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LTENETWORK

macrumors regular
Nov 28, 2017
146
142
I don't like S20 models. Doesn't matter what specs, camera. But productivity, creativity Note 10 is the best.
 

The Game 161

macrumors Nehalem
Dec 15, 2010
30,980
20,169
UK
what I think is both are great cameras and you can't go wrong with either...Samsung have certainly stepped up from last year certainly in video which is an area they were way behind apple.
 

jamezr

macrumors P6
Aug 7, 2011
16,072
19,067
US
This is a great comparison from EverythingApplePro between them.
He raves about the S20 Ultra from an Apple guy :)
 
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Oohara

macrumors 68040
Jun 28, 2012
3,050
2,423
This is a great comparison from EverythingApplePro between them.
He raves about the S20 Ultra from an Apple guy :)
I always take this guy’s stuff with a large pinch of salt. It feels like every year he says wow the new Samsungs are actually really good, but in reality he’s just setting them up to be destroyed once the iPhones come out 6 months later.

Here yes he’s giving the Ultra due credit especially for the zoom, low light scenes and bigger viewfinder, but overall I’d say he’s saying they’re mostly equal. Meaning that come new iPhone time = he’ll be laughing at the Ultra.

Personally I’m finding the daylight shots for the Ultra to look a bit washed out, and it seems to be adjusting visibly a good bit more than the iPhone resulting in weird little artifacts, on the grass for example.

I was also surprised to see the stabilization actually looking better on the iPhone in the walking scenes...?

In any case though, since I got the 11 Pro I’m realizing just how personal everyone’s camera preferences are, depending on how they use the camera and on their aesthetic taste. Because to my surprise I’m not that happy with the 11 Pro cam. And I can’t tell you exactly why. I just find it awkward to take good photos with, it feels like it’s getting in my way a lot of the time.

One thing I definitely would love to have is the full screen viewfinder of the Ultra. I hate how cramped the iPhone UI feels. And yes, I would have killed for that 100x zoom last year when we suddenly spotted a group a wild horses about 500 meters away from us in the mountains.

So I guess I’m trying to say - take camera reviews with a massive grain of salt as personal preference really decides it in the end.

And, let’s see how long before this guy turns around and outright laughs at the Ultra... ;) For me, what I’m seeing from the Ultra makes me giddy thinking about what the Note 20 will be able to do, as I’m gravitating towards that this year.
 

jamezr

macrumors P6
Aug 7, 2011
16,072
19,067
US
I always take this guy’s stuff with a large pinch of salt. It feels like every year he says wow the new Samsungs are actually really good, but in reality he’s just setting them up to be destroyed once the iPhones come out 6 months later.

Here yes he’s giving the Ultra due credit especially for the zoom, low light scenes and bigger viewfinder, but overall I’d say he’s saying they’re mostly equal. Meaning that come new iPhone time = he’ll be laughing at the Ultra.

Personally I’m finding the daylight shots for the Ultra to look a bit washed out, and it seems to be adjusting visibly a good bit more than the iPhone resulting in weird little artifacts, on the grass for example.

I was also surprised to see the stabilization actually looking better on the iPhone in the walking scenes...?

In any case though, since I got the 11 Pro I’m realizing just how personal everyone’s preferences are, depending on how they use the camera and what their aesthetic preferences are. Because to my surprise I’m not that happy with the 11 Pro cam. And I can’t tell you exactly why. I just find it awkward to take good photos with, it feels like it’s getting in my way a lot of the time.

One thing I definitely would love to have is the full screen viewfinder of the Ultra. I hate how cramped the iPhone UI feels. And yes, I would have killed for that 100x zoom last year when we suddenly spotted a group a wild horses about 500 meters away from us in the mountains.

So I guess I’m trying to say - take camera reviews with a massive grain of salt as personal preference really decides it in the end.

And, let’s see how long before this guy turns around and outright laughs at the Ultra... ;)
Great points....It really does come down to personal preferences. Look at the other video of the video stabilization i posted. The 11 pro max just can't keep up with the ultra.
They both get some shots right and some they don't.
But imho for video the S20 Ultra wins hands down. Then when the next iPhone comes out he can compare it to the Note 20 that will be launching around the same time :)
 
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Oohara

macrumors 68040
Jun 28, 2012
3,050
2,423
Great points....It really does come down to personal preferences. Look at the other video of the video stabilization i posted. The 11 pro max just can't keep up with the ultra.
They both get some shots right and some they don't.
But imho for video the S20 Ultra wins hands down. Then when the next iPhone comes out he can compare it to the Note 20 that will be launching around the same time :)
Yeah the Ultra totally destroyed the iPhone while he was running! Weirdly though to me it looks like the iPhone wins while he's walking, the Ultra has more of a wagging motion going on then.

One thing I'm seeing a lot of now that I'm watching a bunch of comparisons is how warm the tone is on the iPhone photos. I've been noticing that since I got the phone but I thought it was because I was looking at the photos on the phone itself with TrueTone on. I actually prefer the colder/more blue tone of the Ultra photos in the Booredatwork comparison.
 
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BlueGoldAce

macrumors 68000
Oct 11, 2011
1,951
1,455
The ultra is in need a few software updates. Lets not forget that while the iPhone 11 pro series had a great camera out the door (as does the ultra), we had to wait for deep fusion, which brought on significant improvements. If we are willing to give apple time to update a phone and improve it (iOS was very, very buggy), we should allot the same opportunity to other OEMs; an opportunity that was not granted to the Pixel 4 series despite marked improvements.

The Ultra has a brand new camera setup and it is likely the direction Samsung is taking it's entire line as we move forward. Software updates and optimizations will come both immediately (as we are already seeing) and likely as their approach to this camera technology evolves. Same thing can likely be said for the 120hz display and the possibility for user preference and, one can hope, dynamic scaling of the refresh rate.

We see the Ultra absolutely hold its own and then randomly surpass the competition. There is a huge delta here, but alongside a large ceiling. The phones will continue to improve and likely do so substantially. I would be curious to see if some of these random bugs/quirks exist in the S20/S20+. It is too early for me to go parse apart the camera technology differences, at this moment, but if the S20/S20+ technology is closer to the S10 and we see less quirks, then that furthers my above hypothesis.
 
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