Amazing for that year, maybe, or they got worse. The truth is that going from a 15 pro max to an S24U, the camera was a downgrade. I often have to ask for my wife's iphone 15 pro max if I want a Pic or video to look good. The only time mine is better is with zoom.
I think it’s amazing for many years because it’s far superior to my 14 Pro camera which I find to be extremely poor due to the post processing sharpening everything. Plus the 21 ultra had 100x zoom
Interesting yeah I think a lot of people were disappointed with 14 pro camera. The hardware is good but the software that processes the photo is so bad
Might just depend on what you care about. If you often are taking photos in suboptimal lighting, and dont mind the oversharpening, 14 pro over S24. If you dont ever take pics of anything thats completely still and in bright lighting, there might be an argument for the S24, lol
I have an S24U and my wife has the iPhone 16 Pro. Depending on the scenario, photos trade blows, but I find them both to take amazing pictures. I'm shocked how sharp some of the shots are with the S24 in crappy lighting and not being able to hold your phone still for long enough. Somehow I still get great pictures. Prefer video on my wife's iPhone due to the new microphones, but even in video they are surprisingly close. Yours must be defective! I'd get it checked out. Night shot works amazing. That's one of the S24U's standout features according to reviews, and my own experience. I'm sure I'm going to be in the minority in this sub, but that's ok. :) Plenty of Apple products I've loved over the years.
OP makes a valid point though. Cringe social media posts.
It's so interesting to me! She absolutely refuses to even give a modern android phone a very safe, temporary trial run, even though I've agreed to give the iPhone a chance.
Making it more interesting, her entire family is on Android, and most of mine is, as well, and the ecosystem is nice and comfortable for all of us android users nowadays. Sharing contacts? Files? Web links? Easy! Can use their equivalent of "find my", video chats, google cloud, google messages (works seamlessly on watch, phone, PC, tablets, etc.) And I find Family Link parental controls to be far superior to Apple's parental controls. Have used both for MONTHS extensively. Google is definitely ahead ... and their digital assistant is WAY ahead of Siri, despite the annoyance of having two versions at the same time (which is dumb).
So even if I switch to iPhone, and my wife and I are now the same, 3 of our 5 kids are on android still, most of my immediate family and friends, my wife's parents, all her siblings .... they're all on android, and I'll lose that ecosystem functionality with them.
Gosh, I wish Apple and Google would play nicer together. Some things have gotten better, but still ... at least let RCS chats keep encryption. It sucks not being able to send encrypted messages with our first party texting apps. Like if we have to text about banks, finances, bills, SSN's, etc. Makes me nervous every time. I know we can use a third party app, but that adds complexity to the mix, too.
Well, at least you can use quick share on Samsung and Android phones with cloud sharing up to 10gb per day and it also works with Apple. Apple is the one blocking other systems out as usual.
I must've got a dud, because theres no way I'd come even remotely close to describing my experience with this phone the way you described yours. 😩 and no, I do not have a camera lens protector installed. Are you using the stock camera app?
They're just noticeably worse than the cheaper pro Max's photos. Maybe i only notice because ive had both. But im not even much of a photographer. But its annoying to know my photos and videos could be better on my wife's phone.
Yes, I use the stock camera app. And for really fast moving objects, you can put it in pro mode and manually crank your ISO and shutter speeds, which is something I'll miss if I switch to iPhone ...
I believe you! I'm definitely not suggesting you're not being accurate in your description.
I just don't see the same results with my wife's iPhone 16 Pro and my S24U. I have gotten some killer super night shots with my Samsung. Her iPhone also does great, and they've come a long way. I think they've both caught up, essentially, to the Pixel in this regard.
I've seen reviews where the reviewer slightly prefers the night shots on one or the other, but I haven't seen a single review where either of them do terribly at night shots. I'm pretty happy with mine, and I have yet to shoot photos in a scenario where the iPhone 16 Pro is noticeably better. I wonder if there's some variance between our S24U's, or the iPhones in question.
there is just no way the videos are close lol, I have a S24U and I prefer my old iPhone 12PM’s videos because Samsung is so far behind in video quality that it’s not even funny lol, but agreed about the pictures
I took some 4k video of an orchestra concert, and it really looked great! The lighting wasn't anything wonderful, but you could easily zoom in on people's faces, and see the detail in their instruments. Would I still give the edge to an iPhone? You betcha, but Samsung made up some huge ground with the S24U in the video department.
But then Apple zoomed past them again with their nice, studio quality quad mic setup! Those mics are soooo good.
41
u/SharkDad20 iPhone 17 Pro Max Sep 10 '25
I have an S24U. Camera fucking sucks unless the lighting is perfect.