If there is one thing that makes a smartphone great, it is the camera. Apple held the high ground for years before any other smartphone camera got close. Last year, the camera on the Pixel got the highest rating on the DxoMark and this year is no different. The Pixel 2 has what most consider the best camera on an Android phone. Here is everything new on the new Pixel 2 camera:
Rather than go dual-camera like the iPhone and several other competitors, Google stuck to the single camera on the back of the Pixel 2. Instead, the company chose to switch to a dual-pixel sensor. In layman’s terms, this means that every pixel consists of two small pixels.
If you could say one thing bad about the camera on the original Pixel, it was the lack of optical image stabilization. The Pixel’s electronic image stabilization was good, but there were plenty of instances where the video would appear mechanical. This year the phone sports both OIS and EIS.
The dual-pixel setup means that the pixels in the sensor are slightly smaller than last year’s Pixel: 1.4μm vs. 1.55μm. The smaller the pixel, the sharper the resulting image. However, because of the smaller pixels, Google has gone with a f/1.8 lens to let in more light.
Another new feature is a phase detection autofocus for quick focus. Like the image stabilization, Google is keeping the laser autofocus to provide more accuracy when estimating distance.
Every camera lens has tiny distortions during manufacture. Google is compensating for this in software by testing every phone at the factory. It will then calibrate each one for those distortions.
