It’s been quite a while since we’ve done a Last Cam Standing showdown, but now the
LG G7 ThinQ is here to fight for the crown along with the
OnePlus 6 and Sony Xperia XZ2.
They’ll battle our current smartphone camera champ, Huawei’s P20 Pro.
So let’s get started!
Last Cam Standing is PCWorld’s video series that determines the best phone camera for
still images in a King-of-the-hill style battle.
Whichever phone wins moves on to face the next major smartphone release,
so subscribe to see the journey unfold!
First up let's check out the fighters.
By now you should be familiar with the technical prowess of Huawei's P20 Pro, our current
champ.
And please excuse the cracked back, I clumsily dropped camera equipment on it!
Butterfingers Adam here.
Never-the-less the damage had no effect on the three Lieca branded cameras and custom
processing that propelled the P20 Pro to the top spot in the last round.
The G7 ThinQ, meanwhile, continues to use a secondary wide angle camera--a track LG
is known for.
And like the G6, which dominated our tests during 2017, the G7 is also packed with powerful
camera features like the AI cam and Night Mode.
But will it be enough to take down the P20 Pro?
We’ll see.
Next up is the OnePlus 6.
And even though it’s a mid-range phone, it’s camera is celebrated as an improvement over
the 5T that competed earlier this year.
And finally we have the Sony Xperia XZ2.
Sony brings only a single camera to the battle, but the company *does* have very advanced
sensor technology.
So we’ll see how far that takes them in the showdown.
As always, our tests are broken into four categories: color, clarity, exposure, and
extra features.
Each phone is tested using its default camera, just as it was confirgured out of the box.
The P20 Pro’s Master AI feature is on by default and will be marked accordingly, but
in most cases a second photo was taken with the suggestion dismissed.
Now let’s get to the results of the battle!
First up is color and here we’re looking for accurate reproduction and white balance.
This first shot in my house displays various degrees of warmth - with the OnePlus being
the coolest and the XZ2 the warmest.
The color tempurature affects the rest of the scene, most obvisouly on the fiddle-leaf
fig tree.
In this case the P20 Pro is the most accurate in terms of color tempurature.
Here in the garage the first thing to notice is the blazing yellow of the lights in the
OnePlus’ shot.
It’s very distinct, and washes the entire ceiling in a nasty mustard color.
The colors in the P20 Pro’s shot are a bit more muted than what’s in the Sony and LG
photos.
And of course when the master AI offers a suggestion on the P20 Pro, it’s usually
some form of high contrast filter with very saturated colors.
This last shot of a door offers an interesting look at saturation.
Both the P20 Pro and the XZ2 are natural, if a bit muted, while the G7 and OnePlus 6
are bright and punchy.
In this case, the P20 Pro was once again the closest to accurate.
Now, I found a wierd problem with the G7 over the course of using it.
Every once in a while it would horribly miscalculate the white balance resulting in a completely
unusable shot.
In all my time camera testing, I’ve never seen something like this, and it’s a real
let down from LG.
Based off of this problem alone, I can’t even consider the G7 in contention for a color win.
The P20 Pro, meanwhile, has been improved through patches since our last test and offers
the most pleasing colors and accurate white balance of the bunch.
So the color category goes to Huawei’s P20 Pro.
Next up is clarity.
This test digs into the sharpness of each image in various lighting scenarios.
First up is a beautiful brick wall!
Fully zoomed out, the P20 Pro and XZ2 seem to have the sharpest cameras of the bunch.
But zooming in reveals the sheer power of that 40 megapixel sensor in the P20 Pro.
I’ll note that Huawei uses pixel binning to produce a 10 megapixel image by default,
but it’s still damn impressive and smokes the competition.
Zooming in on this shot down the railroad tracks bears the same results.
But I have to give it to the OnePlus and Sony phones, as they still deliver quite a bit
of detail in the skyline.
As for LG, its cameras are known for a tendency to oversharpen.
Mix that in with aggresive noise reduction, and you have a loosing formula.
Moving into a dark garage really puts these phones to the test, and at such low light,
the images start to fall apart in specific ways.
Honestly though, I’m surprised by how well the OnePlus’s photo was able to hold up
under scrutiny!
There is some noise present compared to the P20 Pro’s version, but a little bit of noise
never hurt anyone.
Unfortunately the G7’s shot is the worst of the bunch and lacks detail on the bricks.
And while the XZ2’s photo isn’t quite as bad, there’s just too much chroma noise
for my taste.
We head into one of the darkest spots in the garage and see that the P20 Pro just seals
the deal here.
Not only is it the sharpest, it’s also the most color accurate - which is super impressive
at such low light.
So it’s hard to argue with the P20 Pro’s ability to retain such detail in every lighting
scenario.
And even though the OnePlus 6 surprised me a few times, the clarity category easily goes
to the Huawei P20 Pro.
The third category is exposure, where I’ll focus on the dynamic range of each camera
and how they each expose for a scene.
Right out of the gate we can see that LG still has one of the best dynamic ranges out of
all smartphones.
And what do I mean by best?
I mean that LG’s processing does a great job of keeping enough exposure information
in both the brightest parts of the image and the darkest.
In this street scene, we can see that the clouds in the XZ2’s image are blowing out,
and the darkest parts are loosing detail.
The same thing happens here at the train station.
The skylight is completely blown out in the XZ2 image, leaving no information for anyone
to use in editing.
Yes, the G7’s images are flatter and have less pop because of it, but it’s easier
to add pop in than take it out -- and as a photo editor, I like having that control.
The G7 isn’t perfect in this category though.
Here the P20 Pro has way more information in the wood while still keeping the white
parts of the building exposed properly.
But like the Google Pixel 2 that came before it, the P20 Pro can tend to feel over processed.
Now if I were looking for the camera that had the best compromise of dynamic range and a
contrasty image, I’d lean towards the OnePlus 6.
Like the G7, it typically exposed well for complex scenes but had more contrast present
- making it an image you could use with minimal editing.
But I prefer to have more information than not enough when it comes to dynamic range.
This way I can make more decisions in post-production.
In the age of strong HDR and multi image processing, all of these phones actually handled themselves
pretty well.
But it’s nice to see a lot of dynamic range present in the G7’s photos, something that
I really appreciated about the G6 from last year.
So the LG G7 ThinQ wins the exposure category.
The fourth and final category looks at extra features.
Here I’ll specifically be going over the hardware and software options that set each
camera experience apart.
One of the stand out features in the G7 and P20 Pro is the inclusion of a Night Mode.
In LG’s case, it uses pixel binning to gather more light - which it does - but at the expense
of generating only a 4 megapixel image.
It’s just not as good as Huawei’s version, which takes a series of photos for around
4 seconds and stitches them together to produce amazing results.
It’s such a useful feature that I hope comes to more phones.
Moving onto to the secondary cameras, things get real weird.
The XZ2 doesn’t have one, the OnePlus 6 has one but it’s primarily used for enabling
portrait mode, the G7 has a super wide angle lens, and the P20 Pro has three total cameras!
So it really comes down to LG’s and Huawei’s approach.
The P20 Pro absolutely destroys all the other phones when zoomed in using the second lens,
and it’s monochrome sensor takes beautiful black and white photos on top of adding more
detail to color photos.
Nonetheless, I just found myself using the wide angle lens of the G7 way more that the
P20’s telephoto lens.
LG’s wide-angle allows me to get shots that I never could on another phone.
And it’s upgraded lens and sensor minimizes the horrible barrel distortion and color fringing
of past LG phones.
When it comes to the user experience of each phone’s default camera app, there isn’t
a clear frontrunner.
LG’s app isn’t as fun and intuitive as it once was, and Huawei’s tries to mimic
Apple’s interface a bit too much.
Sony’s app is very utilitarian, and OnePlus’s isn’t intuitive and is only a step above
stock Android.
Ultimately, I lean toward favoring the P20 Pro’s app because of the sheer breadth of
features available, and luckily a patch has improved the speed of switching modes.
While I absolutely love using the super wide lens on the G7, that’s really the only thing
that LG has going for it over the other phones.
Huawei just offers too many useful features in a fast and smooth package -- along
with three practical cameras.
So the Huawei P20 Pro wins the extra features category.
And now it’s time to crown a winner!
I must say that even though this series is about finding the best smartphone camera in
the world I would have to place the OnePlus 6 in the category of best MID-RANGE camera
in the world.
I’m super impressed by the improvements OnePlus has implimented over the 5t, and look
forward to further refinements.
Of course, this isn’t a mid-range camera battle--it’s about chooing the best of the best,
and here the Huawei P20 Pro retains its title.
Using the P20 Pro to take photos is a treat whether you’re a seasoned photographer like
me or a casual snapper who posts to Instagram.
The sheer specs and power on display in this phone are undeniable.
And the Master AI is a non-invasive tool that can add that special pizzaz to a photo if
you want it.
If you must have the best smartphone camera in your pocket right now, then you won’t
be disappionted with the P20 Pro.
Bu of course, Samsung will be releasing the Note 9 soon, so it’ll get another shot at the
title.
Be sure to let me know what you think of the results and please subscribe so you don’t
miss the next matchup!