What phones are the best for recording live concerts – Meet Nokia Lumia 620/720/810/820/822/920/928, Pureview 808 and HTC One (2013)
When you want to take a phone to the live concerts, you want to make sure that it can record distortion free audio. Many phones can record 720p or 108op video, but only a handful can record distortion free audio.
Currently there aren’t too many good phones that can record both great audio & video. Nokia is so far the current leader with their HAAC microphone technology, HTC One (2013) is currently the only phone fighting against Nokia Lumia series 620/720/810/820/822/920/928 and Nokia PureView 808.
Problem with other phones like iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3 and HTC 8x etc, is that they have poor microphones. Phones mentioned earlier has built-in HAAC microphones (High Amplitude Audio Capture microphone) that can record distortion free audio (tolerate sound pressure up to 140dB!) giving distortion free recordings (with bass) pretty much in any live concert situation.
Here are some examples recorded with phones that have HAAC/Nokia Rich Recording technology:
Nokia Lumia 620 – Drums test
Where to get one? Nokia Lumia 620 at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
Nokia Lumia 820 – Accept – Metal Heart @ Pakkahuone Tampere, 6th November 2012:
Nokia Lumia 820 at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
Nokia Lumia 920 – HTC 8X vs Nokia Lumia 920 – recording a live Deadmau5 event
Nokia Lumia 920 at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
Nokia Pureview 808 – Reverend John Wilkins @ Rauma Blues 2012
Nokia Pureview 808 at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
And just for the kicks, here’s my recording with the Nokia Lumia 620 and Nokia Pureview 808 (Lumia 620 used for video, and both phones used for audio). Bootleggers would call this a “matrix-recording”:
HTC One (2013) – Bruce Springsteen – The River (Turku – Live)
This space is reserved for the HTC One phone. Apparently they have used Nokia HAAC microphones without permission. Now some models comes with the built-in HAAC mic, but the never batch has different microphones? More about this when the whole situation is more clear.
Source: Nokia granted preliminary injunction against HTC in the Netherlands over high-amplitude mics
One can only hope that other mobile phone manufactures also adds similar technology to their phones, as we all want great distortion free videos from concerts. I’m gonna update this blog post when new models comes along. :)
For a great resource of Nokia “Rich Recording” (Lumia/Pureview) material, check out: nokia808recordings.blogspot.com