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many of you criticized our coverage of the google pixel 4's camera when we

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declared it to be on par with the iphone 11 pro and pro max and one of the

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biggest critiques was our failure to address apple's deep fusion

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computational photography feature which at the time was in beta so now that it's

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out for real we are taking that opportunity to reopen the case of iphone

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versus pixel 2019 edition and for good

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measure we've thrown in both the note 10 and the mate 30 pro

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with pulseway you can remotely monitor manage and control all of your Windows

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mac and Linux machines from one app create your free account today at the

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link in the video description

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let's start off with a quick explanation of deep fusion and how it works

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when the feature is active the iphone's camera is constantly buffering in the

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background in the buffer the camera takes four standard exposure shots as

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well as four short exposure shots with a final long exposure shot at the very end

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once the shutter button is actually pressed the iphone then blends the best

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elements of the short exposure shots making a reference frame then it blends

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the standard exposure shots and the long exposure shot making a synthetic long

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frame the reference frame and the synthetic long frame are then run through more

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processing pixel by pixel to improve the

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appearance of sky hair skin and textures like fabrics

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all of this happens within about a second or two of pressing the shutter so

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that is great that apple has managed to cram a bunch of processing steps into

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just a couple seconds of a shutter press but does it really make that much of a

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difference the answer is yes

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some of the time so deep fusion adds

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more detail and sharpness without the undesirable effects that we commonly

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associate with normal image sharpening so check out this shot of a petro canada

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gas station upon immediate inspection honestly the

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two images don't look that different but check out these roof tiles in the

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background our deep fusion shot clearly retains more detail here but without any

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ugly noise or sharpening artifacts

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as for the grilles here and the concrete segment lines in this nighttime boat

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shot while the lines are both easily

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resolvable even if we zoom way in on both of the images what's notable is

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that there are no dark pixels that are out of line the line is much straighter

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and much finer again here in this bentley parking lot

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our deep fusion shot is better but this one the effect is definitely more subtle

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and we can mostly see it here in the sign as for this night boat shot the

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building in the background here is one of the best examples we've seen of deep

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fusion working its magic it is so clearly so much better defined than the

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non-deep fusion shot as a best-case scenario that one actually makes a lot

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of sense deep fusion was designed for medium to low light so it hits nicely

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right in the middle of smart HDR and apple's new night mode but the thing is

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guys if you were expecting this technique to dramatically change the

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quality of the photos you take on your iphone you probably haven't been paying

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much attention to the multi-frame capture techniques that are widespread

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in the industry even at apple already so

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while the technique may be unlike what we've seen before the result is not that

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different in most cases so let's change gears here and compare

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the iphone with all of the weapons at its disposal to our other phones

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this dim incandescent lit restaurant with afternoon daylight outside is an

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extremely challenging situation and it's

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one of the shots that actually made me doubt my conclusion about the pixel 4.

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the window in the back here is completely blown out and the contrasty

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look of the pixel is not doing our subject's face any favors the note 10

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actually handled this shot the best in terms of skin tone with the iphone

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winning out on overall dynamic range and detail thanks in part here to deep

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fusion though i should note that in my opinion the iphone image makes our

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subject's skin look a little bit too pasty due to the iphone's more lifted

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look to skin now let's use this shot to talk about

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the way that the iphone handles shadows on the face now to me the layperson this

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image honestly looks wonderful and i would pick it first out of the lineup

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every time but brandon has an understandable bone to pick with apple

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about the way that they processed it now the pixel 4 image clearly has deeper

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shadows under the chin and the eyes making our subject look more tired to my

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eye i mean who would want that but given that this was shot under

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overhead light the pixel's image is actually a lot

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closer to how she actually looked at that time so apple is tinkering with the

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image a lot here and when they get it right the subject ends up looking like a

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doll which is great for posting to instagram

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but when you tinker with lighting you can also end up losing a lot of the

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perceived depth and the character of the shot as for samsung they're clearly

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going after an apple-esque look so if you like that aesthetic then they did

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great but the image comes out a bit softer than apple and the only nice

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thing that i can say about huawei's effort is that their larger sensor seems

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to be contributing to a really great natural bokeh in the background here

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moving into a studio situation the iphone and mate 30 pro both had trouble

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white balancing to our daylight balanced lighting here in the studio where the

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pixel 4 and the note 10 both delivered a pleasing warm image

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punching in even with deep fusion i would actually give the edge in detail

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to the pixel 4 with the note 10 doing a pretty good job as well and that pattern

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of the pixel 4 being sharper overall is

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one that was actually quite consistent throughout our testing as you can see in

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these images apple's team with or without deep fusion has clearly made the

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choice of taking a less contrasty approach to their image sharpening

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but a lot of the time people like a more neutral less contrasty image and the

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thing is we're not bringing up google's

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better sharpness as a way to prove that google's images

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are better every time there's a lot more to image quality than the detail that

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gets retained when you are super duper zoomed in

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in this shot for example the iphone did an excellent job of delivering true to

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life color the blue in this photo is the

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blue of this car straight up the pixel on the other hand

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ended up making our car look quite a bit duller the note 10 then does the same

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thing while having less detail when punched in on the front of the vehicle

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but i mean it's still overall a pretty good looking image and as for the mate

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30 pro okay actually surprise surprise this is

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a cooler overall look but huawei did a fairly good job here with noise color

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and detail getting into some low light stuff just before apple's night mode would

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activate deep fusion is definitely working its magic here the detail in

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this car to go vehicle is significantly improved and the noise is also managed

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better than the non-deep fusion image looking at the deep fusion shot versus

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the other competitors i'd say it's close overall with the note 10 faring the

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worst and struggling to capture much detail going through a bunch more low light

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shots taken around downtown vancouver the iphone with deep fusion really

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shines in managing detail with noise performance that in my opinion beat out

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the pixel 4 a lot of the time in most cases the note 10 and the mate 30 pro

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fell farther and farther behind as the lighting conditions worsened the mate 30

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in particular has such an aggressive noise reduction in low light that it

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just ends up smoothing everything over to the point where it looks almost

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posterized in some cases in night mode the iphone has hugely improved this year

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no doubt i wouldn't go as far as to say that it is better than google's night

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sight on the pixel 4 but it's close enough that most people wouldn't be able

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to notice the small differences that put google ever so slightly ahead images

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from both phones show that they're at the top of their game when it comes to

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nighttime photography now on to video

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this is a situation where i think google ended up with a pass because we didn't

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challenge the pixel 4's camera enough the iphone has long been the golden

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standard when it comes to recording video on a mobile device and that is

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still true today in daytime scenes all four phones in our test did a fairly

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good job of judging exposure the mate 30 pro seems to like its color on the

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warmer side more often than not the note 10 seems to struggle with its dynamic

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range in the highlights depending on the scene and our pixel 4 suffered the most

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in low light coming in as the noisiest of the bunch but honestly the thing that

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stands out most about the iphone 11 pro series is the way that apple has managed

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to handle sudden changes in the shooting conditions when we move inside with

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dennis here notice how the note 10 clips

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dennis's pants so there's no detail left in that light material and the pixel 4

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ends up quite noisy until both of them have some time to adjust the iphone on

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the other hand manages not just to avoid this pitfall but if we move over to this

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walking shot of riley we actually find multiple situations where as the

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lighting changes the iphone is the only device that manages to keep the color of

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his jacket reasonably consistent throughout the entire clip

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that ain't easy i mean if it were i'm sure huawei would

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have done a better job of it so i have to take back what i said about

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the pixel being as good there are some areas where it excels its slow motion is

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still close and its stabilization is pretty damn good but in a wider variety

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of situations the iphone is clearly going to end up flexing its muscles so

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bottom line were we wrong

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yes and also no it's obvious from looking at everything

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today that under good conditions any modern cell phone camera can look

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absolutely spectacular i mean look at all the praise the mate 30 pro gets

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so were we wrong to say that the pixel 4

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is as good as the iphone well for most people probably not since

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most people view images like this not like this

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and a lot of the differences do come down to aesthetic processing choices

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these days rather than quality

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however where the best get separated from

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the rest caught it is when it comes to

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consistency and this is where i feel like we let you guys down we failed to

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identify the iphone 11 pro's greatness in the quick comparison that we made in

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our pixel 4 review it may not take the best shot every time and especially in a

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deeper round up like this we can absolutely find situations where it

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falls behind one competitor or another

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but between me and brandon we couldn't find a shot where it clearly came in

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third once and as a consumer think about it

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i mean i'd rather have the camera where i get at least a silver medal every time

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versus the one where i you know win a few golds but

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break my ankle from time to time so

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then sorry guys i was wrong about the iphone 11 pro and pro max but

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if it's any consolation for me at least i get to say i was right about

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one thing huawei still makes the most overrated cell phone cameras on the

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so thanks for watching guys i hope you enjoyed watching me eat humble pie i

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certainly did um

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yeah if you enjoyed this video go check out uh my review of the uh galaxy fold i

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didn't even talk about the camera who cares so cool without it

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i actually didn't talk about the camera at all nobody even noticed there wasn't

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a single comment that was like what about the camera Linus