Tantalizing update brings dedicated night mode to the Samsung Galaxy S9 range

The Samsung Galaxy S10 phones debuted a few months ago with impressive camera setups. The phones shipped with a night mode feature—a trend that began last year with the Huawei P20 Pro—that was, sadly, only triggered automatically by the AI. About a month ago, Samsung sent out an update to the phones that made the feature a dedicated mode of its own, and the S9 phones are also getting that update.

Samsung's night mode is generally branded as Bright Night, and is now available on the Galaxy S9 and S9+. According to the source report, the feature works on the S9 phones as well as it does on the S10 devices. That makes sense, of course, since the main sensors on the S9 and S10 phones are identical. Going by the sample images, however, the S10 manages to illuminate the scene better. The S9 handles shadows a lot better, though, so it's mostly a matter of personal taste.

That said, Samsung's night mode is still far from the best in the industry. It pales in comparison to Google's Night Sight and Huawei's Night Mode. However, it does offer a significant improvement over the auto mode in low-light conditions. It's not much, but it's honest work.

We expect the Galaxy Note 9 to get the same update in the coming weeks. The real surprise here would be the S8 phones getting the update, since they're two years old at this point and have significantly different camera hardware.