[Music] Foreign 69 smartphone I first took a look at a Doogee smartphone last year the S63 Pro And I was mostly looking at it because The company has very high claims when it Comes to the camera performance so I was Interested in actually kind of putting That through the the paces of my typical Lens you know testing to see if it Actually would compare It didn't um did give you the the quick Summation of that although I did really Like the phone in other areas and so I Was interested in taking a look at this Newer phone because it has even higher Claims 108 megapixel AI triple camera on Here and what I found is very similar to What I found with the x63 that the Strengths that were there in the S63 They're certainly here in the s99 and Maybe even more so but some of those Same weaknesses remain though a few have Been corrected so let's dive in and take A look at that here today brief Summation of what we've got here is we Have an Android 12 based foam it has Eight gig of RAM it has 128 gig of Built-in ROM it has the ability to fast Charge with a USB type-c up to 33 watts And so and it also has a very large Capacity battery which leads to one of The great strengths for the particular Foam it has a 6000 mAh battery which
Just seems to go on if you're accustomed Is I am to typically using an iPhone the Battery seems to go on forever on these Doogie phones and I noticed that the Even larger capacity here in the s99 is Able to handle its higher processing Power and able to still deliver really Really fantastic battery life and so I What I have used these phones for a lot Where I think that they really Thrive is Actually on a job site doing a lot of Like on-site work maybe streaming a lot Of media to a Bluetooth speaker or Something similar like that or using it In a you know a Dusty rough environment Because it is similar to the s61 or S63 Whatever it is in the s99 in that it's It has a lot of the same things to where It almost feels like the phone itself Comes protected in a case you get used To iPhones that are so slim excuse me That are so slim and seem very very Fragile on the room whereas this feels Like a very tough uh phone but the basic Difference is that whereas with the Cheaper phone everything is basically Plastic here a lot of it seems to be Metal and so it does feel much more Upscale in terms of the basic feel Though that does come with a cost when It comes to weight on my scale this Weighs out at 320 grams and so it's not A lightweight device it is noticeably Heavier to pick it up more than 50 grams
Heavier than what the s61 was and so um You know it's a little bit larger but Mostly it's heavier because of the basic Materials but it is also extremely tough It has it can be submersed it's got an Ip68 and an ip69k rating and so it is Submersible up to 30 minutes in 1.5 Meters of water it is dust proof so it Worked very well as a work phone and a Very dusty environment including drywall Dust which if you've worked around that You know how Insidious it is in terms of Being destructive the drop proof rating Is even higher with this s99 instead of One and a half meters it is 1.8 meters And so this is a foam that is made to be Dropped in the way that the typical Phones that I used are not made to be Dropped and so if you're someone that Keeps breaking their phones you might Want to consider something like this It's not as pocketable maybe but it Certainly is tougher in and of itself I did notice that not only were the you Know the actual build here upgraded and The materials are very nice as you can See but it also was noticeably faster in Performance we have a helio g96 Octa-core processors here at 2.1 Gigahertz I noticed that Wi-Fi Performance was faster than that the Wi-Fi radio was able to get signal Faster though I will note this is still Not Wi-Fi six compatible unfortunately
It also has a slightly larger screen Rather than a six inch screen on the Last one I reviewed this has a 6.3 IPS Screen and the resolution is Considerably higher we have resolution At 2340 by 1080 pixels and so greater than Full HD resolution the screen itself is Corning Gorilla Glass which obviously Helps with fat toughness and ability to Drop it It for the price it obviously comes with A nice amount of built-in storage and it Also has the advantage of being Expandable in terms of its storage and You can expand it up to one terabyte Through dropping in a compact card there And so you have the ability to really Dramatically expand the amount of Onboard room that you have and I do find That you know for whatever reason with This phone as compared to my Apple Devices that it doesn't the battery Doesn't actually not the battery but the Storage doesn't tend to get eaten up as Much with just you know kind of the Random stuff that Apple tends to throw In there another thing that I've liked About both of these phones is uh for one Case in here the actual uh volume Buttons up and down they're nicer on This phone but what I've noted compared Again to my Apple devices is that There's more variability in the volume
Control I really like that because one Of my things is that if I wake up too Early in the morning I can kind of go Back to sleep if I listen to an audio Book but I want it to be at a very kind Of quiet level and so that it it you Know just allows me to relax and so it's Just enough to distract my mind from Racing for a few minutes and I'm back Off to sleep but being able to keep that Volume level both very low and then Obviously to take it up high when needed Is something that is very nice I also noted that I wasn't I one of the Things that I criticized on this one is I felt like the face recognition and the Um the touch for fingerprint recognition On the side that they just didn't work Nearly as well as what I was accustomed To they do definitely work better on the S99 and so I would call it very Comparable to what I'm seeing from more Expensive Apple devices as far as either The face recognition or the uh Fingerprint Um you know recognition on the side Which you know I was able to very Quickly set up and deal with there so Everything worked really really nice on That front and as far as the Functionality of the actual you know Actually using the phone it just works Better everything works faster in terms Of you can it's noticeably Superior to
This one in terms of the way that things Open and the amount of power have I also Noted that for whatever reason both of These tend to be more stable and playing Sometimes we play like with groups games Um you know say like psych for example Is one of the apps that we use where You're you know everybody has their own Device and they're you know doing trivia Or whatever and entering answers for Whatever reason sometimes the much more Expensive Apple devices won't work in That setting whereas these inexpensive Doogee ones do so you know take that for Whatever it's worth but functionally as A phone it tends to do a pretty good job You know calls are nice and clear Texting all of that works nicely it has The haptic feedback which is pretty Common in a lot of android devices and Less common in an Apple device all of Those things worked and on the camera Front I did know that it you know it Says it has phase detect autofocus I did Note that it does you do get the box of Face tracking and so you know that's a Visible thing that's happening seems to Work okay However some of these claims on the Camera front is where Things Fall Apart For me as a photographer 108 megapixels Which would exceed even you know say the Fujifilm gfx 100 medium format camera That ain't happening not even close
Um it has a 64 Mega or megapixel night Vision camera and then a 16 megapixel Wide angle and macro camera and then a 32 megapixel front-facing camera all of These claims by the way are severely Overstated and we're going to dive into The reason for that so let's take a Quick look at just a quick breakdown of Some of the actual image quality here And to see why those claims are Distorted so we'll start by taking a Look at what is my fundamental issue With the marketing here so first of all We'll take a quick look at a series of Images here now according to this Statistic we have a huge amount of Resolution that 102 megapixels we've got A image that is just massive 12 000 by Nearly 9 000 pixels and so you think oh That's that's incredible however if we Look at this image at a hundred percent Here we are going to find that it is a Severely over sharpened so if you look At it at just a pixel level you can see That it has just been upscaled and Upscaled to where you have basically Lost all relevant details so while it Might look reasonably okay at this kind Of level we can see that any kind of Artifact for example here you can see a Little bit of like bokeh back here you Can see just how that over Sharp has Really damaged everything so in reality Looking at this at something like a 25
Percent level is probably about as high As what you would want to go and so that Is just you know on my 4k monitor that's Just barely zooming in at all even if You look at it at a 50 level you can Just see all the artifacts from the over Sharpening and if we look at the actual Raw image and so being able to get raw Of course is awesome here but the raw Image betrays a lot of the truth first Of all it shows us what our actual Native resolution here and that native Resolution is around the 16 megapixel Range and so everything else beyond that And by the way you can look at this and You can tell this is the most natural Looking image here and if I were to Scale that up to 200 percent you know it Still looks better than what that jpeg Was but in reality we're working with Something that's more like a 400 percent And you can see here that you know we're Starting to see that over sharpening it Still doesn't look as bads what the jpeg Did at uh you know at the 400 Magnification but you can see why how They're getting to that figure and it's Just really a scaling thing to where You're taking a base image of about 16 Megapixels and then scaling it up to the 102 megapixels now what's unfortunate About all this is that I actually find That other than the white balance not Being great that the camera shooting in
Raw is actually fairly decent for a Phone camera you can see here that the Detail is quite good and as I pointed Out before the bokeh is not fantastic But it is a you know it's a phone camera Another example here more of a landscape Now we can see there are some flare Artifacts which we'll visit more in just A moment but we can see here that the Detail is you know it's pretty usable in This image and of course being able to Get a raw image means that you can do Some editing once again we see a little Bit of flare artifacts but if I look at The detail on the subject here without It being terribly over sharpened it Really looks fairly good another shot Here where the flare is a little less Obvious and in this case I can see the Chromatic aberrations aren't too bad That our contrast looks fairly good Overall a pretty nice looking image now Here's another great example here if we Look at the raw image here which I have You know kind of played with the white Balance to give it a little bit more of A polar look but we see that amount of Resolution there and so if we zoom into A pixel level you know the detail here Looks pretty good you can see all the Crisp little ice crystals being formed And it looks quite good if I look at the Accompanying jpeg image which of course Is at that very high resolution level of
You can just see that at 102 megapixels Which is just scaled up it is a it's a Mess it's just Halos and artifacts and Really looks pretty terrible and I'd Have to look at it at about a 33 Magnification level before you know That's basically the limit to what I Could go before it starts to look over Sharpened and even hear a little bit Over sharpen there here's another raw Image that I have cropped to a 69 and so You can see that after cropping you know There isn't a whole lot of uh you know Depth to go into there further but I Mean this is an image that you could Print and it would work just fine and Obviously it has produced a nice looking Image here's another shooting into the Sun and you can see some flare artifacts There but you can also see that it's a Fairly attractive image good contrast And there's enough ability there to edit It to produce a good looking shot now Out of the camera the white balance as Noted on the dngs is a little bit you Know wonky but as you can see here I was Able to do some serious processing to This image and actually get a great Looking image being able to bring back Some good Sky textures there and uh if You know if I zoom in here to a pixel Level uh the detail is good now on the Right I've just got like the 16 Megapixel result and so I don't love the
White balance here and you can see even On a 16 megapixel there's a little bit Of some over sharpening that uh kind of Smears a little bit of the detail but The actual raw image is is useful and I Like you know for a camera phone I like What I'm able to produce with it now Like a lot of recent iPhones it has this You know portrait mode that essentially Just Um you know it kind of creates a a fake Vocab I just highlighting the subject Itself and then blurring everything else Out it's not an effect that I Particularly love because you know as a Real photographer it just doesn't look Natural to me now one thing I will say For the onboard jpeg engine is that in Many cases it does produce a better out Of the camera a result than what you're Going to get like I said the um I I find That the white balance is just a little Bit weird on the the raw files and so You will have to process that but you Can see on the right side the jpeg has Produced a more credible result this is Also what they would consider their Macro mode and so it's not like a One-to-one type macro but you can see That up close it's producing you know Some decent images and it uses one of The cameras to allow for more of an up Close type type look and so anyway as a Byproduct it's able to produce a decent
Looking image up close so about bottom Line there is the base we're working With the same actual 16 megapixels of Resolution that I saw on this camera and And so it's just scaling and Unfortunately and over sampling and as a Byproduct it's it's basically unusable At those higher resolutions and their File size is much larger and so there's Literally no reason to do that so if you Buy the foam can take decent pictures Not great white balance but decent Pictures if you shoot at the lower Resolution levels but do not go into Those higher resolution levels there's Just no reason for it So I do appreciate the fact that you can Shoot raw here and so you do get a Little bit of flexibility for adjusting The images but you know beyond that it's Just it's just not worth playing with Some of the expanded capabilities there The other limitation here is that while Video performance is a little bit better Than the s61 pro we're still only Getting 2K video it was full HD on this But I also find that like much like the Higher resolutions of the photos the Video is over noticeably over sharpened And also it's not nearly well as Stabilized as say for example my current Phone that I'm using is the uh the 2020 IPhone SE 2. and it actually works quite Well in terms of stabilization and the
Video I can get from it also a negative Versus the s61 pro is that we have lost A headphone jack and so unfortunately You're you know stuck with a you know USBC to headphone dongle adapter if You're gonna you know do that so that's Kind of a pain because I really love That aspect of this and so I I actual Reason I held on to this I'm using it More as a media type device huge storage Has a headphone out Jack and this is a Step in the wrong direction in my Opinion on that Also right now another negative is that There is no 5G the limit seems to be 4G LTE as a limit and as noted previously No Wi-fi six and then also I I just Don't love that marketing you know Trying to you know it's pasted right on There 108 megapixel there's no 108 Megapixels here and it's only through Software you know scaling up that you're Getting anywhere near that so I just Find that kind of marketing to be a Little bit deceptive and so I'm not Crazy about that so in summation this Excels to me as a media device as Something with very long battery life The battery lives up to specification it Does seem to be very tough and I know After using the s61 and the s99 in these Very Um kind of rough and tumble Um settings and environments they do
Hold up as tough devices and so all of That is I think really really great the Camera claims are obviously overrated And some of the specs are outdated However you know it's also a pretty Decent value proposition right now it's About 350 dollars it is a lot of phone For that as far as the storage and the Specifications in the screen and Obviously that battery life and so it And if you're looking for something that Is rough for work to take onto a job Site or something similar I think that It is well worth consideration on that Front I hope this helps you out today Maybe a little bit different kind of Review but I'm going to do these Periodically because it's interesting And and I like to see what's actually Happening on what has become the largest Camera Market in the world which is the Cameras that are found on smartphones And so at least as far as this case We've got a long way to go to comparing To actual photography gear I'm Dustin Abbott if you look in the description Down below you can find not Nala but you Can find links to my buying links for This and further information on it also Links to follow myself or Craig on Social media to become a patron to sign Up for my newsletter and if you haven't Already please click that subscribe Button right here on YouTube thanks for
Watching have a great day and let the Light in [Music]
