Gadgetory

one of the most important questions you can ask yourself when you're thinking about buying a smartphone is whether or not it has a good camera and luckily for all of us over the last couple years the answer to that question is increasingly yes so we took the five best ones released this past year the iPhone 10 the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 the Google pixel to the LGV 30 and the HTC u 11 then we put them to the test in a whole bunch of different situations all to figure out which smartphone has the best camera so we're here in the studio and we're about to take a look at some of the images I'm joined by James bærum the Verge's creative director thank you James and why don't you give the people an idea of what it is that makes you an expert in this field okay well that's interesting I've been taking pictures for a very long time but I've been specifically taking pictures with these phones for the past week I've had pockets full of phones and if you caught our circuit breakers show last week you'll have seen that we went out and shot some pictures and started comparing them and then we handed the phones over to you and you've been picked up the mantle and I've been doing it ever since yes and we we decided to pick these phones not only because there's some of the industry leaders and sales and things like that but they just are the best cameras that are out there as far as the top tier of smart phones that you can buy right now there are definitely some other competitors that we could have included in this test but then we would have been here for the rest of eternity so we're gonna be viewing all these photos on a retina MacBook Pro but we know that not everybody has access to a screen that's that good so we're also gonna take a look at them and some other settings we're going to upload some of them to Instagram to see what they look like sort of at the end state of everybody's images these days and then we're also going to take a look at them on some of the phone's screens which is where I think most people probably do the viewing to begin with the interesting thing is 90% of the pictures you take you look at on your screen on your phone yeah you're not gonna do what we're gonna do so this is the only way we can really get into these pictures so what's this one where are we starting alright so we're gonna start with this is just a relatively you know it's not the most exciting shot in the world it's a little bit was a dreary day yeah but it's sort of a good test there's a lot of detail in the foreground and the mid-ground in the background and it's a good I think the biggest example coming from this is that what phone is this so we're starting with the iPhone 10 right and I think one of the things this particular scene shows more than anything else is the fact that there's how the different cameras interpret color and contrast so jumping to the HTC the iPhone image is almost a little washed out but but sort of not as dark the darks aren't as dark as the HTC which has like black blacks take a look at the LG which is sort of on the iPhone end of the spectrum where it's you know a little washed out a little bluer then the rest of the other the other images the note eight is a lot warmer which I feel like is something we've come across a lot with shooting with these phones this is really interesting because Samsung is as I say everything looks like it's been dipped in tea it's slightly brown but if you click back to the iPhone it's pretty close it's a little bit more grain than brown yeah but it's definitely in the same kind of color gamut as the yeah we're a Samsung whereas HTC LG yeah yeah much more blue and a pixel which is this one which is also blue but like probably maybe the most accurate of like what it actually looked like in that moment my memory serves but if you look it's definitely you look it's so funny and this is the problem with doing these comparisons is we're gonna be bounced around yeah and then you come back to the iPhone now now the iPhone looks awful in green like and I didn't really notice that before okay so I'm gonna keep interrupting you just because it's going but look if you go to the pixel what's interesting about this is the overall thing is kind of that gray blue like the HTC like the LG but look at the colour of the cab here yeah the water taxi but also there's still quite a lot of brown here and a lot of brown here so it's not it's not pushed so far to the warm end of the spectrum as the Samsung or the iPhone and I think another way of saying what you just said is that it's taking it's taking all that colour information and sort of representing it in a representing all of it better as opposed to you know skewing the picture because it's dominated by one particular part of the color spectrum right absolutely I think that this is a really good it's actually a really good choice of pictures because it's very neutral thank you of course well you know you know what you're doing it's very neutral it's very flat as well so you've got very even tone from the foreground and the background and I think that this kind of image really shows up the neutrality of the pixel camera which is I think having played around with them myself for a week that you've been playing around I think that's my immediate takeaway about the pixel it is the kind of in most environments it's the most neutral see what I wanted to do and one of the reasons I shot this photo this way was also to show off the sort of detail capture of all these different smart phones with the big thing that separates all these smart phones and the cameras on them these days is the software processing that these companies decide to do and not in like a you know filter white kind of way I mean software processing is in how they're getting the information off the sensor into the JPEG that it shows you and that process is handled so differently by all these different companies and it sort of there's artistic judgments being incident and sort of judgments being made as to like how to like make the photo look because you're going to be looking at on a smartphone things like that I think that this is a cool point to make at this time it's like two sides of a coin neither side is more valuable than the other and the two sides of the coin here are the hardware and the software and I think by bringing it to a screen we can see exactly not only that Hardware decisions that are being made like two lenses on the iPhone here and those software treatment of that to create a final image so I think it's really important that's why we want to do real-world we don't want to go down the bench testing route this is about this is what these pictures look like yeah I mean the hardware is closer than ever on these yes you know these days and they're all sort of pushing up again against the same physical limitations of putting a camera in and like a space that small on a smartphone so here's the iPhone 100% view right of this image HTC is a little wider so yeah not getting quite as these were both shot this is shot with the wide angle of the iPhone and you know that only camera is you see it so pretty good you don't get quite not as just quite as much detail there right the LG ooh and this is something I found and I think we noticed this when we were doing that yeah first go around with these the LG is fine details especially ones that are in the deep background of the photo always seem to have this like aberration they're always a little bit blurrier it doesn't have quite the resolution and even the sharp bits on to show right in Akutan right here yeah yeah I mean you look at some of the detail on the rope right there's just tons more get on the iPhone so much and on the HD stations really good now Samsung kind of the same it's sort of blue some of the is this whole crazy thing with Samsung is it takes sharp pictures and then softens them yeah it just seems yeah and then let's take a you the pixel which is again I think like right in the middle uh-huh I think the iPhone might make you think it's got more detail there there's like a little bit more sharp I also think is to your point that it's got lighter shadow detail right here's an impression of more detail yeah but I also think I think we have to be honest look at the difference there like the iPhone is sharper yeah and I think that this as well is is it using both lenses to get the sharpness in the background or is this just one I would assume it's just using the wide one but that's sort of the thing like one thing we don't know about how Apple uses the dual lens system right now is like we know it will use those two lenses to help the other out sometimes but it's not explicit as to how it does that sort of like we're not totally sure how Google does the software things yeah it does with HDR plus so the other thing I'm gonna make here is I've noticed with pixel much as I love it it's very crunchy it's adds a lot of contrast it's almost in a Photoshop we call it a high-pass filter where it just you bring out that textural sharpness and it's sometimes goes a little bit crazy with it yeah so I think the iPhone and the pixel probably have the best photos here and it's really hard to pick a winner like a winner if we were gonna try and do that the iPhone probably overexposed it just a touch which it I found it tends to do but they're all relatively good I think the pixel is probably the best like them yeah I don't like representation of what that seems like I also think that the pixel camera is the most photographic I've said this before as I think they're the files off the pixel look the most like a camera shot rather than a phone shot mm-hm nice picture a much different scenario this time this is obviously on the subway this is you know sort of low and challenging light not the darkest situation you'll find because there is a lot of bright sort of LED lighting in here but lots of variation in the light and the scene which makes it challenging for a smartphone to handle and so we have let's take a quick look again we sort of get different color representations of some of of the scene like some bluer stuff again from like LG and the Samsung and then the pixel it's really funny that the Samsung is so blue yeah yeah it's it took a different it I sometimes when it's reading lights like the information coming from especially LED lights it it will cast that color across the scene I've tended it notice but this one I want to dive right into the details yes because it what's interesting about this shot is if you look at the highlights on these pillars you've got that it's an overall dark picture with then very brightly lit white areas which is very hard for a camera to retain that level of detail because it's got to make a choice and the choices are compromised and it basically lands in the middle yeah can I fit all the information in the brightest brights and then the darkest darks of the picture so it's got to pick something it's you gotta swear allegiance to one partner gotta make a choice sometimes yeah so we gonna start with the iPhone or were you gonna what are you looking at now this is the pixel and I think what's interesting about what the pixel did is is this is like where you almost start to get into the territory of what I was talking about where it's almost doing a little too much with its HDR because I think the point you made is really good about how there's detail in these brights that some of the other like the HTC missed some of those tiles yeah the iPhone missed a lot of those tiles that surprise Sam so I missed a lot of this house so that the pixel captured more information in the brights while not losing the information in the darker parts look at the detail on the subway map behind here that you could almost read it yeah and the Samsung is fuzzy that LG looks like it's been painted the HDC again HTC's a little bit wider and so that means like when you're looking at fine detail it's it's if it feels like it's farther away it's smudged and iPhone did a decent job but yeah the pixel yeah it really does feel like you can read the individuals so it's very clean there doesn't seem to be it's almost like in paint where paint bleeds the colors bleed yeah these are very kind of restrained and crisp and clear right all images within the lines which is kind of funny I think if you if we think of contrast ratio you know as a visual thing that here's a contrast ratio on most of the phones the pixel just has a broader gamut it's gonna capture more in the dark and of more in the light and and just give you an overall better exposed image and I'll say it like one of the things that we I think both you and I were not expecting coming into testing all these these smartphones out is that we weren't expecting the HTC to find like the HTC is as good as the iPhone and the pixel at in like a bunch of different settings sometimes and and that was something that surprises both of us and here is like that one of the clearest examples of that like this image looks a lot like that maybe not at the detail level when we zoom way in but when you look at it sort of zoomed out it has the same sort of color balances the pixels image it has the same sort of dynamic range where you know it did lose some of the highlights but the shadows like look you know the detail is still here like we saw in the pixel image so like the HTC's camera I don't think it was as consistent it Mistborn than the pixel did but when it hit which is still a lot it did almost as admirable a job but yeah I think is really nice to see from a company that made smartphones with great cameras that led the pack years ago I mean like they were the thing that like the iPhone was catching up to before I got to the sort of iPhone 4 era I think you you are absolutely right it was definitely the surprise of the test I had no idea it was going to be as consistent this is another sort of challenging scene for a smartphone camera because we've got again some bright brights and dark darks and a lot of intricate like lines lit a lot of fine detail just something that's harder for you know underpowered phones to resolve very close terms yes and what do you mean by that a lot of close down so if you look at it overall it's it's the squint test if you squint and you can see what disappears it basically turns into bluey gray at the top gray green here with black of the branches and the roof line so it's it's very uniform and then as you said those bright warm lights hanging in the tree which confuse everything so I mean I think the you know the pixel again did the best job of keeping the highlights from being blown out maybe a little too dark overall was it when you look at this scene you were that you took this pictures how which is the one that's most like the season I missed it like crazy exposed a bunch of stuff is green again which is like I think the iPhones got a really great camera and I think it's probably one of the two best you know layout may be behind the pixel the pixel too but it still has this tendency to make it green to put this green cast on things which is just a really weird thing that I don't know why that's never been hammered out of the system HTC probably did one of the most if not the most admirable job of some of the details and the highlights but the color throughout it doesn't have as much of a green cast there is separation in the colors down at the bottom of the photo like you were talking about like you can squint and see some difference in the green and the brown here yeah whereas the LG's just a little muddy I mean it's the same deal as we've seen in some other photos where like I mean I think it did a pretty good job resolving some of the detail back here but it's not as good as maybe something like I love maybe I'll just eat my words you know I guess it's about on par with what the HTC did there and the Samsung is again like pretty even I think the iPhone missed more than any one of the other hands did a better job but if you zoom into the Samsung I we're gonna see this smeary effect again and it's like in the roof line and everything it just looks everything's got a wash over it it's kind of weird yeah but the color is bleeding I mean look at here you can actually see the blue he's bleeding around let's take a look at what that did in the iPhone it's not I found it a way better job with that way you actually see detail in this like grassy thing where is apparently that all got lost but it was not in the Samsung if you zoom in you can also see on the iPhone how much artifacts is adding from the sharpening what we wanted to do though with with some of these pictures and with this one in particular is look at it in an even more neutral platform then maybe this screen which is Instagram because you know how much do these differences matter if they're all being funneled through instagrams compression algorithm which is probably removing a lot of these these differences in the first place so we have uploaded a few of them here I think the one where it's showing me the most of what Instagram is doing is we zoom way in here on the LG versus like what we saw here let's get to the same spot the LG which we knocked a little bit for resign some of this detail like still was able to get some of these like the finest little branches here whereas like in the Instagram oh no that's as big as it's going alright you can see it yeah like I'm looking at this spot right here where you know that's a nest of sort of information like with all these branches and twigs and here it's just like it's been blurred together it's there's all these artifacts from the compression yeah and that you're also noticing it in the shadow data on the trees is if you if you jump back to the original picture looking at crisp the separation of the different colors of bark are okay then once you get into this is kind of again it's almost like it's stripping some of those colors out it's making a decision of this is this kind of brown this is this kind of green yeah and so what matters about that is you know we take a look at let's say whoa here the HTC which we said handled the scene really well right mm-hmm that actually looks worse than the LG does on Instagram it lost so much more detail in the sort of back branches of this tree that it you know the the HTC photo uploaded on Instagram on the HTC phone viewed on the web now is to sort of give it a neutral platform looks worse than the LG photo uploaded Instagram on the lg phone like that's a weird thing that like it's stripping more information out of the file from the HTC phone than the LG one which like apparently had less to compress I don't know I think looking at them I would sum it up like this is it's the platform kind of it's like an amplifier for whatever the trait of the image is so if the image is slightly soft it's going to make it softer if the image is slightly contrast II it's going to make it even more contrary if it's slightly warm it's gonna make it even warmer it just seems to take these decisions and push it that much further as you said you know we saw that slight softness in the HTC image and that's now much more pronounced when we look at it through instagrams what was the pixel one like on Instagram that's fine you see it's made it flatter and darker yeah it looks even darker and moving under than it does sort of on this screen here at least here there's some information in the shadows it doesn't feel quite as like dark and dour and here it it's it's subtle but it there's definitely a little bit more here that that was lost in sort of the dark end I definitely think that's my takeaway from this is if you have a slightly dark picture you're gonna put it up and it's gonna be it's just gonna push it that much further right in whatever direction because I mean you think about it like all right if you have a slightly blurry photo or if you have a slightly dark photo or slightly bright photo or whatever like you were talking about its exacerbating those things because they are there because of a lack of information yes right like the photo is blurry because it did not resolve the information to make it sharp it was dark because it did not capture enough information in the shadows to bring out the detail and so it's just gonna sort of exponentially run down that path as you run it through Instagram if you were to upload some of these you know the HTC which is a little soft upload is Instagram a couple more times I'm sure it would just be like one big foggy image by the time you did that I mean an interesting exercise would be to actually then process the image before you upload it so you start if you know it's going to block up you fill in some shadow detail if you know that it's going to go too bright you bring the highlights back or push the color up I mean I think that that's the other side to all of these images there's the this is what the image looks like now what do you want the image to it and I think we've said that at the end of the day these phones take really really good pictures and a lot of these choices are going to come down to what kind of pictures do you like I mean if you like brown fuzzy pictures then the Samsung is for you I mean let's just put that out there and clearly there lot of people do they sell a lot of folks mm-hmm just like if you want to if you know if you are going to live with the fact if you get an iPhone you're gonna have to live with the fact that it overexposed sometimes yeah the question then is does this change the opinion of like which camera did the best in this situation I think maybe it does I mean I think the best photo out of the camera is looking at it on the screen was probably the HTC alright and on Instagram it's the one that sort of got rekt the most in the process and so I wouldn't agree with that I would say like mmm the pixels like I guess the LG seem to have held up well I don't know no it's what's that one yeah yeah I mean it lost like we said it lost some detail in this like one nasty area but it actually liked it wasn't as fuzzy as some of the other ones wound up being and that color was pretty medium to begin with so it just wound up looking kind of medium in the end the problem with once you start viewing the images on Instagram and saying well now you've seen the image on the screen and now you've uploaded it which do you think handles that the best the problem is the answer is it depends on the picture I think that if you're going to upload a bright sunny day with a deep blue sky and a bright red car and a big green bench then the brightness of the iPhone is probably going to make that look amazing yeah I think if you've got muted colors grain shadow detail backlit which we've experimented with before and then and the pixel 2xl pixel too is going to kill it I mean it's just by far the win yeah I think the htc is still the average one and I and I think these kind of tests are very much we're trying to find definitive answers and the actually the answers are this is probably the best maybe but then you could compensate for it so where do you stop you could say well if I have an iPhone I know I'm gonna kind of push the push the color balance a little bit I think that's the point where you where you lose people right like right most people aren't going to do that to try and compensate to make the photos look better they just want it to work and so like at that point you know you just have to know that Instagram is going to sort of again skew or enhance the albums that you're already dealing with yeah I mean I think the answer is that overall you know where you are with the iPhone you know where you are with the pixel - yeah I think consistency on the other three is means you're probably gonna know a little bit less I think that's the thing I think that you can compensate and take into account what the iPhone 10 and what the pixel 2 are going to do and they will consistently always do that ok so here's another sort of weird test that we want to use to show like how differently these photos can look how much differently so can I just say this yes so you know where I said we should get into the weeds yeah so we're gonna get into the weeds with pictures of leads what we're looking at right now is a picture that was taken by the pixel to excel on the pixel to excel screen and on the iPhone 10 screen same picture same picture and already on it it might be hard to see in the video but like already it is insanely different insanely different yeah you know we don't have like true tone or anything to turn it on these are just sort of we've got the pixel to excel in the screen mode that actually matters whatever one they call it the one that doesn't have dumb colors the right one yeah the right one and then the iPhone just sort of in its standard mode and the iPhone is interpreting the pixels photo is like almost kind of dull you know it's doing it deliberately very for ya right it's very flat like there's not as much contrast yeah it's still a good photo it looks like it's you know representing some pretty good detail but here's something crazy right we've been saying up to this point how the iPhone makes everything look green and the one color it's stripped out your pixels image is the green has gone yeah in comparison that pixels is just like lush and beautiful and it's got all this vibrant color it's just gone it just looks like this is normal and this is after a few days when the waters gone and it's gone a little bit brown so what I want to do is get in a little bit closer so we can see some of the detail I'm having trouble because then Cole hates Google yeah the Google try that won't let me zoom in further on the iPhone but you know one thing I will say is that you know they're not representing the they are resolving the detail any differently this is really just about color the difference here and I don't know like I do pulled back kind of look like the way that the pixels looks in the pixel but I the sort of photographer in me is looking at this one and saying like that's a more realistic image because like I was the hair using this picture those greens were not that green and that blue was not that blue like that is an aggressive reproduction by Google and in sort of I don't want to live in the real world fair enough let's take a look at the other way around yeah the iPhones photo and the pixel okay okay so the other way around now we've got the iPhone tens photo from this scene on both of these screens and it's doing the same thing I mean it's like almost the exact same differences the iPhone is almost like it's making it more neutral yeah I mean this is like a real color profile kind of problem you're like you know you have one photo that's the same everywhere but it looks different everywhere yeah and so it's the same thing again we've got the pixel sort of really going crazy on the colors making the greens way more green the Blues way more blue which is much more muted but interestingly it's blowing out the detail on the flowers a little bit yes pumping up the contrast yeah well I mean I think we noticed that in the last one but I think the difference here is that the pixel photo of this scene wasn't as contrasting it was a more it had more dynamic range mhm and the iPhone didn't quite nail that as much and so the pixel is sort of exacerbating it because it's screen is punching up the dollars in the contrast and so it's making taking a problem and making it work so - yes - you'll point out earlier if the information isn't there is not that right so remove from all that sort of phone screen trickery now we're looking at those same two images here on the retina MacBook and I think a pretty wild difference in the sense of the pixels image actually looks flatter wave I'm not as saturated as it did on the phone which is super weight it feels like we got flipped I actually almost called like thought I was looking at one and not the other and the iPhone has sort of greener greens and more purpley purples and but it's much more blown out it's blowing out the color yeah this is yeah it's a really remarkable so clearly the screens are actually that last stage of punching the color yeah because the pixel this image here the colors are basically more muted you know what it's like it's almost like we're looking at the pixel in neutral mode and then when they're looking on the screen its enhanced mode right it's the punchy mode so anyway maybe that maybe that even makes sense yeah and as far as like how the pictures stack up against each other I think the pixel really got this one better I think the iPhone might be a little more pleasing initially just because there's a bit more color there it's also a little bit warmer and a little bit greener in that sense not just the screen in the image but in the way that it tends to apply those sort of casts to the homage this sort of like haze of warm colors and green colors but the pixel obviously much more meted much cooler dude but like just way better detail again it didn't lose the detail in the highlight detail in the highlights as well as just the sharpness like the detail of the actual like subject like the actual flower is in here much more rich this is it feels like blowing it's blowing out it can't these times on their on the flowers it's like actually and this wasn't it's not like I took them in different settings like where the Sun was out in the it just really read this read a muted scene well mm-hmm and the iPhone sort of didn't and kind of missed it so so we haven't talked about one of the sort of flagship features for some of these phones yet because not all of them have it in the portrait mode and so the ones we're talking about here the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 the iPhone 10 and the pixel to XL so this is just one portrait mode photo we're not going to go into a whole bunch of and this is I think probably the most representative things that we saw a lot with portrait mode on the different phones which is that the iPhone tends to create probably softer maybe less sharp looking yes portrait mode photos and it's more progressive yeah and then and then the the depth that it's sort of creating by blurring some of the background yet it seems more progressive it feels more like it's trying to and doing a good job of recreating the sort of blur that happens is you know towards the back of the image whereas the pixel I think in most photos has better edge detection than the iPhone 10 it is finding the sort of seams around a person's head or their hair or whatever the subject might be even if it's not a person it's finding those seams better and sort of cutting around them better but the part of the problem with that is like it's doing that and then immediately just blurring everything else yeah it makes everything feel like a cardboard cutout which is aggressive in some images and not in others and so I think the pixels portrait mode like might Wow a little bit more from time to time but I actually wish it did more of that sort of progressive blurring that made it look like it was coming out of an actual sort of like SLR camera kind of thing I think that having seen these now I mean the the Samsung is so it's got the washy it's got the warm it does it does what it does I mean the notes of the Note 8 again like it it's aggressively smoothing the features on his face it's sort of missed the exposure it does the it handles the blurring kind of well one thing I love about the Samsung that I wish the other two phones would adopt is you can yes while shooting or after you've shot a portrait mode photos slide to adjust how much blur there is on the pixel you can sort of toggle it on and off which is nice but I wish there was that feature on the iPhone I feel like Apple's never gonna not believe fully in its ability to get it right so we're never gonna get it but and it and it it's it's so dependent on the picture that you taken with one of the good reasons to use this is there's so much detail in the background obviously if you have a cleaner background then all of the cameras do a better job yeah and I think one thing to note about the way the iPhone does port remote is it seems to really I think it's sort of like almost cheating in a way that when it knows it's got a face it really tries to keep the focus on the face and it's even blurring his shirt we're like that maybe I don't know with a really thin aperture like a really good portrait lens like that would happen if it was really we working with really small depth of field but you know like I think that looks makes more sense to me on the Samsung photo or even the pixel photo where like his shirt should be in focus like maybe not as cardboard cut-out he is yeah a pixel did it but but I think the pixel did better detail and better color representation here the iPhone always skis a little warm like we've seen in most photos but especially in portraits and and that warm kind of greeny cast I think gives a weird feeling when I'm looking at someone's face I just don't like that they apply that there so I think it handles the portrait mode a little bit better yes but it still has some of the problems that I have with the the way that the iPhones software processing is being applied to it it's really funny that having used these phones so much having being the owner of a pixel I never use portrait mode yeah well we into like some of the other things we should talk about with these because it's not just about having like sort of the best camera that captures the best detail in every scenario that's great obviously and I think if we're talking about just that I think the pixel to excel wins I think the best I think the pixel from last year would probably beat out most of these phones in certain situations so the two excel I think and the software team that they have pumping are very Google to make the most out of the hardware that they have you know only having one lens not two and all that is just they're just crushing and they are again a sort of step ahead of the pack when it comes to just like image quality in every situation one thing I don't like about the pixel to you Excel and it's portrait mode is that is buried in the sort of hamburger menu and you like can't just easily access it it's easy to forget that it's there as far as like the UI go you want I don't use it that's a problem yeah yeah I think that's probably part of it but you can go too far on the note eight the their version of portrait mode is called live focus and it is right under the shutter button all the time which makes it feel like you're always in portrait mode even though you're not you have to tap it even though it looks like a swipe and that is mind-boggling to me hate is that I hate that and I also hate that on the Samsung it shows you what lens you can switch to so it says yeah x2 for the telephoto lens but on the iPhone that means that you would be in that lens and it's just it feels so backwards that was to me and I think that's another big difference here like software across all these is wildly different and we're just talking the sort of stock camera apps for these phones one thing that I think the Samsung does the best out of all the rest of them is it still to me is the quickest EF camera and and by that I mean it's the quickest camera when I take it out of my phone I can double tap the power button and the camera is just up and ready to shoot the HTC the pixel will also do that if you tap a double tap the power buttons I don't think they're quite as fast and Samsung's autofocus is still really fast I think probably still a class above the others especially during video and so I think that's probably still the fastest it's it's real small though the difference between that and like the HTC and it's something that I wish the iPhone would really address I wish there was just a way to to launch the camera easier I still hate swiping over to the camera because it I never get it right 100% of the time and the new sort of 3d touch button on that 10 at least it puts it in a place where I know I can find it but like I just I wish I had a hardware button honestly I think the most the fastest I've ever launched a camera app on a smartphone is the sort of s 7 and older category of them I remember those damn home button and it was just is so much better okay so we've come to the end of the video we've been arguing a lot and now you're expecting us to tell you which is the best camera we're not gonna do that actually yes we are it's the pixel right so no because I think the pixel is doing things that is more impressive than some of the other things I think they have a better lead on the rest of the smartphones as far as their cameras and I think they can take it to more interesting places I think the iPhone is right there with it if not a little behind it I love the versatility of a second lens and we tested this on the circuit breaker show the telephoto lens is still like we're using over just cropping in unlike the pixel twos image there is a quality difference so I like that and I do like some things that the iPhone does like live photos you can re select an image now so if you just miss the moment you can pick the one that you that you should have had and it also does some interesting software stuff like long exposure simulations with live photos now so I think apples got some advantages over the pixel I think just like hands-down most consistent gonna always give you the best photo in most situations I don't think you can say it isn't the Google pixel to it I own it but I was just trying to be the most sort of diplomatic diplomatic I mean there are times and I think that this is the point there are times when an iPhone is going to be better there's times when the HTC u 11 is gonna be better times maybe not when the no day it's gonna be better or the LG but I think we have three that are sort of in a class of the others and then these are the sort of bests that are out there which is why we picked them in the first place exactly we have way more comparisons on the website so make sure you go find the smartphone camera comparison there where I'll have just way more detail than we could fit in this video so look for that head to youtube.com slash the verge click Subscribe if you're not already which like at the end of this video like what are you doing if you're not and thanks for watching thank you just the amount of what's the word um thank you I have no idea please tell me