The Ultimate Smartphone Camera Showdown: Google Pixel 2 vs. iPhone X vs. Huawei P9 Plus
One of the most essential features of today’s smartphones is a high-resolution camera for snapping selfies, stunting on Instagram, and saving sweet memories. But which phone actually has the best in the bunch?
Lucas is our resident camera expert, he shoots most of our videos with HD 4K cameras, records events and does product photo shoots with DSLRs, and sometimes even uses his smartphone to shoot slow-mos. He’s also our #1 selfie taker with the biggest smile.
Lucas tested three of the top smartphones on the market right now: Google’s latest release, the Pixel 2, Apple’s new iPhone X, and the Huawei P9 Plus, developed with German camera experts Leica. To test their range of features, he used all three smartphone cameras in three different situations: an action shot, a selfie portrait, and a low light scene. Let’s see how they stacked up.
Lights, Camera, Action
For the action shot, we had Lucas do a classic jumping pose, and judged it based on how blurry the photo came out on the moving parts and his face. The winner? Google Pixel 2, with the least amount of blur on the feet.
It’s (Low)-Lit
Anyone who’s tried to take a picture with their smartphone at night or in a darkened room without blinding people around them with the flash knows that this is a tricky situation. To test a low-light environment, we made him sit in a closet with only a candle for light. In this test, the Huawei P9 Plus was the winner, with the best color shining through the dark.
Say Cheese
To test out the front-facing camera of all three phones, a selfie was an obvious choice for the last test. The Google Pixel 2 and the iPhone X both have a portrait mode that blurs the background automagically, which put them ahead of the Huawei. The Pixel 2 did a slightly better job of differentiating between the subject and the background, so it won this challenge as well, but the iPhone X gets an honorable mention.
And the winner is…
The Google Pixel 2! In two out of the three challenges, the Pixel 2 wowed us with how crisp and precise the photos were. However, since the iPhone X got an honorable mention for its portrait mode, it would still be a great choice for anyone whose main concern is taking professional-looking selfies, and the Huawei won in terms of overall colors, so if you want to take beautiful landscape or vivid nature photos, it could still be the best choice for you.
