Sorry, Apple: The iPhone 7 camera is not better than Samsung's Galaxy S7

[planetjones]

It certainly looks better at portraits and when zooming in.

Though that's disappointing it seems to blow the highlights. I have seen this with previous iPhones - the HDR isn't as effective as it should be and I often end up with a white sky on a sunny day.

[gr33nman]

I didn't know about this until recently, but when you are shooting on the iPhone, you can touch any area of the screen (e.g., a blown out highlight, or white sky) to adjust the exposure so that the area you touch is correctly exposed.

[dingaling]

Hardly surprising, given that Apple use Sony Exmor sensors with which Samsung have approximate parity. In fact some Sony-branded sensors are actually Samsung designs fabbed by Sony! [0] All's fair in love and capitalism.

The real differentiators would be in the lens and stabilisation and in a phone-sized case there's not a lot of space to do much different to the competition.

[0] some of the S7 models use Samsung's in-house sensor and others use the Sony IMX260 which is a... Samsung design. The iPhone 7 probably uses a Sony-designed IMX230.

[out_of_protocol]

The real difference is post-processing - and this is true for many years already (see also c-brands vs a-brands even if phones are using exactly same sensor)

[kyriakos]

As always with these comparisons unless you know how the image should look in the first place you can't know which one is a more accurate representation of the real world. Maybe they should use a high end DSLR as a control (but even that no one can guarantee it will look accurate - post processing changes photos a lot)

Both cameras are good (except the portrait where I think the iPhone looks more natural). So if we back off a bit from the brand wars I think premium mobile phone cameras mostly perform the same.

[guitarbill]

> which one is a more accurate representation of the real world

I'd venture a guess and say that most consumers don't care about this. Probably why the S7 saturates a bit more. Makes selfies look better, doesn't it?

The other question is does "camera" mean the hardware only, or hardware + software like businessinsider have assumed?

[xiphias]

I don't see much difference between the smartphones anymore. They're good if you don't want to zoom-in too much / use it at night / have depth of field. I'm buying new phone every 2nd year because it's getting prettier (S7 edge), and I see the wear on the older phone, but the difference in usability is not big anymore.

[djmips]

It should be the iPhone 7 camera is not better than the S7 in every way because clearly the article shows how it is better particularly the telephoto option which seems like quite a desirable feature.

[merb]

On some photo's the colors of those picture's are different. I wonder which one is closer to the "real" color.

[egypturnash]

However, the iPhone 7 appears to be better at "not exploding".

Or is that some other Samsung phone? I lose track.

[kyriakos]

the exploding samsung is the recent Note 7 (the phablet of the Samsung line). The comparison is with the older Galaxy S7 (announced in March if I am not mistaken).