Introduction
At a time when LG is pushing the boundaries and installing all sorts of cameras in the V40 ThinQ (the ultra-wide/normal/tele trifecta we've all been waiting for), Apple and Samsung are taking a conservative approach and perfecting their dual camera game.
As it stands with this generation, the two companies' configurations have never been more alike. They were already pretty similar last year, but with the iPhone XS's adoption of a larger 1/2.55" sensor with dual pixel autofocus for the main camera, the differences in hardware are indeed minimal.
We wondered for a bit whether a table showing the specs side by side is at all warranted between these two, but we figured we'd provide one anyway.
| Apple iPhone XS Max | Samsung Galaxy Note9 | |
|---|---|---|
| Main (wide-angle) camera | 12MP, 4032 x 3024px | 12MP, 4032 x 3024px |
| Sensor | 4:3 aspect, 1/2.55" sensor size, 1.4µm pixel size | 4:3 aspect, 1/2.55" sensor size, 1.4µm pixel size |
| Lens | f/1.8, 26mm, OIS | f/1.5-2.4, 26mm, OIS |
| Focus | Dual Pixel PDAF | Dual Pixel PDAF |
| Telephoto camera | 12MP, 4032 x 3024px | 12MP, 4032 x 3024px |
| Sensor | 4:3 aspect, 1/3.4" sensor size, 1.0µm pixel size | 4:3 aspect, 1/3.4" sensor size, 1.0µm pixel size |
| Lens | f/2.4, 52mm, OIS | f/2.4, 52mm, OIS |
| Focus | PDAF | PDAF |
| Flash | Dual-tone, 4-LED flash | Single LED Flash |
| Video recording | 2160p@60/30/24fps, 1080p@60/30fps | 2160p@60/30fps, 1440p@30fps, 1080p@60/30fps |
| Slow motion | 1080p@240/120fps | 1080p@240fps, 720p@960fps |
| Video IS | OIS+EIS | OIS+EIS (EIS n/a in 2160p/60fps) |
| Video features | Stereo audio | Stereo audio |
| Front camera | 7MP, 1.0µm, f/2.2, 32mm, 1080p@60fps | 8 MP, 1/3.6", 1.22µm, f/1.7, 25mm, 1440p@30fps |
As you can see, on the back it's practically the primary cam's aperture that's the only thing setting them apart - the Note9 is rocking its dual aperture main module, while the iPhone XS Max has more conventional single-aperture optics.
Over on the front the Galaxy clearly has the upper hand with the hardware - the lens of its selfie cam has a brighter aperture, the focal length is wider, the sensor is larger and the pixels are bigger, plus there's a million or so more of them.
We'll go over the specifics of the hardware in more detail on the following page, where we'll also have a quick look at the camera apps of the two phones. And we'll then go out shooting.
Dual cams done the same way
The iPhone 7 Plus came out in 2016 with the company's first secondary cam (hehe) and at the time no one seemed to be doing telephoto cams. Apple wanted (you) to take portraits with blurred backgrounds and determined the normal+telephoto pairing to be the best for the task. It's the third generation of that setup that we're seeing on the iPhone XS, and the Max on our hands now.
Meanwhile, Samsung took its time and it wasn't until the Note 8 that a secondary cam popped up on a Galaxy flagship - conceptually the same design as that on the iPhones. The Note9 borrows that same configuration.
The Galaxy's telephoto cam may have been inspired by the iPhone's, but when it comes to the primary shooter, it's the other way around. Samsung made waves in 2016 with the Galaxy S7 and its dual pixel sensor and that's essentially what the company's high-end phones have used since, and now the iPhone too.
The Note9 uses a Type 1/2.55" sensor with 1.4µm pixels, each of them devoting a portion to phase detection. The imager is placed behind a 26mm equivalent lens that can change its aperture from f/2.4 in good light to f/1.5 in darker settings. The lens is stabilized.
Same on the iPhone. Well, not quite - there's no dual aperture action here, just a fixed f/1.8. The rest of it, however, appears identical - same sensor and pixel size, same effective focal length, dual pixel autofocus, image stabilization. This new sensor replaces the small-ish 1/3-inch one used in previous iPhones.
The phones share a seemingly identical telephoto camera, at least going by the specsheets. It starts with another 12MP sensor, a smaller Type 1/3.4" one with 1.0µm pixels. The lens offers a field of view equivalent to a 52mm lens in 35mm camera terms (so effectively a 2x 'zoom' compared to the main module), it has an f/2.4 aperture, and is also stabilized.
Oh, one semi-notable difference between the XS Max and the Note9 - the iPhone boasts a quad LED flash, while the Galaxy makes do with just the one LED.
Under the hood, both phones employ some form of image stacking thereby increasing dynamic range and cancelling out noise.
Apple says the iPhone is constantly keeping a 4 frame buffer, so that it can offer a zero (or minimal?) shutter lag. Its Smart HDR processing uses those frames, plus some extra ones in between at different exposure levels - shorter ones to preserve highlight detail, and a longer one to bring out the shadows - of which it then selects the best combination to blend into a final image with improved overall dynamic range.
Samsung's been doing something along these lines since the Galaxy S8 and is no longer really advertising it. Let's just say that the Note9 is no stranger to taking multiple frames, analyzing them and blending them together. That goes by 'HDR (rich tone)' in the camera settings, the smarts are implied.
Camera apps
Fire up the camera app on an iPhone, and it's all very familiar. Sometimes that's a good thing, but in this case we'd prefer to see some changes, like maybe, just maybe, have the camera settings in the camera app?
Anyway, swiping left or right switches between modes, but a flick up or down won't take you to the selfie cam like it would on the Note - here you need to tap on the toggle next to the shutter button for that. At least there's a dedicated mode for video recording so you can properly frame your clips.
Apple iPhone XS Max camera app
Not so on the Galaxy - we've been whining about the shared viewfinder for as long as we can remember. Sure, having the record button right there in the photo viewfinder means one step fewer to start recording, and holding that will give you a preview of the frame, but we still don't find that ideal.
Changing modes works the same way here, and as an added bonus you get to pick what modes to have available and rearrange them to your liking in settings. There's a Pro mode with lots of manual control over shooting parameters - good luck getting that from Apple. The '2x' button for the telephoto cam is a bit too small and distant, though we could file this in the nitpicking folder.
Samsung Galaxy Note9 camera app
Apple made a big deal in this year's keynote of a feature they've added to its portrait mode. Or rather, to the gallery, when editing shots taken in portrait mode - you can change the level of the background blur to simulate the effect you'd get from different aperture lenses all the way down to f/1.4. Huawei's Aperture mode is unimpressed. Mind you, Samsung offers a similar post-shot adjustment, only it's in units from 1 to 7. However, it's also available in the viewfinder as you're framing your portraits, unlike on the iPhone.
Alright, now that we're reasonably acquainted with the hardware and software, let's go out and take some shots while there's still sunshine.
Daylight
In ideal conditions, the iPhone XS Max and the Note9 take some of the best looking photos you can get from a smartphone right now. Images are sharp and detailed - as much as the 12MP resolution allows, of course. Whether it's exclusive to our Max unit or it's prevalent we can't know, but our iPhone samples turned out a little soft towards the lower left corner - it's in the absolute extreme of the frame and so isn't really an issue, but we did see it when pixel peeping.
iPhone XS Max camera samples
Galaxy Note9 camera samples
A bit surprisingly, Samsung appears to have found a match when it comes to noise reduction - the XS Max's photos are practically as noise-free as the Note9's, at least in real-life shots. Let's just say we were used to seeing at least some grain in non-Samsung photos, but that's not the case with the latest iPhone.
Filed under 'we knew it', the two companies take different approaches to color reproduction. Samsung, as usual, goes for a more vivid rendition and has a particularly warm take on greenery. Meanwhile, Apple goes for a more conservative but arguably more true-to-life color reproduction. The thing is though, particularly in the fall, conservative colors could also mean dull colors.
iPhone XS Max camera samples
Galaxy Note9 camera samples
Samsung's color science isn't ideal, however, even if we generally tend to prefer its vibrance over the iPhone's lack of enthusiasm. It's an ongoing debate at the office that gets reignited with every new Galaxy and every shootout we do, but we've sort of reached an agreement that the sky isn't cyan and Samsung is just wrong. iPhone skies - better.
Sky blues: iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9 • iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9
While colors can be open for debate, dynamic range is a more objectively measurable characteristic, and the iPhone has more of it. We've come to terms with the fact that it's now less a result of the hardware being used than it is of the processing, and the iPhone's processing does a noticeably better job of preserving highlight detail.
Camera samples: iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9
A quick look at the snail's shell and the hotel in the distance in the sets of photos above shows they're clipped to white in the Note's samples, whereas the iPhone has kept their true color.
One issue we encountered on the iPhone was its susceptibility to lens flare. You won't always have the sun just outside the frame like that so it's not going to affect most of your shots, but it could creep in under the right circumstances (or, should we say, wrong ones).
Lens flare: iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9
Zoom
Apple may have come up with the telephoto camera to use mainly for portraits (more on that later), but who's to say it can't be used for general zooming in. No one. No one has said that.
iPhone XS Max telephoto camera samples
We've found the XS Max' 2x module to be superior to the Note's, even if slightly so. While both will capture similar levels of detail, the telephoto shots from the iPhone have a bit better micro-contrast and are marginally sharper. Here, we're seeing a little more noise in the iPhone's images, however.
Galaxy Note9 telephoto camera samples
All of these are really the tiniest of differences and aren't meaningful enough to name one phone a true winner (if we were naming winners at all). You could say we're the true winners for having great cameras - how cheesy is that?
Low light
Once light levels drop, things get tougher - talk about stating the obvious. Shooting at dusk, we noticed the iPhone routinely exposed darker - to the tune of a half to a full stop difference. This, rather obviously, leads to a two-fold set of consequences - it better preserves point sources of light from blowing out, but does leave shadow areas too dark.
Samples at dusk: iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9
Looking up close, we can see that the iPhone has a minor advantage in resolved detail, but only where there's enough light. Noise levels are comparably low with both phones.
The iPhone's already more muted colors appear further desaturated at night, while the Galaxy hasn't lost a bit of its pop.
iPhone XS Max lowlight samples
Galaxy Note9 lowlight samples
Shooting with the telephoto cameras at night is best avoided - smaller sensors and individual pixels and a narrow aperture don't mean great light gathering capability. Fully aware of that (dare we say, even better than us), the engineers at both companies resort to a cropped and upscaled image from the main cam when you hit the '2x' button in low light.
Lowlight samples, tele camera: iPhone XS Max
Lowlight samples, tele camera: Galaxy Note9
The threshold is apparently slightly different between the two as the 'Sofia ring' shot is actually taken with the telephoto camera on the iPhone, but the standard one on the Galaxy (and both are bad in their own ways.
Lowlight samples, tele camera: iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9
Anyway, general low light samples with the phones zoomed in to '2x' aren't really something you want to to be examining at 1:1 magnification.
Now, there's a loophole that was left in both makers' camera apps that effectively does let you use the telephoto cameras in the dark and it's called portrait mode (okay, technically Samsung calls it Live focus). Since both portrait modes use the long lens module, you can be certain the phone won't default to the main cam - with no 'portrait' subject in sight for the algorithms to isolate you'll just get a zoomed in photo in the dark.
2x, tele vs. normal: XS Max tele • XS Max normal • Note9 tele • Note9 normal
We experimented briefly, shooting the same scene in the respective auto and portrait modes and it's plenty obvious why you wouldn't want to use the Galaxy's telephoto camera in low light - the cumulative effects of the limiting hardware and the noise reduction result in a pretty bad image. Meanwhile, the main camera's digitally zoomed-in shot is much cleaner, and in fact more detailed.
The difference isn't as striking between the iPhone shots though. For one, its telephoto camera produces a significantly better image than the Galaxy's telephoto. And then the one taken on the main camera is very much alike.
Portraits
Speaking of portrait modes, let's use them the way they were intended instead. Apple's way of doing things has been to isolate an oval outlining the face and keep that in focus and then gradually start blurring towards the periphery so it doesn't have to bother with detecting the precise border where subject and background meet. That generally works slightly better with humans than the Galaxy's way, particularly with pointy hairstyles, though with less demanding outlines the Note9 is as good.
Portrait samples: iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9 • iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9
What the iPhone does do better is dynamic range and skin tones. Faces are well exposed, with no blown out spots, and colors are very... human. The Galaxy's portraits, while okay, don't quite have the same natural look to the skin tones, and also exhibit a tendency towards overexposure of the faces.
Portrait samples: iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9 • iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9
Apple's also got the upper hand in rendering point lights in the backgrounds - who doesn't like some nice bokeh balls? The iPhone image is a lot more convincing and the circles of light look much more pleasing compared to the Galaxy's general mush of a background. Sure, you'd need to get the proportions of the the subjects and lights right as well as the distances between them and the phone, but with a little trial and error you're in for some nice bokeh. We're also providing a photo from a DSLR for comparison purposes.
Bokeh: iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9 • Nikon D750 & 50mm f/1.8 @ f/1.8
Selfies
Looking at the specs, you'd think that the Galaxy should have a vastly superior selfie game, but in reality, that's not necessarily the case. One area where it easily wins is coverage - we still feel like its 25mm equivalent lens is better for selfies than the iPhone's longer 32mm equivalent, at least until there are two different focal lengths on the same phone to choose from (wonder if someone's done that). The upside to Apple's lens choice is that generally speaking, a 25mm lens like the one Samsung is using is much too wide for a flattering perspective of a face.
iPhone XS Max selfie samples
Once again, the iPhone's skin tones are arguably more pleasing, with an extra bit of warmth than is missing on the Galaxy. The Galaxy leans towards a pinkish skin rendition, while the iPhone is a bit yellower.
And yes, Apple's Smart HDR ensures that face gets the right exposure and does a great job of avoiding blown out highlights.
Galaxy Note9 selfie samples
The iPhone's disadvantage-turned-advantage with its longer selfie lens can be observed in selfie portrait shots (or Selfie focus in Samsung speak). The focal length, combined with whatever magic takes place with the TrueDepth camera means the iPhone takes the better portrait selfies as well.
iPhone XS Max selfie portraits
Galaxy Note9 selfie portraits
Video
Both phones are capable of recording video up to 4K resolution at 60fps. Obviously, 4K at 30fps is available too, as well as 1080p in both 30fps and 60fps, plus a 24fps mode on the iPhone. Both phones will record in your choice of h.264 of h.265 codecs, depending on whether you prioritize compatibility or small file size.
Daylight videos are mostly very similar - you might have heard us say that about the photos. With the main cams, whether you're shooting in 4K or 1080p, there's little to split the two. The iPhone has slightly better detail in the 4K footage, while the Galaxy is only just a bit sharper in 1080p. The iPhone's colors are warmer, and saturation is higher, but not by much, and we certainly wouldn't call the Galaxy's colors dull. Dynamic range is just about the same in our balcony scene.
We've also snapped a set of screengrabs, in case you'd want to examine the detail without being distracted by motion.
4K video screengrabs, normal cam: XS Max (60fps) • Note9 (60fps) • XS Max (30fps) • Note9 (30fps)
1080p video screengrabs, normal cam: XS Max (60fps) • Note9 (60fps) • XS Max (30fps) • Note9 (30fps)
With the telephoto camera we have a clear winner though. The iPhone's 4K/60fps videos with the tele cam in good light are vastly superior to the Note's, with a considerable detail and sharpness advantage. 4K/30fps footage is also better on the iPhone, though only slightly so. In 1080p the Galaxy is at least on par, however, and possibly even better than the iPhone in 30fps.
And the mandatory screengrabs to illustrate our point.
4K video screengrabs, tele cam: XS Max (60fps) • Note9 (60fps) • XS Max (30fps) • Note9 (30fps)
1080p video screengrabs, tele cam: XS Max (60fps) • Note9 (60fps) • XS Max (30fps) • Note9 (30fps)
Software stabilization is available on both phones. The Note9 clearly states in settings that there's no stabilization in 4K/60fps, and that is also the case on the iPhone, though it's not explicitly said. Both do benefit from the stabilized optics - it's something at least.
The 4K/30fps and the 1080p footage is very well stabilized on both phones, but we do prefer the iPhone's extra smoothness. The Note9 has particular inertia that could lead to some slightly more abrupt motions when panning. In any case, handheld video recording on both phones is a non-issue, and you can count on getting steady capture.
We shot some low-light videos as well, and here we have to give it to the iPhone for its much better handling of highlights. Point light sources are blown out and have bleeding halos on the Note9, while the iPhone has kept them their true color and has left some edge definition.
And on to some screengrabs.
4K video screengrabs, low light, normal cam: XS Max • Note9 • XS Max • Note9
As for audio, Apple has finally joined us in this century and started offering stereo sound to go with its moving pictures. The Galaxy's audio track is cleaner and with wind noises filtered better, while the iPhone sounds boomier in the lower regions and not necessarily in a good way.
Final words
We're not seriously thinking a lot of people on either side are contemplating a cross-platform switch to the Galaxy Note9 or the iPhone XS Max on grounds of camera performance alone. Yes, there are such specimens around these offices here, but we gather most folks are a lot more reasonable in their smartphone purchasing decisions. In any case, a head-to-head of the two latest from the two greatest was warranted.
For starters, the two archrivals have never been closer in their hardware choices. Apple's primary camera this year has more or less been Samsung's primary camera since the Galaxy S7. Meanwhile, Samsung waited a couple of years to present its answer to what Apple introduced with iPhone 7 Plus - a telephoto camera, and that answer came with S9+'s telephoto camera. Which is how we've arrived at a point where the iPhone XS Max and Galaxy Note9's camera spec sheets need the selfie shooters to set them apart.
The phones are very much alike in the way they use their similar internals. Unsurprisingly, both consistently produce great photos and videos with comparable detail, minimal noise, and reliably good exposure, and they are quick and precise in their focusing.
One of the few notable differences comes down to personal preference - the color science. Some will prefer the Note's livelier output, while others will appreciate the iPhone's more restrained approach, and there's a case to be made that no one should like Samsung's cyan skies, yet plenty of people do.
A more objective advantage that goes in the iPhone's favor is dynamic range. Both phones employ image stacking of some sort and have HDR processing (Samsung calls it simply Auto or 'rich tone', Apple's is 'Smart'), but the way it's tuned on the XS will give you better-preserved highlights, every time.
We also found the iPhone's telephoto camera to be that extra bit better than the Note's in stills - to a definitely not game-changing extent. On the other hand, it proved significantly superior in the top 4K60 video mode, so if for some reason you specifically need zoomed-in 4K60 capture, the XS Max is an easy pick.
For all of the Note9's hardware advantages in the selfie cam department, we didn't find it to be meaningfully better than the iPhone in any way but one - coverage. The iPhone's longer lens severely limits what you can fit in the frame, an issue made worse still in video where the stabilization takes away even more of the periphery. Then again, the longer focal length is a bit more flattering to facial proportions. Oh, well.
So to wrap this up, both phones are predictably great all-around camera phones. Each takes a few narrow wins, neither is worth abandoning an ecosystem you're familiar with and invested in. Not just because of the camera, that is.
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