Nokia switched to late for any other OS and stayed to long on Symbian with Android they would be beaten by Samsung anyway end endup like HTC wich has some financial problems to. No respective companylike Google or Apple would have bought Nokiaa nd they would be food for the dogs by now. luckily they choose WP as they sell the biggest part of them. And yes its growing. The Nokia team will still make phones under the same conditions in Finland thanks to Microsoft who once saved Apple too. Right now windows is still the OS that runs everything and W8 has definitly the most vision. Nothing as permanent as change and yes with technology things will chance...watch my words GDR3 is coming . The advances of android getting smaller over time until most of the best features of W8 will be implemented. Like directx for example ..thing defintly will change and thats good for our customers overall. Cameras getting seriously better thanks to this competition. And Nokia did a defintly good first step.

I don't know what mode they shot this in it doesn't represent the capability at all in my opinion.

Here's some unprocessed images through the various firmware updates the phone has had during development.

http://www.xperiablog.net/2013/09/05/sony-xperia-z1-photo-samples-through-different-firmware-revisions/

Mobile web browsers don't always render the images how they should be so saving the image is the truest way to view them at full res.

The Disney land images amazed me for a phone and the sign and flower images show great focus and resolution.

But each to their own :)

For those interested, this is what I wanted to see:

Sony Xperia Z1 vs Nokia Lumia 1020

http://blog.gsmarena.com/sony-xperia-z1s-20-7mp-snapper-gets-compared-to-nokia-lumia-1020s-41mp-pureview-monster/

Xperia Z1 Nokia 808 PV and HTC One mini

http://blog.gsmarena.com/a-shootout-between-sony-xperia-z1-htc-one-mini-and-nokia-808-pureview-shows-great-promise-from-the-sony/

I think there's a slight error.
Objects in the "Approximately 4x zoom" image DSC_0059.JPG are only two times as large as "No zoom" image DSC_0057.JPG. Then again, objects in "8x zoom" image DSC_0062.JPG are four times as large as in "Approximately 4x zoom".
So, it looks to me that "Approximately 4x zoom" should be called "2x zoom".

As for image quality, even the non-zoomed image looks pretty smeary to me when scaled to my screen size (1920x1200), which is not true for modern 1/2.3" P&S cameras.

All the negativity is just funny, "If Nokia had Android"
"If Sony made it a 5 megapixel" " No OIS" well people this is a phone and for a phone the pictures are not bad, not sure what you were expecting? even Nokia in some lighting conditions is not all that good.
I have news for you, if you think a phone will ever replace your DSLR keep on dreaming.
In my opinion the pictures taken with the Z1 is not that bad at all "for a phone".

It's cool and all how you can compare this to a Nokia 1020 (a dying windows ecosystem). I come from the android world and honestly, this phone is pretty impressive, combined with the Bravia engine 2, Snapdragon 800 processor and the well built in G lens to not make it look and feel over bulky, this phone seems balanced. What if Nokia switched to an Android ecosystem? well, that's a different story. No doubt I would jump on a pureview 808. I've previously had a Nokia 920...the WP8 ecosystem, the over lack of apps and the lag just by loading an app was just too much for me. I currently have a Note 2, was gonna get the Note 3 however the camera for that is exactly like an S4. To each their own. But I would never switch to an ecosystem that is dying slowly. Apps is where it's at for most handset users.

I am not impressed at all. When I first saw the ruomors about "the incredible Honami" my expectations rose high. But now it´s like: ow! thats all? It looks more like an average 8 megapixel smartphone to me. Its definetly no threat to Nokia 1020.

Well, the usual moaners and groaners are out in force again as per usual. Yes images are a little soft but I think these are very promising for a mobile phone. The only phone it seems that outperforms this is the new Nokia 1020.

What? No OIS? Really??? What was Sony thinking?
HTC One
LG G2
Lumia 1020 (Xenon)
Lumia 928 (Xenon)
Lumia 925
Lumia 920
All of those have OIS
Video is wavy even with OIS but very shaky without.
Low light photos are much better with OIS
AND
please add always that Xenon flash
SONY! Can you hear that !!!
&%¤"!&%&/% they don't even read this >:-(

I think dpreview should compare P&S and these,
but include only modern OIS phone cameras.

I would rather like to see studio shots compared to other phones. It's hard to make judgment without side by side comparison. When are studio shots coming?

Wasn't this phone supposed to use a new technology (new JPEG engine, AFAIR) that'd improve IQ?

Well, I don't see any improvements. ISO400 is really bad, IMHO.

Not bad for a phone. If it's all I got with me than that's my fault.

In my opinion the image quality need to be improved a lot, especially on low light/ indoor.
too many noise.
I believe sony can give much better than this.

I've already seen dozens of other Z1 pics from various sources. These just corroborate how awful the images are. Some of the grainiest haziest images around. Even bright daylight shots are very grainy, like taking a pic of a textured photograph. The contrast is too high in some scenes and way too low and muddy in others. The images always look dingy. Not a single clean image available. Blurry and hazy. Man is the grain GIGANTIC in those night shots. This would be competitive on phones 3 years ago. The waterproofing likely screwed up the lens quality like on the Xperia Z, and for sure screwed up the microphone quality. 20MP on a 1/2.3" is just awful as well.

Far less impressive than I would have thought. Even for a 1/2.3" sensor these are quite crappy.
I suppose if you downsample them to 5MP they are ok, but is that the point?

I got a cheap chinese phone recently. well, the cheapest I could find running android 4.1 and I took some pictures and I thought well it's kind of crap quality (compared to what I am used to get from "real" cameras) but then I thought what did I expect for that money (and tiny sensor and lens) anyway. but after looking at the image of this phone/camera which costs about 5 times more than what I paid for my phone I really think my phone's camera to be actually amazing. it's only 5Mpix but not at all worse than this. chinese are the new japanese!!!

I m very impressed with 20.7 mp camera qaulity

Good for a phone but miles behind the Nokia 1020 and 808.