{"id":404407,"date":"2018-02-26T07:08:08","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T07:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=404407"},"modified":"2018-02-26T07:09:08","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T07:09:08","slug":"samsung-galaxy-s9-focuses-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=404407","title":{"rendered":"Samsung Galaxy S9 focuses on the camera"},"content":{"rendered":"

New and improved camera capabilities are the main thrust of Samsung’s pitch for its latest flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S9 and larger S9+.<\/p>\n

The handsets gain a super-slow-motion facility designed to make it easy to extend key moments of action. They also gain a type of lens that should improve low-light photography.<\/p>\n

Samsung’s sales rose in 2017 but not as fast as those of many Chinese rivals.<\/p>\n

Experts suggest the new facilities represent minor upgrades.<\/p>\n

That may make marketing the S9 a challenge since the phone’s design also strongly resembles that of the existing S8. Slightly smaller bezels at the top and bottom and a new position for the fingerprint sensor are the biggest alterations.<\/p>\n

The S9+ is only a little more distinct from the S8+. It now features two camera lenses on its rear, providing different fields of view and allowing photo backgrounds to be digitally blurred.<\/p>\n

“I’m not sure if the improvements will be enough to make people rush and upgrade,” commented Francisco Jeronimo, an analyst at market research firm IDC.<\/p>\n

“The quality of the camera is a purchasing driver for many consumers, and Samsung’s does appear better than [Google’s] Pixel 2.<\/p>\n

“But I was expecting to see more development around its intelligence – it still relies on the cloud, meaning you need to be connected to the net to do live translations, for instance.”<\/p>\n

By contrast, he added, Huawei’s latest phones can translate words they are shown while offline thanks to their use of a new chip technology.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Samsung held its launch on the eve of the Mobile World Congress tech show in Barcelona.<\/p>\n

It has priced the S9 at 849 euros (\u00a3750; $1,047) and the S9+ at 949 euros (\u00a3838; $1,170) – 50 euros more than their predecessors<\/p>\n

The biggest hardware change to the S9’s camera is that it now features a variable aperture, with a choice of two settings.<\/p>\n

At its widest setting it allows in more light, which can be helpful in dim conditions, but at a cost of having shallower focus.<\/p>\n

It is not the first handset-maker to do this. Nokia offered a similar technology in its N86 phone in 2009, but the innovation failed to catch on.<\/p>\n

To further improve low-light imagery the S9 now takes 12 images in quick succession to help detect and remove noise – the S8 took three.<\/p>\n

But its standout feature is the capacity to slow down video while keeping it in high-definition resolutions: 960 frames per second in 720p and 480fps in 1080p.<\/p>\n

Sony’s Xperia XZ Premium phone added a similar feature last year, but Samsung says its version is “more usable”.<\/p>\n

In both cases, owners must determine, at point of capture, the 0.2 seconds that get turned into six seconds of footage, at the slowest setting. This can be a challenge to get right.<\/p>\n

While Sony relies on users pressing a button at exactly the right moment, Samsung’s S9 auto-triggers the function when motion is detected in a chosen part of the screen.<\/p>\n

Other camera-related innovations include the introduction of AR Emojis.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Samsung’s latest phone has a camera that adapts to different light levels.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These are animated cartoons created from facial scans of the owners that then mimic their expressions. They are similar in concept to Apple’s animal-based Animojis, but Samsung suggests its version is more “personal”.<\/p>\n

The Bixby Vision image-recognition app gains the ability to identify foods the camera is pointed at and estimate their calorie content.<\/p>\n

And the phone now combines data from its iris and facial-recognition systems to improve their reliability.<\/p>\n

Samsung, however, declined to provide a failure rate to permit a comparison with Apple’s one-in-a-million statistic for its Face ID facility.<\/p>\n

IHS Technology’s Ian Fogg said the risk for Samsung was that if consumers do not view the new features as a huge leap forward, they might prefer to wait to see what the S10 offers.<\/p>\n

“The typical Samsung upgrader probably has an S6 or S7,” he explained<\/p>\n

“Samsung has delivered significant incentives to upgrade with the improved camera and the larger display, compared with the older phones.<\/p>\n

“But the problem is that those handsets from two to three years ago are still very usable and will still feel pretty good to many.”<\/p>\n

\"\"
Rory was not convinced his AR Emoji was a great likeness.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Rory Cellan-Jones, Technology correspondent<\/strong><\/p>\n

How keen are you to see the world in ultra slooooooow motion or to have an animated emoji that looks just like you?<\/p>\n

Samsung is betting that these are not niche interests and will spark a rush to upgrade, particularly amongst those people whose phones are a couple of years old.<\/p>\n

In truth, the Galaxy S9 feels like an incremental improvement on last year’s S8 – the screen stretches a bit further in the same space, the sound system is louder, which means more anti-social noise in public places, and Samsung’s underwhelming Bixby assistant has got a bit smarter at reading foreign menus.<\/p>\n

To be fair, smartphones like the Galaxy are already brilliant computers delivering extraordinary performance on the move – and making new models stand out from the crowd is a struggle for all manufacturers.<\/p>\n

It is a good bet that the S9 will sell very well indeed and put another rocket under Samsung’s profits – it just isn’t going to make jaded phone-buyers go “wow!”
\n–
\nBy: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New and improved camera capabilities are the main thrust of Samsung’s pitch for its latest flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S9 and larger S9+. The handsets gain a super-slow-motion facility designed to make it easy to extend key moments of action. They also gain a type of lens that should improve low-light photography. Samsung’s sales rose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":404409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[16981,16561],"class_list":["post-404407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-camera","tag-samsung-galaxy-s9"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=404407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/404409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=404407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=404407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=404407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}