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When choosing a phone, camera quality is more important than ever.
If you're looking at the Pixel 3 and the iPhone XS it's time to see which one comes out on top.
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No surprises here that they both have 12 megapixel cameras at the back, but the iPhone XS has two, a wide angle lens, a f/1.8 and a telephoto at f/2.4, while the Pixel 3 just has one single rear camera, a wide angle lens, a f/1.8.
Now, the iPhone 10s this year has a lot of computational photography tricks up its sleeve, which traditionally has been something that the Pixel line has really excelled at.
So I think this comparison is gonna be really interesting.
And don't forget that the 10s and the 10s Max, and the Pixel 3 and the Pixel 3 XL share the same cameras, so the results should be the same.
For general photos, the phones are neck and neck.
Both produce shots with blazing color saturation and good exposures.
The iPhone has a new HDR called Smart HDR while the Pixel has HDR plus and HDR plus enhanced When active, both make a big difference in boosting dynamic range in images.
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For portraits, they each let you change the bokeh, or the blur in the background after the shot's been taken.
I really like the way the iPhone has the simulated F stop.
But the Pixel also let's you change the focus point and add full grand blur, the iPhone has a natural looking blur with smoother transitions between subject and the falloff, the Pixel's photos look In sharp, and pop off the screen.
But hair or complicated backgrounds can confuse the effect, so you'll see the line where the subject ends and the blur begins.
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For selfie fans, the Pixel has two front facing cameras.
One's a regular field of view, and one is a wide angle, for getting multiple people or more of the background in the shot.
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You can also add face retouching options on the Pixel.
Without any filters, photos are incredibly detailed and they're almost a little too harsh for my taste.
Natural is a good middle ground that doesn't look fake or cartoonish that the softer setting hand.
White balance is a little bit warmer on the XS overall and some people do feel the front facing camera provides a slight.
Smoothing effect, especially in low-light shots.
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The Pixel has the edge in low light, producing photos with less noise than the iPhone.
I really pushed these phones with some extreme low-light shots.
But the Pixel does saturate the red channel a little bit more than the iPhone.
So photos can look a bit too vivid.
For flash photos, I think the Pixel looks a bit more natural.
But this one is really close.
The iPhone produces less dramatic shadows which you might prefer.
And Google's night sight features that promises better looking photos without flash wasn't available at the time of testing.
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(music) The Pixel only has a wide angle lens at the back.
So to make up for the lack of an optical telephoto lens like the iPhone, it uses super res zoom.
It does an impressive job of keeping up with the 2x optical zoom from the iPhone, even in low light.
But if you push it to extremes, results can look a little messy.
(music) Both phones record in 4K, but only the iPhone gets to 60 frames a second at this resolution.
[UNKNOWN] in good light look decent on both but the iPhone's video looks just a bit sharper with smoother shifts in exposure when the light changes.
The pixel also crops in a bit more on the image.
I like how the Pixel contract moving subjects in stills or video.
But overall, video stabilization looks a little less Jell-O like and more natural from the iPhone.
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And the iPhone's recording sounds more rich and full than the Pixel's track, even though they're both recording in stereo.
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The slow motion both film at 42 frames a second, but the Pixel maxes out at 720 while the iPhone is full 1080p.
In low light the Pixel struggles to acquire focus when recording and the image just looks messy and noisy.
The iPhone by comparison looks great.
A setting called auto low light FPS automatically drops the frame rate from 30 to 24 frames a second.
The difference between the two in low light is night and day.
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Overall both the Pixel 3 and iPhone XS are incredibly good camera phones and they've made big leaps over their predecessors.
I would be happy with either but I think the Pixel has the edge in still images, especially low light, while the iPhone easily pulls ahead for video.
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