Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, launched recently at the Galaxy Unpacked event, ahead of Mobile World Congress 2018, promise a "reimagined" camera experience. While optics on Samsung flagship phones have mostly been promising over the years, expectations from the Galaxy S9 duo are high considering how rival iPhone X has come up with a redesigned camera setup. Reputed camera review website DxOMark took the Galaxy S9+ to task and gave it an overall score of 99. Galaxy S9+ is now the highest scoring smartphone on DxOMark's rating; scoring 1 point more than Google Pixel 2.
The Galaxy S9+ set a new record in DxOMark's benchmark tests beating both the iPhone X (score: 97) and Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (score: 94) by a significant margin. DxOMark reported that the Galaxy S9+ sports a camera that performs well across photo and video tests, and comes with no obvious weaknesses. While the phone scored a record-setting 104 in clicking photos, a video score of 91 definitely warrants slight improvement.
DxOMark says that the Galaxy S9+ clicks great photos in bright and sunny conditions, with bright and vivid colours and a wide dynamic range. There seems to be good noise reduction and retention of detail; the review noted limited grain in images with optimum brightness. In low light, the phone's dual camera setup is equally impressive: it had underexposure only in the darkest level of the camera test.
The Galaxy S9+ sports the first dual camera setup in the Galaxy S flagship range, and thus manages to take good bokeh and zoom shots. Where the Galaxy S9+ underperforms is texture. The DxOMark test reveals that finer textures are "noticeably smeared" and blurred thanks to noise reduction rendering.
Talking about its video performance, the flagship phone is great with colour reproduction, autofocus capabilities, exposure, and stabilisation. However, the camera seems to have provided an underwhelming texture production in videos as well.
"The Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus is a smartphone without any real weaknesses in the camera department. In both still and video modes, it performs well across the board, delivering consistently good photo and video image quality in all light and shooting situations, thus earning itself our highest DxOMark Mobile score to date," said DxOMark concluding the review of the Galaxy S9+'s camera.
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