Apart from Samsung Galaxy S8, the Google Pixel 2 is definitely another of the most anticipated devices in 2017.
After the huge success of the Google Pixel and Pixel XL that was largely dependent on the quality camera that the phones came in with, many fans are optimistic that the Google Pixel 2 will pick it up from where the 2016 model left not just in hardware specs and performance, but also in terms of camera quality.
One might argue that since the Pixel and Pixel XL still lead the way in terms of camera quality, it is about time Google started concentrating on other aspects of the Pixel 2 phone such as design. However, it seems the tech giant has plans to make the camera of this phone even better than the current version. So, how will the company achieve this?
To bring you closer, let’s take a short trip in recent history. You probably have heard of Google Glass, a project that started a few years ago but up to now, it has never materialized into something worth talking about. Well, it appears that the efforts put towards making Glass a success are actually what made the camera of the Google Pixel receive a ranking of 89 on DxOMark.
According to 9to5Google, the tech giant’s X Division had been working on how to fit a sensor into Google Glass such that this image sensor can perform on the same levels like smartphones. This sensor was to be the smallest possible but the company was not about to let this physical form affect the quality of images the sensor delivers. Enter the Gcam software project – a project that was meant to augment the hardware in question with smart software choices for better performance.
With the Gcam software, it was easy to capture several shots, fuse them into one and as a result provide a higher quality image. This software was first tried on the Google Nexus 5 and later on the Nexus 6 as HDR+. When the Google Pixel came around, the software was given the Gcam HDR+ tag and lives in the camera app as a default mode. This is what actually makes the Pixel deliver such high-quality photos regardless of the conditions around it.
Now, the same report adds that Google might improve this technology by turning to machine learning in order to help the likes of Google Pixel 2 deliver better white balance as well as let the software determine whatever it wants to do with the background, be it darkening or lightening it, among others.
The Google Pixel 2 is expected towards the end of the year and we still have a long way to go. We’ll for sure learn more details about these prospects in the coming days, but one thing that is for sure is that the Pixel 2 will ship with possibly the same 12.3MP camera, but with lots of other software improvements, similar to the ones mooted in this article.