Just curious. From what I've seen, it is indeed potentially the best phone camera out there right now.
I'm in the market for a new phone -- Pixel vs S7 (5" versions). The two key aspects that are important to me are battery life and camera quality. In terms of battery life both seem about the same based on the gazillion reviews I've read. In terms of camera quality, all the decent reviews I've seen (decent in that there's some scientific rigor to the testing as opposed to just a bunch of baseless opinion) suggest the Pixel camera has some very significant advantages over the S7 -- most notably, far less aggressive sharpening, more realistic colors, and a much better balance of noise reduction vs. detail preservation.
During my somewhat obsessive research I learned that a lot of people don't notice over-sharpening or loss of detail in images. Some even seem to like it -- makes stuff look punchier on a phone screen. I've been in the photo business long enough to cringe when I see a the horizon of a beautiful landscape photo glowing with ringing artifacts, a glorious architectural wonder aglow with edge artifacts against a vivd blue sky, or the leaves of trees reduced to a smudgy blur on a cloudy day. I've seen too much of it with S7 images for my liking.
Sure, the Pixel has some issues. White balance doesn't seem to be very reliable. Halo-gate suggests the lens is prone to excessive flare. And there are some reports of unreliable autofocus. But IMO none of those issues are anywhere near as significant as images being borked by over-egged jpeg processing.
I'm in the market for a new phone -- Pixel vs S7 (5" versions). The two key aspects that are important to me are battery life and camera quality. In terms of battery life both seem about the same based on the gazillion reviews I've read. In terms of camera quality, all the decent reviews I've seen (decent in that there's some scientific rigor to the testing as opposed to just a bunch of baseless opinion) suggest the Pixel camera has some very significant advantages over the S7 -- most notably, far less aggressive sharpening, more realistic colors, and a much better balance of noise reduction vs. detail preservation.
During my somewhat obsessive research I learned that a lot of people don't notice over-sharpening or loss of detail in images. Some even seem to like it -- makes stuff look punchier on a phone screen. I've been in the photo business long enough to cringe when I see a the horizon of a beautiful landscape photo glowing with ringing artifacts, a glorious architectural wonder aglow with edge artifacts against a vivd blue sky, or the leaves of trees reduced to a smudgy blur on a cloudy day. I've seen too much of it with S7 images for my liking.
Sure, the Pixel has some issues. White balance doesn't seem to be very reliable. Halo-gate suggests the lens is prone to excessive flare. And there are some reports of unreliable autofocus. But IMO none of those issues are anywhere near as significant as images being borked by over-egged jpeg processing.