - this is for when zoom is needed. Perhaps at a sporting event or trying to spot rare wildlife. To demonstrate both tricks, let's take a standard landscape shot - with an interesting central subject: So far so good, and any camera phone could take this shot. Here scaled for the web, but don't worry, I'll show off some crops below too. Now we try zooming at 2x: In the case of my Pixel Fold, the main sensor is 48MP, so a 2x zoom smart

Something of a Frequently Asked Question around these parts! This is mostly explained in the last full length video I did, Phones Show 436 embedded in https://stevelitchfield.com/sshow/index.html - in short, my life, and the world around me, had changed. A lot. But I did want to amplify my reasons from a Creator standpoint. Back in 2006 (pre-YouTube) I was the only person in the world reviewing phones in video form . As YouTube started to take off and as smartphones became sexier, especially in the USA, as the iPhone rose and rose, the number of people attempting to review phones grew almost exponentially.  Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) started as a school kid in 2008 but it was in 2012 that he started to cover phone tech seriously.  Michael Fisher (Mr Mobile) started reviewing phones on YouTube in 2016.  Lewis Hilsenteger (Unbox Therapy) started unboxing phones in 2011.  Dave Lee (Dave2D) started up in 2015. Arun Maini (MrWhosetheboss) started up (again as a kid!) in 2011. You get th

Forgive the click bait(y) title, but there's actual evidence here, I promise. Note that I did write an article before availability, putting forward worries and concerns , but I've now had hands-on to confirm a few things and report back.  Cased (of course, read the blooming' article!) Pro Maxes - 15 and 14 (with XtremeSkin, Aged Oak , in case you're wondering!) In fact, it's the first time ever in the iPhone line-up/evolution that I seriously think the old 'Pro Max' model can be argued to be  better than the new one. (Admittedly, that I already own the old one [14 Pro Max] and didn't really want to spend over £1000 on the 15 Pro Max possibly helps my argument from a personal perspective.) (There's one big win for the new model, of course. Type C connectivity has been a long time coming - but this will take several generations to become established in iPhone/Lightning households and maybe I'll come back to this in a future article.) My observat