techcrunch.com - Samsung has a new smartphone out, the Galaxy S9 (and S9+). It's the latest flagship from one of the top smartphone makers in the world, but this year's version has a lot in common with last year's model, at least on the surface. The big focus (lol) this year was on the camera, and for good reason: Samsung stepped up its game significantly in this department with this update, and it comes closest to any smartphone camera I've tried yet to replicating some of the aspects of traditional photography that I love.
Arguably, other smartphone cameras, and the Pixel 2 in particular, can produce better photos. The Samsung Galaxy S9 is basically on par with that industry leader when it comes to quality of photos when shot in automatic mode - in some situations, including a lot of low-light scenarios, the S9 is better, but in others, like when there are big lightning differences across the scene, Google's smartphone edges the Samsung. But either device (and the latest iPhones, if you're going beyond Android) is going to be a fantastic photographic choice for most smartphone buyers, and that shouldn't be a major concern when making a buying decision.
Where the Samsung Galaxy S9 really takes a leap forward is in bringing some of what has been so appealing about manual-friendly retro camera designs like those favoured by Fujifilm to the mobile realm. There are plenty of manual photography apps that do similar things, but the Galaxy S9 has its crucial dual aperture camera lens, which can manually switch from F/1.5 to F/2.4 in pro shooting mode. This gives you a noticeable degree of control over depth of field, or the effect of subtly blurring either background or foreground details depending on where you want to draw attention in the frame.

theverge.com - Samsung's 2018 flagship phone, the Galaxy S9, is the first in the world with an f/1.5 lens aperture. But set aside all the hype about it being part of a dual-aperture system. What I really wanted to know about this change is how it might improve Samsung's low-light imaging. Having the widest aperture means being able to soak up the most light, so, in theory at least, the Galaxy S9 should be the best cameraphone for situations where light is at a premium. Except, well, there's Google's Pixel 2, which has taken over the mantle from the original Pixel as the best all-around camera on a phone. The Pixel achieves superlative results through clever image stacking and processing algorithms rather than pure hardware might. So it could still be the best.
The only solution to this uncertainty, of course, was to put the two cameras to the test. While in Geneva for the Motor Show, I went out for a late-night walk with the Galaxy S9 Plus and the Pixel 2 XL and took a bunch of side-by-side photos. It's worth acknowledging that the S9 Plus also has a second telephoto lens and a super slow-motion mode that the Pixel lacks - both situationally useful features, which would figure in a more comprehensive camera comparison, but here I'm only interested in the single-camera still photo performance.