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TECHNOLOGY A23
Friday 11 March 2016
Review: The Samsung S7’s camera now rivals the iPhone
ANICK JESDANUN In this Sunday, Feb. 21, 2016, file photo, a Samsung Galaxy S7, left, and S7 Edge are displayed frame of the S6. While over-
AP Technology Writer during the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2016 event on the eve of the Mobile World Congress wire- all megapixel count is low-
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s dif- less show, in Barcelona, Spain. er on the S7, that’s entirely
ficult to justify paying for a consequence of the nar-
a high-priced, top-end Associated Pres rower width, which yields a
smartphone these days — photo like an S6 shot with
unless, that is, you want to BETTER LIGHTING, BETTER lag with the S7, meaning It captures more of what’s its far edges chopped off.
take good pictures. FOCUS fewer missed action shots. in front of you. Among ___
In this Age of Instagram, a I was impressed with the The lens and image sen- other things, people don’t A FEW QUIBBLES
great camera is one of the S7’s ability to capture Cen- sors on the S7 aren’t large have to squeeze together Many indoor shots come
few reasons to pay $650 or tral Park’s unlighted Bethes- enough to match the ca- as tightly for group shots. out yellowish, possibly re-
more for the latest smart- da Fountain at night. Shots pabilities of full-bodied SLR Samsung also corrected flecting the yellowish na-
phone, instead of $200 or from most other phones ap- cameras, but the phones some design deficiencies ture of indoor lighting.
$300 for a budget phone pear pitch black, save for borrow some of the focus in earlier models. The S7’s On the S7, books look as
that does texting, Face- a faint outline of the foun- and light-capturing tech- camera lens no longer pro- though they’ve yellowed
book and Web surfing just tain’s statue and some dis- nologies found on more trudes awkwardly, as it did from being out in the sun
as well. tant light from building win- sophisticated shooters. on the S6. Its screen turns too long. Egg whites on a
Samsung’s phone cam- dows.The S7 was also more These technologies com- into a flash for low-light burger don’t look so white
eras have shown tremen- likely to get the focus right bined result in brighter, selfies, just like the latest (though bacon comes out
dous improvement in just a on its own, without having sharper images in low light. iPhones. (That means my brighter, with more detail).
few years. The new Galaxy to choose a focus area ___ selfies now look awful be- Faces are more orange
S7 and S7 Edge phones first by touching the phone UPGRADING THE S6 cause of their subject and than usual.
take much better pictures screen. Even with touching, The S7 also has a wider- not the low light.) Odd colors can make pic-
than last year’s S6 models. focusing sometimes takes angle lens than last year’s The S7 also takes photos in tures look better, but they
In fact, they’re now basi- a second or two on other S6 models, one that now a standard 4-by-3 rectan- often don’t seem natural.
cally neck and neck with cameras. I don’t get that matches iPhone hardware. gle, not the wider 16-by-9 ___
Apple’s iPhones, meaning COMPARISONS
that you no longer have Of all of the phones I test-
to compromise on picture ed, the S7 and iPhone 6S
quality if you prefer An- produced the most consis-
droid. tent low-light photos. The
I took more than 2,000 S7 shots typically had bet-
still shots and a few vid- ter focus, while the iPhone
eos using 10 smartphones pictures looked more natu-
from Samsung, Apple, LG, ral, with colors typically mir-
Huawei and Motorola. roring how you see things.
To make the comparison The S7 has also cloned Ap-
clearer, I focused on in- ple’s Live Photos feature,
door and night settings, in which the camera cap-
such as museums, bars and tures short video clips as it’s
New York’s Central Park at taking still photos. The fea-
night. Even budget phones ture is on by default on the
can take great shots in iPhone, but you need to
good light, but only great turn it on with the S7. Unlike
phones take good shots in the iPhone version, Sam-
poor light. sung’s Motion Photo has
___ no sound.
Human Go champion ‘speech-
less’ after 2nd loss to machine
YOUKYUNG LEE ence that was livestreamed marking a milestone in the South Korean professional Go player Lee Sedol appears on the
AP Technology Writer on YouTube. “It was a clear development of artificial in- screen during the second match of the Google DeepMind Chal-
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — loss on my part. From the telligence. lenge Match against Google’s artificial intelligence program,
The human Go champion beginning there was no Hundreds of thousands of AlphaGo at the media room in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday,
said he was left “speech- moment I thought I was South Koreans, even those March 10, 2016.
less” after his second leading.” who do not play the popu-
straight loss to Google’s The latest victory by Alpha- lar board game, followed Associated Press
Go-playing machine on Go over South Korea’s Lee the games on live TV and
Thursday in a highly-antic- puts Google’s AlphaGo on YouTube. All major local computers to conquer the and the only board game
ipated human versus ma- team one victory away newspapers reported Lee’s ancient Chinese board left to conquer after chess
chine face-off. from claiming the $1 million loss on their front pages. game, one of the most cre- was mastered by comput-
Lee Sedol, one of the best prize. “2-year-old artificial intelli- ative games ever devised ers in 1997.
Go players in the world with If AlphaGo wins, the prize gence masters 5,000-year-
18 world championships, money is to be donated to old human Go,” said a
was grim and ashen after UNICEF, Go organizations headline in the Chosun
the game, which lasted and charities. Ilbo, South Korea’s most cir-
more than four hours. AlphaGo’s first win against culated daily newspaper.
“I’m quite speechless,” he Lee, on Wednesday, shook Many had believed it would
said at the press confer- the Go-playing world, take another decade for
