I dont think LX7 lose to Note5 optics. Keep in mind though, LX7 is what considered a prosumer camera. Most of the time, Samsung tend to overly aggressive with their sharpness setting which is why it appear to be sharp most of the time. Whereas the LX7 being a prosumer camera had to be realistic with their image processing and retain closer to real life situation. Its an unfortunate situation. Sometimes being better means you have to live with less image processing and have a softer image as a result. It is indeed a very thin line between getting it right and getting it horribly wrong. Unless you pixel peep, most of the time, people will be able to live with their phone camera output.