BARCELONA—Chalk one up for math. While the Samsung Galaxy S10 has a Bright Night mode, it doesn't compare with the Google Pixel 3's dazzling Night Sight mode, which has changed low-light smartphone photography. We tested the feature ahead of Mobile World Congress.

The difference appears to be in software. Google's Night Sight captures several images and combines them using software to create a surprisingly bright image with very little light. Samsung told us that its own Bright Night leans primarily on the S10's dual-aperture optics, and it looks like that just can't pull as much detail out of an image as Night Sight can.

Night Sight can also improve images taken with the front camera, which Bright Night can't do.

We compared the Galaxy S9+, the Galaxy S10, and the Google Pixel 3 here. The night modes only affect pictures taken in the lowest light. In pretty low light, like at night with streetlights or at a restaurant, all three phones do quite well. Take a look at these shots (all of the images are in the order of Pixel 3, then Galaxy S9+, then Galaxy S10+):



Galaxy S9, Galaxy S10, and Pixel 3 Food Shot





Turn the light down to the point where you can barely see, and Night Sight pulls ahead. These shots of a stairwell and my apartment were done in extreme low light—in person, I could hardly see the pattern on the stairwell, myself. (Once again, the order is Pixel 3, Galaxy S9, Galaxy S10.)

Pixel 3, Galaxy S9, and Galaxy S10 Night Modes



Finally, here are some low-light selfies. As you can see, Night Sight makes a huge difference if you're taking photos of yourself in the dark.

As we saw in our original Night Sight comparison, it also beats Apple's phones handily. In our earlier test, we found that the Galaxy Note 9 (which has the same camera as the S9+) does better in very low light than the iPhone XS Max does.

The Galaxy S10+ has an excellent camera. The S9+ does, too. But when we saw demos of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor powering the new S10+, Qualcomm promised radical new low-light modes. It looks like Samsung hasn't taken Qualcomm up on that offer.

We're still in the process of testing the Galaxy S10+. So far it performs even better than the Snapdragon 855 reference device we tested last month. Stay tuned for further findings and a full review.

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