Evan Rodgers, writing for Motherboard:
The sensor your phone uses is only half the story. When you take a picture, your phone automatically compresses raw image data into a JPEG, effectively finalizing the image. In this split second, settings chosen by the phone manufacturer will adjust brightness, sharpness, and tone, and the rest of the data is thrown away. HTC royally boned itself with its image processing software, which overexposes shadows and murders detail with aggressive noise reduction and sharpening.
Camera quality is one of the many reasons I could never switch to Android. Apple has really hit it out of the park for years in that department and Android manufacturers almost feel resistant to do what’s necessary to catch up.