Technology - Google News

Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus vs. iPhone 12 Pro Max camera samples leak — and it's not close - Tom's Guide

Posted: 18 Dec 2020 10:00 PM PST

The Samsung Galaxy S21 range's specs leaked a while ago, but they only tell half the story. If we want to know how the phone performs, especially with photography, we need some hands-on time.

YouTube channel Random Stuff 2 got hold of the Galaxy S21 Plus and put its camera to the test against the iPhone 12 Pro Max. The results weren't even close.

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While Random Stuff 2 has more general impressions with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus, we are really focussed on the camera at this point. After all it's one of the features that can make or break a phone, and poor performance is not a good look if the older phones from competitors do a better job.

Unfortunately that's exactly what seems to be happening with Random Stuff 2's photos. While the Galaxy S21 Pro's photos aren't awful, Apple's top-tier camera does a much better job. Since the S21 Plus is set to have the same camera specs as the standard S21, that means the base-level model probably has similar performance.

The main problem is that, in comparison, the S21 Plus's photos look more washed out. The images look brighter than the iPhone 12 Pro Max's, but the actual content doesn't look nearly as good.

It's almost as though Samsung artificially ramped up the brightness in post-shot processing, or never even bothered to compensate for the excess sunlight in California (where these images appear to have been taken).

In some of the shots, like the giant metal hand, the background also looks a lot blurrier on the S21 Plus. In addition to the same issues with contrast and poor coloring.

Video quality is also noticeably worse in comparison. It looks choppier, and everything in the distance blurrier and more pixelated compared to the iPhone 12 Pro Max. So all round, not a particularly favorable comparison for Samsung.

On their own the Galaxy S21 Plus's camera quality isn't terrible, but compared to the iPhone 12 Pro Max it's very clear who the winner is. The only question is why? What is the iPhone doing that Samsung isn't? Those aren't questions we can really answer based on a five minute YouTube video.

Of course, as Random Stuff 2 points out, this is still a pre-release version of the Galaxy S21 Plus. The phone isn't due to launch until January 14, and won't release until the end of that month. Assuming the issues with the Galaxy S21 Plus's photos are software related, there's still time for Samsung to roll out some updates and fix the problem. Or lessen the gap between itself and the iPhone, at any rate.

Everything else about the S21 Plus sounds positive, though, and Random Stuff 2 was very excited about how the phone was performing. Particularly of note was the battery, which he said lasted him well through the day. It seems those Snapdragon 888 optimizations are being put to good use. He was also a fan of how small the bezels were, and how tough the rear camera lens is this time round.

So right now it's not a good look for Samsung, particularly since it so far hasn't been able to beat its biggest rival in the camera game. Hopefully things do improve in the weeks before release, or at the very least the Galaxy S21 Ultra, which does have a different camera setup, does a better job of snapping great photos.

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Microsoft is designing its own Arm chips for datacenter servers: Report - ZDNet

Posted: 18 Dec 2020 01:30 PM PST

Microsoft is working on its own Arm processor designs for its datacenter servers, according to a Bloomberg report on December 18. Bloomberg also says Microsoft is exploring using another chip that would power some Surface PCs, the report adds.

While some are painting this as Microsoft responding to Apple's recent decision to field its own Arm-based M1 processor, Microsoft and Qualcomm already had partnered since 2019 on Microsoft's Arm chip that is inside the original Surface Pro X. The Pro X 2 uses the SQ2 chip, which is a variant of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx chip without 5G.

The part to me that's more interesting is Microsoft using Arm in servers. Microsoft already had been working with Qualcomm and Caviium -- along with Intel and AMD on Project Olympus, Microsoft's next-generation cloud-hardware design it provided to the Open Comput Project. In 2017, Microsoft also announced that it has been involved with multiple ARM suppliers, including Qualcomm and Cavium on getting Windows Server to run ARM but for its own internal datacenter use only.

Back in 2017, I asked officials whether Microsoft would ever make Windows Server on ARM available externally to partners and customers. They said the technology was for internal use only for the purposes of evaluation of Azure services on Arm servers. But officials did note at the time that they believed Arm servers are good for internal cloud applications such as search and indexing, storage, databases, big data, and machine learning workloads.

I asked Microsoft officials about today's Bloomberg report and received this response from Corporate Communications chief Frank Shaw:

"Because silicon is a foundational building block for technology, we're continuing to invest in our own capabilities in areas like design, manufacturing and tools, while also fostering and strengthening partnerships with a wide range of chip providers."

I found a fairly recent Microsoft job posting that mentions the work Microsoft has underway around ARM64 servers in its datacenters. My guess is this is the continuation of what the company announced back in 2017.

From that posting:

"Given the growth of our datacenters we are always investigating in new hardware and software solutions to meet our scale and customer demand. The Azure New Technology (ANT) team is looking ahead at future Cloud technologies, both hardware and software, and we are investigating and enabling those for our datacenter use. A good example of what we do is the development and deployment of ARM 64-bit Servers in our datacenters. This is a multi-year effort that consists of deep partnership engagements with multiple silicon companies, including collaborating on future hardware designs and software enablement. We are a very hands-on team with deep technical expertise in silicon, systems, operating systems (Windows and Linux) and application stacks."

Will Microsoft continue to only use Arm servers for test purposes internally? Or will they start using Arm servers inside Azure datacenters to run new or existing Azure services sometime soon.

Another question (or three): Might Microsoft soon be following in AWS' Gravitron footsteps sometime soon by making its own custom-built Arm cores available to its cloud customers? I asked Microsoft recently if the company had plans to provide Apple M1 instances in Azure to customers -- similar to what AWS announced earlier this month -- and was told by a spokesperson that "We are committed to meeting developers where they are and are always working to expand our offerings. We have nothing further to share today."

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