Re: Do you think people get so caught up in the specs of a device, they forget to...
You are spot-on, Nikki. People do get caught up with specs more than they should. Case in point? Camera. Samsung, HTC and others are adding megapixels to their smartphone camera while Apple is maintaining an 8MP count and therefore, people are saying how behind the times the iPhone's camera is while totally ignoring how well the camera takes photos. Still, advertisers will take advantage of people's propensity to want the latest and greatest so they highlight the device's specs and ignore the fact that those same people will never understand or even use the highlighted specs...lol.
HTC uses a 4MP sensor for their Ultra pixel camera. Not sure what you mean there.
Samsung uses higher MP, but they also use high end dedicated ISP and processors, and their camera software is good and tailor able to almost any situation. The drawback is low light since you cannot have huge pixels at that resolution without a substantial increase in sensor size. The sensors are still more light sensitive and bigger than their predecessors, though, so they didn't just jam more resolution onto basically the same sensor (which a lot of people tend to act like they did)... Also, they're still innovating in other ways (Nokia PureView, Samsung ISOCELL, HTC UltraPixel and Duo, etc.) iPhone 5S had True Tone Flash (being fair, but phones like the M8 have already implemented that as well).
The only people still fighting the MP war are techies and super fans.
There is benefits and deficits to both.
Outdoor shots and those in good lighting, the Samsung devices win. Easily. In low light the iPhone will win.
The Samsung are better for video capture.
The iPhone is easier to operate (less options and modes, brainless navigation between them, auto HDR). But you can use Google Camera on a Samsung to get similar UX (or apps like Camera+ on the iPhone to gain capabilities there at the expense of ease of use).
It depends on what you demand of the device and which compromises you're willing to accept.
The MP are just the focus because they are the most obvious spec in the optics and have the easiest to discern impact on the photo output, typically.
For example you can get better landscape shots on a higher MP from far off due to how detailed the pictures are, as well as some superior panoramas - assuming the rest of the photo chain works well (and on phones from Samsung, Sony, Nokia it tends to deliver, for the most part).
Sent from my Galaxy Note 3 usibg Tapatalk.