The New Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus Review
The Samsung Galaxy S9 + is the best Android smartphone on the right. It looks beautiful, mainly because of the incredibly bright screen and a design that mixes the screen with the rest of the body. But more than that, this time Samsung has taken a new approach to improving camera performance in low light. The rear camera can switch between two openings. The camera, knowing how to take good photos, can produce high-quality shots in poor lighting, especially in a restaurant inside, but there are limitations. Samsung’s aggressive noise reduction analogrithms prevent the image from being perfect, but it’s a commendable effort nonetheless. You can’t go wrong with the S9+. It has everything you want from a high-end flagship phone-the recent high-level hardware, excellent design, high security and excellent camera. That said, it’s not much different from its predecessor, the Galaxy S8+, which is now affordable, making it a more cost-effective offering. The Galaxy S9 + is proof that it’s been an iterative year for Samsung and if you wanted to buy a good Android flagship, this is one to get right now.
DETAILED REVIEW OF THE SAMSUNG GALAXY S9 PLUS
As much as Samsung makes fun of Apple, the philosophies of the Cupertino giant shape the Android landscape. No, I don’t mean the notch. This is inevitable. I’m referring to the deeper philosophy that Steve Jobs swore: don’t fix what’s not broken. In a few words, so you can describe the new Samsung Galaxy S9+. This can be interpreted as good and bad. Samsung may not get any extra points for launching a new design with the S9+, but that gave the company enough leeway to work on the finest things that aren’t always visible but end up making a difference.
The Galaxy S9 + is proof that this will be an iterative year for Samsung. As much as he wants to call the Galaxy S9 + a “remagination” of the smartphone, it is more of a refinement with some inevitable upgrades.
There is, of course, the recent material inside. Depending on where you buy, the S9 + is powered by Qualcomm’s recent chip or Samsung’s 10NM chipset. There is an corner between the Galaxy S9 and the larger Galaxy S9+, justified not only by a larger screen, but also by more memory and a stack of two cameras on the back.
But is it worth the upgrade? More importantly, is this the best Android phone of the time? We discover it.
Camera: from weak light to more light
If last year the Galaxy S8 was focused on the Infinity screen, this year the focus is on the camera. So that’s where the exam should start, right? The problem that Samsung wanted to solve with the Galaxy S9 and S9 + is photography in low light. The company has already set a benchmark for day images and now wants to redefine night photography. It is an ambitious attempt, no doubt, but with its own shortcomings. We have made a detailed analysis of the camera of the Galaxy S9 + that you can read to get more context.
But before I dive further, let me fix the specifications at your fingertips. The Galaxy S9 + has a 12-megapixel dual wide-angle telephoto camera on the back. It is actually the same as on the Galaxy Note 8.But with a small but significant change. Variable opening. Samsung borrowed the technology from its own super-expensive Flap phone (the 2,000 W w2018), which was launched in China last year, and introduced it to the world. The 26mm primary angle is equipped with a dual aperture module, which can shift the aperture from the usual aperture of F/2.4 to a wider aperture of F/1.5 for filming in low light. This is where magic happens. The dual aperture function is one of the main reasons to buy this phone, if not the only one. We have a complete analysis of the camera of the Galaxy S9 + if you are interested in the details.
The larger opening comes into play when there is less light in the frame. Samsung automatically switches to F / 1.5 when the brightness drops below a certain point. You can also manually switch from Pro mode, with shutter speed, ISO and others. In short, the aperture of F / 1.5 allows more light in the sensor and the night shots are well lit. This is especially useful if you are in a dimly lit restaurant. The difference is quite noticeable. But sometimes a little too much. Most of the time, the shots will come out surprisingly well. The details will be quite sharp, and the frame will be perfectly illuminated.
But sometimes it becomes difficult to say whether the photo was taken in a poorly lit or well-lit environment. There is a lot of light and the 1/2. 55 ” sensor can not record everything. This sometimes leads to overexposure of the clichés. The wider aperture sometimes makes things too bright, while the F/2.4 aperture makes them too dark. Ideally there should have been a third aperture setting, somewhere around F/1.7 to F/2.0 to bridge that big jump, but I’m perhaps asking too much. It is undoubtedly commendable what Samsung has achieved here. The Galaxy S9 + can easily illuminate poorly lit frames better than any other, but the finishing touch is not found.
As hardware continues to advance the future of low-light smartphone photography, Samsung’s algorithms prevent it from innovating. The behind-the-scenes software aggressively reduces the noise of the photo and sometimes smears the details to make things fluid. There is the issue of this yellow hue on night photos that have been there in Samsung phones for ages. Maybe there’s an audience for it, but it’s not my cup of tea. Add to this a layer of saturation and increased contrast, and you get a photo that might look good on the incredibly bright AMOLED screen, but to be honest, it seems artificial. The iPhone X and the Pixel 2 keep things more realistic. The Pixel 2 can get the details even better, while the iPhone X will take a better composite photo. Samsung has taken a different approach to photography in low light and with the Galaxy S9 + it has reached new extremes. Both in the good and in the wrong way, depending on where you stand.