Thoughts on Android Central's article on Pixel 3's "horrendously slow" camera?

[Mike Dee]

My camera overheats my phone when taking video or using playground. I'm in the process of RMAing my phone. I have not had any issues with the camera app launching. As fast as I open it, it's on the screen ready to take a picture. Taking pictures is instant, where I see delay is in the AI making adjustments to the photo in proseccing, especially when doing portraits. But picture quality is still amazing. My wife has XS and I did some comparison shots. Pixel does take better photos IMHO. Especially night shot. Took some pics of us out for dinner in a very low light setting, the pixel 3 shined!

Is it getting hot or overheating to the point it shuts down? Playground does use up battery more rapidly and it does heat up a bit with prolonged use.

 

[Kenneth Hackett]

Seems like if the app has been used/opened recently, when I double tap on power button it opens instantaneously. If I haven't used it in a while, it opens and hangs on the black screen before the camera buttons appear 3+ seconds. I'm guessing background usage settings for battery efficiency maybe are affecting it. Never missed a photo due to this though. Not really an issue for me.

 

[HudsonHenryPhoto]

Neither my wife nor I have any such issues. Let than 1.5 seconds from a double tap of the power button every time. Weve been rocking a p3 and p3xl since early November with absolutely zero complaints. Best phones ever.

 

[Sampleator]

No issues with my camera. But my first pixel 3 died after 1 day and had to be sent back for a new one. The new one works great.

 

[ptkelly]

You may have a different definition of the word terrible than the industry does.

What kind of a person buys five consecutive phones that are horrible? Two or three, maybe, but five?

Apparently, some people learned a new word: "Horrendous."

 

[KillerQ]

Not all Bluetooth users have a laggy cam, but all users with a laggy cam have BT enabled, I bet....

Hey, All...

I have been chasing this dragon for over a month now. I'm on my second Pixel 3XL and have tested this camera lag issue in a million ways - yes, it even happens in Safe Mode for me.

My camera (from the app icon or from double tapping the start button) would take almost 2 seconds to boot, and then when i hit the shutter, it was unresponsive and only after 5 or 6 seconds, would the photo actually take. After that, it worked great for about 20 minutes - then it went back to being laggy.

As user @Prince Cory had mentioned in another thread, if you disable Bluetooth on your phone, the camera magically goes back to acting normal and snappy, and WILL NOT get slow again. At least for me, it's been 3 days without a single hitch.

As soon as i re-enable Bluetooth, the lag is back after 2 minutes.

It's hard to believe that this is the case on every phone - since there are plenty (majority) of users who have BT enabled and have a perfectly snappy camera, but there's definitely a nexus here.

Again, not every BT user has a laggy camera, but i'm sure every laggy user has BT enabled.

If you're having lag, disable BT and report back.

I hope the convoluted web can be figured out by Google and patched.

Until then, no BT for me....

Thanks for listening!

 

[Almeuit]

Re: Not all Bluetooth users have a laggy cam, but all users with a laggy cam have BT enabled, I bet.

So sounds like BT is the issue. Hopefully Google will take notice and issue a fix.

 

[Vega007]

What kind of a person buys five consecutive phones that are horrible? Two or three, maybe, but five?

Apparently, some people learned a new word: "Horrendous."

That is the definition of insanity actually.

 

[sn2hotty]

Same as most here. No issues at all. Camera fires up pretty much instantly when double pressing the power button. Fast start up and awesome pics.

 

[SactoKingsFan]

Re: Thoughts on Android Central's article on Pixel 3's "horrendously slow" camera?

I disagree. No problems with mine. No burn-in, good colors, minimal blue-shift that I stopped noticing after a day. I generally don't prefer the super splashy colors that you tend to see on a Samsung phone.

Yeah, my second Pixel 2xl has a good screen. None of the issues with burn in, blue shift, grainy screen or black crush. There were most likely some QC issues that were later fixed.

 

[Javier P]

Re: Thoughts on Android Central's article on Pixel 3's "horrendously slow" camera?

Mod note - Please let's keep the discussion on topic. This is going to be a long thread so use it only for the camera lag issue. Thanks.

 

[mustang7757]

just curious people having the issue with the camera lag if the January update corrected it?

 

[AKFL3TCH3R]

Those people must have defective units. Mine opens up fine! And... first world problems?

 

[Mike Dee]

just curious people having the issue with the camera lag if the January update corrected it?

I don't think that was part of the plan

 

[mustang7757]

I don't think that was part of the plan

No of course not lol
But with some fixes that came along just wondering maybe it made the camera experience better.

 

[digitalbreak]

I always have BT turned on and never have experienced any lag in launching the camera app or taking pictures with mine and my wife's 3XL. We just were in a vacation with our 2 1/2 year old and took lots of snaps - no lag at all. So, this seems like some defective unit or just an article published to stir the pot - I mean, when was the last time AC told something bad about Pixel?

Let's dive a little deeper - camera app is such a basic app that we use everyday. How come the author did not notice anything in the review? Or even all these months? May be the author was waiting for the right time to publish the article?

Regardless, I checked with few other friends who have a 3XL and no lag whatsoever. So, unclear about the experience the author is talking about.

 

[TraderGary]

Kate and I both have Pixel 3 XL 128's. We both take a lot of pictures. Our cameras are excellent with no noticeable lag.

 

[N4Newbie]

All this talk about Bluetooth on/off raises an interesting possibility - Android Wear smartwatches can act as a remote viewfinder and shutter button for the camera app, yes?

For people having the long load time issue, could these "features" be coming into play?

 

[Golfdriver97]

For people having the long load time issue, could these "features" be coming into play?

Interesting take. I think you may be on to something here.

 

[I Can Be Your Hero]

It's also worth noting that the "fed up" article was posted on January 3, just two days after his January 1 update of his article crowning the Pixel 3 as the Best Android Camera in 2019- citing it as being the best choice for most people because of its effortless point-and-shoot performance - and no caveat or qualification inserted with regards to perceived lag.

What's going on? In Android Central's best phones of 2018 awards - they give the Huawei Mate 20 Pro their official award for best camera phone of 2018. And the Galaxy Note 9 and Pixel 3 taking runners up. I guess there were two different writers, but it's odd that they don't seem to have consistency when writing these things. The article I linked states:

"We're increasingly using our phones to take photos more than any other single function, and 2018 saw some big increases in the quality and flexibility of smartphone photography. But it was the Huawei Mate 20 Pro that, with its incredible resolution and sharpness, along with its flexibility, that took the crown this year."

Anyway, as far as camera lag - I get about 2-3 seconds for the phone to load up before I can take a photo. Obviously if it's still loaded into the ram, then it just takes a second, but if it has to load then 2-3 sec for me. Not as bad as 5, but I don't doubt some people get some really terrible lag on their Pixel 3. Linus showed the slow camera on video:

https://youtu.be/uMqd_ZtWW7M?t=703

Skip to 11:42

As far as the article goes - his phone, his frustration, his right to vent it. This is Google's phone with Google's software afterall - it should be an A+ experience on the only standout feature of the phone, so anything that takes away from that experience would have a huge negative impact on the device overall for the user.

Plus, I didn't read that op-ed as if he were making the argument that all Pixel 3's experience this problem. He said 'my Pixel/phone' a few times, so I understood that it was anecdotal and his personal experience.

And we've seen that the Pixel phones can have serious lag issues. Artem from Andriod Police had atrocious lag on his Pixel 2 XL: https://twitter.com/artemr/status/1024367645892591616?lang=en

Google got him a replacement, and then the replacement started lagging. People thought it could be dodgy NAND memory, but looks like it's not the case. MKBHD also made a video about the lag on his Pixel 2 XL. So definitely looks like there are gremlins in the Pixel code that causes the cameras to lag.