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Every year it seems, smartphones push the mobile photography game further and further. While dual camera systems aren’t anything new to smartphones, particularly Android-powered smartphones, the once-dead trend has now made a powerful resurgence in nearly every 2017 flagship. This combined with smaller and smaller bezels around the phone is creating a unique opportunity for manufacturers to create devices that can truly see the world around them and recreate it right in the palm of your hand. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8 features the largest display on any flagship phone from the company, and at 6.3-inches it’s certainly one of the largest displays on any phone yet.
While the display was more of the defining feature of the Galaxy S8, launched just a few months ago, Samsung quickly moved toward enhancing the camera experience to fit in with what’s expected from a 2017 flagship. This new dual camera system is utilized in only a handful of ways, but those ways are meaningful to say the least. Live Focus is a new mode that takes photos from both cameras on the back at the same time, and allows you to not only save each of these photos, but to utilize a depth-of-field technique to enhance or lessen the background blur that helps make foreground subjects stand out. This effect is commonly referred to as bokeh, and it truly helps make photos of subjects look like they were taken from a professional camera experience, not just a phone.
The 2X optical zoom on that secondary sensor might be more of your style though, especially in situations where zoom detail is needed. Traditionally one of the weakest points on Samsung’s camera experience, this new 2x optical zoom brings a whole new level of detail to shots, and even doubles as a way to get some truly gorgeous portraits of people, or just to bring out extra detail in a close-up subject. Samsung has once again tweaked the software experience for its camera too, bringing some more friendly labeling to the table, and adding a few more stickers and masks to play with in either regular or selfie modes. Is this the king of mobile photography? Find out in our video below!