Camera - TBD - Firmware Update Promised

When we first covered the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders announcement a few weeks ago, we were under the impression that the phone was full ASUS product – as in Qualcomm had no involvement of the development of the phone. After we received a review unit from Qualcomm, the company had reached out to warn us that there was an upcoming firmware update towards end of August, which had “substantial” changes to the way the camera performed.

This was rather confusing, as it was worded that Qualcomm had done the optimisations – which is actually indeed what happened, and goes against our initial impression of the collaboration between the companies. In reaching out for clarification, a Qualcomm spokesperson explained the following differences to ASUS’s cameras, as well as what we are supposed to see in the upcoming major upgrade:

Regarding the camera update, the difference between this phone and a typical ASUS handset for camera are:

  • This handset uses Qualcomm’s latest camera SW build including baseline Qualcomm features for MFNR, MCTF, EIS, HDR, etc.
  • This handset has different component choices (sensors and lenses) vs. a typical ASUS handset
  • This handset has SW features integrated from specific ISV partners, such as ArcSoft and Almalense
  • This handset was tuned for best IQ by Qualcomm’s camera team
  • This handset has ToF Laser for best lowlight autofocus accuracy 

Here are the differences between the build you have now and the MR1.6 OTA updates coming later this month, which the DXOMARK score is based on:

  • OTA will have upgraded camera tuning which will boost camera performance to a score of 133 (highest in the US)
  • OTA will provide best autofocus experience, better texture/noise performance, and improved night shot quality
  • OTA will enable Video Super Resolution
  • OTA will add full resolution mode to improve snapshot performance  
  • OTA will add Cascaded Noise Reduction in video mode for cleaner video capture
  • OTA fully optimizes:
    • UW/Tele HDR– tone/artifact
    • Low light and night modes– noise/brightness and stability
    • Multi-frame noise reduction - snapshot noise reduction
    • HDR snapshot – tone and stability
    • Ultra wide camera – HDR will be better in viewfinder for this camera

Qualcomm goes further to explain that they’ve worked with DXOMark to evaluate the new camera software, and claim to have received a score of 133, the “highest in the US” (probably referencing against the S21 Ultra and OP9Pro's 123-124).

Unfortunately, we did not have access to this new firmware update, and thus weren’t able to test the performance of the camera. For what it’s worth, the camera performance out-of-box seemed generally in line with that of other ASUS phones as well as the ROG Phone 5, aside from obvious differences such as OIS.

Due to the exceptional claims made by Qualcomm for this upcoming firmware and camera update, I deemed it pointless to try to review the current camera performance of the SSI if it’s supposed to be vastly revamped and changed within a few weeks.

What is however interesting in talking to Qualcomm, is that the improvements for this touted firmware update will be exclusive to the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders – meaning it will not see the improvements translate to other ASUS phones such as the ROG Phone 5. This is actually a very important, and probably the only positive differentiation for the SSI over other ASUS alternatives. It’s also quite of a messy situation for ASUS if we do end up with the phone vastly outperforming the Zenfones/ROG Phones in the camera department.

We’ll be revisiting the topic in a few weeks once we have access to the new update. For this reason, this article is a “preview”, rather than a full review.

Battery Life - A Horrible Downgrade Audio - MW08S ANC Earbuds in the Package
Comments Locked

43 Comments

View All Comments

  • shabby - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Lol at the battery life, utter junk
  • Great_Scott - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    It's a worse phone for more money. Which is surprisingly common.
  • tom-fox-29 - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link

    Right
  • jamesb2147 - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Savage.

    This is why I read AnandTech!
  • Moizy - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    +1
  • warreo - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    +2. I love Andrei's writing. He is not always right, and he can be overly defensive/confrontational, but I respect that he takes a view and makes the effort to be data driven instead of the "always neutral, don't write anything negative" stuff that is the norm everywhere else. At least he advances the discussion even if you disagree with him.
  • Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, August 18, 2021 - link

    As you say I write based on data or facts, so I'd like to hear what you say I'm not "right" on.
  • melgross - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    It’s a wonder how companies can put a device out like this. Did they even try it out?

    We’ll have to see what the camera software updates bring, but if anyone is actually interested in this, I can only tell them to not buy something on promises of future upgrades. That’s something this site also says. Maybe those updates will result in a seriously improved camera system, but maybe not. I would have preferred at least a preliminary testing suite to see if those updates do what Qualcomm claims. But since that wasn’t done, we won’t know.
  • BedfordTim - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    I wonder if it was meant to be a low volume subsidised device for them to experiment with, but someone in management failed to understand.
  • DanNeely - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Does "3x optical zoom, 80mm eq." mean an 27-80mm equivalent zoom, or 80-240mm equivalent zoom? The former would start the optical zoom at roughly the same point; but you'd be dropping from 64 to 8MP directly. The latter would start at roughly where the main sensor would be with just taking an 8MP area in the center of the sensor for a "zoom by crop" effect; so both interpretations seem plausible.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now