Yesterday, there was a report stating that Samsung is shipping some units of the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge with its homegrown ISOCELL camera sensor instead of the Sony IMX240. The report was true as we found out that one of the Galaxy S6 edge unit that we own had an ISOCELL camera sensor. The reason behind this could be the shortage of Sony sensors, forcing Samsung to use its own sensor. By now, you would be wondering whether the final image quality out of the ISOCELL sensor is similar to the IMX240 or inferior to it.

Luckily we got a chance to play around with both sensors, and here we’ve captured some images in varying lighting conditions. All these images (except the last pair, which were captured with HDR set to be always on) were clicked in the Auto Mode to replicate how a normal consumer generally takes photos.

After a first glance, we think that the images shot using the IMX240 display vibrant and warmer colors than the ones clicked using the ISOCELL sensor. Also, the images captured using the Sony sensor appear to have more depth in them. In bright conditions, the IMX240 captured original colors, but it was the opposite otherwise – the ISOCELL sensor captured truer-to-life colors during low-light conditions. We’ve also thrown in 1:1 100 percent crops of images below for all the pixel-peepers out there to analyse. Also, the file size of images shot with the IMX240 was higher than those captured using the ISOCELL sensor.

ISOCELL

IMX240

ISOCELL

IMX240

ISOCELL

IMX240

ISOCELL

IMX240

ISOCELL

IMX240

ISOCELL – HDR On

IMX240 – HDR On

Generally, a consumer would expect to have the same out-of-the-box experience from the product as their friend’s, but it is not true in this case. Is it Samsung’s fault that it couldn’t manage to obtain enough camera sensors from Sony, or is it Sony’s fault because they weren’t able to produce the required amount?

In the end, it’s the consumers that are affected, as they are getting varying experiences. If Henry and John buy the same car from Honda, they need to perform exactly the same. It shouldn’t be that one of the cars has a Fiat engine which has the same amount of horsepower but drives slower by 30 miles an hour.

We’ve asked for a statement about this from Samsung Benelux, and we will update this post once we get a response. As to which camera sensor is better, we will let you be the judge. What do you think? Fire off your thoughts in the comments section below.

Official statement Samsung Benelux.

“The Galaxy S6 and S6 edge utilize camera sensors from several different vendors. Like all of the technology used in our products, they meet our strict global quality and performance standards.”

