- Each of these phones has one feature
that they're the best at.
The Pixel 7 Pro takes stunning photos at night,
the iPhone 14 Pro has a 48 megapixel raw mode
that's unmatched, and the S23 Ultra,
nobody can beat its portrait mode.
So I decided to take the Nothing Phone (2)
and put it head to head with the best.
I'm Becca.
Welcome back to "Full Frame."
(light music)
The Nothing Phone (2)
uses a 50 megapixel Sony IMX 890 sensor.
And thanks to a new and improved processor,
Nothing claims that the camera can take the data
from eight different frames and merge them together
for better HDR performance.
Photos are a bit slow to process,
but once they're done, boom, HDR,
and a fair amount of it.
The photos are loaded with detail
and have a nice focus falloff
when the subject is close to the lens.
The colors are vivid,
and the white balance is consistently accurate.
And when you compare them to the iPhone 14 Pro's main lens,
you quickly see just how much time
was put into making its color science match.
The shots are almost impossible to tell apart,
and more often than not,
the Phone (2) is doing just a bit more sharpening.
That makes for a clearer image.
The Nothing Phone (2) is also great at recognizing faces,
and produces a nice subtle focus falloff.
I'm very impressed by the main lens and perfect light.
For more detail,
you can also toggle on a 50 megapixel output.
I love taking 48 megapixel photos on the iPhone.
They take a bit longer to process, but the level of detail,
especially when viewing on a larger screen
or if you were to print them, is noticeable,
so I'm really stoked that Nothing included
a 50 megapixel output on the Phone (2).
The problem is, if you're shooting outside of expert mode,
Nothing bakes in loads of contrast,
saturation, and sharpening.
And quite frankly,
there just isn't that much detail actually there.
For example, I know what these petals feel like
by looking at the iPhone's photo,
and I can't say the same about the Phone (2)'s.
But for the folks who don't want large file sizes
and won't bother with higher resolution photos,
the Phone (2) is holding its own in good light.
Where both the iPhone and the Phone (2)
don't have the edge though is at night.
The Pixel 7 Pro continues to impress me in low light.
Its main F 1.85 50 megapixel sensor
produces vivid images with great contrast,
but the astrophotography mode is the most impressive part
with a four minute exposure time
that can produce one second time lapse
alongside stunning photos.
But without an astro mode
and with the longest amount of time
it will leave its shutter open at only two seconds,
the Phone (2) produces underexposed images at night
when compared to the Pixel.
And sometimes this does work in the phone's favor.
Because the shutter doesn't stay open very long,
it captured a less blurry photo here.
But in this photo,
there are absolutely no details in the shadows.
None of these images are bad.
In fact, I really like how the Phone (2)
utilized its HDR abilities to bring the sky up
and the clock face down in this photo.
But more so than not,
the Pixel is able to capture more light,
and therefore create a more vivid
and interesting photo at night.
I also hate that the level feature continues to vibrate
when the phone is exposing for a scene at night.
This can't be helping to keep the camera steady.
(chill music)
When I take photos of people,
I always try portrait mode first,
and the S23 Ultra continues to have
the best cutout for people and pets.
Match that with its F 1.7 200 megapixel main lens,
and even in low light, portrait photos,
they blow the Phone (2) out of the water.
In better light, the S23 Ultra
produces a more natural focus falloff,
where the Phone (2) feels like
it's just slapping a big blur on everything but the subject.
The cutoff is pretty passable though, and with some tuning,
or maybe a depth sensor in the next generation phone,
I think there's a lot of hope for this system.
For now though, this camera doesn't hold up
to the king of portrait mode, the S23 Ultra.
This is probably a good time to mention
that there is no telephoto lens on the Phone (2).
Instead, the main camera's 50 megapixel sensor
is cropped for a 2x mode,
and the camera can digitally zoom all the way up to 10x,
but holding the camera steady enough to achieve
the framing you desire at 10x is frustratingly hard.
Plus, the results are so bad. (chuckling)
Nothing told me that the physical design
was prioritized in Phone (2),
and that adding a dedicated telephoto lens
would've led to a larger camera bump.
But despite the company insisting that the main sensor
was perfectly capable of providing zoomed in photos,
the Phone (2)'s 2x mode is simply not as good
as having a dedicated telephoto lens
like on the iPhone or the Pixel.
And it is especially not as impressive
when compared to the S23 Ultra's 10 megapixel
F 4.9 periscope lens that is natively 10x optically zoomed.
You lose the compression of an image,
the most important part about a telephoto lens,
when you simply crop a sensor,
which is why Samsung and Google, and maybe Apple soon,
utilize a periscope optical train
that allows the lens to be longer
without increasing the size of the camera bump.
I really hope Nothing can work something similar
into the design in the next generation.
(chill music)
There's one other lens on the Phone (2).
It's the 50 megapixel ultra wide
with an 114 degree field of view.
It's all the same hardware as the ultra-wide in Phone (1),
but because of a new processor, it can process more data
for a better result in high-contrast scenarios.
And at F 2.2, it's punchy and it is really wide,
but quickly you'll notice just how distorted the edges are.
So I fought with my producer Vjeran
about this level of distortion being a good or a bad thing.
Personally, I use the ultra-wide lens
to take photos of groups of friends
instead of using the selfie cam,
so I don't want that much distortion
for the folks on the outer edge of the frame.
Vjeran, on the other hand,
thinks that an ultra-wide should be just that,
ultra-wide, and with that comes a level of distortion.
So what do you think?
Choose wisely.
Both the iPhone and Pixel
have much better lens correction that I enjoy,
but it comes at the cost of a slightly tighter image.
I also just found that the ultra-wide
wasn't as sharp as photos from the Pixel and iPhone.
This is another place you can see
just how much effort was put into the main lens,
and not so much other features of this camera.
So Nothing has created a very capable main camera
in the Phone (2) for the very competitive price of $600.
And there are added bonuses,
like being able to use the Glyph lights as a fill light,
or the red line that gently blinks on the back of the phone
when it's recording video.
But as a smaller, relatively new company,
it's clear only so much effort
could be put into the whole system,
and it certainly feels like most of that energy
was funneled into the main lens.
To the company's credit, it's crafted a very capable,
sharp, and dynamic camera there.
But when it comes to the photos at night,
or features such as portrait mode,
there's more work to be done,
and if Nothing can put effort into those areas in Phone (3),
it's really gonna shine.
I don't think this is a gimmick.
I think that the Glyph lights
are actually really, really cool and really useful,
and I really miss LED notification lights.
So more of this.
More lights on phones, please.
Less ringtones, less buzzing, more light shows.