The Edgy Camera

iPhone had always been the go to smartphone for photographers. It gave a consistently pleasing results, and with each iteration of the phone, the results kept getting better and better. It is a given that any flagship smartphone would come with a great camera.

The Lumia series then redefine the concept of a cameraphone. I own a Lumia 930 and the results had always been fantastic. But the main drawback with the Windows platform, was the lack of software, although the Windows 10 looked promising. Hopefully more apps would be available of the likes of Snapseed and VSCO cam for a bit of post-processing.

Even the Blackberry - at least on the Z10 - had a decent camera. I really like the output from the phone, but it was grainy and blotchy on low light. It also relied heavily on post-processing as the out-of-the-camera result wasn't always that great.

Then came the Android. They tended to be a mixed bag. Sony tended to have great sensors for their camera. LG was not far behind although I was disappointed with the Nexus 4 - which was made by LG. Oppo made great hardware and screen, but their camera was always so and so. The we came to Samsung. They were improving over the years and the output from Note 3 and S4 was pretty decent.

The S6 edge was a different beast however. The 16MP - or in my case 12MP since I use the 3:2 format - snaps I was getting from the phone had been mind-blowing. Yes, they tended to be oversaturated one minute and subdued in another, but overall I was not expecting it to be this good. I would have bought the phone on the camera alone, let alone the scrumptious screen and form factor.

The jpeg had issues in high contrast situation struggling to cope with a wide dynamic range, but it held its own pretty well. On par if not better than my iPhone 6 plus in most situations although it occasionally tended to underexpose indoors. The iPhone tended to get the exposure right compared to the Samsung. Low light performance? Astounding. However, I still rated both the iPhone 6 and the S6 lower than my Lumia. The Lumia could challenge even a half-decent compact cameras at times.

At the moment, I was pretty happy with the results from the S6, and paired with Snapseed, it was definitely worth a look as a compact travel shooter. As they say, the best camera was the one you have with you at the time.

At the edge

I had been impressed with the review on the S6 since the announcement was made. It was a toss up between this new Samsung flagship or the HTC M9.

Having owned the M7 and Galaxy Nexus and S2 previously, I was familiar with the strength of both lines, but clearly the Galaxy S series had moved along quite far, compared to the HTC.

So, I did a free order and picked up my phone last weekend. I went for the S6 Edge. Although honestly, apart from the slicker form factor and bigger battery capacity, there were not much deterrence between the standard S6 and the Edge. The specs were identical.

After a couple of days of use, I was struck by how comfortable the phone felt on my phone compared to my staple, the iPhone 6 Plus.

The Edge was just blazing fast and the Lollipop OS just sang! There was no lag which I could detect although I hardly put any skin on the system to compliment the standard Samsung interface.

I use the standard Google app - Mail, Calendar and the rest. Of course the first thing I did was download Facebook, Twitter, Feedly, 2Do, Instagram, Flickr and VSCO cam among others. Then I went about putting the phone through its pace.

A couple of things was plain obvious from the start. Yes, the screen was gorgeous and reception on LTE was fast. But unexpectedly the camera and battery life were the features which impressed me the most.

The home button, cum the fingerprint recognising buttonLet's start with the camera. 16MP with optical stabilisation. Sound basic, but that's double the amount of pixel on the iPhone camera. And the results were just fantastic. Hands down, out of the camera they were better jpgs compared to the iPhone. Almost at the level of the Lumia 930, but with better post processing apps to chose from.

The app of choice so far for image post-processing was Snapseed. The newly updated 2.0 version was just amazing. I can't stop admiring the camera output and I have yet to explore its full potential.

The second thing which impressed me was the battery life. I had been reading reviews that due to high resolution screen and small form factor, battery life was limited. I have yet to experience such a drain so far. At least compared to the Nexus 4 and M7. Or even the Oppo Find 7 which carried the same.screen resolution - although on a physically larger-dimensioned screen.

I have a wireless charger placed at my clinic and I just put it on the tray while seeing patients. No issues. And setting up emails were a doodle, but I was still using the basic apps for them. None of those fancy app or Samsung's proprietary programs. They were just too fiddly.

One major criticism I had out of the box was the keyboard. They were just lame. Fleksy soon fixed those up. If only they could make some similar to my Z10 - which I still use for emails at home - then the S6 Edge would be perfect!

These were still my early impression but I think this phone would be a hit, especially for the power user. I have set up my Feedly account to connect to my bitly service, so expect many updates on Facebook coming soon!‎

The View at Night

It's amazing how good the current crop of camera phones nowadays. Well, this was taken at my balcony just before Isya' prayers.

The ISO count was 1000, with camera slowing the shutter speed down to 1/7 sec. Good thing that the camera has a built-in optical image stabiliser. The fact that the aperture was f1.9 came in handy as well.

A bit of tweaking with Snapseed completed the capture. All done within a minute with the snap being ready for upload. Good night!

Low Yat Time

Yesterday was one hell of a busy day. Starting with the tax submission, runs to the bank followed by a quick lunchtime visit to see a friend who had just had an operation the day before. And then after that, a walk around Low Yat to check out the latest buzz on what was going on in the local gadget scene.

The Galaxy S4 was finally out, and there were plenty of units available from both the official and the not-so-official retailer, and the abundance of phones in terms of availability made sure that there were not much price distortion going on. Most of the vendors were trying to outdo each other by adding on packages such as covers and screen protectors. Me? After having a feel of the device for a good 20 minutes, I decided to stick with my Nexus 4.

But in the middle of this all, I was still intrigued by the Blackberry. But to give up either the iPhone or the Nexus for it? Not quite yet. Even though I got SIMs for the three main local telcos, I just couldn't justify carrying three phones in one go! The Nexus just worked fine as a communication hub.

S2 First Impressions

The first 24 hours of using an Android device was a mixed bag. There were definitely pluses with Android but the "safer" option of the iOS does have its advantages. Suffice to say that I was not planning to root the device, and since booting it up for the first time, it has yet to crash. In terms of the specs on paper, it was leaps and bounds over the iPhone 4, but speed was not everything.

It was pretty clear that even though the S2 packed a higher resolution camera, the output or at least the ability to produce a better photos was better on the iPhone. This was helped the the range of well-developed apps that the iTunes App Store had to offer. There were comparable camera app such as Instagram or my favourite, Camera+. I was also not able to easily update my blog due to the lack of a SquareSpace app on the Android.

Battery life was also a concerned, as my iPhone can last a whole working say with all the push services switched on. By the time I left the office earlier today, the battery on the S2 was down to about 15%. Maybe it was still early days for the battery, at the beginning of its charge cycle.

In the coming weeks, I would be in a better position to give a more objective opinion on what the platform had to offer. In the meantime, it would be one hell of a journey of discovery ......