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00:00Hey what's up guys, MKBHD here and welcome to the blind smartphone camera test 2019.
00:10So this idea really started last year when I wanted to do a test of all the best smartphone
00:15cameras.
00:16Really find out which one the best is.
00:17And I could have just done Pixel versus iPhone at the time, but I also wanted to throw in
00:22the new Samsung phone, but then maybe people want to see like a OnePlus and it eventually
00:26just turned into, let's just include them all.
00:28Let's just throw them all in there.
00:29So from that, the blind camera test was born.
00:32And if you've been following along on Twitter and Instagram for about the past week, you've
00:34seen that we've done it again this year and the results I think are fascinating.
00:39So the format is, as you may remember, we took 16 smartphones, we set up a bracket of
00:44all of them, sort of seeded in a way, and then got to work.
00:48So here's the competitors this year.
00:49We have Google Pixel 4, iPhone 11 Pro, Samsung Galaxy Note 10, Google Pixel 3a, Samsung Galaxy
00:57S10e, OnePlus 7T Pro, OnePlus 7T, Huawei Mate 30 Pro, Huawei P30 Pro, the 108 megapixel
01:06Xiaomi Mi Note 10, Sony Xperia 1, Redmi K20 Pro, LG G8X ThinQ, Asus ROG Phone 2, Asus
01:15Zenfone 6, and the Royal FlexPai.
01:18So as you can tell, a pretty healthy variety of flagships from the smartphones that you'd
01:22probably consider favorites in a test like this, down to some mid-range phones, some
01:26budget ones, and just some random ones thrown in there.
01:29And my favorite part of this is there's so many cameras, there's so many options, that
01:34it's impossible to like narrow it down to like, oh, I know what iPhone photos look like,
01:38so I'll vote for the iPhone every time.
01:39There's no way for you to know.
01:41It's totally blind.
01:42So we went out and we matched them all up from the bracket and we took the photos with
01:44all 16 phones, again, keeping in mind consistency and including things in the photos that people
01:50typically take photos of.
01:52Screen tones for sure, fabrics for textures, different colors, dynamic range with the sky
01:57in the background, a subject with a foreground and a background, et cetera.
02:01And every single one was just the default, open the camera, tap a face, take a photo,
02:06with the exception of the Xiaomi Mi Note 10, which we'd open the camera app, switch to
02:10the 108 megapixel mode, and then take the photo, because that's the whole reason we
02:13included it.
02:14So we assigned each phone a letter A all the way through P, and then we started stitching
02:17them together and matching them up.
02:19So every single one would have a match up one round at a time.
02:22So we conducted the tests again, the polling on Instagram stories and on Twitter.
02:27So we're thankfully allowed to use images in polls, in tweets again on Twitter.
02:31So shout out to them for allowing us to do that for this test.
02:34So 4 million Instagram votes later and 2 million Twitter votes later, we have our winners.
02:41So this is the bracket.
02:44So these are the phones that were behind each of the letters.
02:47So without checking Twitter, this is the fun part, go ahead and pause this video and
02:50fill out this bracket March Madness style, the way you think it will actually go based
02:55on votes.
02:56You can even use your information about what happened in last year's blind test to better
03:01inform your decision.
03:02So really, this is your shot.
03:03Go ahead, fill it out.
03:04This is your chance.
03:06And now without any further ado, let me show you exactly how it went down.
03:09So round one, just a photo of me, a human.
03:11We had the Asus Zenfone 6 absolutely crush the OnePlus 7T.
03:18Then we had Huawei Mate 30 Pro defeating Asus ROG Phone 2.
03:23Then Note 10 Plus easily beating the Royal FlexPai, as you might have predicted.
03:27And then the Pixel 3a beat the LG G8X.
03:32Then on the other side, Galaxy S10e beat the 108 megapixel Xiaomi Mi Note 10.
03:39The OnePlus 7T Pro beat the iPhone 11 Pro.
03:43Pixel 4 beat the Sony Xperia 1.
03:47And last but not least, Redmi K20 Pro beat Huawei P30 Pro.
03:51So a very interesting start.
03:54None of these, interestingly, was even close.
03:56Every single one was a blowout.
03:57The closest one was actually the Redmi over the Huawei, which was about 150,000 to 90,000
04:03on Instagram.
04:04So pretty convincing in every single first round photo.
04:08Some of these, I'd say, were expected.
04:10Some of these were definitely still in the category of upsets.
04:14But we'll get to all that in a bit.
04:16Round two.
04:17So this is the photo of the hot sauce.
04:18Got some warm and cool tones in there.
04:20There's skin tones.
04:21There's a subject with a slightly blurred background.
04:24And there's some sharp text to read in the middle.
04:26So in this round, Mate 30 Pro narrowly beat the Zenfone 6.
04:32Then below that, we had Note 10 Plus, which overcame the Pixel 3a.
04:36Then on the other side, Samsung Galaxy S10e moved on over OnePlus 7T Pro.
04:43And Pixel 4 beat the K20 Pro.
04:47So again, some interesting stuff.
04:49Actually, before all of this even happened, I filled out sort of my own bracket of what
04:53I predicted I thought would win.
04:54And I had Mate 30 Pro carrying a torch to the end for a repeat of the finals like last
05:00year.
05:01So other than that, I got a lot of this stuff wrong and I feel like you may have too.
05:07Weird stuff, but still kind of up for grabs.
05:10On to the next one.
05:11So round three was the Roadster die cast model photo.
05:14Plenty of colors on purpose.
05:16The subject and the background is a little out of focus again.
05:19Skin tones and we're outdoors.
05:21And in this round, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus beat the Mate 30 Pro.
05:27And on the other side, the Samsung Galaxy S10e beat the Pixel 4.
05:34Oh, right.
05:36Okay, so I guess this, we probably should have expected this putting essentially the
05:42same camera on both sides of the bracket.
05:44But I guess you could say we also did that with Pixel 3a and Pixel 4.
05:48But literally, we didn't expect them to meet in the finals.
05:52Maybe you did, but that's what happened.
05:54So the finals was essentially the same camera pitted against itself, which I just took as
05:58a landscape photo out the window.
06:00Not a whole ton of variety because I sort of figured it wouldn't matter anyway.
06:03But the Galaxy Note 10 eventually ended up winning by a healthy amount here.
06:07So there you have it.
06:08That's the final bracket.
06:09Some weird wild results mixed in, but a lot of the same principles from last year's blind
06:16test were still on display here.
06:18Plus one new one was interesting to see.
06:21So last year, what did we find?
06:24Well, basically that when you put two smartphone photos next to each other on social media
06:28where everything is very much compressed, essentially sharpness now matters a lot less,
06:32detail matters less, textures matter less, even contrast almost doesn't matter.
06:38Essentially when all else is the same and you put them right next to each other, people
06:41are going to just pick the brighter photo.
06:45This has not changed.
06:46And a lot of that explains the first two rounds of this really well.
06:50Basically in the camera app for all of these, we just tapped on my face very consistently
06:53for every single photo.
06:55And some brought the exposure up a little more, others, often the good ones, brought
07:00it up a little bit, but kept more of the background in the shot with more dynamic range.
07:04So really just the ones that brightened me up the most tended to win.
07:07The weird fluke to me was the iPhone 11 Pro that I actually think lost because of white
07:11balance.
07:12For whatever reason, when the iPhone 11 misses, it's more this year than ever before, it really
07:17goes cool.
07:18And this one missed blue.
07:19And we even took multiple photos from the iPhone thinking it was kind of odd that it
07:22was so blue like this.
07:24But that's the way they all turned out.
07:25And naturally the warmer, more accurate photo from the OnePlus took that round.
07:29So again, through round two, the voting margins got a bit closer because the photos are in
07:33this controlled environment where they are closer looking.
07:36But generally the same theme prevailed.
07:38If there was one significantly brighter than the other, it won by more votes.
07:42But then this is actually where I started to find something else, something new.
07:45Starting in this round and people were actually starting to reply and type and comment that
07:49they were doing this.
07:51People started voting for the photo that just had more in focus.
07:55So in this photo, Mate 30 Pro is on the top.
07:58Note 10 is on the bottom.
08:00Not much of a difference in brightness or color.
08:02So people started pixel peeping a little bit and you can clearly tell the background is
08:07more blurred in the top photo.
08:08Oh, you know, the color chart, my sneakers, the green chair behind me, all of it is blurrier
08:13behind it, which made people vote for the bottom.
08:17This is kind of backwards because we generally like a soft out of focus background.
08:22That's a more expensive look that's typically coming out of full size cameras with much
08:26bigger sensors.
08:28That's why we have portrait mode on these smartphones to sort of fake that look with
08:32the tiny sensors we have in these.
08:33But even among smartphone cameras, some sensors are bigger than others.
08:37And so if you know Huawei stuff, you know they're one of the ones to stuff a massive
08:39sensor in their phone, which is why even without portrait mode on, the subject is in focus
08:44the same way.
08:45And the background is more blurred than some other smartphone sensors.
08:48So now, you know, when you put two photos next to each other, comparing them brings
08:52up these tendencies in people where apparently the masses decided that they would select
08:57the photo with more in focus as better, even though technically speaking, it's in theory
09:03worse because it's a telltale sign of a smaller sensor.
09:06If we look at the other side of the bracket, you can see the same thing.
09:09Now in this case, the S10e on top is also a bit brighter than the Pixel 4 at the bottom.
09:14So that's going to give it a bit of an advantage off the start.
09:17But even still, putting these photos next to each other where the Pixel 4 at the bottom
09:20clearly, clearly took a better photo.
09:25It's more neutral.
09:26There's more accurate colors, more dynamic range.
09:29There's no blown highlights on the red of the roadster, more accurate skin tones, and
09:33a softer, shallower depth of field to top it all off.
09:36But people picked the top photo, 140,000 to 80,000 on Instagram.
09:41Now I do have to give some of you photographers and fellow YouTubers and keen-eyed people
09:45some credit because you did see that clearly the bottom photo was better and you couldn't
09:50believe that the top photo was winning.
09:51And I'm with you.
09:52And even though I knew which one was which, even if you looked at each individual photo
09:56by itself, you can tell clearly the bottom photo was better.
09:59So of course we know, you and me, we definitely know that when you're comparing a high quality
10:03photo versus a slightly lower quality photo, the bigger sensor, the one with the blurred
10:07background, that's something to look out for.
10:09But not everyone, not the 4 million voters, they might not know that.
10:14So anyway, that gives us our finals.
10:15That's the Galaxy Note 10 Plus and the Galaxy S10e.
10:18And what happened here?
10:19What exactly went down that a landscape photo from two nearly identical camera suites gave
10:25us such a dramatic winner?
10:27Well, actually it's pretty simple.
10:28I was taking this photo through a window.
10:30I took it on the silver Galaxy Note 10 Plus and the pink Galaxy S10e.
10:35And if you look at these photos, the S10e photo is kind of magenta shifted at the bottom
10:41half because it's literally reflecting the pink phone back at me that I'm taking the
10:45picture with.
10:46Now, if I didn't have that glass in front of me, who knows what else people would have
10:48looked for to pick a winner between two presumably nearly identical photos.
10:53But to be fair, to give you guys credit, you did see that good spot.
10:57So what did we learn from all this?
10:58Well, one, people still like brighter photos.
11:01Two, when presented with two photos of similar brightness, people tend to prefer the photo
11:07with more in focus.
11:09You know, it may seem like more detail, but it's essentially a sign of a worse photo,
11:13but people didn't care.
11:14And then three, people make some fascinating decisions and observations when presented
11:19with side-by-sides like this.
11:21So either way, that's been it.
11:22Congrats to the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus, your winner of the second annual People's
11:27Choice Blind Smartphone Camera Bracket.
11:31And yeah, maybe we'll feel even a little bit different about this later this year when
11:34Twitter is now stopping compression of JPEG photos and full-size photo viewing.
11:39You never know.
11:40The landscape could be shaken up again.
11:42But either way, until the next one, catch you guys later.
11:45Peace.