It’s the end of the year, which is the perfect time to test smartphone cameras! In this episode
of Last Cam Standing, Google’s Pixel 4 battles Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro, Samsung’s Galaxy
Note 10+, and Huawei’s P30 Pro. Stay tuned to see which smartphone takes the best photos
in 2019!
Last Cam Standing is my long-running smartphone camera testing series that now has a new home
on Tech Advisor. For previous episodes, head to PCWorld’s channel, but just know that
I’ve tweaked the series a bit since last time.
The goal of this video is simple: I’m trying to find out which of these phones can take
the best photos. Each company tunes their hardware and software in specific ways, and
I want to see what results we can get from the most basic of tests.
To keep it simple I’ll only be looking at the results from the main lens of each camera
and I’ll be using the default auto mode. It’s the mode that 99% of us use day to
day and it’s where companies do their most unique tuning. Now of course, you can get
more out of each camera by using third-party apps and capturing in pro mode, but I’m
more interested in finding out what the phone thinks is a good photo.
I’ll be breaking the results into 3 categories: color, clarity, and exposure. Along the way
we’ll learn a lot about how these cameras perform and at the end I’ll crown a winner!
Now let’s meet the contestants. First is the Pixel 4. And with it, Google has finally
quit being so stubborn and added a second camera to the back of its smartphone. To be
honest I would of rather had a wide angle lens as opposed to telephoto - but hey, it’s
a start.
Next is the iPhone 11 Pro. Like Google, Apple has finally added another camera - a move
they think makes it the most pro phone they have ever made. We’ll see.
Up next is the Galaxy Note 10+. Samsung has been coasting lately when it comes to the
camera department, so I’m curious to see how it holds up to the stiff competition.
And finally we have Huawei and its P30 Pro. I’m sure plenty of you are wondering why
I didn’t include the Mate 30 Pro in this fight, and here’s why. First off, Huawei
told us that they can’t legally ship a Mate 30 Pro to me in the US. *shrug* Secondly,
if they did send one, I couldn’t in good conscience recommend anyone use the damn thing
without Google services built in. So even if it has the best camera in the world, it
doesn’t matter. I would rather focus on a phone I could recommend - which leaves us
with the P30 Pro.
Before we start, I want to give a shout out to our wonderful model Victoria. I’ve linked
to her Instagram in the description below, please check it out.
And with that, let's get to the testing! First up is color, and here I’m looking for things
like color reproduction and accurate white balance.
This first shot of Victoria is a simple one, but tells us the same classic story. Pixel
phones tend to be the coolest, so no surprise there. iPhones tend to lean warmer, so that
tracks here as well. The P30 Pro leans a bit to the cooler side, but has a curious green
tint to her skin that makes her look kind of sick. But it’s the Note 10+ that I think
has the best balance of warm and natural colors.
The same thing plays out in many more of these photos, but this wider shot clues us into
something interesting. We can now see the model’s black jeans, which appear to be
blue-ish in the Note 10’s photo even though her skin and sweater are still on the warmer
side. The rest of the cameras keep her jeans darker, with only the Pixel’s image having
a hint of blue as well. In this example, I prefer the balance of hues going on in the
Pixel’s photo, even though it is a bit on the cooler side.
This next reveals show the same problem for the Samsung phone: It’s showing her black
top to have far more blue in it than there actually was. It’s even apparent on the
grey steps behind her and it’s a curious trait. I’d prefer the warmer nature of the
iPhone’s photo in this one and luckily Apple has corrected the horrible reddish hue found
in skin tones over the past few years.
I would have to go with the iPhone’s photo in this capture as well. The yellow leaves
and splashes of sun lend themselves to a warmer tone, leaving the Pixel lacking punch. But
the cool and muted P30 Pro shot is definitely the least pleasing overall, unless you’re
looking for something very stylized.
This photo on the lawn actually has the Pixel skew warmer than the iPhone, which is an interesting
twist. And if you look at the colors on the blanket it’s a bit more vibrant in the iPhone’s
photo, and flat in Samsung’s version. The P30 Pro’s muted take on the scene feels
pretty natural though, and in terms of color, it strikes the best balance for me.
I would say the same exact thing for this photo - it’s wild to see the Pixel turn
in a warmer result than the iPhone. The iPhone’s photo is also the most muted of the bunch,
a wild swing from the other results in this category. To be fair, based off the white
wall, the iPhone is turning in a more accurate white balance reading. I lean towards preferring
the Pixel’s version here thanks to a warmer fall feel, but the P30 Pro would be a close
second.
So we are generally seeing consistent trends from each company in color reproduction, even
despite a few odd variances. In general the iPhone leans warmer, the Pixel leans cooler,
Samsung and Huawei sit somewhere in the middle, but Huawei is usually the most muted.
While all of these phones are strong contenders, for me it’s between the Pixel and Note 10+.
The Samsung phone is probably the safest option, typically producing pleasing colors with healthy
amounts of vibrance. But I personally put a bit more stock into accuracy, and I think
the Pixel 4 retains the most accurate range of colors. It’s not a huge win, but the
color category goes to Google’s Pixel 4.
Before I head into the next category I wanna know which phone you preferred? Hit the subscribe
button if you want more camera testing videos like this and after the video head to the
comments to argue the results. But there is still plenty of testing to be done, so let’s
keep going.
The next category is clarity, and here I’m looking at the sharpness of each camera and
how well they stay sharp in various lighting conditions.
This example in a local brewery is up first, and shows us a few things right off the bat.
Once we zoom in, we can see how soft the Note 10’s photo is compared to the others. Also
notice the stair-stepping produced by the P30 Pro’s 40MP sensor that’s pixel binned
to 10MP. It’s a clear enough shot, but it lacks fine detail thanks to the downscaling.
If you look at the wood slats, it’s the iPhone that has the most information present
without too much grain.
Moving to a photo with Victoria and focusing on the wood panel behind her, we see the same
results - the iPhone just has the clearest photo. But if you focus on her skin, it’s
apparent that Apple isn’t heavy handed the way Google is with their noise reduction.
But I am a bit stunned by the poor performance of the Samsung camera -- it’s once again
the softest of the bunch.
Moving closer to Victoria yields some more interesting results. Looking at the background,
we see far more bokeh in the P30 Pro’s photo, and I’m not sure why. Yes, it does have
a wider aperture and a larger sensor, but I’m not sold on the idea that we would be
getting that much blur naturally from this camera. I wonder if there is a bit of depth
processing going on in auto-mode like there is in portrait mode. That’s a topic for
a whole other video. But back to the matter at hand, let’s focus on Victoria’s eyelashes.
The iPhone 11 Pro has the most definition, followed closely by the P30 Pro.
It’s not until we get about 6 feet away from our subject that we see the Pixel keep
up with the iPhone. But it’s still the iPhone that has the clearest capture, especially
when you look at Victoria’s pupils. Unfortunately, I can’t fully explain the horrible performance
from the Note 10+, but it’s most likely due to heavy noise reduction algorithms.
And how does that noise reduction work out for the Note 10 in dark situations? Well,
here in my garage, let’s zoom in to see that yes, Samsung really doesn’t like grain
in its photos and it hurts the overall clarity in every situation. But look at the iPhone
result!! It easily has the clearest photo of them all, with only a touch of grain present.
The P30 Pro and it’s RYYB sensor does in fact let in plenty of light and comes in at
second place. It’s the Pixel 4 that’s disappointing.
But you might be asking: What about Night Mode? It’s supposed to be Google’s secret
weapon and should do the best here. Well, it did let in a lot of light, but when you
zoom in we find splotchy results. Somehow Apple has been able to leapfrog Google to
have clearer photos in auto-mode and night mode!
Let’s check out one more low light result from auto-mode, this time in the darkest corner
of the garage I could find. Here we find it’s the P30 Pro that not only has the brightest
photo, but the clearest as well. Looking at the fire extinguisher we can make out a great
amount of detail from Huawei’s capture - I’m impressed.
Switching to the Night Mode versions, it provides a huge bump for the rest of the cameras. The
P30 Pro oddly didn’t get that much better the way the rest of them did, but it still
hangs. The iPhone once again has the best shot when it comes to low light, and makes
me highly jealous as an Android user.
So we can easily wrap up this round, as there isn’t much of a contest here. Apple’s
iPhone 11 Pro easily wins the clarity category.
The last category is exposure, and here I’m looking for correct exposures and a good balance
of dynamic range.
In this first example, we can immediately see that the Pixel continues its tendency
to expose darker than the rest and that the P30 Pro’s HDR didn’t fire properly. Typically
Samsung tends to brighten exposures, especially when there is a person in frame, but I’m
happy to report that they have scaled that back here. The iPhone’s photo is starting
to clip out the highlights in the cloud and the wall behind Victoria. The Pixel has the
most dynamic range but the Note 10 is the more pleasing exposure.
This backlit scenario is intentionally brutal for these cameras, and they each handle it
a bit differently. The goal is to keep the subject properly exposed while not blowing
out too much of the trees in the background. The Pixel underexposes the scene like usual
but the Note 10 retains almost just as much information in the branches. The iPhone pushes
it a bit too far, and the P30 Pro continues to obviously stumble. I think the best balance
here comes from the Note 10+.
The P30 Pro does better in this next high contrast example, and I’d actually say it
did the best here. The exposure is right where I would like it and the sidewalk isn’t clipping
highlights as much as the iPhone’s capture. The underexposed version from the Pixel is
just too dark and the Samsung feels a bit too processed.
In this shot, Victoria’s face is too dark in the Pixel’s version for my taste. And
it didn’t even retain as much highlight information compared to the Note 10’s shot.
The iPhone’s photo is nice, but I do think it’s Samsung’s capture that does the best
at walking the fine line between dynamic range and a proper exposure.
Now let’s look at some examples without a person as the subject and we see a slightly
different story. The Note 10 is the brightest of the bunch and exhibits some ugly flaring
around the windows. The iPhone also has some rouge flares smearing across the frame. The
P30 Pro does better than earlier in this round and it retains the most information in the
window frames, but it’s slightly darker compared to the rest.
And In this next one it’s the Pixel’s photo that is the darkest. It also doesn’t
keep as much highlight information in the window as the Note 10, but the iPhone did
even worse and you can barely see the glimpse of a building on the other side. The P30 Pro
does well again, but it’s the Note 10 that does the best overall, holding plenty of information
in the shadows and the highlights without feeling washed out.
At the end of the day I’m very impressed by how well the Note 10 has improved over
the S10. In the previous episode of Last Cam Standing, the S10 was overexposing shots all
over the place, but here the Note 10 does a great job at capturing pleasing exposures.
So it’s Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10+ that takes the exposure category.
Well to wrap it up, what’s the take away? Honestly I had to dig real deep to find examples
of major differences between these cameras. A majority of the hundreds of photos I took
have very minimal differences between them. If you are lucky enough to have any of these
flagship phones you’re going to get great shots 90+% of the time. And if you’re like
me and know how to get the most out of your camera, then you’re in an even better spot.
But you don’t want a fluffy conclusion, you want me to take a stand and declare a
winner, don’t you? Well if there was one camera I could have in my pocket, it would
be Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro. Not only did it dominate in the clarity category, it held
its own in the other categories as well and is all around a great shooter.
But since I’m not an iPhone user I do want to pick a second place between the three Android
phones. And in that case, I would have to reach for Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10+. Sure,
it stumbled hard in the clarity category, but did well in color and won the exposure
category. Add on top of that, the Note 10 has more cameras and a deeper app experience
than the Pixel 4, making it the obvious Android choice for me.
What do you think? Am I selling the Pixel 4 too short? Sound off in the comments below
and be sure to subscribe for more episodes of Last Cam Standing here on Tech Advisor!