The Samsung Galaxy S9 Display is Almost Perfect According to DisplayMate

Samsung has officially launched their latest flagships, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ (hands-on). Like clockwork, DisplayMate has published their review of the displays. There are some websites out there that review as many devices as they can get their hands on, and then there are some that have chosen to keep their selection quite limited. DisplayMate’s mobile reviews focus on the best Samsung and Apple have to offer and their new review of the Galaxy S9’s screen says it’s virtually indistinguishable from perfect.

We’ve covered a number of DisplayMate’s reviews for Samsung flagships and each time they’ve had great things to say about the displays. Samsung gets a lot of flack from the enthusiast Android community for a variety of reasons, but it’s incredibly difficult to find faults in their displays. The company is great at listening to feedback in this regard. They were quick to add different display modes when people complained about their stock calibration being too saturated.

Some will say the screen looks the same as their other flagships. However, DisplayMate’s review shows there have been major display performance improvements when compared to the Galaxy S8. They believe that OLED is now a highly refined and mature display technology. This has allowed Samsung to focus on enhancing and optimizing the picture quality and color accuracy of the Galaxy S9. It has also allowed them to implement precision factory display calibration which has resulted in a display that is virtually indistinguishable from perfect.

DisplayMate’s review of the Galaxy S9 screen says Samsung has been able to bring the level of quality to outstanding levels. Their tests show the new flagship has been able to set many new display performance records, including Absolute Color Accuracy and the smallest shifts in brightness and color with viewing angles (including White). The display of the Galaxy S9 is up to 20% brighter than the Galaxy S8, it’s certified by the UHD Alliance for Mobile HDR Premium, and has earned DisplayMate’s highest A+ grade.

Their in-depth review also dives into some of the phone’s new features, such as user-adjustable white point (with color balance slider controls), vision accessibility display modes to help those with vision impairments, and its luminance independence with varying picture content. We have some of their graphs embedded below, but potential customers (and display enthusiasts) will definitely want to read through this massive review from DisplayMate.

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Source: DisplayMate

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The Samsung Galaxy S9+ has the best Camera of any Smartphone according to DxOMark

The moment Samsung started to tease the release of their upcoming flagship smartphone it was clear the company wanted to highlight the camera. As we got closer to its official announcement, we learned various details about the camera hardware including the Galaxy S9+ variant coming with a dual rear-camera setup, the variable aperture, and MP specs. It looks like the work done by Samsung's engineers has paid off for them too as DxOMark's review of the camera puts it at the top of the pack.

Camera reviews from DxOMark have become a hot-button issue within the Android community. Some people dislike the idea that the company offers a paid service to teach OEMs how to improve their camera performances. Others dislike the discrepancies that have surfaced when two reviews are compared to each other. Still, the company clearly has a lot of talent on staff and we can learn a lot from the reviews they publish (even if we ignore the numbered rating system entirely).

DxOMark's reviews are divided between still photos and videos and it was the still photo section where Samsung showed a lot of improvements this year. The company notes that the visible noise is very well-controlled in all conditions and images showed fairly good detail in outdoor and indoor shooting conditions. However, they felt they needed to take off some points due to the occasional exposure instabilities, some noticeable ringing, color fringing, loss of sharpness in the field, and a slight color cast that can be noticed on occasion.

As we turn to their video review portion we see more of a mixed bag when compared to the still photo section. On the plus side, the review notes that the Galaxy S9+ camera shot videos which had bright and vivid colors, had a stable and fast autofocus, and generally had good target exposure and fast exposure transition. Then again, the videos from the Galaxy S9+ also resulted in strong ringing and moiré, a loss of fine details in most conditions, and visible stepping during exposure convergence on occasion.

As with all reviews, there's more to it than just the highlights and we definitely recommend you take a look at the in-depth explanation (along with the sample photos) in DxOMark's review. At the end of the day though, the device received a total of 99 points in its combined review which dethrones the Google Pixel 2's score of a 98.

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Source: DxOMark

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The Samsung Galaxy S9+ has the best Camera of any Smartphone according to DxOMark

The moment Samsung started to tease the release of their upcoming flagship smartphone it was clear the company wanted to highlight the camera. As we got closer to its official announcement, we learned various details about the camera hardware including the Galaxy S9+ variant coming with a dual rear-camera setup, the variable aperture, and MP specs. It looks like the work done by Samsung’s engineers has paid off for them too as DxOMark’s review of the camera puts it at the top of the pack.

Camera reviews from DxOMark have become a hot-button issue within the Android community. Some people dislike the idea that the company offers a paid service to teach OEMs how to improve their camera performances. Others dislike the discrepancies that have surfaced when two reviews are compared to each other. Still, the company clearly has a lot of talent on staff and we can learn a lot from the reviews they publish (even if we ignore the numbered rating system entirely).

DxOMark’s reviews are divided between still photos and videos and it was the still photo section where Samsung showed a lot of improvements this year. The company notes that the visible noise is very well-controlled in all conditions and images showed fairly good detail in outdoor and indoor shooting conditions. However, they felt they needed to take off some points due to the occasional exposure instabilities, some noticeable ringing, color fringing, loss of sharpness in the field, and a slight color cast that can be noticed on occasion.

As we turn to their video review portion we see more of a mixed bag when compared to the still photo section. On the plus side, the review notes that the Galaxy S9+ camera shot videos which had bright and vivid colors, had a stable and fast autofocus, and generally had good target exposure and fast exposure transition. Then again, the videos from the Galaxy S9+ also resulted in strong ringing and moiré, a loss of fine details in most conditions, and visible stepping during exposure convergence on occasion.

As with all reviews, there’s more to it than just the highlights and we definitely recommend you take a look at the in-depth explanation (along with the sample photos) in DxOMark’s review. At the end of the day though, the device received a total of 99 points in its combined review which dethrones the Google Pixel 2’s score of a 98.

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Source: DxOMark

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Using the Nexus 4 in 2018

 

The Nexus 4 was one of the all-time favorites from anyone who loved to modify their phone. In this video, Rawad looks at the Nexus 4 to see how it has held up over the years.

The development community has kept this phone up to date with Oreo ROMs bringing the latest Android features to the phone. You can find plenty of active development projects for the Nexus 4 in the XDA forums.

With the phone being nearly 6 years old now, it takes you back to a time when wireless charging was a new standard, design was something people cared about, and the best phone on the market could be yours for $299. In late 2013 the price was dropped to $199 which seems like a deal we will probably never see again in the Android world.

If you still own a Nexus 4, lets us know how it's doing and what ROM you're running.

Check out the Nitrogen OS Oreo ROM for the Nexus 4

Nexus 4 Forums

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Using the Nexus 4 in 2018

 

The Nexus 4 was one of the all-time favorites from anyone who loved to modify their phone. In this video, Rawad looks at the Nexus 4 to see how it has held up over the years.

The development community has kept this phone up to date with Oreo ROMs bringing the latest Android features to the phone. You can find plenty of active development projects for the Nexus 4 in the XDA forums.

With the phone being nearly 6 years old now, it takes you back to a time when wireless charging was a new standard, design was something people cared about, and the best phone on the market could be yours for $299. In late 2013 the price was dropped to $199 which seems like a deal we will probably never see again in the Android world.

If you still own a Nexus 4, lets us know how it’s doing and what ROM you’re running.

Check out the Nitrogen OS Oreo ROM for the Nexus 4

Nexus 4 Forums

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Razer Phone likely skipping Android 8.0 Oreo and going straight to Android 8.1 Oreo

The not-gaming-but-marketed-at-gamers smartphone from gaming hardware company Razer Inc. was announced back in November. Called the Razer Phone, it hits most of the right marks when it comes to hardware specifications with its large 5.7″ 1440p 120Hz LCD panel (the first of its kind in western markets), the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, 8GBs of RAM, 64GBs of internal storage expandable via a microSD card, and a 4,000 mAh battery. One of its biggest shortcomings is the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack, though its best-in-class speakers may somewhat make up for that. Software-wise, the phone launched with a near-stock build of Android 7.1.1 Nougat, but many owners have been wondering where in the world the Android 8.0 Oreo (or even Android 8.1 Oreo) update is.

The Razer Phone's support page states that the phone will receive an update to Android Oreo in Q1 2018, which means the company plans to release an update by the end of March. It's entirely possible that the first Android P Developer Preview may land on the Google Pixel and Pixel 2 before Razer releases Android Oreo, but if it's any consolation it appears that the Razer Phone's Android Oreo update may be based on the Android 8.1 Oreo release rather than Android 8.0.

While we don't have direct evidence for this (à la firmware files such as in our recent leaks), the evidence that we have is pretty strong since it is based off of code submissions from Razer engineers.

These three code submissions all come from Razer engineers, but it's not the code itself that is interesting here. In fact, they're not something that the vast majority of you will care about—they're just routine bug fixes for Google's Compatibility Test Suite (CTS), the tool that Google uses to certify that a particular Android device is compliant with the Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) for a particular Android version.

What is interesting is the version of CTS that these Razer engineers state they are testing the Razer Phone against. The branch of the CTS that the engineers submitted bug fixes for is "oreo-mr1-cts-dev." In other words, this is the Android 8.1 Oreo CTS. What this means is that the Razer engineers, presumably while testing Android 8.1 Oreo on the Razer Phone, encountered bugs that caused their devices to fail CTS.

This is significant because it signals that the Razer Phone will indeed likely jump straight to Android 8.1 Oreo rather than Android 8.0. Engineers from Razer likely wouldn't be testing Android Oreo Maintenance Release 1 (Android 8.1) CTS if they weren't planning on having their device pass CTS for this version of Android. Considering the fact that the device hasn't even received 8.0 yet, that means 8.1 is the update that'll likely be coming soon.

This wouldn't be the first device to skip 8.0 in favor of 8.1. On the contrary, this actually seems to be a growing trend among manufacturers. Nokia skipped 8.0 with the Nokia 8 and plans to do the same with the Nokia 2, Essential skipped 8.0 for the Essential Phone after encountering unspecified issues, and the BQ Aquaris X/X Pro also seem to be going straight to 8.1 Oreo.

So what difference does going straight to Android 8.1 make for Razer Phone owners, exactly? Admittedly, there aren't many new user-facing features in 8.1 compared to 8.0 to get all that excited about. Sure, there's a fancy new power menu, the ability to hide that annoying persistent notification without a third-party app, Bluetooth battery level indicators, and some under-the-hood tweaks, but the main benefits such as notification channels, picture-in-picture mode, the Autofill API, and more are staples of Android 8.0.

Ultimately, though, having the phone be updated to the latest SDK level is still a plus. It means that Razer may have a bit less work to do when they eventually re-base on Android P, though the question of whether or not the Razer Phone is Project Treble-compatible is still up in the air. Regardless, with the availability of kernel sources (which we hope are updated for the Oreo release!), official TWRP, and factory images, the phone is likely to have a long life ahead of it.

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Razer Phone likely skipping Android 8.0 Oreo and going straight to Android 8.1 Oreo

The not-gaming-but-marketed-at-gamers smartphone from gaming hardware company Razer Inc. was announced back in November. Called the Razer Phone, it hits most of the right marks when it comes to hardware specifications with its large 5.7″ 1440p 120Hz LCD panel (the first of its kind in western markets), the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, 8GBs of RAM, 64GBs of internal storage expandable via a microSD card, and a 4,000 mAh battery. One of its biggest shortcomings is the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack, though its best-in-class speakers may somewhat make up for that. Software-wise, the phone launched with a near-stock build of Android 7.1.1 Nougat, but many owners have been wondering where in the world the Android 8.0 Oreo (or even Android 8.1 Oreo) update is.

The Razer Phone’s support page states that the phone will receive an update to Android Oreo in Q1 2018, which means the company plans to release an update by the end of March. It’s entirely possible that the first Android P Developer Preview may land on the Google Pixel and Pixel 2 before Razer releases Android Oreo, but if it’s any consolation it appears that the Razer Phone’s Android Oreo update may be based on the Android 8.1 Oreo release rather than Android 8.0.

While we don’t have direct evidence for this (à la firmware files such as in our recent leaks), the evidence that we have is pretty strong since it is based off of code submissions from Razer engineers.

These three code submissions all come from Razer engineers, but it’s not the code itself that is interesting here. In fact, they’re not something that the vast majority of you will care about—they’re just routine bug fixes for Google’s Compatibility Test Suite (CTS), the tool that Google uses to certify that a particular Android device is compliant with the Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) for a particular Android version.

What is interesting is the version of CTS that these Razer engineers state they are testing the Razer Phone against. The branch of the CTS that the engineers submitted bug fixes for is “oreo-mr1-cts-dev.” In other words, this is the Android 8.1 Oreo CTS. What this means is that the Razer engineers, presumably while testing Android 8.1 Oreo on the Razer Phone, encountered bugs that caused their devices to fail CTS.

This is significant because it signals that the Razer Phone will indeed likely jump straight to Android 8.1 Oreo rather than Android 8.0. Engineers from Razer likely wouldn’t be testing Android Oreo Maintenance Release 1 (Android 8.1) CTS if they weren’t planning on having their device pass CTS for this version of Android. Considering the fact that the device hasn’t even received 8.0 yet, that means 8.1 is the update that’ll likely be coming soon.

This wouldn’t be the first device to skip 8.0 in favor of 8.1. On the contrary, this actually seems to be a growing trend among manufacturers. Nokia skipped 8.0 with the Nokia 8 and plans to do the same with the Nokia 2, Essential skipped 8.0 for the Essential Phone after encountering unspecified issues, and the BQ Aquaris X/X Pro also seem to be going straight to 8.1 Oreo.

So what difference does going straight to Android 8.1 make for Razer Phone owners, exactly? Admittedly, there aren’t many new user-facing features in 8.1 compared to 8.0 to get all that excited about. Sure, there’s a fancy new power menu, the ability to hide that annoying persistent notification without a third-party app, Bluetooth battery level indicators, and some under-the-hood tweaks, but the main benefits such as notification channels, picture-in-picture mode, the Autofill API, and more are staples of Android 8.0.

Ultimately, though, having the phone be updated to the latest SDK level is still a plus. It means that Razer may have a bit less work to do when they eventually re-base on Android P, though the question of whether or not the Razer Phone is Project Treble-compatible is still up in the air. Regardless, with the availability of kernel sources (which we hope are updated for the Oreo release!), official TWRP, and factory images, the phone is likely to have a long life ahead of it.

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