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iPhone XS camera reviews unfairly pit it against year-old Pixel 2. Pixel is still winning.

Even the few reviews that say the iPhone XS camera is better than the one on the Pixel 2, it's still a very close race.
By
September 19, 2018
A shot detailing the front-facing sensors on the Apple iPhone XS.
TL;DR
  • Apple iPhone XS camera reviews are coming in hot on various sites.
  • Most of the reviews concede that although the iPhone XS camera is amazing, it’s still not as good as the Google Pixel 2.
  • Even the sites that say the iPhone XS camera is better, the year-old Google Pixel 2 is still right there with it.

If you watched the Apple keynote event on September 12, you know that the presenters spent a large portion of stage time talking about how incredible the iPhone XS camera is. It makes sense, as high-end camera features have always been a major selling point of the iPhone.

Now that iPhone XS camera reviews are starting to pop up online, we are beginning to get an idea of just how amazing this new camera is. However, many of the reviews are stating that as good as the iPhone XS camera is, the camera on the Google Pixel 2 is still better.

Ouch.

This wouldn’t be a big deal if reviewers were comparing the iPhone XS — a 2018 device — with the upcoming Google Pixel 3. But the fact that an Android smartphone that at this point is essentially a year old is still winning the day when it comes to the camera, that’s pretty extraordinary.

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Vlad Savov over at The Verge went as far as to title his iPhone X camera review, “The iPhone XS camera beats the iPhone X, but not the Pixel 2.” Mark Spoonauer at Tom’s Guide says that the iPhone XS “sometimes” beats the Google Pixel 2, but that in reality, the iPhone XS is just now “catching up” to Google’s 2017 phone in many ways.

Raymond Wong over at Mashable says that the iPhone XS camera is the best he’s ever used, and posted dozens of (admittedly beautiful) comparison shots against two Android devices: the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and the Google Pixel 2. Once again, the Galaxy Note 9 is a device that is not even a month old at this point, and Wong concedes that although he prefers the output of the iPhone XS, the Google Pixel 2 is still holding its own.

In fact, almost every iPhone XS camera review we could find compares its output to the Google Pixel 2. If in October Android Authority or other Android-focused sites were to post camera reviews of the Google Pixel 3 as compared to 2017’s iPhone X, we’d be called out as stacking the deck since we’re comparing two phones from different release cycles. But, here we are, with Apple reviews doing just that.

The Google Pixel 3 and Google Pixel 3 XL will launch on October 9 at a Google event in New York City. We’ll have to wait and see if the Pixel 3 can top the industry-best Pixel 2 camera experience.

NEXT: Google Pixel 3: All the rumors in one place