[Galaxy S6 General] Timbukto:
That is because its using automatic exposure, and automatic exposure is automatic not necessarily intelligent. The 'code-behind' can easily be something like -

Try to set exposure to ETTR (absorb as much light without clipping). A sensor with higher full well capacity looks at a low light situation and says, the light coming in isn't going to clip until the exposure settings are slower than say 1/10th. But 1/10th is where we set the minimum handholding/OIS capability so if you ask for slower, bump up the ISO and apply the requisite additional NR I am pre-programmed to do. The Sony sensor could say, ok the light coming in is 'good' enough at filling up capacity at 1/10th, and I do not need ISO bump. Think of a cup and the shutter speed is just the duration of which you leave a cup under a water dispenser. This is just *one* hypothetical analysis....it is also just entirely possible the Sony sensor is more efficient.

My *guess* is that the Samsung is going to turn out to be a tad better at saturation and for a given exposure time which clips *some* highlights, it'll be the Samsung that clips *less*, and my guess is that its the Sony that still has the edge on shadow noise. Keep in mind in the enthusiast world Sony and Samsung sensors are neck and neck in some regards...Sony still king of DR, but Samsung doing amazing thing with more MPs, 4k capability, and insane FPS, etc. Also both Sony and Samsung sensors are far far better than Canon ones typically in dynamic range in the enthusiast world that anyone considering the DR difference between Sony and Samsung is really really nitpicking.

Again if I had to bet if someone uses a manual exposure app and sets exposure to be the same in a scene with clipped highlights it'll be the Samsung that clips less due to higher saturation capability (deeper FWC).

So someone needs to do a test...see what the *AUTO* exposure setting would be on a given Samsung or Sony sensor...then shoot another set of shots where you force the Samsung to shoot at the Sony's exposure settings and examine if the shadows are significantly worse than the Samsung, and then shoot the Sony sensor at the Samsung exposure settings to see if the highlights are blown more or less relative to the Sony. Again with jpegs you can only guess at so much, but doing the test like I stated would give hints as to sensor performance.

BTW I just tested my camera and I shot one shot with the phone held with shutter release to the right and one to the left (i.e. upside down depending on preference), and one shot had poorer focus than another...just keep in mind for the SAME camera shot in the same way near the same time the image quality was different when pixel peeped on a desktop (when viewing on the phone its impossible to tell the difference). Also I would rate my ISOCELL S6 as having a better camera overall than most premium compacts I've seen including Olympus XZ-1 and I dare say XZ-2. The full size images in 16MP look *great* and IMO better than the iPhone 6 images by far. But I think iPhone 6's tone mapping is superior but perhaps they don't have to deal with the complications of customizing tone mapping for 2 sensors. If I had to bet the tone mapping is a generic algorithm of sorts and neither sensor will be best optimized for it...

Also clipped highlights is the bane of the compact world so having a sensor designed to handle this situation is pretty nice. On the other hand low light performance has also been another challenge, but one that is so easily taken care of by larger sensor enthusiast systems. Meaning if I am going to carry around my S6 and my enthusiast cameras, I would want the S6 to be competent at not blowing any highlights in sunny situations, and in low light situations I'd probably use larger sensor systems anyhow (but global shutters and insane bracketing and image averaging is making smartphones quite good at low light anyhow). In fact multiple exposure averaging makes single exposure dynamic range a moot advantage in some regards. Really until someone runs better tests where one sensor is forced to exposed at the settings of the other, and we pixel peep the highlights and the shadows in each image, there is not much more to talk about.