Christmas has now long gone. Well it feels like it.

One aspect of this time of year is often spent with family and friends. This year my dad’s TV screen failed miserably so luckily he managed to get a replacement TV in time for the family feast. The newer TV came with miracast built in, so within a few minutes I had connected my Samsung Note 4 and started to display some of the photos I had taken earlier.

I also had some old photos sitting on my memory card, dating back several years and it was fun looking back at the memories. During that time I had the HTC One M7 and M8 which had saved many of the memories as Zoes and/or video highlights. This was using the HTC’s 4mp lens.

Now the photo and video quality of the HTC One vs say the iPhone or even the Samsung Note and its 16mp lens is poor. But the best memories by far came from the HTC shots and the biggest smiles from the video highlights. In fact, the video highlights still looked cool regardless of the quality. A decent memory is always a decent memory. I can’t remember anybody asking about the pixel quality on any of the shots displayed.

So what if you had another phone. Apple has used a 8mp lens for years and years and even the current 6 and 6 Plus have stuck with 8mp. The iPhone’s strength is reliability. It will generally take a great shot first time every time. And very quickly from starting up the camera to first shot. Again, its important to capture the moment and not miss it.

Of course, the Samsung Note 4 has a 16mp sensor and its super amazing. But the key aspect of this camera is its now fast from start up to first shot and this sometimes will be more important than the quality.

From all the different smart phones I have used over the last 3-4 years, the HTC One M7 and M8 were the quickest to capture the shot. And this included using special effects like Zoes.

So moral of the story is your smartphone just needs to be quick enough to capture that memory and a memory is better than none regardless of the quality.  From my Christmas gatherings, it highlighted that HTC were on to a good thing with their automatic creation of video highlights and Zoes from your events.