The Good...
I picked up a Sony Z1 Compact the other day, and am so far absolutely in love woth it. The speed and responsiveness are fantastic, the build quality rivals that of the iPhone, and the size is just perfection.
The Bad...
But... I am VERY dissappointed with the camera and its poor performance. 80% of the photos I take with my phone are while on a night out with friends, usually in bars or other more dimly lit places than broad daylight. In Auto mode, photos taken in the average pub lightning are unuseable,m and look so artifical as to completely destroy any detail in the faces of the people I snap. I have also experimented with manual settings, but still the quakity is just plain poor. In fact, mny Samsung Galaxy S III blows it out of the water in this regard, images in similar conditions are much superior.
The Ugly...
So why is this camera, a camera that uses what is theoretically a high-quality imaging unit used by point and shoot cameras, so bad in everything except broad daylight?
The answer according to not only my observations, but the observations of many professional websites who reviewed the Z1 series, is seems to be that Sony are purposefully and inexplicably messing with the final images by forcing huge amounts of processing on them. This takes a natural image, messes with the colours and tone, and then proceeds to crush any detail.
Here are some samples of what I mean, taken with Superior Auto:
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Sample 1: Z1 Compact
A close-up portrait shot...
Look at how artificial that image looks... it's like someone applied a strange kind of gaussian blur tool in photoshop.
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Sample 2 - Z1 Compact
A group photo...
Here again, in what was one of the better photos that I took, we see the find detail is very poor.. at full size it looks horrible pixellated, and the colours severely washed out. The blacks are also severely crushed.
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Sample 3 - Z1 Compact
Here is a shot that should in theory be detailed and natural looking. A guy near a wall in better light, with the camera held perfectly still.
Again, a horrible image... bad detail, visible artifacting, washed out colours.
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Sample 4 - Z1 Compact
In addition, using the flash causes severe light pollution on the final image, so much so that the bottom half of the photo I take has a very noticeable purpley bluish haze on it.
Look at the level of bleed entering the scene from the flash below the lens. And look at the dreadful overall image quality... the detail is simply shockingly bad. Like a camera phone from years ago.
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Samsung Galaxy S III Comparisons...
And here we have some comparison photos with a Samsung SIII, also taken in a dimply lit pub:
Sample 1 - Samsung Galaxy S III
Look at the difference... detail is preserved, the image appears natural, and colour tones are reasonably natural. It's a great shot.
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Sample 2 - Samsung Galaxy S III
Again, here we see that the photo is much cleaner... flash lights up the subjkects as well as can be expected considering the size and power, and the colours and detail are preserved, including in the surrounding environment where the coloured lights at the top are also visible.
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Sample 3 . Samsung Galaxy S III
And finally, a close-up portrai-style shot...
Again, not the easiest of conditions for a phont, but overall detail is good, the face is clearly visible, and the photo looks clean and detailed as you could hope for in the circumstances.
WINNER: SAMSUNG GALAXY S III
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Conclusion...
Sorry Sony, but this level of imaging is just not acceptable on a premium device with such a high spec sensor in it. I have had better results fron devices that are 2-3 years old. Oh yes, and that's including the video camera mode which has no 24p or 60p options... come on Sony, there is a Snapdragon 800 SOC in this phone, use it.
I really hope you are going to take a serious look at this and fix it.
Hello Guys,
When I read that stuff from the Sony Chat , I also wanted to add my pictures - I expected a more solution-orientated behavior from sony but when I read THAT **bleep**... I really got upset.
Just to give my Smartphone Background: Nokia N95, some blackberrys, Galaxy S2, Asus Padfone, Motorola Razr, Razr HD, Xperia Z, Xperia Z1 compact white.
I NEVER ...i really never ever got so bad pictures as with the Z1C.
See the 4 pictures - the worse was taken with intelligent automatic.
The motive was my chevy pick up with its roof lights standing on a field.
Light blue from the bottom to the top
lighter blue from the bottom to the top but even worse picture quality
without flashlight
and now the superior automatic
My dealer offered a 14day-full-refund.
If Sony keeps putting the head into the ground I will - for sure - have to use this offer.
But I really hope that sony will offer a workaround.
I just want to add that - except this flash light related problem - I'm only not satisfied with the cam behavior (start a new folder for every picture I take).
Except this two things, I'm very happy with that phone, battery life , screen, speed. everythins is fine
No-one is saying the problem does not exist 
including Sony, just that it's not as bad as being made out, the vast majority of people are not experiencing this . These things take time to fully test and most complainants are very impatient. I personally messaged Rickard and he has forwarded this and it is being investigated.
Sony should address this problem as it's their responsibility as the manufacturer, but those experiencing the problem should be patient or just get a refund.
As many of you , I have owned many many mobile phones over the years and ALL of them have had a problem of one description or another and nearly all of those problems were addressed by the manufacturer with software/firmware updates or in extreme cases a hardware recall.
Instead of just lambasting Sony because they are not finding a solution quick enough, it would be far more useful To Sony (who do look at these forums) for people to describe their problem in detail and show their photos so Sony can replicate this problem in the lab and find a solution.
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