YouTube HDR playback arrives on the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Xperia XZ Premium

As far as looks are concerned, the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Sony Xperia XZ Premium could not be any more different from each other. Even with that difference, however, both devices feature HDR-capable displays, and you can now include YouTube as another app that takes advantage of their displays.

When viewing HDR content through YouTube on either device, you should now see HDR when you try to manually change the video resolution. Speaking of which, the maximum resolution currently sits at 1080p, even when playing 4K content. Even so, the content should still look nice and sharp on the Galaxy S8’s, Galaxy S8 Plus’, and Xperia XZ Premium’s displays.

As for whether HDR is worth having on phones, it is a bit of a toss-up. HDR content tends to be brighter with better contrast and a wider color gamut, all of which are pleasing to the eyes. However, because multiple phones use different HDR standards, things can get a bit confusing when it comes to support.

As usual with Google's rollouts of new functions inside its mobile apps or services, not everyone who has one of those handsets is currently seeing the HDR support added.

In order to tell if you're one of the lucky ones, you need to play a video that was actually shot in HDR, and then check the YouTube app's quality settings - basically, all of the resolution options should mention "HDR".

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