The Tenth Note

The new Note 10+ is definitely an upgrade to the Note 9 in terms of functionality and utilisation of the note-keeping which I use every day at work. It forms an integral part of my daily work, and with the new version, there certainly beefed up the note-taking feature. I am pretty happy about that.

It also came in a slicker package, and the battery lasted longer than before. However, unlocking the device was a nightmare. With the old Note 8 and 9, I just disable the fingerprint reader and keep the unit unlocked. For the new version, you still needed to slide the screen up, and I depended on the “smart unlock” feature to enable the unit. Often, I was prompted to use my thumb and using it, the screen was just so slow. Both the Huawei P30 Pro and OnePlus 7 Pro did a much better job with their onscreen thumbprint recognition.

But for the blog, I am more interested in the camera. Note 9 had a decent enough camera for me to use to take photos for my blog. So, I took the new camera for a spin.

The wide-angle camera is a welcomed feature. Video recording was on par with the iPhone. But the computational photography was moving towards what Huawei was doing - too much modification to the snaps, ending up being unnatural. The captures looked pixelated on scrutiny and the HDR photos, especially when captured in broad daylight were hideous! The captures also appear to be more contrasty to Note 9, but unfortunately in a bad way. I prefer the softer colours and resolution of Note 9.

I ended up disabling it, and for indoor photos, I actually used the night mode. Luckily, unlike the OnePlus, night mode allowed the use of the wide-angle lens. And the captures looked more natural, with the artefacts pretty much been eliminated. There was minimal capture lag, and most of the time, I got the shots I wanted. Autofocus was snappy.

For the video, the 4K videos looked decent, although I pretty much used my preferred option - 1080p at 60 fps. Has not had the time to post any videos on YouTube as yet. Maybe I will do that later in the week.

A worthy upgrade from my work point of view, but the camera has its quirk. Maybe over time, I will figure out ways to get consistent photos from it.

The iPhone X Camera

I take my phone everywhere and being an avid photographer, the most accessible phone I had most often were my mobile phone. Over the years I had been carrying many phones and the decision on which phone I chose to buy had how good the camera was being one of the top point of consideration.

The original iPhone did not have a good camera. Back then, the best camera phone I had used was the Nokia N73. Despite only having a 3.2MP camera, the Zeiss optics it carried made for some really great photographs. That sort of crystallised on me the idea that a camera phone may be enough for everyday snapping.

Then came the iPhone 4. For the iOS platform, it showed that Apple was taking photography seriously. A few Android phones then entered the picture with the HTC One being one of my early favourites. In early 2015, I discovered the Nokia 930. It had on it the best camera I had ever seen. And till this day, I could argue that it was still a capable shooter despite being almost 4 years old.

Now, my second phone was the Huawei P10 Plus. With its Leica optics, the photos especially the monochrome were just amazing. I still took it around during weekends as I shot around town. But now, I have a new contender for the best camera phone. The iPhone X.

Right off the bat, there was something natural about the photos. There were some element of over processing from the camera but they weren't as obvious as the Samsung. The photos did not over saturated and at low ISO, they appeared realistic. The focusing was
snappy and there were plenty of third-party apps for post-production of our snaps.

Last weekend, I took the phone out for a spin around Bukit Bintang to capture the Xmas decorations. I was practically blown away. The photos were much better than I expected. Coupled with its capability to capture 4K videos at 60fps, the camera feature is a winner.

In terms of monochrome snaps, it still lacked behind the Huawei. But for sheer overall joy, Apple clearly had the right formula here. Just for the camera alone, it was definitely an upgrade from my iPhone 7 Plus, although I do understand that the iPhone 8 use the same camera module as the X although with a narrower telephoto second sensor.

I'm definitely looking forward to more snaps from the phone...