Hot off the presses is the Galaxy Note 8
Samsung's latest flagship phone and it sports a dual camera system
Which is a first for Samsung the galaxy s 8 released in May wasn't able to topple the LG G 6 our
current pick for smartphone camera dominance
And so we're interested to see the changes Samsung has made in the past six months
Can the new no date emerge victorius where the s8 fell short keep watching to find out?
Before we dig deeper into the results let's review some
Specs the note 8 is the first Samsung phone to have a dual lens setup with both cameras rocking 12
megapixel sensors the main, or wide lens has an aperture of
F17 while the telephoto is a slower F. 2.4. Lens and in the first for any smartphone both the main and
telephoto lenses have optical image stabilization or oh is the G six meanwhile features a fairly typical main camera
Paired with a super wide lens both sensors are 13 megapixels with the main shooters aperture set at F 1.8
And the wide at F 2.4 only the main camera has oh is built-in
But you typically don't need stabilization with wider fields of view though it would have been nice
But specs are only one slice of the pie it really comes down to how each phone handles the post-processing
Of each photo in the shoot out. I'm gonna focus mostly on the results from the main cameras for both phones
they will be used the way most people do straight out of the pocket with the stock camera app and
HDR set to auto the testing categories will be broken into four sections
color
clarity
exposure and user experience
And we hired the amazing model sindelle to help us capture some real-world scenarios here in San Francisco
And now on to the photos the first category is colored and what I'm looking for here is how each phone handles white balance?
saturation and color reproduction
Now if you've been following this shoot out series for a while you might notice some similarities between the notates and the s eights results
That's because the note 8 struggles with white balance just like the s8 did earlier this year
It's not as bad this time around
But it still falls short compared to the g6 which captures a pleasing and natural color palette the most extreme example
Shows up in this photo taken on a street corner I can confirm. That sindelle was not sick during our test
It's just the note 8 having some problems so while the g6 didn't score a huge win LG still takes the color category
Next up is clarity and what I'm studying
Here is the sharpness of each photo across the entire frame as well as how sharp each camera stays in various lighting scenarios in
A brightly lit scene like this one both cameras are nice and clear
There's a bit of ghosting towards the edge of the note eighths frame, but it's nothing major against this brick
Wall each camera performs great as well
But we start to notice that both have plenty of sharpening applied in post
So it's really a toss-up until we get into some super low-light situations the note 8 performs admirably, but LG's superb
Oh is kicks in and helps the g6 pull ahead the g6 is images noisier in most shots
But that allows it to retain a bit more detail like this website here
It's worth noting that the s8 won this category, and it's camera showdown
But every scene presents a different lighting challenge and this time the LG G 6 emerges victorious
The next test is exposure and here we're looking over the dynamic range of each camera
And how it chooses to expose for a scene, we'll get some help from our friendly neighborhood histogram
And here's the basic way to read it all of the information on the right side of the histogram
Represents the bright areas of the image while the left side represents the dark areas ideally you want the exposure to fall somewhere in between
Otherwise you start to lose information
Overall the note 8 tended to underexpose scenes compared to the g6. This is interesting because earlier this year the s8 was
overexposing compared to the g6
Underexposure is a safer tactic especially when dealing with high contrast scenarios, but it still didn't help the no dates chances in almost every
Situation I was able to pull more information out of the shadows and highlights
From the g6 now don't get me wrong the note 8
Isn't way off the mark when it comes to exposure is just that the g6 nails it almost every time
The only place where the g6 continues to stumble is knowing when to use
HDR in this super high contrast environment the g6 went between firing HDR and
Leaving it off
Not ever really figuring it out
Despite that the LG G 6 still takes the exposure category and now to our last category which is user experience
Here we go over all of the other variables of using these phones to take photos in terms of camera app speed
I've always been impressed with how quickly I can launch Samsung's default camera the g6 is stock app is starting to feel a bit sluggish
But I've been using this phone for months without a hard reset, so I won't ding it for that as for features
I just love what LG has to offer in its stock camera app from including a histogram in its manual mode to its creative uses
Of its dual camera setup the g6 is packed with extras and makes
Samsung's app feel like all bling and no substance some of Samsung's features are activated by a press while others are activated by
Sliding out from the edge of the screen while even more are buried in menus. It's not bad
It just feels like a phone experience instead of a camera experience, which is what you get on the g6
Samsung and LG also take different approaches when it comes to their second cameras
Samsung went with the telephoto lens while LG stuck with its super wide angle lens
I actually found plenty of uses for each style the most notable being the live focus mode on the note 8 this mode
Introduces bokeh or blur to a photo taken with the telephoto camera and the results are impressive on the other hand I found myself needing
The wide angle of the g6 more often in real-world
Scenarios so this choice really boils down to personal preference both approaches are super useful
but I missed having LG's wide lens more than Samsung's telephoto all in all using the note 8 is a great experience and
for some advantages over the g6
But in the end I continue to love using the LGG 6 so that's who's taking the win in user experience
So now it's time to declare an overall winner while Samsung has made some improvements to the note 8 that helped it top the s8
It's still not enough to take down the powerhouse that is the LG G 6 LG's G 6 features modest specs
But it really shows its strengths and post-processing
photos taken with the g 6 feature natural and lifelike colors and crisp and clear scenes all while maintaining
enough dynamic range so you can edit the photo later in Instagram pair that with LG superb stock camera app and
Wide-angle 2nd lens and you have a phone
That's yet to be beaten
And what a year the g6 has had so far after taking down the Google pixel it went on to defeat the Samsung Galaxy s8
HTC's u 11 and now Samsung's Galaxy Note 8
We already have a pre-production model of LG's V 30 in for testing so stay tuned for that showdown once the final version comes in
Let me know what you think of the results in the comments below and be sure to subscribe so you can check out the next
smartphone camera shootout