When shooting photos, the camera offers a wide dynamic range while maintaining pleasant contrast. Combined with the second-best texture/noise compromise that we have seen to date, this allows for excellent detail capture in both portrait and landscape images. The autofocus with its well-implemented zero shutter lag makes the Honor a good pick for action images as images are captured pretty much instantaneously when the shutter is triggered. In addition, moving subjects are free of motion blur, although some slight fusion artifacts can be visible.
ZenFone 6 – Unboxing and example photos from the camera
The Honor is also one of the best phones we have tested to date for zooming in or out. With its 11mm equivalent ultra-wide camera, it offers the widest field of view of any camera we have tested to date. Despite the wide lens, distortion and anamorphosis are well under control, making the device a good pick for wide-angle portraits. In addition, the camera captures better detail than the competition at 16mm, which is the default ultra-wide setting. This is achieved by fusing image data from the ultra-wide and primary cameras. On the downside, some fusion artifacts in the shape of a local loss of detail can sometimes become noticeable. But target exposure and color rendering are usually accurate. White balance is pleasant in all conditions.
The Honor Magic4 Ultimate delivers very high contrast entropy values in all test conditions. Contrast entropy is a measurement of the quantity of information (in terms of levels of gray) contained in a given part of the scene. When shooting handheld, the Honor usually manages to capture more information in areas near saturation than its rivals. Performance is consistent across all conditions, even where the comparison cameras struggle, for example, 100 lux TL84 with a brightness difference of EV7.
The Honor Magic4 Ultimate uses Zero Shutter Lag (ZSL) technology, which allows for image capture exactly at the same time the shutter is triggered, without any delay. To achieve this, images are continuously buffered while the camera app is open. The autofocus is very consistent in all conditions. This graph shows autofocus-reaction performance in challenging low light. The closer together the points are, the more stable the autofocus. The farther apart the points are from one another indicates autofocus instability. The Honor does very well, with a short focus delay and high acutance in all shots. The comparison devices are a little more unstable in terms of both delay (Huawei P50 Pro) and acutance (Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra).
In these tests, we analyze the performance of the ultra-wide camera at several focal lengths from 12 to 20 mm. We look at all image quality attributes, but we pay particular attention to such artifacts as chromatic aberrations, lens softness, and distortion.
At short range, tele detail is very high at the center of the frame. To achieve this, the camera captures this kind of image using its tele camera and then fills the outer areas of the frame with image data from the primary camera. In these outer areas, a noticeable drop in detail can be observed. For short-range tele shots, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra is, therefore, a better choice.
The ROG Phone 6/6 Pro is poised to do the same, going by specs alone. While the ROG Phone 5 and 5s pretty much carried forward the camera setup from the ROG Phone 3, the ROG Phone 6/6 Pro has a brand new sensor for its main snapper. It is now based on the 50MP Sony IMX766. A 40% larger sensor than last year. It is a fairly-popular Quad Bayer sensor used by a number of BBK devices like Oppo, vivo and OnePlus models. It has a 1/1.56" size with 1.0µm individual pixels. It replaces the older 64MP IMX686, which still actually appears in some configuration references on the ROG Phone 6/6 Pro, likely as a leftover attribute.
Nothing too glamorous or spectacular. There is no OIS, Laser AF and just a simple one-LED flash setup. Even so, the sensor itself is solid. Plus, Asus also has a nifty habit of making the most out of the hardware at its disposal. In this case, the excellent Spectra triple 18-bit CV-ISP has allowed an impressive feature set out of an otherwise modest camera. Especially in the video capture department, where the ROG Phone 6/6 Pro has impressive 3-axis EIS, all the way up to 8K@24fps resolution, 120fps slow-motion at 4K, as well as HDR video capture and even a full-featured Pro video capture mode. Mind you, this is not exactly new coming from the ROG Phone 5 and even the ROG Phone 3. Still, even though the feature set is more or less carried forward, Asus has made continued improvements to quality behind the scenes.
Complementing the main 50MP camera, the ROG Phone 6/6 Pro has a rather unremarkable 13MP ultrawide (OmniVision OV13B, as reported by the OS). It has a 125-degree field of view. Last and probably least - a 5MP macro, f/2.0 camera. As per our hardware-digging efforts, it actually uses an OmniVision OV8856 sensor, which has a native resolution of 8MP. It acts as a dedicated macro shooter, which is arguably, a bit better than simply having a depth sensor. The ultrawide and macro cameras are carried over from the ROG Phone 5/5s and are not too dissimilar from those on the ROG Phone 3 either. Not that we have anything against such a practice.
Let's kick things off with the main 50MP camera. It captures photos in 12.5MP by default, and these look great overall. They are bright and clean with plenty of detail and nice, mostly true-to-life colors.
Another thing the ROG Phone 6/6 Pro does a generally excellent job of are portrait shots. These are also captured from the main camera at 12.5MP with excellent subject detection and separation and great and convincing bokeh.
The 5MP macro camera captures surprisingly clean and usable photos. You can get really close to your subject, thanks to a rather liberal focal plane. Detail is plenty, colors look great. Realistically, we can't ask for anything more.
Portraits from the selfie camera live up to expectations as well. The overall quality is the same as far as the subject is concerned. Detection and separation are great, even if not perfect, and the bokeh quality is really high and convincing.
The ROG Phone 6/6 Pro has an automatic night mode, and it kicks in way more often and more aggressively for the ultrawide camera. Its effects are clearly visible since, even at first glance, ultrawide shots look noticeably brighter than those from the main camera. Shadows are obviously boosted, and HDR stacking is also helping contain light sources better. To be clear, the ultrawide is still merely ok in low-light and struggles quite a bit.
4K low-light video from the main camera looks great. Detail is plenty, noise is low, and colors look natural. The ROG Phone 6/6 Pro does struggle with light sources a bit, but other than that a great showing overall.
A Pro mode is available too and you get to control all three cameras from here. Shutter speed can be set in the 1/10000s to 32s range (up to 16s on the telephoto), the ISO range is 25 to 3200 (1600 on the telephoto). Exposure compensation can be added in 1/3EV increments in the -2EV to +2EV range, white balance can be set by light temperature with icons denoting common light sources, and you can use a slider to focus manually, though there's no focus peaking. As far as aids go, a tiny histogram is available as well as a digital level.
It's worth reiterating here that there's one annoying bit about the camera and its operation without touch input - we touched upon it in connection with the Smart key. While a double press on the Smart key can be set to launch the camera, doing so from a locked phone requires you to unlock it first before being able to take a picture. That's not really a shortcut, is it?
With the autofocusing capability of the Zenfone 7's ultra wide you get to shoot close-ups with subjects down to 4cm from the camera, as well as emphasize and contextualize nearby subjects. That last bit is among the main uses of ultra wide lenses in principle, yet you don't get it with fixed focus ultra wides that leave near subjects blurry.
So, plain Photo mode photos out of both the main camera and the ultra wide are soft, and have limited dynamic range. The ones out of the main cam are also quite noisy, while on the ultra wide one more aggressive noise reduction has smoothed that out too, alongside the detail.
There's no Night mode of any sort on the telephoto camera on the Zenfone 7. Its photos are decent and can be used in a pinch, as long as you don't look at them at pixel level magnification where they do show softness and noise. It's worth noting here that it could pay off to check for focus before leaving the scene, as the tele tends to hunt in dim light.
The term "brick" has also expanded beyond smartphones to include most non-working consumer electronics, including a game console, router, or other device, that, due to a serious misconfiguration, corrupted firmware, or a hardware problem, can no longer function, hence, is as technologically useful as a brick.[6] The term derives from the vaguely cuboid shape of many electronic devices (and their detachable power supplies) and the suggestion that the device can function only as a lifeless, square object, paperweight or doorstop. This term is commonly used as a verb. For example, "I bricked my MP3 player when I tried to modify its firmware." It can also be used as a noun, for example, "If it's corrupted and you apply using fastboot, your device is a brick." In the common usage of the term, "bricking" suggests that the damage is so serious as to have rendered the device permanently unusable.[7]
Nokia E7, released in 2011 and F(x)tec Pro 1, released in 2019 are notable examples of smartphone sliders as they bring out the keyboard from the side and tilt the display so they reminisce a laptop.[31]
Today, manufacturers are trying to develop bezel-less smartphones; the greatest difficulty being the presence of front-facing cameras and face recognition sensors. While most brands expand display real-estate, some depart from that approach, returning to the slider form factor;[32] like the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3,[33][34] Huawei Honor Magic 2[35][36] and Lenovo Z5 Pro.[37] 2ff7e9595c
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