Back at IFA, Sony unveiled its new flagship Android handset, the Xperia Z1, which laid some serious emphasis on its imaging skills with a 20.7MP G-Lens camera with a 1/2.3-inch sensor. 

While Sony has always promised extra-ordinary results from the camera on its handsets, they have always failed to impress. Now, the folks over at Unleash The Phones have got their hands on a Xperia Z1, and have published tons of photos shot from the handset.

The Xperia Z1 seems to buck Sony’s trend of over-promising and under-delivering, and actually impresses with its camera performance. Even without OIS, the Xperia Z1 managed to perform as well, if not better, as the Lumia 925.

Personally, I am pretty surprised how well the Xperia Z1 has done against the Lumia 925 even in such low-light situations. Keeping in mind that the Z1 has just been announced, future software updates should help improve the quality of images even more.

Shot from the Sony Xperia Z1

Shot from the Lumia 925

The only thing to note here is that the above images have been shot in Auto mode. While using Night mode can further improve the quality of the images, the general user does not bother playing around with the scene mode before clicking pictures.

All the above images were shot in the default 8MP mode on the Z1, which also allows for a certain amount of lose less zoom as well, like on the Lumia 1020 and 808. Clicking images on the full 20.7MP mode will lead to more digital noise, and is not worth the trade-off generally.

The Xperia Z1 is also the first Xperia device from Sony to include a Handheld Twilight mode, which should greatly help in low-light situations. Head over to this link for some low-light camera image comparisons of the Xperia Z1 and the Lumia 925. For some day time image samples from the Z1, click here.