Best Camera for High Contrast Scenes?

[persistentone]

My main complaint about cell phone cameras is they take terrible photos in high contrast lighting in full sun. The shadows are harsh and the highlights wash out completely. Which phones take the best photos in high contrast scenes? I am guessing this will require some form of HDR to process out the highlights and try to grab more information from the shadows. How does the Samsung S9 do in this area?

 

[persistentone]

Bumping this thread. No one has any opinion about which Android phone camera gives the best photos in high contrast mid-day lighting?

 

[mikedt]

I think you'd use HDR for this situation, so I think most decent phones should be aright, like Samsung, Huawei, Oppo, etc.

 

[Hadron]

The auto hdr on the pixels also does a pretty good job. I've seen good results from recent HTC flagships too

HDR is certainly the only solution here. These itty bitty sensors have limited dynamic ranges, though there are plenty of scenes where even an slr struggles with a single exposure.

I've never used an S9 so couldn't tell you anything you couldn't find in reviews. Look for real world photos, ideally taken at the same time with different phones - AnandTech are very slow writing reviews, but often do include just this in them.