Camera - Low Light Evaluation

Night-time photography was starting with the Pixel 3 and the introduction of Night Sight, one of Google’s fortes. The new Pixel 4 is able to improve in this aspect through a few different means: A new and improved camera sensor, a larger lens aperture to capture more light, and a new Night Sight algorithm that promises to improve and iterate upon the existing implementation.

Click for full image
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
[ S10+ (S) ] - [ S10+ (E) ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Mate 30 Pro ]
[ P30 Pro ] - [ G8X ] - [ Xperia 1 ]

Starting off with the first sample, the differences to the Pixel 3 are quite minor. Besides the different colour of the lighting, the overall composition of the scene and details are pretty much the same between both phones. There is a difference in noise levels between the two, but it’s hard to conclude any one is better than the other.

The Pixels still lead Samsung’s devices, but Apple and Huawei are ahead of the Pixel 4 in terms of detail retention.

Click for full image
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
[ S10+ (S) ] - [ S10+ (E) ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Mate 30 Pro ]
[ P30 Pro ] - [ G8X ]

In the next shot the differences between the Pixel 4 and 3 are more evident. The new phone has better dynamic range and thus is able to resolve more information in the darker shadows of the scene, such as the main buildings facades.

Apple’s night mode didn’t trigger here which leaves Huawei’s devices as the contenders.

Click for full image
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
[ S10+ (S) ] - [ S10+ (E) ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Mate 30 Pro ]
[ P30 Pro ] - [ G8X ]
[ Xperia 1 ]

We’re only seeing minor differences in the P3 <> P4 comparison here. The P4 has slightly better shadow detail and noise handling. Google, Samsung and Huawei all produce great results as Apple falls behind here as again Night Mode doesn’t trigger.

Click for full image
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
[ Galaxy S10+ (S) ] - [ Galaxy S10+ (E) ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Mate 30 Pro ]
[ P30 Pro ] - [ G8X ] - [ Xperia 1 ]

The darker it gets, the more evident the improvements of the Pixel 4. The new phone here holds a clear edge over the Pixel 3. The result is actually not that far off from the Exynos S10, with the Pixel having slightly better noise handling. The Snapdragon S10’s night mode seems to continue to be algorithmically inferior. The iPhone 11 is able to get a lot of detail out of the visible areas, but algorithmically isn’t able to extract much light out of the shadows which remain pitch black. Of course, Huawei’s large RYYB sensor is able to capture a stupid amount of light.

Click for full image
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ Pixel 3 ] - [ Galaxy S10+ (S) ]
[ Galaxy S10+ (E) ] - [ iPhone 11 Pro ]
[ Mate 30 Pro ] - [ P30 Pro ]
[ G8X ] - [ Xperia 1 ]

The phones here are quite in line. The Pixel 4 has an edge in detail which it shares with the Huawei phones, with Apple and Samsung closely behind.

Click for full image
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
[ Galaxy S10+ (S) ] - [ Galaxy S10+ (E) ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Mate 30 Pro ]
[ P30 Pro ] - [ G8X ] - [ Xperia 1 ]

The Pixel 4 is able to get a little bit more light than the P3 but it’s not too much a major upgrade. Google lags behind Apple in terms of detail here as the iPhone is able to get a much sharper picture, although lacking details in the darker areas where the sensor just doesn’t pick up any light.

Click for full image
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]
[ Galaxy S10+ (S) ] - [ Galaxy S10+ (E) ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Mate 30 Pro ]
[ P30 Pro ] - [ G8X ] - [ Xperia 1 ]

This last shot again showcases the Pixel 4’s better light capture ability as it’s able to notably turn down the ISO levels compared to the Pixel 3, with the resulting shot being significantly sharper. The Pixel 4 is far ahead Samsung and Apple, only trading blows with Huawei.

Low-Light Conclusion – Excellent Upgrades

Overall, the low-light ability of the Pixel 4 is closely tied to how Night Sight performs. Google’s camera here is excellent and the algorithm tweaks are augmented by new main sensor which is able to reduce noise levels more significantly. The differences between the Pixel 4 and Pixel 3 grow the darker it gets as the latter’s sensor just isn’t able to capture enough light.

Google and Apple are battling with each other over their implementations. Sometimes Apple gets the better and sharper shots, however this only ever rarely happens as Night Sight generally provides the better results and isn’t limited by an uncontrollable automatic activation such as on the iPhone 11. Samsung Exynos devices are closely following the Pixel 4 in terms of quality. Huawei generally still has the low-light leadership amongst current flagships.

One aspect that I didn’t test in this review was astrophotography. The reason for this was pretty stupid but also very revealing of the feature’s real-world usability: I wasn’t able to get out of my city’s light pollution area and 90% of the nights since I’ve had the phone were under cloud cover. Whilst I’m sure there’s other people who’ll be able to take advantage of the feature for some good shots, it’s also pretty much a gimmick given its very limited usability.

Camera - Daylight Evaluation Video Recording & Speaker Evaluation
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  • dudedud - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link

    > rarely see utilization go beyond 900MB on my current phone

    Are you using just one app or do you still have a 1GB phone?
  • PeachNCream - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link

    The phone has 2GB of RAM. I use a lot more than one app at a time.
  • Oliseo - Sunday, November 10, 2019 - link

    You can't possibly if you're only using less than 1Gb.
  • PeachNCream - Sunday, November 10, 2019 - link

    I don't understand why that's so impossible. My prior phone had 1GB and hovered around 600MB utilization with occasional need for up to 750MB. Both my current phone and my prior one saw/see heavy use as a stand-in for my laptop at times when I can't be bothered to turn it on so everything from working on a few documents to gaming have fallen to my phones. On the other hand, I find it odd that people feel RAM-limited at 4GB or would be worried that the next couple of years using a Pixel 4 would push 6GB to its limits.
  • s.yu - Sunday, November 10, 2019 - link

    It's perplexing what phone you're using.
    My S6E eats more than 1GB on a clean boot, and easily surpassed 2GB even in the past when it was still supported. Now it's about a year since it's last update and it could only juggle 2 apps maximum, with lag, and system animations already off. Any additional apps and the oldest will be terminated, not to mention certain popular and well-maintained apps that are just a glorified browser (I'm talking about Taobao and the sort) will only run half-smoothly(it would sometimes get stuck for 3-5 seconds, which was very rare on my Note8) with all background apps terminated, I don't know about hidden processes but in my experience Samsung's app manager puts those to sleep as much as possible, since it puts even active apps to sleep resulting in me missing notifications from almost all apps, only SMS, call, alarm, and occasionally the calendar break through.
    I could only tolerate S6E's performance because it's a backup device I only use for occasional communications and shopping, yet it still can't smoothly handle these light loads.
  • Spunjji - Monday, November 11, 2019 - link

    Your RAM usage looks low specifically because you don't have much RAM. With only 2GB of RAM to go around, your apps will be being suspended and thus not running simultaneously.

    For comparison - my OnePlus 6 has been used for the browser, Signal and WhatsApp so far today and is sitting at 3.7GB of RAM usage.
  • StormyParis - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link

    Very informative thank you; especially the real-life pictures from almost all current flagships.

    I've jumped off the flagship bandwagon several years back. I'm curious how more reasonnably-priced handset (Redmi Note 10 especialy) would fare.
  • id4andrei - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link

    Great review Andrei but I have some questions regarding the benchmarks in general.

    First, on the GPU section, how do you corroborate the massive discrepancy between 3dmark GRAPHICS and the GFXBench series of benchmarks? I mean, on the former, the A series GPU seems on par with the competition, but on the latter the A series GPU is orders of magnitude better. I would interpret it that the difference is actually not between the GPUs but between the API implementations, GFX runs in Metal on ios and in Vulkan on android. Am I correct to read it this way?

    Secondly, on the CPU side, referencing 3dmark PHYSICS, the A-series actually does not keep up with the competition. Now don't get me wrong, I understand that A13 is the most complex mobile CPU on the market, biggest and most expensive die. I also understand your testing with SPEC in an active cooled scenario. It clearly shows the quality of the design, desktop class arch. On the bursty side, the A13 is also on top, referencing Geekbench and other short benches. Why is the 3d mark PHYSICS the Achilles' heel? Talking "phones in hand", past the burst time interval, is Snapdragon able to sustain its performance better and higher than A13?
  • Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link

    Adrenos performing well in the 3DMark GPU test might be related to some corner case and their microarchitecture does well there.

    Similarly, the physics test might have some prefetcher or inter-core dependency limitation that doesn't fare well on Apple's CPUs.
  • id4andrei - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link

    Thank you for the prompt response. On the GPU, if I may, similarly with how javascript tests are also about browser engine optimizations in addition to hardware, isn't the difference between Vulkan and Metal as implemented in their respective OS, an academic asterisk on GFX numbers?

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