World War Phone Part 1 Analysis

Our friends at Wheninmanila.com released a three part video that pitted three of the top selling smartphones of 2016. Samsung, Apple and Huawei were represented by a corresponding pair that have had extensive experience with each of the brand's best selling offering.

World War Phone analysis

DJ Gino and Enzo of Juan Manila Express represented Samsung, DJ Bea and Kevin of Yugatech represented Apple while Peter of GIZGUIDE and DJ Chico represented Huawei.

Smartphone photography was the very first topic and they discussed about selfies, about Rappler and Hungry Geek's shoot out that we also wrote about that had a surprising outcome of high desire for the new comer, Huawei.

In terms of selfie photography, we do think that the Apple iPhone 7 Plus improved over the iPhone 6 it still does pale in comparison with the selfie cameras of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Huawei P9. Both the selfie cameras of the S7 and the P9 handled low light very well and we found this important because a lot of selfies are taken indoors. 

For the Dual Lens photography, we think that the argument of Huawei of using identical 12 MP with one having an RGB and the other a monochrome sensor is an interesting implementation. However not all are interested in black and white photography. The Huawei also featured the most Robust Manual mode that enabled some to take astrophotography but in the end, these two features are niche fillers that most won't even be using extensively. 

Huawei also partnered with Leica to co-engineer the dual lens setup and though it is impressive, it does not capture the classic Leica image rendering of the film days. In fact, Huawei isn't the first to partner with Leica. There are a lot of Panasonic Lumix cameras with the Leica branding. Some turned out great cameras but not all. In fact a lot of them are quite under the radar performance wise.

Apple on the other hand implemented a wide angle lens and a telephoto lens dual lens set up which we think is more practical for the every man. We take pictures of groups, of indoors and of landscapes that are perfect for the wide angle lens but sometimes we take pictures for portraits or a subject in the distance and the telephoto lens serves us very well. In fact, what makes Apple's camera the best is not the image performance but the ease of use. Most people just want to take a picture as quickly as possible. 

Samsung S7 did come out early of 2016 and it does not have the dual lens feature but it can compete with the features of the iPhone 7's dual lens and the Huawei dual lens with many not noticing the difference. Ultimately, we find the autofocus, and the autofocus tracking of the dual pixel system of the S7 most important feature as it is so accurate in stills photography and videography. Because to us, getting the subject in focus is still better than not.

In summary, smartphone photography is too general to see a clear winner. There is a market for people who only want to point their phone at their subject and click to take a picture which Apple has captured for years. Huawei on the other hand released a phone with refined camera hardware and software that is on par with Apple and Samsung. Samsung, though months older can still compete and beat the competition in specific areas, so it still depends on the user's needs.

What we have to commend Huawei for is that, even though they are the new kid on the block, they did so very well. They came out with phones that were polished, well thought of and well built and people are noticing it. The challenge now is will they be able to keep up the momentum because in 2017, Apple will be celebrating the 10th birthday of the iPhone and I don't think Apple will celebrate it lying down. Samsung on the other hand suffered a huge loss in 2016 because of the Note 7, we don't think that they will let defeat take them. In fact, we think Samsung will make a come back this year!