iPhone X vs. Galaxy S9+: Which Smartphone Has a Better Camera?

[DblHelix]

Better question. Which phone has more issues. I tried to love the Galaxy S9+. Tried it and just hated it.

Issues I ran in to:

Poor bluetooth strength. Almost unusable in jeans pocket. Would completely drop audio 1-2 times/day with regular drop outs

When on a device policy for corporate use you cannot use a 3rd party keyboard. This renders it poorly. The samsung keyboard sucks. The auto correct is horrible and the swipe is not very accurate.

Other issues I didn't like is that it does not support hi res audio. The Galaxy S8 did with Nougat. I heard the issue is their implementation of the audio_policy_configuration.xml in Oreo

Overall beautiful device with a lot of flaws. I am returning it in about a half week of use.

 

[spazzcat]

So who in Cleveland took these?

 

[Baymowe335]

In the most non biased way possible, I'd like to say I still think the iPhone X pictures look better nearly every time. The colors are awful with the S9.

 

[diipii]

I don't think 13 year olds shooting selfies are too bothered.

 

[squirrrl]

It's on a level where I can't pick a clear winner.

What I've noticed in other comparisons:
S9 has way better low light quality IF there is no light source visible in the picture.
Once you have a light in a dark environment, it seems to totally screw up and blur anything around the light.

Yeah, I'm ambivalent too... If you look at the clouds especially, you can see the nice detail that gets blown out by light in the iPhone X photos. But the iPhone pics look nicer because of the warmer colors. IDK if it's the places they chose to photograph, but the Samsung ones look more dreary while the iPhone ones look brighter.

Lastly, I wonder if it's because you're not usually taking a portrait of a sign, but the software definitely didn't get the edges of the sight right in the case of the iPhone.

Doesn't really matter to me since I like iOS over android a million times over, but seems like Samsung does a nice technical job even though I like the iPhone pictures better over all.

 

[fairuz]

Very hard for me to decide which one I prefer. I'll look closer on two screens later.

I used to shoot a good amount of video and photos with my friends as a hobby and often used my phone*. Both camera and mic quality have always been blatantly crap on every "superior camera" Android phone I've tried, always via my friends who suggested we use their phones, so I just don't trust them anymore. There are too many factors (lighting, movement), settings (HDR on or off? flash?), and use cases for these reviews to cover. If one is supposed to be better than the iPhone, I'll believe it only if I see it myself.

The iPhone has always had a great camera without the usual gimmicks others employed, like using a higher res sensor that adds noise but lets them say "more MP!" It's nice how honest and consistent they are. Maybe Sony is better; nobody I know uses them, though.

* after my Canon HV30 broke and also became outdated

 

[Izauze]

In every single example showed, the iPhone is clearly the better photo. Either they used bad examples, or the copy doesn't match with reality.

I kept on looking at them blind, and every time the muddy photo with soft edges and lack of detail ended up being the Samsung.

 

[SeattleMoose]

They are so close that trivial differences in HW don't even come close to justifying a descent into the Android OS.

 

[fairuz]

Smart phone cameras are so close in comparison today producing excellent photo’s, the average consumer likely doesn’t see major differences. The biggest contributor is what smart phone manufacturer (Apple or Samsung) the consumer chooses to use, which Thats the only camera that matters really.

The ability to capture many pixels without noise matters a lot in postprocessing. Many consumers need to crop their photos, and that makes the differences way more noticeable.

BTW, anyone who says a phone can take similar photos to a DSLR has not used a DSLR in the past 5 years. DSLRs have advanced accordingly. Nowadays, they can accurately capture twice the pixels as any phone and can preserve color in much lower light.

 

[Act3]

The last photo really shows my biggest complaint with iPhone photos that's been ongoing since iOS 7: the super aggressive noise-reduction that makes everything look like a painting.

Even in outdoors during the day, noise cancellation makes it all terribly blurry.

the detail on the buildings with the S9 picture blows away the iPhone X. alot of the tiles on white building are washed, blurred out on the X, but show fine detail on the S9

 

[VulchR]

I am no professional photographer, but I enjoy photography as a hobby. Living in Scotland, I am confronted very often with situation in which the dynamic range of light in the picture is quite high (such as sunshine peaking through clouds). Thus, is it me, or does the iPhone X seem to overexpose light areas (saturating the affected pixels) because it does not have the necessary dynamic range (e.g., see light areas of clouds in image below)?

 

[fairuz]

the detail on the buildings with the S9 picture blows away the iPhone X. alot of the tiles on white building are washed, blurred out on the X, but show fine detail on the S9

I can't tell if the tiles are supposed to look like that. The S9 photo looks like it's gone through a sharpening filter because I see some noise, but maybe the iPhone is blurring stuff with an anti-noise filter. As someone mentioned above, it would be nice to see a "ground truth" photo from a DSLR.

 

[Fzang]

In almost all cases, except clear outside daylight from a clear sky, I find myself always upping the brightness a tad. Am I half-blind, or are photos always slightly darker than you'd like them to be for viewing?

 

[cansuds]

I think the quality of the iOS updates is corrupted. Every update also gets worse pictures on my iphone. I think there is a planned aging.

 

[fairuz]

In almost all cases, except clear outside daylight from a clear sky, I find myself always upping the brightness a tad. Am I half-blind, or are photos always slightly darker than you'd like them to be for viewing?

You mean to make them look like real life, or to make them to look nice? Maybe you enjoy the weather being brighter than how it actually is

 

[JGIGS]

Neither. Pixel 2 still has the best overall camera with a single lens. It’s not so much about the hardware anymore it’s about improving the software.

Hint hint Apple: fix your buggy mess while you’re at it.

Yeah I was going to say I would have liked to seen the same pics also taken with a pixel 2 to compare both the samsung and iphone X against. I always find it hard to compare just two cameras pictures.

Apple does seem to have room to improve the software.

 

[adib]

Both are great.

I remember the days (between the 3G and 4S), when almost ever day people kept saying a camera in a phone didn’t matter, or the cameras were already “too good” and taking photos was such a low priority for a phone.

Now most of the comments I seem to read on these articles are from self-proclaimed pro photographers who scoff that when you enlarge these excellent phone photos, there’s some rough artifact and they can never compare to their 5K DLSR.

It’s just funny how times change.

And nowadays there are artificial intelligence techniques to remove those artifacts and generates plausible synthetic pixels to fill the gaps created by the enlargement process.

 

[1050792]

In this video the iPhone X looks better in other videos the S9 looks better so it's hard to decide.
From what I can tell is that the S9 pictures are a little sharper with more saturated colours while the iPhone X is more colour accurate. Can't go wrong with any.

 

[fairuz]

And nowadays there are artificial intelligence techniques to remove those artifacts and generates plausible synthetic pixels to fill the gaps created by the enlargement process.

You can't AI-synthesize a person that can't be seen due to noise or lack of pixels. Well, you can, but it might be the wrong person, haha.

 

[citysnaps]

Don't know about everyone else, but I buy my phone ONLY for its ability to take photos. Making calls, browsing internet, and apps all take a back seat. iPhone X seems to be the better choice here.

I don’t, and I’m a photographer who makes photographs with my iPhone everyday. It makes little difference.

 

[gatearray]

iPhone X wins

...if the contest was for most-blown-highlights, agreed!

 

[lsutigerfan1976]

Meh. Most of us aren’t professional photographers. All we do is take pics of food and selfies. And for that, either camera is perfectly fine.

 

[Blaze4G]

Do people really prefer shooting 720p 960fps for 0.2 seconds over 1080p 240fps for as long as you want? It really seems not very useful to me.

The S9 can shoot 1080p 240 fps as long as you want. So you have both options.

 

[Cosmosent]

Neither is worth the Coin !

Neither supports 10-bit color "capture" OR "display".

10-bit color capture & display is just-around the corner, AND the first smartphone manufacturer to offer a viable & credible solution At or Below $650 USD will IMMEDIATELY render ALL existing smartphones (& tablets) obsolete !

Most people are simply Oblivious to the Obvious ... the transition is now 2 years overdue, AND the Chinese are NOT sitting still ! ... even if Apple & Samsung (& Google) ALL are !!

Tim Cook is NOT qualified to be CEO, as evident by putting Apple in a position where the companies market cap could IMMEDIATELY collapse because Apple didn't have it's act together !

Apple got SIDE-tracked by Face ID, Animoji, and Tim's Fav, Emojis, when they should have stuck with the Hardware Home Button & Touch ID, & focused on the entire company making a clean transition to 10-bit color capture & display !!!

Major screw-up on Apple part ... but, like I said, NOT just Apple, Samsung & Google made the same blunders ! ... all that proves is that the Mgmt Teams of all three are INCOMPETENT !

 

[Frisco]

Nobody care about a camera on a phone. It's a friggin phone for God's sake. If they marketed it as iCamera then maybe I would care.

https://www.amazon.com/Canon-EOS-1D-Camera-Safari-Bundle/dp/B077CH8HVC/ref=sr_1_1?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1521244052&sr=1-1&keywords=dslr+camera&refinements=p_72:1248879011,p_36:1000000-99999999 is what I use and carry with me all the time for a decent selfie or FB photo. I can't believe we are even discussing this,