Apple iPhone 6s Plus vs. Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+: Double positive

Low-light stills

The Apple iPhone 6s Plus has a dual-LED flash, which should give it an edge over the Galaxy S6 edge+, which packs a single LED. But for the first tests we forced the flash off - smartphone flashes are good at close range only and oftentimes it's all up to the camera sensor.

With OIS on, both cameras can afford to drop the shutter speed quite low, something that's good for static scenes and not so much for action shots. Here the iPhone 6s Plus went all the way down to 1/4s, but that allowed it to keep ISO at a low 125. The Galaxy S6 edge+ shot at 1/11s, but needed a higher ISO of 400.

Check the full resolution samples below.

iPhone (4:3, 12MP) and Galaxy (16:9, 16MP) low-light samples

The results are pretty clear - the iPhone 6s Plus produced a detailed image with low noise and good colors. The Galaxy S6 edge+ image was noisier and the white balance is a bit off. Both phones perform fairly consistently when it comes to photos. Again, slow shutter speeds don't work well if there's movement in the scene.

Now the flash test. We enabled the flash and the iPhone 6с Plus went up to 1/17s shutter speed, while keeping the ISO at 125. The Galaxy S6 edge+ again chose a faster shutter speed, 1/24s, and dropped the ISO to 200. Unfortunately the iPhone 6s Plus white balance is off and the image has a green tint.

Check the full resolution samples below.

Flash ON: The iPhone 6s Plus vs Galaxy S6 edge+

We'd expected the iPhone's dual-tone dual-LED flash to do better than the single-LED flash on the Galaxy S6 edge+, but we were wrong. The only thing the iPhone did better is to keep some of the detail in the background. The Galaxy's processing is much better, as is the resolved detail, white balance and color rendering. About 93% of our readers thought the same.

Those are the full-res samples.

Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ • Apple iPhone 6s Plus

Winner: Tie. The iPhone 6s Plus often messes the flash photos, but still does better when it comes to low-light scenery. On the other hand, even with a single-LED flash the Galaxy S6 edge+ will give you better images indoors.

Low-light video

The Apple iPhone 6s Plus can't pull the slow shutter speed trick in video and predictably quality suffers. This gives the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 a face-saving opportunity.

The iPhone videos are noticeably noisier (complete with color noise) and appear softer. The 1080p videos on the Galaxy S6 edge+ are even better with more detail, while the iPhone is quite behind with less detail, more noise and even compression artefacts.

Apple iPhone 6s Plus and Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ (2160p) in our video compare tool

Apple iPhone 6s Plus and Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ (1080p) in our video compare tool

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+. It outs better videos shot in the dark in both 2160p and 1080p resolutions.