Photo Showdown – Cherry Mobile Flare S2 VS Google Nexus 5

As some of you may know, the Cherry Mobile Flare S2 carries the same camera sensor used in Google Nexus 5. We did a little test to see if this sub-Php5K smartphone can really produce the same quality of photos with a Google-branded device.

Although the two smartphones share the same sensor for taking images, they are not 100% identical in the camera department. The Flare S2 has an 8MP rear camera with Sony IMX179 sensor, while the Nexus 5 has an 8MP with Sony IMX179 sensor and a built-in gyrosocope embedded in the camera for optical image stabilization. This helps counter the unwanted movement of the hands, therefore producing sharper photos. It has a single LED flash, however, and the Flare S2 sports dual LED flash for better performance in low-light situatuions. With those in mind, lets continue on to our photo showdown.

Here are some sample shots from the two devices. The photos are all taken using default settings, no flash, and no adjustments have been done to any of them.

Cherry Mobile Flare S2:

And here are some from the Google Nexus 5:

The photos are both good and acceptable but as you may have noticed, the two cameras didn’t produce the same output in quality. For us, the Flare S2 gave off better blacks than the Nexus 5.  The latter also showed digital noise on some parts of the dark areas. The following photos were taken with the same subject using both devices to easily compare the shots.

Here are two more sample shots on 1000 x 1000px:

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It seems to us that the Flare S2 has more contrast and does a better job at shooting outdoors, while the Nexus 5 tries to brighten the image by default — resulting to its blacks not going as deep as the Flare S2’s. Though that may be the case, it worked well in that shot of wine bottles as it effectively showed more details than that of the Cherry Mobile’s.

So what do you guys think? Which camera would you prefer? And overall, which phone would you prefer? For reference, you can read our review of the Cherry Mobile Flare S2 and Google Nexus 5.