Meet the Pixel 8 Pro: Review, more on the camera

Posted on Oct 28, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi

I received the Pixel 8 Pro a few weeks ago. It arrived at my house just before I returned from a leg of my book tour. I upgraded and updated everything the day I was home so I could take it with me on the last leg of the tour, and on the days I was home it was mostly used for fall foliage photography. M. What follows are my thoughts on the phone, which aren’t exhaustive, as I haven’t used every single updated feature. But my daily use of it was enough for me to say: I really like this phone and I can recommend it to people.

* First of all, I moved from the Pixel 7 Pro (I upgrade every year; it’s one of my tech buyer satisfactions). The transfer process was very seamless, both in terms of the actual data transfer and how I used the phone. If it weren’t for the fact that my phone is now a cheerful powder blue, rather than the vague olive green of last year’s model, I wouldn’t physically know I’d changed the phone at all. Google has made the back of the Pro more matte than the previous gloss, which I’m told makes it a little easier to hold, but since you immediately slap a frame on it (clear, so the color shows through), I I do not do this. I don’t know, because my fingers are imperfect, I put the cases on and within ten minutes the phone fell out of my hand. The only major physical change I’ve noticed on the Pro this year is that the screen (which is really nice and bright) is flat instead of curved, which is the case with other Pro models. It’s a small detail and I like it.

* The big change (for me, anyway): upgraded sensors in the cameras, which in my anecdotal experience has resulted in noticeably better images. They are sharper, have better detail and the cameras are more responsive than any camera you use and in different conditions. I’ve taken landscapes, portraits, pet shots, and tons of foliage, and they all really pop—not in an oversaturated way (Google still tends to make their photos cooler and more natural from, say, Samsung), but in a way that even a quick shot looks good. The “crisp” of Google’s stock photos is still there, so if that’s not your thing, you won’t like it here either. but I I like it, so there is.

A few years ago, with the previous iteration of the Pixel, I realized that Google’s computational photography had reached the point where the camera on the phone was “good enough” to deliver generally great images. The camera, both with its sensors and its computing support, has improved since then. One thing I’ve noticed lately is that I’m using my dSLR less often because it’s not necessary for the type of photography I do on a daily basis, and also because in many situations the Pixel is simply better for use cases. is: “macro” photography (ie getting really close up) is an example. I’m not about to give up on dedicated cameras with big sensors and lenses (in fact I’m thinking of upgrading soon), but in many ways the Pixel is now my primary camera and the dSLR is the complementary camera, not the other way around.

Which reminds me: Pixel phones typically use their 48- and 50-megapixel sensors for “pixel bins” and take final 12-megapixel photos, but now there’s an option on the Pro to take full-resolution photos. . My own experience with this has not been great. Ironically, the detail is less because it takes longer to shoot and my hands aren’t terribly steady. Save this for when you have plenty of light available. Also, the Pro now has a “pro” tab in the camera software so photographers can get more detailed with the settings. This will be welcome to some, but even on my dSLR I tend to shoot on auto and then edit in Photoshop, so it’s of limited use to me. Finally, like the previous Pixels, you can shoot in RAW format, but these take up a lot of space. Again, for my day-to-day use, the Pro’s 12MP JPEG in auto mode is usually more than enough.

* Some of the big new features of the Pixel 8 Pro are the ‘AI’ tricks that let you edit photos on your phones to change reality even more than before: Pro now lets you add objects in a photo shift and then uses a “generative feather” process to compensate for the fiddle. It also has a setting that, if you’ve taken multiple shots of people posing in quick succession, allows you to select the best poses for each person from the photos and merge them into one photo, theoretically Delete photos forever. Where someone closes his eyes

There are mild complaints about these new features, as they take photography away from an accurate depiction of reality and into something else. Personally, I’m more sensitive to this than other people, especially when it comes to the “best impression” feature. If we use computational photography to change reality, and we are, then swapping a face in a photo with a face taken within five seconds of the swap, and in the same context, so that for once you can capture a photo of your child that isn’t making a funny face. Kills, in my opinion, is one of these. More harmless ways to do it. And also, this is me reminding anyone and everyone that photography has been about editing and selection since its inception. People have been lying through photography almost since the first hoodless lens.

Also, for now, there’s the practical matter that these new tricks the Pro can do are still mostly gimmicks. The face-swapping thing works well enough in my limited use of it, but the thing where you move people around and then Google productively fills it in… not great. I took a picture of Charlie and Smudge and moved Smudge around, and it was clear that, well, there was some photo manipulation going on:

Could I keep editing the photo to make it look more realistic? Sure: I could remove the free-floating shadow where Smudge was for once. But other things (like moving/creating a shadow under Smudge’s new position) take real time and effort for a non-Google photo editing suite. I find Google’s own phone* photo editing tools to be of the “good enough for social media, where nobody looks too hard” variety, and outside of some very basic stuff – like picking up that ball – I I do the work. Save any actual photo manipulation for Photoshop or other more powerful photo editing software.

(* This asterisk comes from the fact that it looks like at least some editing has been done on the new photos No It’s done on the phone at all, but on Google’s servers. For example, you must have uploaded images to Google Photos for the face swap function to work. As a long-time inhabitant of the Google ecosystem, this doesn’t bother me too much, but it’s no small thing that one’s image changes are messed up in Google’s cloud and not in the privacy of one’s personal phone. Be aware, that’s what I’m saying.)

The new “generative feather” tech and face-swapping stuff are nice, but like many of Pixel’s previous innovations in peripheral photo editing, I suspect I’ll personally end up using them rarely. I tend to export my photos to Photoshop to tweak them beyond the most basic color/contrast/texture kind of thing.

* I haven’t used the audio/video stuff at all, so I can’t speak to any of that, although I’m looking forward to seeing if the new noise reduction tools work for recording videos, as other people have suggested. do. I’m a fan of being able to reduce background noise as much as possible. But I’ve never been much of a video fan.

Phone calls – remember them? – looks good!

* As mentioned earlier, despite the camera upgrade, my daily experience with the Pixel 8 Pro is… just like the Pixel 7 Pro, which is great! I mentioned last year that I felt Google was really improving with the 7 user experience, and 8 is more like it. It has a few tricks here and there but not so much that I really notice them in daily use. Some of the more showy parts of Google that I don’t use, like the “AI” generated wallpaper, which I don’t use because I have pictures of Chrissy and Athena instead, and also, I don’t know which artists Google’s AI is. Scratched for those auto-generated wallpapers, but I suspect they weren’t paid for. So, Google 8 phones have Android 14 pre-installed. Android 14 looks like an incremental improvement over 13: some tweaks, but not enough to make using the phones a completely different experience. Is it good.

I’m deep into the Google ecosystem and have generally been very happy with an “Okay Faceless Tech Company, Here is Everything about Me, Help Me To Through My Life” daily approach, and the Pixel 8 Pro continues to do so. . I especially value the Pixel line’s spam-blocking ability. A spam phone call or text rarely gets through the defenses, and even when it does, I have call screening and easy text filtering so I don’t have to think about it. Everything else works as expected. At this point in the game, I’m happy enough with the Pixel Phone experience that I don’t need it to do new and flashy things with each iteration. It works for me and I love it.

I will say that the first few days I had the Pixel 8 Pro, I felt like the battery was draining faster than other versions of the phone. Now, a few weeks later, the “adaptive battery” setting seems to understand who I am and how I do things, and the battery life is… fine. Pixel battery life has always been good. I carry the charger and an external battery with me just in case I travel Much things that need to be charged), so it’s not much of an issue for me.

* So yes, I’m quite happy with the Pixel 8 Pro and especially the new cameras. If you are looking for a new phone, I recommend it both as a camera and as a phone. If you’re not as camera-savvy as I am, you’ll probably be happy with the smaller, cheaper Pixel 8, which has almost all the Pro’s software features. If you have a Pixel 6 or 7, standard or Pro, I don’t think you need to go for this one. Those phones will probably do you just fine in a year. Pixel 5 or older owners thinking of making the jump? Yes, do. Likewise anyone who is fine with the Android phone life and is looking for a new phone. In my experience, the Pixel line is as good as Android, and the Pixel 8 Pro is at the top of the pack.

– JS