Hi guys, I just bought a new phone, Samsung A50.
Been a long time Samsung user, actually I used my 5 years old cheap Samsung S4 mini until next week, and it still worked perfectly:) But in the end I just had to update it since some apps and GPS didn't worked that well anymore because of the old op system. So I made a quick research about what phone to get and I was mainly choosing between Samsung A9, A50 and iPhone 7. I chose A50 because of the most suitable size for me and the newest op system. I'm really happy how it looks and works overall, BUT I'm very unhappy with the camera/ picture quality. I didn't expected to be as good as A9, S9 or iPhone7 or Huaweys and thought it will not be a problem for me since I'm also using a proper photo camera for serious photos. But it turned out to be a serious problem when I can't even take photos that would look OK in Instagram, or print out as 10x15cm with acceptable quality.
Today I checked again all the updates of the phone and all the options that I can change inside the phone. Finally I downloaded the Open Camera app that lets you take bigger resolution photos and shoot better quality video. Nothing worked, it still looks unusable to me and unfortunately I can't also take it back to store since I already have few scratches on the unit.
If somebody has some secret hack how to improve the quality then please let me know or if Samsung is reading this and would like to give some personal help then they can write me to brandondisainib ( at ) gmail.com
Here are the screenshots from Photoshop where you can see that it shows just the 100% actual pixels size and isn't zoomed in more. It seems the phone just can't handle any texture that is a bit further away and it also adds some extreme sharpening effect that one can't turn off. The camera still works quite ok for close selfies or food bloggers:)
The very last thing, today I specially searched for some old photos from my cheap 5 years old Samsung S4 mini (the first screenshot), and it looks SO MUCH BETTER. I just can't understand how is this possible in 2019.
Please let me know if you have any advice besides checking the regular menus inside the phone.
A little update, to be fair.
In 3:4 and 3:4 H modes it does act LITTLE BIT better and does have a bigger resolution. But I randomly discovered that information from some forums, it was impossible to see that from my phone that the different crop modes actually also have different resolution/pixel qualities besides crops. Again on my old S4 mini it was clearly visible in the menus to select from smaller and bigger pixel values of the pictures.
So, with Full mode you will get: 4032x1860 px photo and with 3:4 mode will have 5760x4312 px.
The added number of pixels make it better indeed. I can't say I'm satsisfied and the weird textures are still here, but on 3:4 mode I will at least get most of my Instagram need covered I guess..
Some screenshot exaples again, taken from the same window. The previous ones were done with Full mode (4032x1860 px) and these are done with 3:4 mode(5760x4312 px). Again showing you only the actual pixels on Photoshop without any extra zoom in.
