Camera Shootout: LG G7 Vs. Samsung Galaxy S9+ Vs. Huawei P20 Pro
From left, the Huawei P20 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S9+ and LG G7.
LG's new phone the G7 has, according to LG, a top-notch camera with AI-assisted smarts. But then again, every new phone that hit the market this year has made the same claim. So per tradition with new handsets I test, I'm going to do a camera shootout between the G7 and its closest competitors.
This isn't a test to determine the "best" smartphone camera, since determining which photo look better often come down to personal preference (plus, I never got to test the Google Pixel 2, and that camera is probably by consensus still the king), but I'm hoping these samples below will give potential buyers an idea of what to expect. As usual with my previous camera comparisons, I'm going to shoot everything in auto mode, without setting tweaks, because I want to represent the most basic point and shoot scenario. I'm also going to focus mostly on night shots because any smartphone worth its salt these days can capture brilliant images during the day due to the ample lighting.
We'll start with two sample sets of the Xiqu Center near the West Kowloon district of Hong Kong. The first set is taken at night, with red and green color-marked blocks in 100% crops.
The Xiqu Center shot with the LG G7.
Xiqu Center shot with the Samsung Galaxy S9+.
Xiqu Center shot with the Huawei P20 Pro.
Right off the bat, you can see that all three images looked good in the scaled-down format, which is probably how most people look at mobile photos nowadays, shrunken down on social media, on a relatively small mobile screen. The Huawei P20 Pro's shot, as seen in my previous testing, is the most balanced, as the tunnel lights in the lower right corner of the images are blown out by both LG and Samsung's shot. The street signs in all three photos are clear, though the P20 Pro's shot is too over-processed, while Samsung's shot is too yellow. I think I prefer LG's shot the best here.
The second set is another shot in the general direction of the Xiqu Center, this time shot at 2x zoom.
Xiqu Center, 2x zoom, with LG G7.
Xiqu Center, 2x zoom, with Samsung Galaxy S9+.
Xiqu Center, 2x zoom, with the Huawei P20 Pro.
Since the LG G7 doesn't have a telephoto lens like the other two phones, it naturally lost this 2X zoom photo, badly. Again, if viewing the photo in scaled-down format on the phone, LG's shot looked fine; only when I blew it up on my Dell monitor did I see the jarring lack of details in the color marked areas. Samsung's shot is clearly the winner here. Notice in the green cropped area in the S9+'s shot, you can see the construction workers that are a blur on the other two images. And you can read the road sign in the red cropped part clearly on the S9+'s shot.
For the next set we'll go with a natural backdrop. Both Huawei and LG's phones have A.I.-assistance built-in that automatically detects scenes and adjusts image settings accordingly (you can, of course, turn this off). So this explains why both the G7 and P20 Pro's shot is "punchier" than Samsung's shot.
Huawei P20 Pro.
Samsung Galaxy S9+.
It's interesting how LG and Huawei's A.I. each gave its own interpretation of the scene. It's all a matter of preference, but we can agree that the P20 Pro's shot looks almost like it's been heavily filtered. Samsung's shot is a bit overexposed all over, including the sky that peeks through the leaves near the top of the shot.
Next up we'll check out very low light shots.
Shot with LG G7 in a very dark room.
Samsung Galaxy S9+.
Huawei P20 Pro.
When shooting in low light situations, both the G7 and P20 Pro uses a process called "pixel binning" -- which captures light information from four pixels to combine into one. This produces a brighter image but sacrifices pixel-count. This explains why the S9+'s shot is the dimmest of the bunch, but actually has the most details. If you zoom in close, you can actually read the words in the newspaper's skybox underneath the Lady Bird poster card in Samsung's image, but the words are blurry in both LG and Huawei's shots. Huawei's P20 Pro, however, has the most pleasing image; its algorithms generated this neutral tone while the G7's shot is overly warm.
G7 (left); S9+ (middle); P20 Pro (right).
In the above collage you’ll see that the P20 Pro’s shot, once again, probably looks the most pleasing on a mobile screen and on Instagram; but Huawei’s heavy-handed approach to image processing results in an overly sharpened look again. The Galaxy S9+ overexposed the lights, particuarly the vertical neon sign. But to be fair, this is shot without image tweaking. The G7’s shot is the most natural, but I prefer Huawei’s shot.
The G7 is the first LG phone to offer "portrait mode," aka shots with bokeh effects, and in a surprise, the G7's bokeh image turned out the best to my eyes.
Samsung Galaxy S9+.
Huawei P20 Pro.
Samsung's image is a mess -- details of the subject's face is soft -- look at her eyebrows -- and the depth-of-field blur effect struggled to identify her right arm. Huawei's portrait probably looks the most eye-catching on Instagram, but is again too processed and makes her skin look plastic. LG's shot gets the blur effect accurately, has the most accurate colors, and there's more detail in her hair.
Finally, moving on to the part I dread the most ... selfies.
G7 (left); S9+ (middle); P20 Pro (right).
My skin looks the worst in the G7 shot, which is also, unfortunately for me, the most realistic portrayal. But overall the G7 and S9+’s shots are very similar and both respectable shots. The P20 Pro again applied some sort of skin whitening filter, which I’m not a fan of.
So overall, the LG G7 has a capable camera system that can hang with two of the best mobile cameras around — other than low light, which struggles a bit.
There are, of course, other things to consider. The G7 has a trick that almost no other handset on the market offers — the wide angle shot — which I personally find very useful when traveling. And then there’s video — the G7 definitely is the better video camera to Huawei’s flawed system; but the Galaxy S9+ auto-focus in video is still untouched on the smartphone market in my opinion.
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