Camera Shootout
HTC 10 vs. LG G5 vs. Samsung Galaxy S7
Introduction
Cameras are just about the only thing in a smartphone that gets a meaningful upgrade each year and we keep a close eye on that. HTC was late to the Galaxy S7 vs. LG G5 party, though, so let's have a do-over!
We've prepared a detailed text article complete with full-res camera samples and all, but if you are more into video, you can also check out the video version of this camera shootout embedded below.
Low-light photos
There are a lot of photos in here, so bear with us. We shot in various lighting conditions (dark, dark with bright lights, etc.) and we used three modes - Normal, HDR and flash.
The reason for trying the HDR mode is since the merging process involved helps some phones reduce the noise in the image and also helps with achieveing a better exposure of the darkest and brightest parts of the image.
You can't quite see it in most shots, but there's black grout between the small red tiles - only the LG G5 captured this detail without flash. The Galaxy S7 finally noticed it when we turned its flash on, the HTC 10 never did.
HDR mode resulted in a major decrease in noise for the HTC 10 without having huge impact on sharpness. It didn't do much for the other two.
LG G5's "flash off" photo was quite noisy, but its strong dual-flash brought on a great improvement in quality when shooting at close range. The HTC 10 seems to have a fairly weak flash, because it boosted the ISO to a whopping 4,000 (compared to 550 and 640 for the other two). This resulted in tons of noise.
Flash, HDR off: HTC 10 • LG G5 • Samsung Galaxy S7
HDR on: HTC 10 • LG G5 • Samsung Galaxy S7
Flash on: HTC 10 • LG G5 • Samsung Galaxy S7
Here we tried to use HDR to brighten up the dark courtyard, since the bright light of the vending machine affected exposure.
The HTC 10 did the best job at it while the LG G5 tried a little too hard (it looks bright, but there's no detail). The Galaxy S7 edge photo was a bit dark, but it had the best detail.
Flash, HDR off: HTC 10 • LG G5 • Samsung Galaxy S7
HDR on: HTC 10 • LG G5 • Samsung Galaxy S7
Flash on: HTC 10 • LG G5 • Samsung Galaxy S7
This next shot is quite dark, with very little lighting from the environment. The HDR mode again helps the HTC 10 drop the noise. LG G5's color spectrum sensor helped it preserve the most accurate colors.
HTC 10's issues with flash are especially visible in this shot. ISO explodes to 8,000 and the noise is unbearable. The LG G5 photo is noisy, but fairly detailed thanks to its strong flash.
Flash, HDR off: HTC 10 • LG G5 • Samsung Galaxy S7
HDR on: HTC 10 • LG G5 • Samsung Galaxy S7
Flash on: HTC 10 • LG G5 • Samsung Galaxy S7
This photo may have been taken at night, but the strong light from the parking lot bathed part of the scene.
The Samsung Galaxy S7 edge produced the best shot in all three modes - the lit areas are sharp, the dark areas have little noise. This scene is more of an exception to the rule, though.
Flash, HDR off: HTC 10 • LG G5 • Samsung Galaxy S7
HDR on: HTC 10 • LG G5 • Samsung Galaxy S7
Flash on: HTC 10 • LG G5 • Samsung Galaxy S7
Winner: LG G5. Viewing photos at 100% reveals noise in all of them, but the phone captures the most detail without flash and has the strongest flash to boot. The Samsung Galaxy S7 had its moments, though not quite matching the G5. The HTC 10 was a mess - noisy photos are made worse by enabling the flash (despite what common sense would dictate).
The big news with the HTC 10 is that UltraPixel has been resurrected and the second generation promises to fix the mistakes of the first. 4MP were never going to cut it, not even in 2013, but now 12MP seems to be the sweet spot. They may not be 2µm pixels like before, but are 1.55µm big.
The bad news is that this isn't so exciting because of HTC's slowness. The Nexuses (5X and 6P) have 1.55µm 12MP cameras (but the HTC 10 has a brighter aperture and OIS), the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge have 1.4µ pixels and a slightly brighter aperture (f/1.7 vs. f/1.8).
Then there's LG, which picked up the dual-camera idea that HTC dropped, but is using it for something more exciting than digital bokeh - the wide-angle 135° camera has a much more meaningful impact on photography.
The LG G5 keeps the resolution higher - 16MP - and relies on the f/1.8 aperture and OIS to keep the quality up in the dark. There are also things like Laser AF and a color spectrum sensor.
The HTC 10 also has Laser AF but brings no major innovations on the focus front. Samsung, meanwhile, introduced Dual Pixel AF, which is the best autofocus system we've seen yet - in good and bad light.
HTC's "world's first" claim is about the selfie camera - it equipped the 5MP shooter with optical image stabilization of its own. It has fairly big pixels (1.34µm), but no dedicated flash like some mid-rangers have. We'll see how it performs against the competition.
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