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Samsung Galaxy S7 VS Microsoft Lumia 950XL Camera Comparison, Photo Samples

Samsung announced their all new Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge at Mobile World Congress in February. These two smartphones were launched with one of the best cameras that you can find in any smartphone these days. The Microsoft made Lumia 950 XL also features a great camera, the traditional PureView camera that we had seen in the Lumia devices long back. Today, let’s stack both these smartphones head to head and compare their cameras in different lighting situations. Let’s get started.

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Samsung Galaxy S7 & Microsoft Lumia 950 XL Camera Comparison Video

[Youtube video here]

Samsung Galaxy S7 & Microsoft Lumia 950 XL Camera Hardware

The camera hardware on both the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Lumia 950 XL is different in terms of the sensors and the megapixel, both. The Samsung Galaxy S7 comes with a 12-megapixel primary camera and a 5-megapixel secondary camera. The Lumia 950 XL comes with a 20-megapixel primary camera and a 5-megapixel secondary camera. They both take good pictures with their respective cameras on the phones.

Camera Hardware Table

[table id=459 /]


Coming over to the detailed hardware of the camera, we see that the Samsung Galaxy S7 features f/1.7 aperture on both the primary and the secondary cameras of the device. The Microsoft Lumia 950 XL comes with an aperture of f/1.9 on the primary camera and an aperture of f/2.4 on the secondary camera. The sensor sizes of both the smartphone cameras are not completely known yet.

Samsung Galaxy S7 & Microsoft Lumia 950 XL Camera Software

The software on both these devices is completely different as they both belong to different ecosystems. The Lumia 950 XL runs on the Windows 10 Platform, whereas the Samsung Galaxy S7 runs on the Android platform.

The number of capturing modes available in the Galaxy S7 are more than the ones available in the Lumia 950 XL. If you dive into the Pro mode on both these smartphones, you will be able to control a lot of aspects of your camera and the pictures you take. Here’s a look at both these smartphone camera user interfaces.

Samsung Galaxy S7 and Lumia 950 XL

Samsung Galaxy S7 & Microsoft Lumia 950 XL Camera Performance

The performance of the camera on both these smartphones is really good. You can hardly tell the difference between the images taken with either of these smartphones unless you look really closely. Only in low lighting condition you can tell the difference as the pictures from the Samsung Galaxy S7 look better than the ones from the Microsoft Lumia 950 XL. This is mainly because of the F/1.7 aperture and some software enhancements that the Samsung’s Camera Software does in the background.

Samsung Galaxy S7 Camera Samples

Front Camera Samples

Rear Camera Samples

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL Camera Samples

Front Camera Samples

Rear Camera Samples

Verdict

Overall, comparing the images that we took with both these smartphones turned out to be great. There’s no doubt that any of these two cameras is a bad one, but the only place where the Galaxy S7 camera shines is in the wide angle images that it takes and the low light performance that it has. The Microsoft Lumia 950 XL camera also does a good job, but the Samsung Galaxy S7 does a better job.

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Aneesh Bhatnagar

Aneesh Bhatnagar is a freelance web developer, who specializes in front-end website development with HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery. He is also an Android enthusiast, and a budding Android Application developer.