We’ve taken a quick look at the new Google Pixel and Pixel XL, but how does the camera stack up? For years we have been promised a Google phone with a great camera that loaded quickly and took images just as fast. A camera that would perform in low light and be a reliable device to capture all of those special moments when you just need a camera to work. Has Google finally delivered on this dream? Read on to find out.
Again, I must stress that this is not a full review of the camera, I was able to test the Pixels for a limited time in a limited setting. With that disclosure out of the way how did the camera perform? In a word, fantastic. I am quietly hopeful that this is the Google (Nexus/ Pixel) camera we have all be dreaming off.
The camera just loads, fast. The only way to test the true load time of the camera is with the double tap to power button shortcut. Using this the camera loaded up quickly, on a video, it looks slow as you are hyper focused, but in the hand, it felt fast, most of the time. I did a few “races” between the Pixel and a Galaxy S7 line device and could find no perceivable speed difference.
So it loads fast, great, how about time to shoot? Well, that’s equally as fast, between the rapid autofocus and responsive shutter I never had an issue with loading the camera and instantly shooting a picture. Nor did I have an issue with rapidly changing focal length and still getting off a shot.
I wasn’t able to take any image samples away but I am optimistic that the Pixels have finally delivered on the camera performance we have always craved from Google hardware. In our list of things a phone must have in 2016, a fast reliable high-quality camera is right near the top.
With Google’s pairing of hardware and software on the Pixel I think they just may have taken that off their to-do list.
Check out our hands-on video below where we take a quick look at the pixels camera in action.
Duncan attended the Made By Google event in San Francisco as a guest of Google Australia. Ausdroid would like to thank HP Australia for supporting our coverage of the event.
This site is generating ads that hijack the web page and pretend to be Google. I won’t be putting up with this dangerous content.
Hi Greg, some rogue ad network has obviously wound its way into AdSense again, if you get the source URL we can try blocking it.
Thanks for the write up and the hands on. Every article seems to convince me more and more that this might replace my Galaxy S7. Do you think it’s a worthy replacement? (if only it had Qi I wouldve preordered already!)
(Also video seems to loop at the beginning)
From the time I’ve spent with it both devices could easily match any other device on the market. A full review may reveal more, however, my guess is the top few devices are all going to be fairly equal, it will just come down to personal preference.