should I use an external microphone on the pixel 2 XL

[Android Central Question]

Hello I do mobile video recording and im thinking of updating my phone for the pixel 2 XL or posible the 3 when it comes out, the thing is the integrated microphone's sound quality of the pixel 2xl is just not good enough my usage, and the native camera app doesnt allow for third party microphones(as far as i know), so i have been considering the option of a third party camera app like open camera or other of the sorts, but im wondering if the video quality in a third party camera app is somehow not as good as the native camera's one because of some sorts of first party integration magic and other things, this is because i have heard that taking a picture with instagram of snapchat for example does somehow limit the quality of the images taken.
So, should i use a third party camera app, and will this affect the image quality of the video?

 

[Rukbat]

You're conflating a few things.

Not using the Pixel photo app won't give you the enhanced dynamic range the native app gets, until people start developing apps that take advantage of the Pixel's hardware. (It takes a couple of exposures, one for dark areas and one for bright areas, and the hardware combines them so you get details in the shadows but the highlights don't wash out.) Videos don't do that, so you don't lose it by using a 3rd party app.

As far as IG and SC go, they compress pictures if they're too large, and their compression methods aren't what I'd call lossless - they're more like "let's see how badly we can mess this picture up". That's regardless of the app you use to take the picture. But if you take a 2k picture with the native app and a 640X480 picture with Open Camera, it's the native picture that's going to get messed up.

I don't have a mic I can plug in to test your statement that the native app doesn't work with external mics (using one wired for iPhones definitely won't work with any Android app), but you definitely should use at least one external mic for serious video recording. Maybe even an external mixer and more than one mic, depending on the situation. Phone mics work fine out to a few feet - then they sound "far away". They're designed for speakerphone use, and not for "lay the phone on a table and keep the conversation going as you wander around the large room with solid 'echoey' walls" use. Most of them do a pretty good job for what they were designed for. Videography isn't it.