Guys, you are never going to believe what happened to me last evening! As I was walking the pup, a blindingly bright beam of light shot down from the sky. Then a magical creature – half griffin, half centaur – descended and placed a gilded box in my hands. "Use it wisely", it said. In the box was a Samsung Galaxy Note 7, along with its charging cable and accessories. I was on the verge of giving it back because it wasn't the Coral Blue model, but then I realized that even a Silver Note 7 would do if I wanted to do a camera comparison.

Okay, I might have made up the entire story, but the part about the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was legit. There's already a unit in residence at the office, and we've been playing with it for the past week or so. During that time, we put the phone through our battery test, we ran a set of benchmarks on it, and we measured the various quality aspects of its display. You know, the usual stuff. We also shot a bunch of photos to compare its camera against those of 5 other high-ends.

For this demonstration of photographic prowess, we've chosen to pit the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 against the Galaxy S7 edge, the iPhone 6s Plus, the HTC 10, the LG G5, and the OnePlus 3.

Looking at specs alone, several peculiarities stand out right away. One is that the cameras on the Galaxy Note 7 and S7 edge are practically identical, meaning that their photos should look more or less the same. Another is that the two have the widest apertures – F1.7 – which should prove beneficial in low-light situations. The HTC 10, on the other hand, has the largest sensor and pixels, which is always a good thing. Then there are the LG G5 and the OnePlus 3, both of which pack more megapixels than the rest of the gang. Indeed, this camera comparison will be fun!

Before we proceed, however, we must make one thing clear. We decided to leave the phones' HDR feature on Auto for this camera comparison instead of manually turning it off. The reason is simple – that's how all phones come pre-configured out of the box, and that's how most people will end up using them.

So what do you guys think about the smartphone cameras?

› See More: Best smartphone cameras compared: Galaxy Note 7 vs iPhone 6s Plus, Galaxy S7 edge, HTC 10, LG G5, On