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

The first photo the shadow of the pole seems more natural on the s9. Other than that I prefer the iPhone photo.
 
For anyone shooting on iPhone X make sure that you always turn on HDR. IPhone’s auto HDR sucks. It always produces overexposed pictures. It wouldn’t be as bad if the stupid setting to keep HDR didn’t turn off on its own.
 
Galaxy S9 clearly has better definition and detail and fewer blown highlights. The iPhone X looks over-processed in all images. Apple will have to substantially lift its game if it wants to return to the top of mobile phone cameras.

The S9 shots need a bit of tweaking to enhance colour, vibrancy or contrast to taste, but not much, and it’s better to start from a source that has as much definition as possible. That’s to be expected when you have well captured images.

The clouds in the first pic are hugely better on the S9 and I prefer the stronger shadow of the sign as well. Of course, even a basic point-n-shoot will do better than both, so I don’t know what all the fuss is about.

My iPhone 7 Plus does fine in the best possible light but at night with difficult lighting and city lights it fails miserably as one would expect. Resolution completely breaks down because it’s having to do so much interpolation with so little light captured by the sensor and highlights get blown out like crazy.

See example:
 

Attachments

  • 6C695A35-2E32-4F1F-84F4-8A8CF23E5419.jpeg
    6C695A35-2E32-4F1F-84F4-8A8CF23E5419.jpeg
    2 MB · Views: 176
Last edited:
Galaxy S9 clearly has better definition and detail and fewer blown highlights. The iPhone X looks over-processed in all images. Apple will have to substantially lift its game if it wants to return to the top.

The S9 shots need a bit of tweaking to enhance colour, vibrancy or contrast to taste, but not much, and it’s better to start from a source that has as much definition as possible.

The clouds in the first pic are hugely better on the S9 and I prefer the stronger shadow of the sign as well.

Of course, even a basic point-n-shoot will do better than both, so I don’t know what all the fuss is about.

My iPhone 7 does fine in decent light but at night with difficult lighting and street lights it fails miserably as one would expect. Resolution completely breaks down because it’s having to do so much interpolation with so little light captured by the sensor and highlights get blown out like crazy.
The S9 photos will look really vibrant on an actual Samsung display set to any mode but "basic".

I think Samsung did a smart thing toning down the saturation on their photos, because a lot of their customers seem to be using the default Adaptive display and with the way Samsung cameras used to saturate colors, looking at one's photos on a Samsung phone set to Adaptive mode was a pretty psychadelic experience.

I vacationed at a very plain Jane beach on the Atlantic coast. The water is usually a murky ugly blue green and brown soup and the sand is washed out beige. But looking at my S7 Edge vacation photos on my S7 Edge or any Samsung display set to Adaptive mode, it looked like I was at some tropical paradise. Lol, even I looked gorgeous and in reality, eh, you could see better looking faces by drawing eyes over a horse's tail. :p
 
The S9 photos will look really vibrant on an actual Samsung display set to any mode but "basic".

I think Samsung did a smart thing toning down the saturation on their photos, because a lot of their customers seem to be using the default Adaptive display and with the way Samsung cameras used to saturate colors, looking at one's photos on a Samsung phone set to Adaptive mode was a pretty psychadelic experience.

I vacationed at a very plain Jane beach on the Atlantic coast. The water is usually a murky ugly blue green and brown soup and the sand is washed out beige. But looking at my S7 Edge vacation photos on my S7 Edge or any Samsung display set to Adaptive mode, it looked like I was at some tropical paradise. Lol, even I looked gorgeous and in reality, eh, you could see better looking faces by drawing eyes over a horse's tail. :p

Hehehehe! At least you got outdoors and into some (hopefully) fresh air.
 
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.

Shooting with a camera app that outputs raw fixes everything. Better control of highlights, no dnr, etc. These jpegs are junk in comparison.
 
We’ve had our demo units for well over a couple of weeks now and have played with the camera extensively; I’m not doubting these results or anyone’s preferences, but the photos and videos we’ve seen have been objectively better on the iPhone X. Putting the S9+ into Pro mode results in more granular controls that offer much more comparable photos - those go either way.

We won’t even mention the AR Emojis...

The phone itself, on our network (T-Mobile) is faster, though... and Android is as smooth (if not smoother) than the quirkier-than-usual iOS counterpart.
 
For anyone shooting on iPhone X make sure that you always turn on HDR. IPhone’s auto HDR sucks. It always produces overexposed pictures. It wouldn’t be as bad if the stupid setting to keep HDR didn’t turn off on its own.

Or just learn to set the exposure properly. Having HDR on all the time means you’ll get ghost trails if anything in your photo is moving quickly.

Also, where it makes sense, if you learn to lower the exposure manually, that will in turn drive the ISO up resulting in a higher quality image.
 
Would be great if they could take all photos at the same time of day with the same exact landscape, who made this comparison?
 
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 X is a more pleasing picture, taken with as much ease as an old Brownie Box camera. If you look at great photographers, the greatest look like paintings. The iPhone X has followed very particular algorithms about sky, contrasting light, water, etc. The Samsung has great range. The pictures exhibit engineering prowess. The iPhone's shots are beautiful.
 
Interesting. In all other side-by-side comparisons that I’ve seen between both devices, S9 photos seem to possess the greater amount of artificial color saturation and ambient light pop, while X photos seem to feature truer, more lifelike tones and details. Here though the exact opposite appears true. Not a Samsung fan, but the S9 photos in this test almost seem ‘doctored’ to skew the result. Again, I only say this based on previous comparative results. Just calling it as I see it. (Coming from a very happy iPhone X owner.)
 
Last edited:
They are both terrible: distortion in the edges for both cameras, particularly in the last one in the harbor ( I prefer the S9s). The first one, the iphone's I prefer. The "advantage" of aperture in the Samsung is negligible. Don't expect decent cameras on phones, their only real advantage is that you carry the camera with you all the time as a present. Other than that....
 
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
The waves in the water looks like clear painting as compared to the other one
 
How the photos turn out, would largely depend on the photographer. I'm sure a good photographer with iphone 4S would anytime beat amateurs with iPhoneX, S9, Pixel2, IMO.
 
Portrait mode is a joke on the iPhone. It's so sloppy and poorly done. It's a good thing that it's in it's infancy because needs a lot of work. It's not just the picture posted here.
[doublepost=1521275436][/doublepost]
The waves in the water looks like clear painting as compared to the other one

They look exactly the same to me.;)
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Back
Top