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How two of the best smartphone cameras ever made compare to each other

How two of the best smartphone cameras ever made compare to each other

This photo of a mix of shade and direct sunlight was taken with the Galaxy S6. The brightness of the leaves is even and the surrounding area in the sunlight isn't overexposed.

The G4 overexposes the sunlit areas and patches, which strips them of detail. The leaves are darker, too, but the flower colors are more accurate, as the S6 saturates a little. The S6 beats the G4 here.

However, photos taken with the S6 suffer a little when it comes to settings with more sunlight, as sunlit areas are over-exposed and washed out, which robs them of their details and color.

The G4's exposure is better, as the grass's color is more evenly green and isn't over-exposed, and the brick on the bridge has slightly more color. Otherwise, both cameras capture about the same amount of details in the shadows. The G4 wins this one.

The colors of the flowers in this photo taken by the S6 are slightly oversaturated, which means the colors are a little too vibrant and lack detail.

The flower colors from the photo taken with the G4 are less saturated and more accurate, which lets you see more of the flowers' details like the wrinkles in the petals. But the G4 has a strange bokeh effect, which means items in the background are purposefully blurry compared to the subject. That doesn't look very good. It's especially noticeable with the cream-colored flower on the far left.

The S6 does comparatively poorly against the G4 in this photo, as most the the bamboo stalks are greener than in real life.

The G4 captured more accurate colors, as well as more shades of green.

This indoor picture taken with the S6 is clearly focusing on the window and the view, which results in a darker indoors.

But the G4 captures the view while maintaining decent brightness in the room. The result is a little washed out, but colors are more accurate and you get to see more detail in the room. Nod to the G4.

In this cityscape picture, the S6 does a good job capturing cloud details of the flat sky and gives the buildings bold colors.

The same picture taken with the G4 shows a more detailed sky, and while the colors look a little washed out, they're actually more accurate.

The S6 captures far sharper detail than the G4, as you can see the lines between the large bricks towards the mid-right of the photo more clearly.

Yet, the sky is a deeper shade of blue on the G4's photo, which helps accent the sky against the clouds. Even though it doesn't look as good as the S6's photo, the color of the building's bottom half is also more accurate. Despite this, the S6 wins as the picture simply looks better with sharper details and built-in image processing.

Again, the picture here looks better than the G4's because the colors are more dynamic due to the S6's image processing. Still, the colors aren't entirely accurate.

The colors are closer to real life with the G4, but the bokeh effect looks blotchy and uneven.

When it came to artificial light situations, the S6 could focus on the banana a lot better, and the colors are more accurate, too.

The banana's color in the G4's picture is over-saturated like a fake plastic banana in a plastic fruit bowl. Also, nothing is in focus here as the G4 clearly struggled with artificial lighting, despite giving it plenty of time to focus.

In this low-light shot of a mug taken with the S6, colors appear yellowed from the artificial light, but at least it's sharp and in focus.

The colors here are more true-to-life, as the G4 compensates well for the yellow yellow-ish artificial lighting, but it's nowhere near as sharp in as the S6's picture.

The S6 manages to reduce the light's brightness on the right, but it results in a generally darker picture.

This is preferable over the darker S6 photo as, as the G4 manages to keep decent lighting throughout the picture, even if the light is clearly overblown.

It was extremely close, but the winner is the Galaxy S6.

It might have seemed that the G4 would be the winner, as it has better overall color accuracy. But the S6 showed more versatility. It never performed badly against the G4 and performed well in most situations, but the G4 excelled in only a few. The G4's questionable blotchy bokeh effects were also let it down.

The S6 is more suited for casual photographers who just want their photos to look good without the need for editing or touching up. Technically, the G4's superior color accuracy means it's better, but you'll need to enhance them for more dramatic lighting or effects with editing. The S6 processes photos just enough to make them look better than unedited "real life" without any need for editing.

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