Gadgetory

the claim made by Google this is the best smartphone camera anyone has ever made so let me just put that score in the context this isn't only the best camera we've ever made it's the best smartphone camera anyone has ever made that's a tall order so it's time to put the pixel XL to the ultimate photo and video test in our real camera review buckle up folks we have a lot of ground to cover and I'm gonna move pretty quick first for you specs junkies you can pause the video here to see what hardware we're working with with that out of the way jumping into some outdoor daylight shots we're going to upset some in our audience the pixel is largely designed to be used in some form of HDR or auto processing mode but keeping our samples consistent against the other phones we review most of the samples here were shot with HDR disabled and we'll discuss high dynamic range in the appropriate sections of this review we want to keep this in oranges to oranges comparison opposite our other real camera reviews looking at exposure the pixel is working to produce bright vivid contrast II images which will look incredible on the phone's AMOLED display as such one left to decide every photo setting on its own the camera routinely pushes a little brighter than it needs to blues and greens look very good there's a juicy color saturation happening here which is ie pleasing the uniform sections of the sky have a very fine pattern grain which is appreciated and won't distract from your subject likewise Browns and earth tones arrive appropriately warm but avoid that exaggeration which might push them into orange territory we are starting to clip some fine details on these yellow flowers though which is a shame not an area HDR could have helped save the shot and Red's are difficult to capture on any digital sensor but they're even trickier to get a handle on here as this camera aggressively adjusts exposure for where you focus many cameras employ some kind of spot metering but focusing on different parts of this abyss 'kiss we arrive at very different metering values which produce very different results we do better than most in retaining fine detail but warmer colors on the pixel can start to sizzle and a white flower and direct Sun the pixel does a great job of retaining peddle detail with only the brightest sections of the flower starting to blow out moving to white balance the pixel airs on the side of satisfying a consumer more than delivering accuracy but the camera avoids pushing too warm in California afternoon light nor does it drive too cold and shaded shots I think we're finding a very happy balance in these finished JPEGs it's a good thing too as well the pixel has rudimentary white balance controls there are only four presets here which aren't particularly useful given how wide a range they're trying to represent now the pixel does not have the ability to natively capture RAW files but it will support raw capture and third-party apps so we're breaking our rule here using another camera app to take a look at a raw file purposely overexposing we can want the image back about two and a half stops to recover some information in this blown out exterior considering the pixels penchant for punchy exposure it's a shame we don't have raw capture built into this app speaking of the app layout it's a simple google camera view shutter on the right modes available on the left through a swipe gesture and settings on the top of the viewfinder to change HDR and flash options it's a nicely simplified view for no fuss photography though we wish there was a little more meat here for people who do enjoy adjusting settings so checking out the zoom re ran into some issues what you see is not always what you get first though the pixel limits the zoom range more than some competitors might there isn't a lot of resolution to play with on the sensor so at maximum zoom expect some image degradation but thanks to that limit results here are competitive for a software crop zoom the problem stems from the crop factor applied to the image on the sensor and how that does not line up with your viewfinder I was not trying to cut off the top of this palm tree according to my viewfinder I framed close to the upper edge of the screen but the output was saved a lot lower than what I was seeing we would consider this to be a significant software issue not being able to trust that what the camera is showing you while shooting is not what you will save when you finish recording we're really hoping this will be addressed in a future software update macro focusing distances are also competitive and you can get pretty close though stuff to always tell it macro distances whether your subject is really in focus or not you don't get a lot of feedback from this circle focus indicator it would be nice if it would turn red four times that your subject is not in focus thanks to this one over two point three inch sensor though it's not difficult at all to blur your background and capture some tasty bouquet and while the focus reporting can sometimes be a bit wonky the focusing action is lightning fast pixel is the closest competitor this year to the galaxy s7 and we'd be hard-pressed to declare an outright victor here for speed and accuracy very well done by Google damn and you thought flaring on LG cameras was bad unfortunately the lens on the pixel will not go down as one of our favourites it's very much prone to flaring like JJ Abrams flaring and color flaring and producing this ring halo flaring google has already acknowledged this is a hardware issue and one they won't be fixing while manufacturing this generation of pixel instead they'll try to address a hardware issue with a software fix but that image processing correction will only be available if you shoot in the HDR plus mode extremely disappointing as it's one of those can't unsee kinds of defects and your eye is instantly drawn to it when it pops up in one of your images so now we get to the HDR mode and it really is Google's catch-all mode this is where Google fixes over exposure issues washed out color issues and will be where they try to fix lens defect issues hdr+ has a lot riding on it so we're happy to report this is a phenomenal HDR mode Google takes top marks for balancing highlights and lowlights bringing down the brightest areas of your frame while filling in any underexposed sections of your shot looking at numerous test photos we feel this image processing just edges out the iPhone 4 producing those punchy colorful bright shots that people tend to enjoy Google really did land something special on this iteration of HDR plus but it's still an HDR mode so for those people who don't enjoy the processed look of high dynamic range there are very few options available out of the box to help you achieve the shots you want looking at how good HDR processing is just makes panorama stitching all the more disappointing seriously we're still doing the line up the dots thing I love taking panorama shots from iPhones galaxies LG's wall ways which all scan smoothly through your scene I've yet to complete a panorama like this where there weren't some big gaps or stitching errors so you should all know by now that I hate selfie cameras but the front shooter on the pixel is better than most we do run into processing consistency issues though letting the camera decide everything doesn't always mean it will make the choices you want also in shade there were some metering issues about one out of five the camera would expose more for the background even though I was occupying the focus video is nicely detailed and the software does a very good job of adjusting to changes in exposure but it still is shaky it would be nice to employ some of the crop stabilization to the front shooter to moving to low-light this camera is utterly fearless at cranking up the ISO to produce bright images again pushing brighter than the scene usually warrants hdr+ contain some of that noise but HDR shots take significantly longer process in dark condition so this won't be ideal if you or your subject is moving our creepy tunnel is a perfect showcase for the issues with lens flaring and overexposure the auto modes here are a bummer when trying to correct for that brightness this was as dark as I could go it's a much better representation of the shot but I had to max out the exposure compensation to get here and if I wanted a darker or a moodier shot I can't do it in the camera app our walkway fared better with terrific color accuracy between these two white bulbs though the clip sections below each light are a touch larger than I'd like to see pixel does very well with our creepy gate getting pretty close to the ugly yellow light which washes this alley but the white balance adjustments in the app are pretty poor looking through the four presets there's no way in camera to correct for the yellow light three of the four presets look nearly identical and a flower in almost total darkness it's blurry from noise reduction but this thing cranked the ISO to an astounding 4500 to pull an image out of almost no light by comparison the highest ISO and LGV 20 will let you shoot is 3200 and moving to video the pixel captures a respectable though class-leading 40 megabit per second bitrate UHD file which eats around 300 megabytes per minute of video likely a compromise on file sizes given the pixels lack of expandable storage options video for the most part follows the same aesthetic as stills punchy contrast II and a touch on the bright side we can get a better look at the metering here left to its own devices these Bougainville blossoms are overexposed but dropping the exposure down one and a third to one and a half stops we get a better look at the flowers and pull more info out of the surrounding area focusing on the tree we get a bright vivid scene output from competing phones like the V 20 might seem dull by comparison but there's more info to work with on the LG so we can get pretty close to recreating the look of the pixel with a quick boost to brightness and contrast the pixel on the other hand can't replace the info which was lost in clipped highlights but what about that shake that shimmy Google's software image stabilization is terrific shots where you and your subject are still it almost looks like you have the phone on a tripod walking is also handled really well avoiding the lens wobble of hardware stabilization and easily competing with what Apple has to offer here it isn't difficult to get this phone to twitch though back to our tree scene because the tree is moving in a medium breeze we see the phone trying to adjust where it probably doesn't need to also panning movements can sometimes produce abrupt shifts in stabilization lastly longer shutter speeds will produce ghosting in some of these Corrections we've never actually traveled down the creepy tunnel at night have we that's pretty spooky in although this is one of the better implementations of stabilization we've seen on any smartphone but what do we hear on some of these video files now some have declared the pixel Google's iPhone and when it comes to audio that's an apt comparison as this phone only records mono audio while shooting video thankfully the noise reduction is even-handed preventing any overt destruction while minimizing constant background noise you don't get stereo information from the environment to shoot in which is a bummer in our transition test moving from dark to bright and back changes to brightness are handled very well it's a very pleasant blooming effect and it's really subtle but the white balance shifts with a bit more of a pop panning shots are tricky on most phones but moving from bright back to dark as the shutter speed changes we see a bit more of a shimmer than we'd like and slowing things down for a second Google absolutely nails slow-motion video this is the best slow-mo footage I've seen from any phone and I'm very happy to see how easy it is to switch from 120 frames per second to 240 frames per second right in the app without leaving the viewfinder while composing your shot consider yourself on notice Apple this is terrific so let's wrap this up where does that leave us with the camera on the Google pixel excel is it the bestest camera ever no we can't say that it is but it's pretty darn good for the folks out there who want a streamlined shooter especially those who prefer to not manipulate settings the pixel delivers very good results you point you hit the shutter you get good vivid color on the fly like that this really is a fun camera to shoot with philosophically though we just can't declare a camera the best if it ignores the shooters in our audience stepping up to more advanced composition the people who do enjoy adjusting settings as they're trying to capture something specific like how out of the box I can't show you a long exposure freeway shot from the pixel there's no option for shutter speed eivissa really disagree with any statement in a review made along the lines of but most people don't shoot that way I find that to be reductive and more than a little insulting there is a wide gamut of people using phone cameras and I think people will rise to the quality of the tool they're given the pixel offers precious little room to grow in that area until someone is motivated to stray from Google software I personally just won't trust auto modes to achieve my vision until I can telepathically communicate with my cameras the pixel is a fun camera but I can't rely on it for work like I might some of its competition adding to that philosophical issue a viewfinder which won't always properly frame my composition mono audio when capturing video and some of the worst lens flaring we've seen on an expensive flagship device and the pixel falls short of Google's boasts we'll give you an A for effort Google but in execution there's room for improvement as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more real camera and real audio reviews we can't continue these in-depth reviews without your support so sharing on your favorite social networks is greatly appreciated for pocket now I'm Juan Carlos bag now author of take better photos smartphone photography for noobs you can find me on Twitter and Instagram as some gadget guy and I will catch you all on the next review you