"Reimagined Camera" is what Samsung promises on their Galaxy S9 launch at MWC 2018

[captain_to_fire]

Sources: The Next Web, Samsung Press Materials [here] and [here]

 

Quote

Samsung has confirmed that it will unveil its next flagship phone, the Galaxy S9, on February 25 at the Mobile World Congress expo in Barcelona. The company is hyping the event with a teaser that promises a ‘reimagined’ camera. The word on the street is that the S9 will feature the company’s new ISOCELL sensors, which are detailed on Samsung’s site.

 

One of the four ISOCELL sensors is said to deliver better picture quality in low-light conditions, by merging four neighboring pixels to work as one big pixel and allowing for greater detail to be captured. Another is capable of quick autofocus, and of shooting Full HD video at 480 fps – making for super-slo-mo clips.

That thing in bold is what they call "Pixel oversampling" and it's not new among smartphones. One of the popular ones which utilized pixel oversampling is the old Nokia Lumia 1020 with 41 megapixels and ran on the now dead Windows Phone 8 OS. https://www.scribd.com/document/153339978/Nokia-Lumia-1020-Whitepaper

Spoiler

The 41MP sensor can capture 34MP and 38MP image files at 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios respectively. In addition to the 38MP and 34MP full-resolution images, the Lumia 1020 camera captures 5MP oversampled images so that every pixel in the 5MP image has been created using the data from up to seven pixels of the sensor.The oversampling technology ensures that these 5MP images are incredibly sharp, natural and low noise. Thebest part is that the camera saves both the full resolution and oversampled image simultaneously.This is referred to as dual capture. It enables creative post-processing while still allowing users to share a high-quality small file size image straight after shooting.

 

In traditional imaging systems, the true resolution of the system is lower than that of the nominal sensor resolution. The traditional camera sensor resolution may be 5MP, but it does not really capture photos that have five million pixels of independent data. The data is spread across multiple pixels causing, for example, blurring and artifacts. There are two technical reasons for this: one is related to the optics design and aliasing, and the other one to the way the sensor samples the data with Bayer colour filters. A traditional 5MP camera has only 2.5 million green pixels and 1.25 million red and blue pixels for example. See Figure 3 for a comparison in sharpness of a standard 5MP image versus of an oversampled 5MP image and Figure 4 for an illustration of how oversampling reduces noise compared with a standard sensor.The oversampling technology in the Lumia 1020 makes it possible to solve both of these issues, and enables full details to be captured with the 5MP image, visible as amazing sharpness, naturalness and low noise. It is physically impossible to capture this with a traditional 5MP camera.

Like everything else, the new Galaxy S9 and S9+ will use a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 (8c 2.8 GHz) for North America and Samsung Exynos 9810 which is an octa core (2.9 GHz four high performance cores + 1.9 GHz four power efficient cores) for the rest of the world. I'll definitely check out that camera although I'd rather keep my expectations low because of the fact that it's still a smartphone sensor which can never outperform a full frame sensor of a dSLR or a mirrorless camera but it's good that Samsung is pushing the boundaries on what a smartphone camera can do because for most people, their smartphone is their primary camera so why not make it good since people are paying premium for the S-lineup. 

 

Samsung's press release:

Quote

If a picture is worth a thousand words, the latest member of the Galaxy family has a lot to say. On February 25, Samsung Electronics will showcase the next generation of Galaxy devices that reimagines the camera and redefines the way you share your moments.

 

Samsung will mark the launch of the upcoming device with the Galaxy Unpacked celebration at 6 p.m. CET on February 25, 2018 during Mobile World Congress. Live streaming of the Barcelona Unpacked celebration will be available at news.samsung.com/global, www.samsung.com/galaxy, and www.samsungmobilepress.com.

I'm waiting to get a new phone and I'm considering Android once again given my frustrations with iOS 11 as well as the ugly, hideous asymmetrical notch of the iPhone X. I don't know what went to Jony Ive's mind thinking that a notch in a phone is practical when in fact it is not. Yeah sure the iPhone X may have one of the best smartphone camera around but Samsung cameras are no slouch. The only thing that keeps me to iOS is timely software updates, app store, Apple Music, iMessage and FaceTime. Obviously the last two are out in Android and I don't think Apple would even consider making them cross platform. Google Play Store is on par with the iOS App Store when it comes to apps but unless I'm using a Pixel, most Android phones lag behind when it comes to patching vulnerabilities and releasing new Android builds in a timely manner. Now that Google made Project Treble a reality, I hope that Samsung follows because their Note and S line are priced premium and they better give their customers a premium experience and that includes timely software updates. I'm curious as to how the Exynos 9810 performs in comparison to the Snapdragon 845. If Samsung's in-house SoC can achieve performance near Apple's A11 Bionic (large cache and higher IPC), they might as well just ditch Qualcomm for good and just use their own SoCs even in North America.

Edited January 26, 2018 by hey_yo_
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[ARikozuM]

Where's my reimagined 512GB NVMe drives for $150 rather than $240?

[Dabombinable]

Doesn't "re-imagined" simply mean shitty remake?

[ARikozuM]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

Doesn't "re-imagined" simply mean shitty remake?

Only if your name is Samsung or EA. 

[captain_to_fire]

2 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Where's my reimagined 512GB NVMe drives for $150 rather than $240?

When NAND flash prices goes down further  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-chips-outlook-analysis/end-of-a-chip-boom-memory-chip-price-drop-spooks-investors-idUSKBN1F406U

 

But looking at the price of WD Black M.2 NVMe SSD 512 GB at $198 on Amazon, it's not bad considering that the price of a Samsung 860 Pro 512 GB is $220 on Amazon.

[dizmo]

I saw this when I woke up, interesting. Though I believe only the Plus model is getting the dual camera set up.

I'm interested to see what comes of what they're throwing down. Apparently we can expect to see 480 fps for the camera...but at what resolution and for how long? Are they finally going to put UFS SD storage in their devices? Unlikely, but I can always cross my fingers for the Note line.

 

I think we'll see large differences between Exynos and SnapDragon chips this time around.

 

11 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Where's my reimagined 512GB NVMe drives for $150 rather than $240?

Stuck in NAND hell with the rest of the sweet innovations we'll see for the next year or two

3 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

When NAND flash prices goes down further  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-chips-outlook-analysis/end-of-a-chip-boom-memory-chip-price-drop-spooks-investors-idUSKBN1F406U

 

But looking at the price of WD Black M.2 NVMe SSD 512 GB at $198 on Amazon, it's not bad considering that the price of a Samsung 860 Pro 512 GB is $220 on Amazon.

The WD Black is quite a bit lower on the performance scale though, ins't it?

[captain_to_fire]

8 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Doesn't "re-imagined" simply mean shitty remake?

As long as they don't bring back that god awful TouchWiz from 2012-2014 

[ARikozuM]

Just now, hey_yo_ said:

When NAND flash prices goes down further  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-chips-outlook-analysis/end-of-a-chip-boom-memory-chip-price-drop-spooks-investors-idUSKBN1F406U

 

But looking at the price of WD Black M.2 NVMe SSD 512 GB at $198 on Amazon, it's not bad considering that the price of a Samsung 860 Pro 512 GB is $220 on Amazon.

WD Black is a good drive, but Samsung botched their recent release of the 860 series by offering nothing. 

 

On topic: I hope Samsung ditches Qualcomm as they're major dicks in the industry (Qualcomm, not Samsung). Then again, Samsung might become too large a factor for the tech sector. 

[ARikozuM]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

The WD Black is quite a bit lower on the performance scale though, ins't it?

From my usage, not really. I think NVMe is being held back by the CPU at times. Boot time decreases by a few seconds when I use the i7 over the i5. Haven't bothered to find out why, but I will one day. 

[captain_to_fire]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

The WD Black is quite a bit lower on the performance scale though, ins't it?

I think so if you compare it to the pricier Samsung 960 Evo/Pro but the WD Black is a good bargain I think. 

https://www.wdc.com/content/dam/wdc/website/downloadable_assets/eng/spec_data_sheet/2879-800086.pdf vs http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/content/UM/201711/20171115102715520/Samsung_SSD_960_EVO_Data_Sheet_Rev_1_1.pdf

 

2 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

WD Black is a good drive, but Samsung botched their recent release of the 860 series by offering nothing. 

 

On topic: I hope Samsung ditches Qualcomm as they're major dicks in the industry (Qualcomm, not Samsung). Then again, Samsung might become too large a factor for the tech sector. 

I think the 860 series is more of a "lol because we can". But yes I think Samsung should get rid of Qualcomm SoCs in their North American phones given how Qualcomm only releases drivers up to two years only. 

[79wjd]

22 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

I'm waiting to get a new phone and I'm considering Android once again given my frustrations with iOS 11 as well as the ugly, hideous asymmetrical notch of the iPhone X. I don't know what went to Jony Ive's mind thinking that a notch in a phone is practical when in fact it is not.

 

timely software updates..... iMessage and FaceTime. 

I still prefer the notch to losing screen space, the notch really doesn't bother me in the slightest. 

 

Timely software updates, ease of backup/restore, and iMessage/FaceTime/Wifi calling syncing between iOS and MacOS are really the big reasons why I don't even consider an Android phone. I would have strongly considered an S8 when it launched, but the above three things (coupled with the fact that I can't test modern day Android) make it a completely impossible option (If not for those three things I probably would've gotten an S8 -- especially if there wasn't a risk of paying a restocking fee if I still preferred iOS). Then again, I also haven't had any issues with iOS 11 or complaints other than the X costing $1000 (and the lack of MST with Apple Pay, which also sucks).

[captain_to_fire]

1 minute ago, djdwosk97 said:

Timely software updates, ease of backup/restore, and iMessage/FaceTime/Wifi calling syncing between iOS and MacOS are really the big reasons why I don't even consider an Android phone.

Yeah. Somehow Apple's ecosystem is like a prison but a good one where everything is working together and you're being spoiled. Wifi calling however is not OS dependent but dependent on the wireless carrier. Actually, Android phones supported wifi calling way before the iPhone does at least in the US. T-Mobile US is the first carrier in America to support wifi calling and prior to 2013 they don't even have the iPhone nor LTE. I still find it hideous that notifications in iOS 11 aren't grouped in a per app basis but instead displayed as chronological which is a waste of screen real estate. I've tried the demo iPhone X units in the store for a good 10 minutes and I just find it meh just like the video below.

 

[79wjd]

16 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

Yeah. Somehow Apple's ecosystem is like a prison but a good one where everything is working together and you're being spoiled. Wifi calling however is not OS dependent but dependent on the wireless carrier. Actually, Android phones supported wifi calling way before the iPhone does at least in the US. T-Mobile US is the first carrier in America to support wifi calling and prior to 2013 they don't even have the iPhone nor LTE.

 

I still find it hideous that notifications in iOS 11 aren't grouped in a per app basis but instead displayed as chronological which is a waste of screen real estate. I've tried the demo iPhone X units in the store for a good 10 minutes and I just find it meh just like the video below.

 

I meant wifi calling in regards to syncing between MacOS and iOS. 

 

Non-grouped notifications is awful, no question. If you actually use it as your own phone you'd probably get used to it and not care about it. I've demo'd a bunch of random items in stores over the years and the impression I get is almost always a terrible representation of how it ends up in real world use.  

 

Control center in the top right is a bit annoying, but it's something you get used to quickly. Also reachability, which imo is and always has been a shitty hack, is consistent once you figure out where exactly the activation point is -- I also had problems using it when I first turned it on but then after playing with it for a minute or two I got it 100% of the time (until I promptly turned it off because reachability is a shitty hack). There are continuity issues in places with iOS 11, but most of the issues he mentioned aren't issues I've ran into. Not having a battery percentage isn't all that meaningful since it's rare that I need an accuracy window smaller than 10%. Lack of a do not disturb flag is an odd choice and definitely should be in the top left when the phone is locked instead of "Verizon" (or I assume any carrier's name). Double clicking the power button to install an app is just a carry over from TouchID, and it's pretty obvious they want you to press the button as far as I'm concerned. Not telling people about a more useful multi tasking gesture is just bad marketing/tutorial work on Apple's part, not an issue with the OS/device, and the home bar moving to a landscape position makes perfect sense if you're using your phone in a landscape setting. What's shitty is that FaceID only works in the normal portrait orientation. 

[dizmo]

28 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

From my usage, not really. I think NVMe is being held back by the CPU at times. Boot time decreases by a few seconds when I use the i7 over the i5. Haven't bothered to find out why, but I will one day. 

Weird! That'd be a good Linus video. Well, let's be real, Gamers Nexus, Linus doesn't do videos like that anymore.

27 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

I think so if you compare it to the pricier Samsung 960 Evo/Pro but the WD Black is a good bargain I think. 

https://www.wdc.com/content/dam/wdc/website/downloadable_assets/eng/spec_data_sheet/2879-800086.pdf vs http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/content/UM/201711/20171115102715520/Samsung_SSD_960_EVO_Data_Sheet_Rev_1_1.pdf

 

I think the 860 series is more of a "lol because we can". But yes I think Samsung should get rid of Qualcomm SoCs in their North American phones given how Qualcomm only releases drivers up to two years only. 

Yeah, it's nice to see that there's a few more budget NVMe options out there. The SX line by Adata is pretty impressive as well, for the price.

 

I don't think Samsung will get rid of the Qualcomm chips for North America because it's seen as a more household brand. Which I always found odd. I'd be if you asked most people, they'd have no idea who made the SoC in their phone. It's an issue entirely centered around techies.

[captain_to_fire]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I don't think Samsung will get rid of the Qualcomm chips for North America because it's seen as a more household brand. Which I always found odd. I'd be if you asked most people, they'd have no idea who made the SoC in their phone. It's an issue entirely centered around techies.

They were able to do it once way back in 2015 with the Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 Edge because of the thermal throttling issues of the Snapdragon 810 so Samsung has to use their in-house silicon even for the North American market. But yeah most people won't even bother who made the components of their phone.

[79wjd]

8 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I don't think Samsung will get rid of the Qualcomm chips for North America because it's seen as a more household brand. 

Didn't they use Qualcomm in the US due to legal reasons? 

[captain_to_fire]

3 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Didn't they use Qualcomm in the US due to legal reasons? 

Which one? Is it due to Qualcomm patents? I don't know about this other than in 2015 Samsung used their own SoCs because of the thermal throttling issues of the Snapdragon 810.

 

[dizmo]

9 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Didn't they use Qualcomm in the US due to legal reasons? 

No, it's more because Exynos chips don't really support CDMA networks as well. Since, you know, most of the world has given up on that legacy technology That, and before the Exynos chips weren't nearly as powerful. They've been coming a long way though, and honestly I think they're set to surpass Qualcomm offerings in the next year or two. The legal reasons you were thinking of were that Samsung can't sell it's Exynos chips for use in non Samsung phones. Which is also not true, at least not now, as they're found in some Meizu phones IIRC.

[Sniperfox47]

2 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

Which one? Is it due to Qualcomm patents? I don't know about this other than in 2015 Samsung used their own SoCs because of the thermal throttling issues of the Snapdragon 810.

 

It's because Qualcomm is the only people still making any kind of modern chipset for CDMA carriers, of which there are still a few in the US. Intel's modems are GSM only and the new ARM and Broadcomm modem IPs are either GSM only or incredibly restrictive on CDMA, I can't remember which.

 

Every year, having CDMA modems is becoming less and less important, but it currently still is. As for why they don't just use exynos with a separate modem on the phone's board, it saves a ton of board real estate when you have the option to use a modem in your SoC.

[captain_to_fire]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

No, it's more because Exynos chips don't really support CDMA networks as well. Since, you know, most of the world has given up on that legacy technology That, and before the Exynos chips weren't nearly as powerful. They've been coming a long way though, and honestly I think they're set to surpass Qualcomm offerings in the next year or two. The legal reasons you were thinking of were that Samsung can't sell it's Exynos chips for use in non Samsung phones. Which is also not true, at least not now, as they're found in some Meizu phones IIRC.

I think the only advantage of CDMA over GSM at least back in 2009 to 2011 is that in a CDMA network, you're less likely to drop calls because voice calls isn't being crowded by the data even though GSM especially AT&T's 3G network HSPA+ is technically more advanced and faster than Verizon's old 3G EVDO. At least now even Sprint and Verizon is now using SIM cards and those two are shutting down their 3G networks soon to be replaced by an LTE-only network.

[captain_to_fire]

15 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Every year, having CDMA modems is becoming less and less important, but it currently still is. As for why they don't just use exynos with a separate modem on the phone's board, it saves a ton of board real estate when you have the option to use a modem in your SoC.

I don't know why Verizon and Sprint are using legacy network technologies like CDMA/EVDO which can't do simultaneous voice and data to begin with unlike their competitors AT&T and T-Mobile which uses GSM?

 

[Sniperfox47]

8 hours ago, hey_yo_ said:

I don't know why Verizon and Sprint are using legacy network technologies like CDMA/EVDO which can't do simultaneous voice and data to begin with unlike their competitors AT&T and T-Mobile which uses GSM?

 

Because with true GSM back in the days of 2G phone services, before even GPRS or EDGE were things CDMA was a far more promising standard. It had higher quality voices, faster network transmission for SMS/MMS, and Packet data transmission for internet before GSM was even considering that.

 

So they rolled out tons and tons of infrastructure, which once GSM took the lead was really difficult to phase over. 4G LTE has helped the GSM transition, but they still need to maintain the legacy network for users without VoLTE.

[Drak3]

8 hours ago, hey_yo_ said:

I don't know why Verizon and Sprint are using legacy network technologies like CDMA/EVDO which can't do simultaneous voice and data to begin with unlike their competitors AT&T and T-Mobile which uses GSM?

CDMA has, for a long time, offered much better voice quality, still does but to a lesser extent.

It was also more consistant as far as call reliability was concerned.

 

To be quite honest, in Idaho, Verizon is easily superior to every GSM network, and CDMA is part of the reason. Cricket's call quality and servoce dropped like a rock when it switch to ATT's GSM network, now the only things they got going for them are price and no contracts.

IMO, CDMA + LTE is superior to GSM.

[DocSwag]

Shameless plug:

Is it confirmed that Samsung will use the 845 in US markets? Because so far it sounds like the exynos could be a lot lot faster when it comes to cpu performance though the adreno gpu in the 845 should still be a lot better.

[captain_to_fire]

35 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

CDMA has, for a long time, offered much better voice quality, still does but to a lesser extent.

It was also more consistant as far as call reliability was concerned.

 

To be quite honest, in Idaho, Verizon is easily superior to every GSM network, and CDMA is part of the reason. Cricket's call quality and servoce dropped like a rock when it switch to ATT's GSM network, now the only things they got going for them are price and no contracts.

IMO, CDMA + LTE is superior to GSM.

Just as I've said before, the only advantage CDMA has over GSM is call quality at the expense of not having simultaneous voice and data. And both Verizon and Sprint will soon shutdown their CDMA networks in favor of LTE and VoLTE and it makes sense for them to shut it down because maintaining legacy technology will just cost carriers a lot of money when new wireless technology like VoLTE can do better including simultaneous voice and data just like a GSM network.

44 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Because with true GSM back in the days of 2G phone services, before even GPRS or EDGE were things CDMA was a far more promising standard. It had higher quality voices, faster network transmission for SMS/MMS, and Packet data transmission for internet before GSM was even considering that.

 

So they rolled out tons and tons of infrastructure, which once GSM took the lead was really difficult to phase over. 4G LTE has helped the GSM transition, but they still need to maintain the legacy network for users without VoLTE.

But CDMA's 3G which is EVDO Rev A/B can't do simultaneous voice and data and technically it is slower than AT&T's 3G HSPA+. The only problem with AT&T's 3G network back in the dat is that everyone with an iPhone has to be with AT&T and it sent their network to a crawl so around mid-2010 AT&T announced that they'll stop selling unlimited data plans but some had it grandfathered. Even Steve Jobs acknowledges the AT&T network problem back in a D8 conference with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

 

24 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

Shameless plug:

Is it confirmed that Samsung will use the 845 in US markets? Because so far it sounds like the exynos could be a lot lot faster when it comes to cpu performance though the adreno gpu in the 845 should still be a lot better.

I don't see a reason why Samsung wouldn't use the 845 in the US just for compatibility with existing CDMA networks. I think it was on Twitter that I read that the Exynos 9810 performs better than the SD845 at least in Geekbench. I'm not sure. It would be nice if Samsung can reach Apple-like performance in their custom SoCs. Two of the reasons why Apple's A10 Fusion and A11 Bionic SoC is ahead of Qualcomm is that they have a larger cache and have higher IPC.

Edited January 26, 2018 by hey_yo_