Did you know the Samsung Galaxy S7 has Live Photos, too? [VIDEO]
Samsung talked about a lot of new features on the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge during their Mobile World Congress press event earlier this week, but as they often do they left a lot of interesting bits for everyone else to figure out for themselves. We’ve been spending some quality time with the device to see everything it has to offer, and it hides one very cool feature we didn’t know existed: Motion Photos!
Motion Photos — which is tucked away as an afterthought in the camera settings menu — is not unlike Apple’s Live Photos feature on their latest iPhones. The idea is that when you capture a photo, the camera will also record the few seconds of video before and after the photo was taken. This lets you get a neat look at what was going on immediately surrounding the moments when you took the picture.
When looking back at the Motion Photo, Samsung also gives you the option of pausing the video at any point to take a still photo in case there was a different face or moment you prefer to have in photo form. The only problem with this particular feature is that the resulting photo is just 960×720 (the original image retains its high quality) so you should only use it if there’s a different shot that you just absolutely have to have.
Another unfortunate aspect of the feature is that sharing the photo with someone else will only result in the original photo being sent. You can’t upload it to the web as a GIF or anything of the sort. It’s great if the people you’re sharing photos with are near you, but that’s it.
Samsung probably refrained from making a big deal about the feature because people were likely to call them copycats, but that’s no matter — we know now. Be sure to keep it in mind when you get your phone March 11th.