[Galaxy S6 General] Timbukto:
I'm a photo enthusiast

I just wanted to point out a few things. First comparisons really should be done with manual exposure set the same on either camera. I can view the EXIF's on the images posted and use a chrome plugin to do so. I see a tendency for the Samsung to shoot slower exposures. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and it may validate their ISOCELL technology which specifically says it achieves greater full well capacity (higher light saturation, i.e. photodiodes can hold onto more 'data'). On the otherhand it is going up against Sony which has had a track record and reputation for high dynamic range and excellent circuit/noise performance (good shadows). In shots of moving children or marginal lighting you actually would want to prefer the sensor with a tendency to shoot faster exposures, but again the reason why Samsung may be shooting slower exposures is because many cameras shooting via liveview are pretty smart at exposing to the right (i.e. filling up the sensor to the brim with light information). Given two equally efficient sensors, one with more saturation or greater full well capacity than the other, and equal light intensity and lens and aperture settings, etc the sensor with greater FWC takes *longer* to fill to the brim. After tone mapping this should result in an image with cleaner dark tones because those tones are light exposed for a longer period and thus stronger signals relative to a shorter exposure. I kind of see this in the Starbucks photo. However typical Sony I see that regardless of it being a quicker exposure, the shadows are still rather clean. And in fact I see some evidence that even for images that do not reach saturation due to low lighting...it is still the Sony that shot with lower ISO indicating better efficiency overall (again better shadow performance equates to low-light as well).

This may seem like a runaway victory...faster exposures (thus low-light) but still just as clean images...and probably good RAWs, but I also see a tendency for the Sony to shoot purple skies. I also see that not all lenses or focusing is equal. Autofocusing I would have said is sensor independent, but because these are liveview cameras the sensor actually does play a role in autofocus in a way as well. I do not consider Sony colors that great even for their professional/enthusiast cameras and I happily own an A6000. That said I don't consider Samsung colors that great as well. But I do find the purple tint skies on Sony relative to Samsung as quite annoying.

Everyone is making a big deal about RAW support and I honestly have no idea how a camera with two sensors is going to offer RAW support and accurate profiling. To me despite loving RAW, etc if its a smartphone I just want the sensor that is profiled the best to produce the best images OOC and best starting point for RAW. Lets face it, nobody is going to really want to work hard at RAW images poorly profiled out of a smart phone...not really worth the effort IMO. RAW images that require just a few touchups in post is fine, but not something out of whack which IMO is a potential for a 2 sensor camera supporting RAW. But this is a developer forum so feel free to elucidate on how a 2 sensor camera may perhaps create the correct 'RAW' profiling regardless of sensor.

There is not a clear cut winner...I would pick the phone with a better lens and autofocus tendencies (and even if they are designed the 'same' optics are like snowflakes and never the same). In some shots I see one lens having poor flare characteristics, one having poor autofocus characteristics, etc. My S6 has strong autofocus and lens characteristics it appears but has ISOCELL sensor behind it. The lens that wide open can shoot the sharpest edge to edge 'scene' IMO is also something to consider. Too many folks making comments about sharpness in sensors...there is no difference based on sensor just 'copies' of lenses unless you feel one sensor is natively lower resolution and it gets upsampled in post. To my eye there is zero evidence of this.

My guess is on a high dynamic range scene with exposure set the same it is the Sony that blows out more highlights based on images I've seen so far and their EXIF's. Also stop comparing file sizes...*noise* is the enemy of small image sizes and noise reduction is its saviour, so unless you really understand how much noise is in an image and how much noise reduction is automatically applied, comparing is pointless. Again RAW support would be the true litmus test, but you can get some *hints* out of the jpegs by doing a well done test of various exposure times in well controlled setting.