Why did Google choose to make the camera the defining feature?

[vzwuser76]

Just for clarification, the original Moto X wasn't designed while they were owned by Google. It was released while they were owned by them, but Motorola had that in the works long before Google became involved. If anything, I'd say Google influenced them to drop their Motoblur skin and adhere to a more stock version of Android which in turn meant faster updates. But the hardware was all Motorola. Unfortunately that version of Motorola is dead and buried.

 

[Torisen1]

Just for clarification, the original Moto X wasn't designed while they were owned by Google. It was released while they were owned by them, but Motorola had that in the works long before Google became involved. If anything, I'd say Google influenced them to drop their Motoblur skin and adhere to a more stock version of Android which in turn meant faster updates. But the hardware was all Motorola. Unfortunately that version of Motorola is dead and buried.

Off topic, my first Android phone was the Motorola Photon, only on Sprint but I loved that phone.

 

[nlm]

Someone on YouTube is stating that the Super Res "AI" zoom will offer more detail than an optical zoom. I'm all for technology and finding innovative ways for improvements but isn't it impossible to digitally increase resolution/detail than an optical lens?

 

[Umbrokhan]

Google Pixel 3 XL is for people who like stock android and fast updates which even Android One Phone's have.

Pixel phone if you want a nice camera i guess, but most android flagship phone's also have good camera to an average Joe.

if you want to keep your Pixel 3 for 3 year's then your lucky because you get 3 years of major updates.
yeah if you don't mind the big notch and big chin.

 

[TemporalBeef]

I'm coming from a galaxy s8+ whose camera seems to shooting terrible photos (at least compared to my wife's pixel 2)... and i'm sick of waiting for android updates. So those two things were a big factor for me getting the p3xl. I have a 16 month old daughter, so when I saw the focus tracking feature, I jumped at this. Same with the low light capabilities.

I made the decision to pay $X for something that I felt warranted it. I don't care if other people think i'm getting "ripped off" or i "payed too much" because I made the personal decision to buy it after weighing the pros, cons and overall value that I saw in the device.

 

[badgerfrisch]

Isn't this the beauty of the Android ecosystem? Samsung, Google, LG, HTC, One+, etc all make their vision of a phone.
It's not like Apple blends all of the features you can find on this side of the fence into there latest offerings.

 

[vzwuser76]

Someone on YouTube is stating that the Super Res "AI" zoom will offer more detail than an optical zoom. I'm all for technology and finding innovative ways for improvements but isn't it impossible to digitally increase resolution/detail than an optical lens?

Not necessarily. Look at TV shows where they take a grainy security camera video and make it clearer. I'm not saying the Pixel 3 has the same level of tech for something like that, but it is something that exists. And they do that with software after the video has been shot. In this case, the original image is much higher quality, so there's less cleanup needed to be done. If the software sees an imperfection it can look at other parts of the image and interpolate how it should look. Now I'd imagine that there will be times where it won't come out as it should, similar to the portrait mode that gets rid of some hairs or the frame of the person's glasses. But the more it's used, the more it learns, the better it gets.

 

[sulla1965]

The focus is on the camera since there really isn't anything else besides regular updates to tout. Other devices have a lot more features and stuff.

 

[Mike Dee]

Someone on YouTube is stating that the Super Res "AI" zoom will offer more detail than an optical zoom. I'm all for technology and finding innovative ways for improvements but isn't it impossible to digitally increase resolution/detail than an optical lens?

Are they demonstrating proof or just their opinion. With software in the past I've able to crop so there was less loss. Hard to explain but the way it basically worked was by taking the enlarged pixels and splitting them and remapping them to adjacent pixels taken the amount of colorshift between the enlarged ones and making adjustments. That's not how Google is doing it but I would still be skeptical if they improve over optics. I think it will be minimizing loss but we shall see.

 

[LuxuryTouringZone]

"Why did Google choose to make the camera the defining feature?"

I personally believe that it's because more and more people are using their smartphones for photography and videography. Google knows this so they wanted to put a stellar camera on their phones.

 

[nlm]

Are they demonstrating proof or just their opinion.

Just their opinion. From what I remember in my digital imaging classes this wasn't possible but that was 20 years ago. I was curious if anyone knew more info about how Google is proposing this works.

Splitting the pixels and reassigning with new values is a good approach but I imagine requires a lot of processing power and a fairly good algorithm. Thanks for replying.

 

[Mike Dee]

Just their opinion. From what I remember in my digital imaging classes this wasn't possible but that was 20 years ago. I was curious if anyone knew more info about how Google is proposing this works.

Splitting the pixels and reassigning with new values is a good approach but I imagine requires a lot of processing power and a fairly good algorithm. Thanks for replying.

I believe they are incorporating multiple shots into the processing but I'm interested in how it all works also.

 

[bryantj3303]

This is my sentiment. I went to my local Best Buy and spent some time playing with the Pixel 3 and XL (I currently have an S8). What jumped out to me was that the camera is emphasized because there needs to be something to differentiate from other Android phones. When comparing to the other phones on display (Note 9, S9, S9+, LG, Sony), one can have very similar experiences with Android and Google on the various phones. One of the Sony phones was already on Pie, and my S8 gets monthly updates; so updates alone don't distinguish the Pixel from all other phones. Thus, that leaves the camera. I do think the Pixels are overpriced compared to other phones (esp. Note 9), and iPhones have the advantage of being the only phones running iOS, which isn't the case with Android and Pixel. Further, I don't think the Pixel is targeted for all buyers.

 

[Kayza]

For me the key thing was updates. I got a Galaxy S6. That was replaced 8 months after it was released. And, despite being a "flagship" it took forever to get updates, and only got one platform update. No thanks.

If you get a new phone every year, then updates are not such a big deal. But, if you want to keep your phone for 2 or even >gasp< 3 years, this is just untenable.

The storage for photos is a nice addition, but not the core reason for me.

 

[Kayza]

ever since Marshmallow, I don't think the Android updates have been very meaningful to the end user, since as I said before, Google has been moving features out of the OS and into their apps so the features can be released as apps are updated rather than having to wait for an OS update.

It's still not the same thing - platform updates are still important. You can't strip everything out.

On the S6, at least, monthly security updates did not come every month, either.

 

[Mike Dee]

.......Google has slowly been separating certain features into apps themselves so that you get updates as the Google apps update rather than having to wait for an OS update.

OS features are rarely shifted to individual apps

 

[Caezar07]

OS features are rarely shifted to individual apps

Well if it's integrated into an app, it's by definition no longer part of the OS. But FWIW, a good example of what I'm talking about are the pixel launcher and Google's keyboard. Both of which are apps now and updated separately from the OS. On my S8 I use the Google keyboard and Nova launcher, a very stock style launcher with the Google now page integrated.

 

[ndonnine]

Cameras are the most important feature to main stream consumers. (the majority of phone purchasers isn't from Android forum users).

Someone brought up the differences in the galaxy phones but the real problem here isn't the physical/hardware differences. You get so much better everything when it comes to software when you get a pixel. The software is amazingly faster, better, cleaner, more attractive, amazing... Etc. You get the point but Samsung makes crappy software that slows down their phones. They just do well because they make attractive phones but the phones software is a miserable beast to use.

 

[Mooncatt]

Are better low-light pictures really worth the $200 more that this phone costs compared to the S9, or am I missing something?

Gotta pay for that bundled "free" unlimited Google Photos storage somehow.

 

[Caezar07]

So I went to Best Buy, tried the Pixel 3, and then came home and placed my order for the Pixel 3 and the charger stand. Overall, I was convinced by the screen looking astonishingly good compared to my S8...maybe even better. I am very spoiled by Samsung OLED screens and whatever panel is in the Pixel 3 is up to par. Compared to my S8, the colors somehow looked truer and were easier on the eyes. Also, the bezels on the smaller Pixel 3 aren't that big, they give you something to hold on to without blocking/touching the screen, and I would like the stereo speakers since I watch a lot of youtube on my phone and the single bottom facing speaker on my S8 has always been an annoyance. I was also impressed by how snappy the phone was given that it's on 4gb of ram, not to say that 4gb is low. There were some reports that the Pixel 2 slowed down over time, but I think that wasn't related to it having 4gb of ram. Lastly, I was pleasantly surprised by how useful, snappy, and easy the gesture navigation was. Switching the the last used app is an important navigation function that I do a lot and Android Pie executes it well.

I've heard people say that after buying the Pixel 2, they began taking more pictures, and I have to admit, the camera in the Pixel 3 has me looking forward to taking more photos this holiday season.

Overall, I think this phone will be good enough that I wouldn't get any buyer's remorse after the S10 is announced. The in-screen fingerprint reader will definitely be cool, but other than that, I think we're at "peak smartphone" until foldable phones come out. I am hoping that from this point on I can just blindly buy the Pixel every year (as I did with Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 6p) without a big wait and see for what Google has to offer as I've been doing since switching to Samsung.

That said....

The Pixel 3 XL's notch isn't "ugly" but it is a huge waste of screen real estate, resources, and effort. Google was obviously just following the trend rather than designing the phone as it should've been. With small notches or the teardrop notches that are becoming common (like the one plus 6t), using full-screen and overlapping content into the notch area isn't that bad since you're not missing much of the content. For example, if you really wanted to, it wouldn't suck too much to watch a youtube video, use the camera app, or play a game in full screen on the OnePlus 6t. But, the XL's notch is so big, that you basically have to keep content out of the notch area of the screen because it'd be blocking too much content. Also, it seems silly to wrap around to the corners of the top of the screen which are too far to reach and touch, but still have a bezel chin at the bottom. On top of the notch not making sense from a usability standpoint, it is asymmetrical, just as the original Pixel had an asymmetrical design (earpiece at the of phone with nothing at the bottom where there should've been stereo speakers). Google should've just made a larger version of the regular sized Pixel 3.