Having a night mode option in your smartphone’s built-in camera is not a rare feature anymore but some would say a necessity. The relatively new Samsung Galaxy S10 line launched with a Bright Night mode but it lacked several things to make it truly useful. Now the latest software update to the flagship bring you a separate (and improved) Night mode so you can take better photos not only during the night but whenever there are low light instances.
The Night mode feature is actually a spin-off of Bright Night. But now instead of letting the camera decide if it should take long exposure shots, you will be able to choose when to do so with this new mode. Bright Night was only automatically activated when it got really dark but now you can manually choose to do so when faced with low-light circumstances or when you feel like long exposure should benefit your shot.
However, the pictures that you take using either of the two options are still not comparable to the excellent low light power of competing devices like the Pixel phones or even Huawei’s P20 Pro or Mate 20 Pro. The photos taken on the Galaxy S10, when taken in low light situations are still a bit “noisy” and soft, as compared to the sharp pictures of the aforementioned devices. Hopefully, future software updates can improve this too.
The update for the Galaxy S10 seems to only be available in Switzerland for now but that means that it will be rolling out globally over the next few days. You may want to manually check if it’s already available for your device and you missed the notification. Go to your settings and Software update menu to check if there’s a new one available.
This April software update also comes with this month’s security patch, which Google and OEMs have promised to provide in order to give your device more protection. So if you don’t update your phone monthly for one reason or another, you might want to start doing so.