Today, the Galaxy S9 & S9+ is out now for everyone to enjoy. if you’ve already pre-ordered one, you probably already had it for a few days. Our full review will be up next week as we didn’t want to rush it out after only having it for a week.
Whatever the case, we did want to answer some of the questions you guys had in regards to what’s new on the S9. We already covered the speakers and now we’re talking about the new camera abilities. Not the new features like 960fps slow-motion per se, but more so the dual aperture in auto mode w/ HDR on.
And what better way to really see how it holds up than by pitting it against the Android champ for photos: the Google Pixel 2. So we decided to focus on photos over videos. We took a few photos in a variety of conditions (low-light, very little light, daylight, etc.) to put Samsung’s hardware against Google software to see which one produces the best photo.
Galaxy S9 (left) | Pixel 2 (right)
In some ways the S9 is better & other ways, the Pixel 2 is better.
From what we’ve seen between the 2 cameras, I wouldn’t say there is a definitive winner. The S9 performs amazingly in low-light but Google’s HDR+ & dynamic range still holds up 9 times out of 10. The images are a little saturated on the S9 while Pixel 2 is more natural colors in the reproduction. Samsung’s Dual Aperture does make low-light photos a lot better but Google will win in sharpness & details for shots in other conditions.
So at the end of the day, it will come down to what kind of photos you prefer. Whichever you declare as the winner, this will be a good year for smartphone cameras. The S9 is off to a great start as we still have the LG G7, new iPhone(s), Pixel 3, & more to still look forward to.
Based on the photos above, which camera do you prefer?
