Galaxy Note 8 ties iPhone 8 Plus in camera tests

The iPhone 8 Plus’s reign^[1] as “the best smartphone camera” was a mighty short one. DxOMark, the testing outfit many look to for fair evaluations of cameras from DSLRs to phones, gave Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8 a 94^[2], tying the iPhone and in some ways exceeding it.

While its video is merely great and its background-blur algorithms unreliable, the Samsung gained on its competition with its outstanding detail and color in everyday settings and super-fast autofocus. Its zoom also outperformed the iPhone’s.

Low light photos also showed less noise and more detail than its rivals, though HDR mode tended to clip highlights and highly backlit subjects didn’t turn out well. But we all know better than to shoot in a dark room against a bright window, right?

Of course, a lot depends on what you want the camera for, whether you need this or that mode, and most importantly, whether you’d ever switch from iOS to Android or vice versa.

But with a class-leading camera and display^[3], the Note 8 is certainly a good bet if you’re deep into the mobile photography game. But with the Pixel 2^[4] right around the corner, you might want to hold onto your wallet for just a little longer....

There are five identical bags of gold, and each contains ten gold coins. However, one of the five bags contains fake gold. The real gold, fake gold, and five bags appear identical, except the coins of fake gold each weigh 1.1 ounces, and the real gold coins each weigh 1 ounce. You have an accurate digital scale and CAN USE IT ONLY ONCE.

How do you determine which bag contains the fake gold?

There is a straight-forward answer to this question, but let’s speculate on what happens when we involve politics and prejudice.

The European Politician: A Prime Minister Junker said, “When it becomes serious, you have to lie.” Forty ounces of gold is serious wealth, and we discourage using gold, so this is one of many times when lying is required. These gold coins are fakes and we are confiscating them. The supposed owner will be charged with several crimes.

The Dallas School Politician: We are planning to rename schools bearing the names of Confederate generals and leaders because the Confederate economy used slavery and slavery was bad. The Southerners also used gold for trade, so we are opposed to using gold as well.

The Chicago Politician: These gold coins symbolize the oppression of the masses and the unfair distribution of wealth across racial lines in America. As your public servant I am personally confiscating these coins so they will no longer remind my many supporters of racism and inequality.

The Swiss Gold Refiner: We’ll perform a simple and non-invasive test, return the fake gold to London, melt and refine the genuine gold into 99.99% purity and cast