Google is letting Verizon ruin its new Pixel phones

#GooglePixel #Verizon – Google is letting Verizon ruin its new Pixel phones : If you can get past the hardware design, which we'll politely call "an acquired taste," Google's new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones are shaping up to be two of the hottest smartphones of the year.

Google unveiled the new handsets earlier this week and from start to finish, they sound like a hardcore Android fan's dream. The phones pack cutting-edge specs, premium hardware, class-leading cameras, the latest and greatest Nougat software from Google, and so much more. You can read all about the new Pixel phones' 10 best features right here.

Sadly, it's not all good news for Android fans. As Google tries to get its footing in the increasingly competitive US smartphone market, it may have made some deals with the devil that ruin the user experience for many people who end up buying the phones.

Apple and Samsung dominate the smartphone market in the US, combining to account for nearly all profits generated from smartphone sales each quarter. If other handset makers hope to manage any sales whatsoever, they need a tremendous amount of support from carriers. And in order to get that support, they often agree to exclusive deals.

Such is the case with Google and its new Pixel phones, which are set to launch in the coming weeks. The company struck a deal with Verizon, which will be the only wireless carrier that will sell the phone in the US. Subscribers of other carriers will have to purchase the phone unlocked directly from Google, or from one of its retail partners.

In case an exclusive deal wasn't already bad enough, things get worse. Part of Google's deal with Verizon involves letting the carrier ruin two of the best things about Google's new phones. As was the case with Nexus devices, the Pixel phones will run a version of Android that is untouched by other smartphone vendors and carriers.

They will also have instant access to Google's Android operating system updates the moment they are released… unless you have a Pixel or Pixel XL from Verizon. In that case, software updates will be managed by Verizon and yes, there will also be bloatware that comes preinstalled on your phone.

Android fans are already up in arms over both issues, but it remains to be seen how this might impact sales. Source: bgr

Source: Google is letting Verizon ruin its new Pixel phones

StockX Tested the iPhone 7 Plus Camera’s Bokeh Depth Effec

If you've got an iOS developer with the latest version of iOS 10.1, reap the benefits I say. The StockX team took to the streets (and rooftops) of Detroit to test an upcoming camera feature many iPhone users are waiting for.

The "bokeh effect" on iPhone makes use of both of the iPhone 7 Plus' cameras, and some software, to create the shallow depth of field look of a photo taken with a DSLR. It's called Portrait Mode and, based on the Apple keynote, seems designed for faces, but the StockX team used the still-unreleased feature on $10,000 worth of sneakers.

This writer would never stick up for iPhone or Apple (proud Android user here) unnecessarily but it must be stated that this is beta software — that means more tweaks may come to improve this feature before it hits your iPhone 7 Plus. I mention this because the iPhone did…alright. On YouTube there are hundreds of videos showcasing the new camera feature; in some videos the phone does great, in others, not so great. Just remember, this isn't finalized software yet.

To check out all the photos StockX took with comparisons, click here.

A note: Apple is not the first manufacturer to use dual cameras, nor is it the first to incorporate a feature like this in a phone — some Chinese brands have been doing this for years now in phones that generally do not release Stateside. If you're an Android user and on the market for a dual camera setup, check out the LG V20 — very exciting.

Thoughts? Sound off below.

Source: StockX

Source: StockX Tested the iPhone 7 Plus Camera's Bokeh Depth Effec

Routers, IP Cameras/Phones & IoT Devices can be Security Risks even with the Latest Firmware, and a Strong Admin Password

I've just read an interesting article entitled "who makes the IoT things under attack", explaining that devices connected to the Internet such as router, IP cameras, IP Phones, etc.. may be used by Botnet to launch DDoS attacks, and they do so using the default username and password. So you may think once you've updated the firmware when available, and changes the default admin/admin in the user interface, you'd be relatively safe. You'd be wrong, because the malware mentioned in the article, Mirai, uses Telnet or SSH trying a bunch of default username and password.

That made me curious, so I scanned the ports on my TP-Link wireless router and ZTE ZXHN F600W fiber-to-the-home GPON modem pictured below, and installed by my Internet provider, the biggest in the country I live, so there may be hundred of thousands or millions of such modems in the country with the same default settings.

I've started by scanning the TP-Link router in the local network:

sudo nmap -sS 192.168.0.1 Starting Nmap 7.01 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2016-10-06 10:10 ICT Nmap scan report for 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) Host is up (0.00034s latency). Not shown: 997 closed ports PORT STATE SERVICE 80/tcp open http 1900/tcp open upnp 49152/tcp open unknown MAC Address: 94:0C:6D:XX:XX:XX (Tp-link Technologies) Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 14.15 seconds

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sudo nmap -sS 192.168.0.1

Starting Nmap 7.01 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2016-10-06 10:10 ICT

Nmap scan report for 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)

Host is up (0.00034s latency).

Not shown: 997 closed ports

PORT      STATE SERVICE

80/tcp    open  http

1900/tcp  open  upnp

49152/tcp open  unknown

MAC Address: 94:0C:6D:XX:XX:XX (Tp-link Technologies)

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 14.15 seconds

UPnP and the web interface ports are open, plus an extra post likely opened by UPnP, which looked fine.

Now I did the same on the ZTE modem in the local network first:

sudo nmap -sS 192.168.1.1 Starting Nmap 7.01 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2016-10-06 10:10 ICT Nmap scan report for 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) Host is up (0.00086s latency). Not shown: 996 closed ports PORT STATE SERVICE 23/tcp open telnet 53/tcp open domain 80/tcp open http 443/tcp open https Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 20.12 seconds

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sudo nmap -sS 192.168.1.1

Starting Nmap 7.01 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2016-10-06 10:10 ICT

Nmap scan report for 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)

Host is up (0.00086s latency).

Not shown: 996 closed ports

PORT STATE SERVICE

23/tcp open telnet

53/tcp open domain

80/tcp open http

443/tcp open https

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 20.12 seconds

The telnet port is opened that's not good… I would be much worse if  it was also open with the public IP:

sudo nmap -sS MODEM-PUBLIC-IP Starting Nmap 7.01 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2016-10-06 10:11 ICT Nmap scan report for MODEM-PUBLIC-IP Host is up (0.00088s latency). Not shown: 996 closed ports PORT STATE SERVICE 23/tcp open telnet 53/tcp open domain 80/tcp open http 443/tcp open https Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 22.71 seconds

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sudo nmap -sS MODEM-PUBLIC-IP

Starting Nmap 7.01 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2016-10-06 10:11 ICT

Nmap scan report for MODEM-PUBLIC-IP

Host is up (0.00088s latency).

Not shown: 996 closed ports

PORT STATE SERVICE

23/tcp  open  telnet

53/tcp  open  domain

80/tcp  open  http

443/tcp open  https

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 22.71 seconds

Oh boy…. That's not good at all. Can I access it from the outside?

telnet MODEM-PUBLIC-IP Trying MODEM-PUBLIC-IP... Connected to MODEM-PUBLIC-IP. Escape character is '^]'. F600W Login: admin Password: Password is incorrect Password: Password is incorrect Password: Password is incorrect Reached the maximum number of login, Admin authority locked 3 mins. Connection closed by foreign host.

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telnet MODEM-PUBLIC-IP

Trying MODEM-PUBLIC-IP...

Connected to MODEM-PUBLIC-IP.

Escape character is '^]'.

F600W

Login: admin

Password:

Password is incorrect

Password:

Password is incorrect

Password:

Password is incorrect

Reached the maximum number of login, Admin authority locked 3 mins.

Connection closed by foreign host.

No, because I don't know the password. That is until I do a quick web search and find this video telling me to use root and Zte521 to login to ZTE modem. Bingo!

telnet MODEM-PUBLIC-IP Trying MODEM-PUBLIC-IP... Connected to MODEM-PUBLIC-IP. Escape character is '^]'. F600W Login: root Password: BusyBox v1.01 (2015.01.15-08:36+0000) Built-in shell (ash) Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands. / #

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telnet MODEM-PUBLIC-IP

Trying MODEM-PUBLIC-IP...

Connected to MODEM-PUBLIC-IP.

Escape character is '^]'.

F600W

Login: root

Password:

BusyBox v1.01 (2015.01.15-08:36+0000) Built-in shell (ash)

Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

/ #

That's huge as it means millions of modem routers can be access (likely) around the world with minimal knowledge, I would not even consider this a hack…. Telnet is also kind enough to return the modem model number (F600W), so any script would be able to detect that and try the default username / password. This little trick should also works on other ZTE modems/routers, and since the HTTP server is also running by default, you don't even need to check the model number as the server field indicates it's a ZTE device…

curl -I MODEM-PUBLIC-IP HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: Mini web server 1.0 ZTE corp 2005. Accept-Ranges: bytes Connection: close Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Cache-Control: no-cache,no-store Content-Length: 5277

curl -I MODEM-PUBLIC-IP

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Server: Mini web server 1.0 ZTE corp 2005.

Accept-Ranges: bytes

Connection: close

Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

Cache-Control: no-cache,no-store

Content-Length: 5277

I don't know if the Internet provided uses telnet for any purpose, but it could be a good idea to at least change the password or completely disable the service. However the rootfs is in read-only mode:

# mount ubi:rootfs_ubifs on / type ubifs (ro,relatime) proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,relatime,mode=600,ptmxmode=000) /dev/mtdblock7 on /data type jffs2 (rw,relatime) /dev/mtdblock4 on /tagparam type jffs2 (rw,relatime) tmpfs on /var type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=15360k) /dev/mtdblock5 on /userconfig type jffs2 (rw,relatime) none on /mnt type ramfs (rw,noatime,nodiratime)

# mount         

ubi:rootfs_ubifs on / type ubifs (ro,relatime)

proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)

sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)

devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,relatime,mode=600,ptmxmode=000)

/dev/mtdblock7 on /data type jffs2 (rw,relatime)

/dev/mtdblock4 on /tagparam type jffs2 (rw,relatime)

tmpfs on /var type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=15360k)

/dev/mtdblock5 on /userconfig type jffs2 (rw,relatime)

none on /mnt type ramfs (rw,noatime,nodiratime)

Normally, this is no problem as you can remount the root partition in read/write mode:

# mount -o remount,rw / Can't find / in /etc/fstab

# mount -o remount,rw /

Can't find / in /etc/fstab

But it's not working in this case… I'm not there must be a way to remount the system to change the password, or edit the configuration to disable telnet, but I have not found a solution yet. Those are the command at our disposal:

busyboxBusyBox v1.01 (2015.01.15-08:36+0000) multi-call binary

Currently defined functions:[, ash, awk, brctl, busybox, cat, chmod, chrt, cmp, cp, cut, date,df, diagput, echo, egrep, free, fuser, getty, grep, hexdump, hostname,ifconfig, init, insmod, kill, killall, linuxrc, ln, login, ls,lsmod, mkdir, mknod, mount, mv, passwd, ping, ping6, ps, pwd,reboot, rm, rmdir, rmmod, sed, sh, sleep, sync, taskset, test,tftp, top, traceroute, umount, wget

A temporary solution is to kill telnet:

ps ax | grep telnet 826 root 692 S <0> telnetd 828 root 692 S <0> telnetd 829 root 692 S <0> telnetd 830 root 692 S <0> telnetd 831 root 692 S <0> telnetd 832 root 692 S <0> telnetd 833 root 692 S <0> telnetd 1068 root 472 R <0> grep telnet kill 826

ps ax | grep telnet

826 root        692 S   <0> telnetd

828 root        692 S   <0> telnetd

829 root        692 S   <0> telnetd

830 root        692 S   <0> telnetd

831 root        692 S   <0> telnetd

832 root        692 S   <0> telnetd

833 root        692 S   <0> telnetd

1068 root        472 R   <0> grep telnet  

kill 826

But obviously telnet will run again, at next boot time…

Anyway, it would be good if the service providers could make sure to change the default password before installing them on the customer premise, and hopefully, they'll be able to change the password, or disable them remotely in due time…

Tweet I've just read an interesting article entitled "who makes the IoT things under attack", explaining that devices connected to the Internet such as router, IP cameras, IP Phones, etc.....

Source: Routers, IP Cameras/Phones & IoT Devices can be Security Risks even with the Latest Firmware, and a Strong Admin Password

Refurb Galaxy S4 Phone w/ Voice, Text, Data

For in-store pickup only and with limited stock varying by ZIP code, Fry's offers the refurbished Samsung Galaxy S4 16GB Android Smartphone for FreedomPop in Black Frost or White Mist, which includes a FreedomPop free service plan with 200 minutes, 500 text messages, and 500MB of data per month for $49.99. That's $50 below our July mention and the lowest total price we've seen for this phone in any condition for any carrier. (It's the best deal we could find today by $40.) This quad-band GSM phone features a 5" 1080x1920 touchscreen super AMOLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 (APQ8064T) 1.9GHz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB memory, 13-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel front camera, 1080p video recording, 4G LTE connectivity, 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.0, and Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) OS.

Note: No warranty info is provided.

Source: Refurb Galaxy S4 Phone w/ Voice, Text, Data

Will the Pixel phones finally include manual camera controls?

Over the weekend, Carphone Warehouse got a little trigger-happy with their Pixel and Pixel XL pages, releasing several marketing shots for both phones before the error was discovered. We've seen leaks for these phones trickling for a month now, but one of the interesting things discovered by these leaks are what might be manual controls for the camera app.

The image above features what the new Google camera app will look like, complete with new white balance option that isn't available on the Nexus 6P and other devices. While it's all speculation at this point since the devices are being unveiled tomorrow, could it be likely that Google will finally include manual controls in their camera app?

This is something Nexus fans have been asking Google to implement for what seems like years now, especially since Samsung and LG both have robust manual controls available for their flagship devices.

Auto-load comments: Off On

Source: Will the Pixel phones finally include manual camera controls?

Fearless Forecast: Nokia Android Phones Are Going To Launch Before 2016 Ends

It is my fearless forecast that Nokia (NYSE:NOK) Android phones will get commercial launch this year. The reported official date when Foxconn/HMD Global can sell Nokia-branded Android phones is October 26, 2016. I expect Foxconn/HMD Global to take advantage of this year's holiday shopping season to release two or three Nokia Android phones in a timely fashion.

This will be a momentous resurrection of the Nokia X Android phone idea that Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) killed in 2014. Microsoft lost billions of dollars ($7.6 billion write-off) trying to convince people that Windows-on-Nokia phone is good. However, Foxconn/HMD Global is going to take advantage of the ubiquity of Android to make Nokia phones popular again.

Mike Wang, a senior executive in Nokia China, previously confirmed last August that there will be 3 or 4 Nokia-branded Android devices that will be unveiled this fourth quarter. Primate Labs GeekBench's site revealed that some individuals benchmarked a Nokia D1C Android phone last September 30.

Click to enlarge

(Source: Primate Labs)

Investors should care about this recent development. I explained at my employer's website that the persistent bearish mood over NOK could change for the better after Foxconn/HMD Global starts selling Nokia-branded Android phones. Nokia needs to make a grand comeback on smartphones to attract the interest of investors. Owning Alcatel-Lucent and winning LTE infrastructure contracts are never going to be enough inspiration for investors.

NOK's negative YTD return is enough clue that many investors downgraded Nokia's stock as boring/uninteresting. The lingering costs of integrating/digesting the Alcatel-Lucent acquisition further aggravates this bearish sentiment.

Click to enlarge

(Source: Google Finance)

It is true that buying Alcatel-Lucent propelled Nokia to the top of Gartner's Magic Quadrant for LTE Infrastructure. However, integrating Alcatel-Lucent is a long-term and costly undertaking for Nokia.

Gartner's Magic Quadrant For LTE Infrastructure

(Source: Gartner.com)

Android Smartphones To The Rescue

Nokia already got $7.2 billion from letting Microsoft experiment in putting Windows inside Lumia phones. Nokia will again benefit from licensing its brand on phones. It will receive licensing payments on every Android device that Foxconn/HMD Global sells. The release of Nokia-Android phones therefore could be an air freshener to the stinky reality of declining global LTE infrastructure deployments. IHS expects the LTE network infrastructure business to go through a five-year decline.

(Source: IHS)

Foxconn has the money to properly promote its Nokia-branded phones. With proper marketing support, my guesstimate is that Foxconn could sell 10 to 20 million Android devices every year. I do not know how much exactly Nokia is charging per device. My guesstimate is that it is between $10 and $30.

The potential benefit of Foxconn selling 20 million Android devices per year could be worth as much as $400 million to Nokia.

20 million x $20 (average licensing royalty fee) = $400 million

Investors could be interested again in NOK after they realize that Foxconn/HMD Global could contribute $400 million/year of easy licensing money to Nokia.

Why The Nokia D1C Could Be A Hit

It's important to note that the benchmarked Nokia D1C handset has Android 7.0 operating system. HMD Global selling its first Android phone with the latest mobile OS from Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is already a great selling point. Most budget Android handsets are still stuck with the old Android 5.1 OS.

The Nokia D1C has 3GB of RAM and the MSM8937 octa-core System-on-a-Chip (SoC) is Qualcomm's (NASDAQ:QCOM) Snapdragon 430. The Snapdragon 430 is an entry-level SoC. However, Foxconn shrewdly matched it with a hefty 3GB of RAM. This bigger random access memory load will help improve performance during multi-window multi-tasking and gaming in Android 7.0 Nougat.

Click to enlarge

(Source: Primate Labs)

The D1C will probably look like the iPhone 7 and still retail for less than $200. Foxconn copied the iPad Mini when it built the Nokia N1 8-inch Android tablet in 2014. I expect Foxconn to again copy the physical aesthetics of the iPhone 7. It will likely help Nokia-branded phones (to attract more customers) if they look like smartphones made by Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL). OnePlus, Xiaomi, Lenovo (OTCPK:LNVGY), and Huawei are just some of the successful firms that sell iPhone-looking Android phones.

The other potential selling point for the Nokia D1C is if it will come with Nokia's old PureView camera technology. Prior to the 2016 hype over the dual-camera systems of the Huawei P9 and the iPhone 7 Plus, the old Nokia PureView 808 and Lumia 1020 were already considered great replacements for standalone digital cameras.

Nokia Android Phones With PureView Cameras Are Awesome

It would be massive mistake of Foxconn/HMD Global if it did not license the right to use Nokia's PureView phone camera technology. The fake Bokeh effect from the iPhone 7 Plus is still no match against the 2012-era Nokia PureView 808's Bokeh effect.

Below is a real-world Bokeh (or blur-the-background effect) photo captured through the rear dual-camera system of the iPhone 7 Plus. Notice that the edge transition from the in-focus foreground to the blurred part of the background has a distasteful, unnatural effect. The iPhone 7 Plus has great cameras, but they are still not meant for doing Bokeh.

Click to enlarge

(Source: petapixel.com)

Below is the Bokeh effect achieved by the 2012-era Nokia PureView 808. It is an outstanding example of how Nokia's old PureView camera technology can mimic real (not fake like Apple does) Bokeh photos from DSLR cameras.

Click to enlarge

(Source: Don Rademacher)

Foxconn could better promote Nokia-branded Android phones if they could replicate the PureView 808's amazing photography features. The high-end versions of Nokia-branded phones should also match the Lumia 1020's even-more impressive Bokeh photography capability.

It is my firm belief that firms like Apple are hyping camera quality of their new phones because people consider their Android/iOS phone as their de facto camera/videography tool. Nokia's comeback on smartphones should therefore also emphasize the power of its old PureView camera technology.

Conclusion

It might be smart to go long on Nokia before Foxconn/HMD Global makes official announcement about new Nokia Android phones. BlackBerry's (NASDAQ:BBRY) announcement that it will also license its phone and software technology last week helped prop up BBRY's price. Compared to BlackBerry's new partner, BB Merah Putih, Foxconn is much bigger and therefore will be more effective vendor of Android phones/tablets.

My fearless forecast is that Nokia's stock could breach the $6 level again after HMD Global makes definitive reveal of its Foxconn-made Nokia phones and/or tablets. My other fearless forecast is commercial sales of Nokia Android will fare better than Elop-initiated Windows Lumia handsets. Unlike previous Nokia-made Windows handsets, Foxconn-made Android Nokia phones will gain access to more than 2.2 million apps of Alphabet's Google Play Store.

It is no secret that the small app ecosystem of Windows Phone contributed to the failure of Microsoft to make Windows Lumia smartphones popular. Android and iOS has a duopoly on mobile devices because app developers flocked to them. They largely ignored the BB and Windows phone platforms.

Click to enlarge

(Source: Statista)

Disclosure: I am/we are long NOK, MSFT, GOOG, QCOM.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Source: Fearless Forecast: Nokia Android Phones Are Going To Launch Before 2016 Ends

iPhone 7 Camera Review: The Best Smartphone for Photos

Shot with the iPhone 7 Plus. (All images: Alex Cranz/Gizmodo)

The camera on the iPhone has developed such a reputation for excellence that it's one of the device's central selling points. It's worth upgrading to a new phone just to get the latest and greatest camera. After a week of rigorous shooting, one thing is totally clear: the iPhone 7 has a damn fine phone camera that's the best you can buy right now.

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Figuring that out required pitting it against the Samsung S7/S7 Edge, our current top choice for the perfect blend of camera and phone, and the iPhone 6s, which takes fine photos as well. We looked at how well each performed in low light, how much detail each could deliver, and what kind of color they could capture. We also checked out that fancy zoom lens on the iPhone 7 Plus.

How good are the new RAW photos?

The iPhone 7 is the first Apple handset to have RAW shooting powers. This format has a larger file size than your average JPEG because it stores a lot more data—specifically unprocessed/lightly processed light data—which means it's easier to fix a bad photo after the fact. And when you convert a RAW file into a smaller JPEG (after processing it in Photoshop) it is still often of higher quality than the JPEG quickly produced on the fly by a phone. Observe:

Zoom in. Note how much brighter the cat's eyes are and how much more details in the fur you can see. Also look to the bottom right side. What is clearly fabric in the RAW is just a pixellated mess in the JPEG. Is it really a professional-grade camera?

If you're a photographer who for some reason hopes that shooting RAW would finally let an iPhone compete with a DSLR or high-quality mirrorless camera, then apologies, that is not the case. It's clear in this quick head-to-head comparison between the iPhone 7 and the $700 Olympus OM-D E-M10 II with a 12-40mm zoom lens that smartphones can't really keep up. Shooting the same subject with the same lighting, and both devices set on the same table, the images came out substantially different. Try as I might I could not replicate the Olympus image with the iPhone.

Olympus OM-D E-M10II with a 12-40mm zoom iPhone 7

The Olympus, or any camera with a sizable sensor, maintains a much better gradient of light to shadow than a smartphone camera can. The lens is also just much higher quality and is thus much sharper. The point here is that no matter what tricks you do with software, fancy hardware wins out.

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The comparison also illustrates the limitations of the iPhone 7's f/1.8 aperture. That very low number means that you are going to have very shallow, flat, slightly blurry images. With its f/2.8 aperture, the Olympus lens just creates a sharper photo with a better sense of depth than the iPhone can.

How does the new camera do in low light?

Of course, sometimes wider aperture is a good thing. The iPhone 7's f/1.8 aperture lets in more light than the the f/2.2 lens on its predecessor. So when lighting conditions get difficult, you can use a faster shutter speed without totally juicing the sensor's ISO sensitivity. That technical jambalaya theoretically translates to crisper, cleaner, less noisy images that are free of camera shake. The iPhone 7 also has improved image processing that should help reduce noise as well.

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In practice the iPhone 7 does a fantastic job in low light. Check out how vibrant this old comic book looks in my super dark basement.

The iPhone 7 is obviously the brightest photo with the best detail, but zoom in and you'll notice even more. Lois' face is a hot mess in the 6s photo, and lines are more digitally "fuzzy" on the s7 versus the iPhone 7. The iPhone 7 also manages to reproduce the red of Superman's cape more realistically, while the s7 and 6s turn the cape orange. What's the deal with the colors?

Another reason photos seem more vibrant is because the iPhone 7 processes color differently than other either the previous iPhone or the Samsung s7. That's why Superman's cape in the photo above is a vibrant red in the iPhone 7 photo and significantly more orange in the other two photos.

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And it's one of the reasons the iPhone 7 photo looks so much more vibrant in the series of images below.

The red and green of the leaves looks washed out in the left and center image, but looks more true to life in the iPhone 7 image. There's also more contrast and better detail, so you can see each seedpod on the weeds. How is the detail reproduction in photos?

Besides that extraordinary color reproduction—and some exceptional contrast—the iPhone 7 does a great job capturing detail. But it's still a toss up between it and the S7 on the detail front. In the above photo both cameras do a nice job capturing the fine veins on the leaves and the intricate details of the seed pods, but the great color of the iPhone 7 seems to give it an edge.

However in the below photo of the best dog in Brooklyn, you can see how sharp and in focus each hair on his face is on the S7. Things are just a little blurrier and less detailed in the iPhone 7 photo. The S7 has better contrast—specifically midtone contrast. That kind of contrast makes details a little clearer without making the image darker or lighter.

iPhone 7. Feel free to zoom in on the fur around his eyes and the lack of details on the nose. On the S7 you can see every fine white hair on this aging canine's face. You can also see the pebbling of the nose. Those little details are lost when shooting in JPEG only on the iPhone.

Unfortunately, the S7 is also doing some weird things with color—making images warmer than they should be. That's why there's the dull yellow glow to everything. When it comes to color, the iPhone 7 is clearly superior.

What's up with the dual-lens zoom?

The iPhone 7 Plus gets even better. If you can stomach its larger size and higher price tag, you'll get a phone with not one but two lenses. The first is the 23mm lens found in the iPhone 7. The second is a 56mm lens that lets you physically zoom in. A physical zoom is always preferable to the digital zoom found in the majority of smartphones.

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Digital zoom leads to a splotchy mess of a photograph with big digital artifacts everywhere. Physical "optical" zoom leads to far fewer artifacts. In fact the picture of the iPhone at the top of this page was taken with the iPhone 7 Plus's zoom lens (in JPEG!). It's a good clean shot, but real sticklers for perfection will notice the telltale blur you still get from a digital photo.

It's even clearer in the photo below.

Steve and Steve. ZOOMED.

The big Steve Jobs doll in this photo looks great. You can see the light fuzz he's covered in, the small cracks in his eyebrows, and the fluff of his hair. But look at the fuzz around his ear. The JPEG process muted the details of the fuzz and made it blocky and digital looking. It's worse on the little Steve Jobs doll's face. All the fine detail is gone and replaced by a patina of digital detritus.

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That issue isn't quite as noticeable in the same shot from the 23mm lens.

And it's a relatively small price to pay to have a physical zoom on one of the most popular smartphones available right now, and if you're shooting with your phone a lot, it's a no brainer, pick up the bigger 7 Plus.

Bottom line

For people just out to grab a quick shot of some calamity in front of them, or the cute things their kids did, or the drunk things their friends did, the iPhone 7 is all you need. Both phones are faster and provide exponentially better color than the competition, or even iPhones that came before them. It does such a good job with color and in low light that its minor deficiencies are just that—minor. If you need a great smartphone that's also a solid camera, the iPhone 7 should now be your first choice.

README

Absolutely amazing color reproduction

Fantastic operation in low light

Excellent at shooting photos of tiny Steve Jobs dolls, but not so excellent at detail

12-megapixel camera with a 23mm lens with 1.7 aperture, there's also a 56mm lens on the iPhone 7 Plus.

The iPhone 7 Plus additional lens is a great feature, but unnecessary for most people

Still not quite as versatile as a DSLR

Source: iPhone 7 Camera Review: The Best Smartphone for Photos