
Pixel smartphone camera review: At the top - Simpliplant
https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Pixel-smartphone-camera-review-At-the-top
======
Ambroos
I just can't help but notice all phone cameras right now are incredibly close
in quality, and the differences don't really matter anymore. The software
experience has become the only important thing.

There's an easy explanation for it too. Pretty much every single high-end
phone released in the last two years uses a Sony sensor. They completely
dominate the smartphone sensor market right now.

~~~
arkitaip
Software is key and one of the selling point of Google made phones, like the
Nexus 4, was the promise of a lightweight android installation with minimal
apps. On my Nexus 4, this is no longer the case as you cannot remove Google's
apps and they frequently require updates [1]. Add the fact that the really
cool new Android features, e.g. Google Now, are poorly supported outside the
US, and I'm not sure my next phone will be a Google phone.

[1] Current list of these unremovable apps on my Nexus 4: Google Docs, Google
Calendar, Google Spreadsheets, Google Presentations, Cloud Print, E-mail,
Google Now, Google Drive, Google Earth, Google Indic Keyboard, Google Keep,
Google News & Weather, Google Play Books, Google Play Movies, Google Play
Music, Google Play Games, Google Play News kiosk, Google street view, Google
talkback, Google text to speech, Google+, Hangouts, Google Wifi connectivity,
Youtube.

~~~
DashRattlesnake
> On my Nexus 4, this is no longer the case as you cannot remove Google's apps
> and they frequently require updates

While I don't think you can properly "uninstall" Google+ and Hangouts, you can
"disable" them, which makes them inaccessible. I don't think you get updates
pushed for disabled apps, either.

~~~
DiabloD3
You don't, and it also offers to uninstall updates when disabling built in
apps.

It also stops their services, and whatnot. It wastes room inside of the ROM
partition, but not inside of the user data partition.

------
geodel
I have no doubt about quality of camera. I somehow can not shake off this
feeling, that despite top of the line components and Google software, the
iPhone comparable pricing will limit its market to very small size.

The only successful hardware by Google is chromecast which is very cheap to
buy. So ~$650 price of phone despite having best camera does not seem
attractive enough. It does not have cutting edge custom components like e.g.
TPU etc which I wonder would make its price lot more palatable.

~~~
Gracana
I'd be hesitant to buy anything from Google again.. I had a nexus 7 tablet and
they killed it in an update. At least with an iPhone, it'll be supported for a
few years.

~~~
t4nkd
"Supported" \-- I'm not sure if you've ever tried to use a last-gen iPhone
device with the latest iOS release, but, every device I've ever owned was
sketchy at best after the 1st hardware release, and completely unusable as of
the 2nd. In my experience, it didn't matter if I upgraded to the S or full
version model, this problem happened from 3->4, 4->5, and 5->6\. I expect my
wife, who is still an Apple user, to be asking me for the iPhone 7 before the
year end because her phone is "a slow piece of shit".

~~~
pazra
Complete hyperbole. I'm using an iPhone 5S with iOS 10 and it seems just as
fast as the day I bought it.

~~~
wanda
I have the same to say even for the iPhone 5, which I'd been using for several
years and was recently a delight to use with iOS10.

I actually just bought myself an iPhone 5s to replace it because the iPhone
5's battery life finally became unusably short after many years, but I didn't
want a big phone to replace it. My 5s is also performing very well with iOS10.

My 5s is a second-hand refurb, markedly cheaper than the SE, which I was
reluctant to buy after several of my acquaintances complained of the device
expiring days after purchase.

My comparably old Android phone won't even allow a software update and is
still on Android 4. My partner prefers Android and has a Moto G (and has a
tendency to drop phones hence why I suggested something cheap to replace) and
it also won't update to the latest Android version.

So while the Pixel might be the shiniest, I would be reluctant to invest in
something which will not have the _effective_ lifespan of an iPhone.

I really wish Google would make a great Android phone so I could have better
integration with my Chromebook and G-Suite. Android phones can be used to
unlock Chromebooks in lieu of password entry, which would be a cool feature. I
use G-Suite for my business so it would be better for that too. I've never
owned a Mac computer and I've little loyalty to any company. The iPhone 5s was
simply the apex in terms of phone-to-pocket-size/toughness/tactility/features
(for me personally).

~~~
oarsinsync
> the SE, which I was reluctant to buy after several of my acquaintances
> complained of the device expiring days after purchase

As a counter point, myself and 2 friends all have the SE, and we all love it.
iPhone 5 form factor, better battery life and equal performance to the iPhone
6s made it the winning choice for all 3 of us.

2 of us have had it since launch day, no regrets.

~~~
wanda
Of course it works well for many buyers. In my mind, it was still £300 more
than I paid for my 5s and I had no further demands of the iPhone 5 besides a
longer passcode.

------
Fricken
One of the things not mentioned in the article is the support from Google
photos. Storage space is now unlimited, and files are uploaded full res, which
they didn't do before. If you take a lot of pictures, this makes life so easy.
Plus the image search- you can find that picture of a dog catching a frisbee
you took 6 months ago just by asking. Everyone seems to be burnt out on novel
new technology, but this is amazing to me.

The camera's performance is impressive, but to me Google Photos is the biggest
differentiator.

~~~
twerkmonsta
Google Photos is available for iOS as well, so not really a differentiation.

~~~
Fricken
Full res is exclusive to Pixel.

~~~
mahyarm
Google's original 'unlimited' was 16MP, and the pixel makes 12MP images, so
wouldn't it be within the original limit by default.

If the pixel makes 4K videos, then that would be over the original unlimited
limit.

------
VeejayRampay
Will this phone be discontinued and unsupported after two years like other
Google phones though? I've owned a Nexus 4, a Nexus 5 and now a 5X, I think
they're very good phones, but the fact that the Nexus 5 I bought 2 years ago
won't ever see the light of Nougat is extremely annoying. I wish Google at
least pretended to care about their older lines of phones (which are not cheap
phones either, the Nexus 5 cost me about 500 euros when I bought it).

~~~
jhasse
I would rather worry about the non-replaceable battery and the missing microSD
card slot.

You can upgrade a 3.5 year old Galaxy S4 to over 128 GB storage (~35 € for a
microSD card) and a fresh battery (~10 € for a new one). And with custom ROMs
you can also run Nougat (I'm personally still running Marshmallow on mine
though).

~~~
heywire
Unfortunately there are some models of the S4 which cannot run a custom rom
(AT&T model, for example).

~~~
jhasse
This one?
[http://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=jflteatt](http://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=jflteatt)

Luckily I'm from Germany and we have the international version (with a
Qualcomm SoC).

But it's true that you have to be careful which phone you buy if you want to
run a custom ROM. For example there are several "Value Editions" of Samsung's
phones which can't be rooted.

~~~
heywire
Yes, that's the one. Unfortunately around the time of the introduction of the
Android 5 update on that handset, they also locked down the bootloader. As far
as I'm aware (and a quick search of the XDA forums), it seems that it will
probably never be unlocked. Such a shame because it is a great phone being
left behind.

~~~
jhasse
Ah I see :/

Btw: You can officially unlock the bootloader of some of LG's phones, see
[http://developer.lge.com/resource/mobile/RetrieveBootloader....](http://developer.lge.com/resource/mobile/RetrieveBootloader.dev?categoryTypeCode=ANRS)

~~~
voltagex_
It worries me that the unlocking of many phones relies on manufacturer
websites that might not be there one day. Hell, even the Xiaomi Mi4c required
unlocking with "identity verification" via SMS.

~~~
jhasse
What's the alternative though? We probably don't want the phones to be
unlocked from the start for security reasons.

~~~
voltagex_
The Nexus approach - fastboot oem unlock, maybe controlled via a software
switch in the OS.

------
Nursie
I know this is slightly OT on this topic as it's about cameras but...

I'm genuinely not sure what to do now. My Nexus 6 has a crack in its screen,
which is expensive to replace, so I was looking at a new phone. Google were
supposed (dammit), supposed to release a new phone with cutting edge software,
almost-flagship hardware and at a mid-market price. Instead they've gone
straight for the high end of the market, and they've made the screens smaller,
and not included wireless charging, something I've grown to like a lot.

So now my choices seem to be a galaxy note 7 (I prefer vanilla android), or...
That's about it for phones with a good size, good res display that support QI.
Without QI there's the P9 Plus and Oneplus 3, but both have comparatively low
res screens. The moto Z has no QI, the LG V20 hasn't surfaced yet... Is there
another phablet that can tick all the boxes?

~~~
TheCapn
I'm in the same boat as you with my Nexus 5. I was excited for the Pixel but
at $1,000 CAD for the 32GB that does nothing particularly special I cancelled
my pre-order.

What my current plan of action is to find something of last-gen and ride it
out for another year. I'm okay spending $300-$400 on something that I'll
probably flash a custom ROM into and recycle in a year's time when another
round of flagships are announced. Unless there's some segment of the market
that's eating the Pixel up the general reception I've been seeing hopefully
clues Google into what people were looking for (Nexus iteration)

~~~
gegtik
I've been hanging onto a samsung s4 loaner waiting for the pixel reveal. at
CDN$1200 for the flagship, I have to balk.

The oneplus 3 is less than half the price. I can have a very good phone for
$520 and save the "leftover" money to purchase the OP5 in 2018 which will
probably trump the XL.

I think Google's following this strategy to show they're just as valuable as
apple from a mobile device perspective, but they lost me. With the mid-range
high-quality chinese phones available i can't justify flagship prices anymore

------
wscott
dxomark has published their iphone 7 review, but the 7 plus camera review is
still pending.

Still very looks like a very impressive camera. The biggest drawback I see
from phone cameras now is shutter lag and just how long it takes to get the
camera app ready to take pictures. I hope Google has this nailed now.

~~~
dep_b
I have been checking that site a few times per week last month to see if they
finally got around reviewing the iPhone 7 Plus, but no cigar. It has been out
for over a month now and if you like it or not it's still one of the most
popular mobile phone cameras in the world and definitely an upgrade compared
to the regular iPhone 7 camera.

And then you see a slide where Google uses the word iPhone 5 times to tell the
world why their iPhone is well worth the iPhone price, lacking a score for the
iPhone 7 Plus, and the reason for the delay suddenly becomes clear.

Well paid, Google. Well paid.

And Dxomark: you only have one reputation...

~~~
dogma1138
DoXMark is probably the only website that has a proper methodology for
reviewing mobile phone cameras.

They are consistent, very indepth, have objective scoring metrics and haven't
shown any bias towards any brand or maker.

The iPhone 7 plus isn't an easy phone to evaluate because it has dual cameras,
reviews of other phones with dual cameras also tended to lag and those were
simpler where the 2 cameras were identical and were used to speed up or add
additional digital zoom whilst the iPhone 7P uses 2 different cameras.

The iPhone 7 review was up 20 days after it was announced, and effectively
about 9-10 days after it has became available in Europe.

It's pretty laughable that pretty much the only objective source out there and
the only one that has bothered to take a scientific approach to evaluating the
quality of cameras for mobile phones is accused of bias and being a paid lip
service just because their current methodology is not compatible with the
iPhone 7 Plus not to mention considering that iOS 10 also lacks support for
certain modes for the 7P, and they want to actually give it a proper review,
which means put it in cases where both cameras can be measured objectively.

~~~
dep_b
I am not saying any of your arguments doesn't hold up and the iOS 10.1 upgrade
of course also crossed my mind. But you have to understand that Google got
early access to it's review results, permissions to use them in their keynote
and to also use competitors results.

This is not free, even if only they received services or free hardware for it
in return. Once you start doing that there's no return.

Because they could have reviewed the iPhone 7 Plus using the iOS 10.1 betas.
And what about the final number? Isn't the difference between 88, 89 or 90
also up to the personal opinion of the reviewer? How are bokeh foto's and true
zoom weighed? If it is 88 instead of 89, how much did the Google bribe
influence it? It's still a possible deviation within their rigid testing
methodology depending on the reviewer's opinion.

I see a lot of websites that are clearly sponsored in one way or another.
Samsung does it, Lenovo does it. I think Samsung and Lenovo products aren't
bad but I know they spend a lot of money on massaging online review sources.

Dxomark didn't give me that "might be sponsored in a way" feeling, now I just
don't know.

~~~
dogma1138
The company's business model is doing testing and publishing (and selling
results) the results (as well as selling actual cameras for the iPhone and
image processing software).

Their methodology and scoring algorithms are open.

[https://www.dxomark.com/About/In-depth-
measurements/DxOMark-...](https://www.dxomark.com/About/In-depth-
measurements/DxOMark-testing-protocols)

They have evaluated 1000's of cameras, lenses and sensors, and all of a sudden
they are biased because Apple doesn't ship pre-production units to get
reviewed?

This is beyond pathetic, I love my iPhone but I never considered it to be the
king of anything, even as far as the camera quality goes, it was overall one
of the best rounded camera's but for quite a long time it wasn't the king.

The iPhone 3/3GS had pretty shitty camera's, like god damn awful, things have
started to pick up with the 4 and 5 and the 5 was probably the only period
where the iPhone might have been more or less uncontested, but since the 6
there were phones that were getting very close and even beating the iOS
devices at certain aspects of the camera, and with this generation things are
pretty much dead even as far high end devices go.

P.S.

It's quite likely that their full reports are available to purchase
indirectly, this is how many of these niche firms work, this doesn't mean that
there is bias, it's just the nature of these things these reviews are
extremely expensive.

~~~
dep_b
> because Apple doesn't ship pre-production units to get reviewed

You're guessing just as much as me now. The only fact is that Google
definitely had to pay to get these results and that review exactly at the
moment of their keynote.

And it was __definitely __convenient for their slides to not have to show a
iPhone 7 Plus score in it. It wouldn 't have looked so suspicious if they just
were proud about their own score on itself.

~~~
Klathmon
>The only fact is that Google definitely had to pay to get these results and
that review exactly at the moment of their keynote.

How is that a fact?

------
peng
Why are all of the example photos so horribly downsized and compressed? The
picture of the Eiffel Tower is only 920 × 690. That's laughable compared to
the 12.3 megapixels it should be. If you're reviewing image quality, you
should give the readers the original files captured by the camera.

There's no way readers can say anything definitive about Pixel's camera
quality without real data.

------
balls187
As a hobbiest photographer, this measurebating/pixel peeping is very
reminiscent of the MP wars in Digital Cameras and dSLRs.

Photos from mobile phones will be most often viewed on a service (FB,
Instagram, Whatsapp) which will almost always do some sort of resizing and
recompression which would render that +/\- 5 spread between all the top cell
phones meaningless.

~~~
waldir
To counter your point, consider the fact that 4K video looks better when
downsampled to 1080p than video captured directly in 1080p:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIf9h2Gkm_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIf9h2Gkm_U)
\-- the mechanism is different for other cases (social media sharing of
images, for example), but the principle is the same.

------
matt101589
Really surprised that the Pixel does not have OIS. This seems unreasonable at
the flagship price level.

~~~
Sargos
Their EIS seems to be on par with it. OIS doesn't automatically mean better.

------
dreamcompiler
I wish I could use a smartphone camera for everything, but none of them offer
depth-of-field control, which makes them unsuitable for portraits. Their tiny
pinhole lenses make it practically impossible. One can fake bokeh in software,
but it's not the same.

~~~
nilkn
The iPhone 7 Plus will offer depth-of-field soon after a software update.
However, the effect is indeed largely achieved through software. Despite that,
the results can be pretty astounding. Some examples:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/55npvs/so_impressed_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/55npvs/so_impressed_by_the_7_plus_camera/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/55rxnx/iphone_7_plus...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/55rxnx/iphone_7_plus_photographer_at_a_wedding_its/)

~~~
dreamcompiler
Very impressive. I had no idea the software had gotten this good. Thanks for
the links.

------
mrob
Do people really like that aliased look? Every picture has very obvious
aliasing. It's the first thing I noticed, within less than a second. And
aliasing is an especially bad artifact because image processing algorithms
assume band-limited data. There's no way to get something natural looking from
those images.

It seems almost unbelievable to me that a camera supposedly focused on quality
would do this, so I wonder if DXOMark, despite claiming to be "The reference
for image quality", actually destroyed image quality with terrible
downscaling. I know people like sharpness, but if you insist on pushing it
this far, ringing is far less objectionable than aliasing.

~~~
sp332
Can you fix ringing in post? And personally, if I'm going to be stuck with one
or the other, I'd much rather have aliasing than ringing.

~~~
mrob
You can get some subjective improvement, although it's far from perfect. Eg:

[http://avisynth.nl/index.php/External_filters#Deringing_.26_...](http://avisynth.nl/index.php/External_filters#Deringing_.26_Mosquito_Noise)

See also:
[https://people.xiph.org/~jm/daala/deringing_demo/](https://people.xiph.org/~jm/daala/deringing_demo/)

------
ngrilly
Does the video stabilization work even in 4K, or only with lower resolution?

In the affirmative, how can the camera effectively stabilize the video since
the sensor resolution (4K) is almost the same as the video resolution?

------
scraft
A lot of the comments on the linked site, are disappointed (shall we say) at
lack of night photographs, as they believe it is the low light conditions that
the new iPhones are really quite impressive (so claiming the Pixel is #1
annoys them).

For the record, I've never owned an iPhone, and am very interested in seeing
how the Pixel works out, but I just thought I'd mention the comments in case
anyone had missed them..!

------
mgleason_3
Take a picture of a sunset.

So far none of the cell phones even come close to looking like the real thing.
Reds look yellow...

My wife's SLR does a good job of capturing it, but not our cells phones.

------
mrkgnao
I feel like I've seen the striking building on the left before. Does anyone
know what it is?

[https://www.dxomark.com/var/ezwebin_site/storage/images/medi...](https://www.dxomark.com/var/ezwebin_site/storage/images/media/images/exposure-
and-contrast-90-__920/152560-1-eng-US/Exposure-and-Contrast-90-__920.jpg)

~~~
koalaman
le centre pompidou
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Centre+Pompidou/@48.86...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Centre+Pompidou/@48.8611289,2.3534191,3a,75y,237h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sz9Pe_QPenfxzy8oozwfajw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dz9Pe_QPenfxzy8oozwfajw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dsearch.TACTILE.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D129%26h%3D106%26yaw%3D237.07686%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xb7ac6c7e59dc3345!8m2!3d48.8606422!4d2.352245!6m1!1e1)

------
oDot
I sure hope all androids will be able to utilize the Camera app new gyro video
stabilization feature

------
bg0
If the Pixel came out with the dual camera like the iPhone Plus and was
cheaper I would seriously consider switching

~~~
Zhenya
Why is not having dual camera a deal breaker for you?

------
jordache
how does the auto HDR fail to trigger once in a while? The auto HDR should be
enabled while the camera app is open.

~~~
soylentcola
It's not always needed (or wanted) so in theory, the feature is triggered when
software detects a situation where it is warranted. You wouldn't want any
unnecessary image processing if lighting conditions don't demand it so it
makes sense. But as with anything involving "automatic detection" I imagine
there will be false positives or negatives.

Interested to see if there is still the option to toggle it on and off even if
"auto" is the default.

~~~
jordache
The reviewer took several shots in sequence to demonstrate the random nature
of the auto HDR.

I'm just pondering how it happens. The HDR flag not a decision the software
makes at the instant of capture. While composing the shot, there is a liveview
from the sensor plus the processing pipeline, including the HDR processing.
Does the user not realize/perceive that HDR is enabled before pressing the
shutter?

------
dovdov
no optical image stabilization in a flagship? laughable.

~~~
ino
The iPhone 6S also doesn't have OIS.

~~~
rimantas
How is that relevant? Neither did iPhone 3G, but why would you compare
Google's newest phone with iPhone 6s, when iPhone 7 is already out?

~~~
izacus
Because iPhone 6S made execellent pictures even without OIS?

------
abledon
Still has an AMOLED screen and not an IPS, dang.

------
hack_mmmm
This is awesome

------
rvwaveren
Meta comment: Interesting that the site (dxomark.com) has the tagline "The
reference for image quality" does not use retina images.

~~~
dingo_bat
What are retina images?

~~~
simonh
Images of such high resolution that the human retina can no longer resolve
individual pixels. It's an Apple buzzword for High DPI. Back in the day Apple
retina displays were way higher resolution than anything from their
competitors. They even invested heavily in the manufacturing equipment
themselves to push the technology forward, but nowadays screens with those
sorts of resolutions are commodity.

It's one of those cases where Apple identifies a technological gap of a few
years they can open up between them and the rest of the pack and then invests
in stealing a march on everybody else. Eventually the others catch up, but
meanwhile if you want the best in that category only Apple has it. Right now
in screen tech it's wide colour gamut and 5K desktop displays.

~~~
sz4kerto
Resolution and DPI are different things.

------
satysin
I am surprised that of all the companies to come out with a better camera than
the latest iPhone is Google!

~~~
miguelrochefort
This sentiment makes no sense.

~~~
satysin
What I mean is that getting the label of the "best" phone camera isn't easy.
Samsung and Apple basically go back and forth with each release. Then Google
comes along with this brand new phone that pips the just-released iPhone 7.
Impressive is all.

~~~
nacs
This "Google" phone is actually manufactured by HTC who has been making
(Android) camera phones for years.

~~~
snovv_crash
And whose HTC10 is currently considered to have the best camera on the market.

------
anotheryou
Uh my, that girl with the color chart... looking like: [http://kultur-
online.net/files/zoom/02_Terror-(Hanns-Martin-...](http://kultur-
online.net/files/zoom/02_Terror-\(Hanns-Martin-Sch.jpg)

more serious: if you compare automatic white balance you have to have the same
framing for all shots!

~~~
gberger
This is a camera review, not a model photoshoot. This comment is unnecessary.

~~~
anotheryou
I made a joke. (whether it is funny or necessary is another thing of course, I
like humor and obviously I found it funny)

Furthermore my comment was also about the shot with the chair, showing very
different framing for the pixel cam.

------
laktak
Anyone know how you can now submit duplicate links to HN? I thought that would
redirect to the old submission?
([https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=laktak](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=laktak))

------
ricw
Apple has clearly lost its prior decisive lead in camera quality. I wonder how
and why, and what apples comment on these results would be.

On paper, the google pixel should have inferior results, given its slower lens
(f2.0 vs f1.8 on the iPhone and f1.7 on the s7). Yet they apparently are
superior.

All modern high end smartphone cameras use the same sensors (Sony) with
different lenses. Did google achieve this through better software? Or better
hardware? Hardware seems unlikely given that both Samsung and Apple likely
have much larger budgets and a longer knowledge history.

I just ordered an iPhone 7 plus because of the camera, and this is clearly
making me question whether this was the right choice.

~~~
pavlov
When was Apple's decisive lead in camera quality?

Nokia was the clear leader until 2014. Not coincidentally Apple hired Nokia's
camera development leader around that time [1].

Since then, Apple has been roughly at parity with Samsung's flagships.

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/09/ari-partinen-joins-
apple/](https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/09/ari-partinen-joins-apple/)

------
mtgx
The camera sensor seems to be the same one as the one they put last year in
the Nexus 6p and 5x, but the new phones have gotten a major upgrade in image
processing performance and in software. They also benefit from a new gyroscope
that's used for seemingly very good video stabilization (not clear if it's
used for still photos as well). Oh, and it has a faster shutter speed.

Hopefully next year they use an f/1.8 or wider aperture, too.

~~~
tarancato
How do you know that? I find it weird that three different mobiles from three
different manufacturers use exactly the same camera.

~~~
wibbleywobbley
It's really not weird at all, pretty much all high end phones use sensors from
Sony because they make the best sensors for this specific application. Some of
the phones I know of that had the IMX377: Nexus 5X Nexus 6P HTC One M10

It looks like the Pixel is using the IMX378 -- I'm not sure what differences
there are between the IMX377 and IMX378.

It's also worth noting that there is a lot more that goes into a good camera
system than the sensor

