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We tested the iPhone 11 Pro Max and Pixel 18 Pro XL with six of our custom camera modules, measuring everything from resolution to the smoothness of zooming between lenses. In terms of hardware, the main change in the iPhone is a new variable aperture, which Apple says provides about 50% better performance in low light. The Pixel, on the other hand, received perhaps more significant hardware upgrades: a brand new main sensor along with an improved telephoto lens capable of capturing 30% more light. Will this be enough for Google to prove its leadership in smartphone photography, or has the iPhone already caught up and surpassed it? Let's find out. This episode is sponsored by Zapier and Next Gen Zaps, which use triggers and
workflows familiar to Zaps users, but updated for the AI era. I got early access to this tool, and the first thing I decided to build was a comment monitor, because honestly, every time I publish a video, I worry if we made a mistake in the graphics or specifications. This usually meant rereading the comments for the first few hours with trepidation. But now, because Zapier connects directly to YouTube, as soon as we post a video, Next Gen Zap automatically starts, collects new comments at certain intervals, and then an AI like Claude checks to see if anyone has pointed out an error. And if someone does, they will notify me in Slack so I can respond quickly.
Technically, I could just delegate all the work to AI, but using AI at every step would not only be inefficient, but also expensive to use With Next Gen Zaps, you get the best of both worlds. Simple automation handles routine tasks like collecting comments, and AI only kicks in when judgment is needed-for example, to understand whether a comment indicates an error or is simply spam. The coolest thing is that I was able to create the entire system simply by describing it to Claude, who deployed it directly into Zapier, where it runs on its own. Zapier even has a self-healing mechanism that can fix most workflow failures on its own. You can sign up for early access to Next Gen Zaps at the first link below, while your existing
Zaps will continue to work as is. So, in this first module, we measure how well each phone captures a moving subject in low light. And to test this, we move our model at three different speeds: low, medium, and high, precisely controlling the shutter release time. Let's start with the main cameras, and this is the area where Apple has really caught up with the competition compared to last year. Last time, the Pixel had a huge advantage, but this time both phones scored 20 out of 20 at low speed, with every photo they took reaching our sharpness threshold of 55. At medium speed, the situation was almost the same: every photo from both phones was classified as sharp, and while the Pixel had a higher average score,
both devices produced really good quality shots. This remained true even at high speed, where, while the Pixel again scored slightly higher, the iPhone technically produced two sharper photos than the Pixel. So, overall I would say that both of these main cameras perform very well in these conditions. However, when it comes to ultra-wide-angle cameras, the Pixel has a clear advantage: 11 of its photos were classified as sharp, while the iPhone had none at all. And it's really noticeable in the details, where the Pixel shows off more fine texture in eyebrows, beards, and even clothing. A similar story was observed with the telephoto lens. While both phones struggled here, the Pixel fared much better
at low speeds, taking six sharp photos, with all 20 samples passing our passable threshold of 40 points. Whereas on the iPhone, not a single photo was clear, and not a single shot even reached our 40-point suitability threshold. So overall, I think both phones can give you really good shots when using the main camera, which is what you 'll use most often. But when you look at the entire camera system, the Pixel has the advantage in the ultra-wide and telephoto lenses, which gives it the win in capturing motion in low light. Next, we move on to zoom smoothness, where we measure how cleanly each phone can zoom from the ultra-wide camera to the telephoto lens. And, to be honest, the fight was uneven.
Across all five attempts, the iPhone received an average score of 80, while the Pixel only got 58. And when you look at the footage, the reason becomes quite obvious. On the Pixel, there is noticeable judder when zooming, as if the phone is skipping frames. And on top of that, it has a strong deviation when going from 1x zoom to a sudden change of direction to a 5x lens. Whereas on the iPhone, all movement is much smoother. Not only is there less shake, but the zoom trajectory is almost straight. Even the transition between lenses closer to the end of the zoom looks much more subtle. The good news for the Pixel is that it has a Video Boost feature, which when enabled sends
recorded video to Google servers along with additional data for better processing After an hour or two, you get a much improved video that's almost on par with the iPhone in quality, with no judder and much smoother zoom. Of course, you have to enable this feature every time you want to use it. Besides, not everyone will want to send their video to Google. So, at least in standard mode, the iPhone still wins in zoom smoothness. So, in the object tracking test, we measure how well each phone keeps an object sharp and in focus during fast movement. This is of great importance in situations like shooting a baby on a swing, when you want to know which phone will do a better job of capturing all those cute micro-expressions frame
after frame. Starting with the main cameras, we immediately saw the difference. iPhone is better at keeping the subject sharp throughout the entire movement. And even when he lost focus, he regained it much more quickly. That's not to say that Pixel was completely out of focus. He was often close to catching the trick. It was just harder for him to keep his face as clear as possible, especially when the subject was further away. In fact, when we looked at the data, almost half of the Pixel's frames barely fell into our acceptable sharpness range. Whereas on the iPhone, over 90% of frames were classified as truly sharp. But when we switched to each phone's cinematic mode, we got the opposite result, and this time the
Pixel did better. And there are two reasons for this. First, the Pixel somehow tracked the subject better in this cinematic mode compared to its standard mode. And this was true for all tests conducted. And secondly, the iPhone performed simply horribly here. It seemed like he was trying more to maintain that clean cinematic focus transition than to actually keep the subject sharp. Which is, of course, fair, because that's what this mode is called, but at the same time, if you plan to use it in situations even slightly similar to this one, you'll definitely miss out on some special moments. Moving on to the ultra-wide-angle camera, here the results of both phones were much closer, with the iPhone having a slight advantage. Not so much in terms of
object tracking, but in how sharp it was overall, as the image on the Pixel looked a little softer. Which, to me, at least for this ultra-wide camera, has more to do with resolution than with focus itself. Although it was 4K at 30 frames per second. But we'll look at this in more detail in our resolution section. And finally, when looking at telephoto lenses, this is where the iPhone is significantly ahead of its competitor. The Pixel had trouble maintaining sharpness when our subject moved both towards and away from the camera. And while it sometimes managed to capture a clear face, it just couldn't hold it as steady as the iPhone. This is reflected
in the results: the iPhone averaged a score of 64 points for these tests, while the Pixel only scored 39. So while the Pixel did have a big advantage in cinematic mode, in the standard everyday modes that you'll use most often, I think the iPhone definitely wins in object tracking. In this section on color accuracy, we test how realistic each phone captures a scene by comparing it to a calibrated reference. We divided the test into three different scenarios. One with just the light-skinned model, one with just the dark-skinned one, and a third with both models in the frame to see if and how the result changes. Starting with the main camera photos, the Pixel was slightly more accurate
when only the fair-skinned model was in the frame, while the iPhone added a warmth to her skin that wasn't really there. But when we switched to shooting just the dark-skinned model, this time the phones' scores were much closer. Although, you know, both made her skin look much lighter than it actually was. Interestingly, when we placed both models in the frame, this tendency towards highlighting became much less pronounced. And this story was generally repeated with the other cameras, with one notable exception: on the ultra-wide camera, when only our dark-skinned model was in the frame, the iPhone had a significant advantage in accuracy-not just in skin tone, but also in the colors in the entire scene, as you can
see here in the color chart. But when we moved on to video, the situation changed dramatically. This time, the Pixel was generally more accurate across all three cameras, especially when it came to skin tones. Starting with the main camera, the iPhone simply added more warmth and richness to the scene than it actually was. And this was especially noticeable with our dark-skinned model, where even the colors of his shirt looked brighter. Moving on to the ultra -wide-angle camera, no phone has been perfect. The iPhone had a slight yellowish tint, while the Pixel leaned slightly towards pink. But, you know, overall, the Pixel was technically closer to our benchmark. And finally, on the telephoto lens: while the iPhone did a good job with the
fair-skinned model, with the dark-skinned model it again over- saturated compared to reality. I understand that some will prefer the richer look of the iPhone. And, you know, that's perfectly acceptable. But in terms of capturing the scene as it really was, the Pixel did a better job. So, overall, I'd say the iPhone had a slight advantage in photography, mainly because of that one episode with the ultra-wide camera. Whereas Pixel turned out to be more realistic in video shooting. While color accuracy is certainly important, color consistency-that is, how well a phone maintains the same look when switching between lenses-is perhaps even more important. And while both phones performed quite well in terms of consistency when
shooting photos, when we moved on to video- where switching while recording is common-the Pixel was noticeably worse. You can see all these significant color changes when switching from the ultra-wide to the main camera, and then from the main to the telephoto lens. Whereas the iPhone, while technically less accurate in color reproduction in individual scenes, was much more consistent. So, the iPhone has a pretty big advantage in terms of color consistency. Okay, now for image stabilization: we shake the phones in exactly the same way to see how each one handles it. Starting with the main cameras, to be honest, both phones were very close. Whether it's our standing jitter test, where we add a few sharp jerks to simulate hand tremors
, or our walking and running simulations, the only real difference was that the Pixel had a bit more blur around the model's eyes while running. Moving on to the ultra-wide-angle cameras, this is where the Pixel started to pull ahead. Not only did it do a better job of absorbing those sharp jolts during our jitter test, but it also had an advantage when simulating running, producing a slightly smoother picture overall. But the biggest difference was definitely when we switched to telephoto lenses, where the iPhone really struggled with those sharp jerks.
Not only did it let in more jitter, but it also added a little bounce after movement, whereas the Pixel had nothing like that And while the results were much closer during the walking simulation, when we started simulating running, oh my, the Pixel did noticeably better. Compared to it, it seems as if the iPhone didn't perform any stabilization at all. So, overall, while the iPhone has a slight advantage in the main camera, the Pixel pulls ahead in the ultra-wide and telephoto, giving it an easy win in stabilization. Okay, the last module we're looking at is resolution, where we measure how clearly each one can capture fine details through their lenses.
Starting with photos on the main camera, at default settings the iPhone had the advantage, which, you know, isn't entirely surprising since it takes a 24- megapixel photo compared to the Pixel's 12- megapixel. But when we switched to each phone's higher resolution modes, the gap became significantly smaller. This time, the Pixel did a much better job of keeping up with the iPhone, with both phones delivering almost the same amount of detail in stars and band groups. Moving on to ultra-wide-angle cameras, this is where the iPhone started to pull ahead. At the default resolution, the iPhone delivered noticeably more detail, and while both phones improved their results when switching to higher resolution modes,
the iPhone was still able to maintain a pretty clear advantage. With these smaller stars looking cleaner and clearer. In telephoto, the smartphones showed fairly close results at standard resolution, which is quite interesting, since the Pixel shot at 12 megapixels versus 24. However, at higher resolutions, the iPhone did better, while the Pixel, surprisingly, did not show much improvement compared to its 12- megapixel mode. Moving on to video, at 4K the iPhone had the advantage on all three cameras. On the main camera, both phones were significantly inferior in photo quality, but the iPhone did a better job of separating small details. Of course, in addition to 4K, the Pixel also has an 8K mode, and when we turned it on, it was able
to capture significantly more detail on the main camera. However, a side effect of this was the appearance of more processing artifacts. Unfortunately, this advantage didn't extend to the ultra-wide camera, where even at 8K the Pixel couldn't beat the iPhone's 4K video. And at telephoto, the difference was even more noticeable, as 4K video from the Pixel looked significantly softer. While the move to 8K helped the Pixel somewhat, even then the iPhone produced a more detailed picture with fewer artifacts. So, while the Pixel's high-resolution camera is indeed competitive, the iPhone is overall better at
photography. As for video, the iPhone was better even in 4K, and the Pixel's 8K mode only came out ahead on the main camera, and even then only slightly. In summary, the Pixel performed better in our low-light motion test, where it was able to take sharper photos than the iPhone, especially on the telephoto lens. The Pixel also had a slight advantage in stabilization, while providing more accurate color reproduction in video. However, when it came to the stability of these colors, the iPhone was better, while also having a significant advantage in zoom smoothness And perhaps most importantly, he was able to capture more detail on all of his cameras, whether it was photos or video.
So, even though this was a very close matchup, I prefer the iPhone in this camera test. Anyway, that's all I have for this video. Thanks for watching, and as always, see you in the next episode.
