The Google Pixel C Review
by Brandon Chester & Joshua Ho on January 25, 2016 8:00 AM ESTCamera
A tablet's large display can make it one of the best viewfinders in the world. While many still see tablet cameras as a mostly pointless feature, they do see a great deal of use among certain subsets of tablet users. Like most tablets, the Pixel C sports an 8MP rear-facing camera sensor with 1.12 micron pixels and a 1/4" sensor format. To see the specifics of the Pixel C's cameras along with a comparison to the Nexus 9 check out the chart below.
| Camera Specifications | ||||
| Google Nexus 9 | Google Pixel C | |||
| Front Camera | 1.6MP | 2.1MP | ||
| Front Camera - Sensor | OV9760 (1.75µm, 1/5") |
IMX208 (1.4 µm, 1/5.78") |
||
| Front Camera - Max Aperture | F/2.2 | |||
| Rear Camera | 8.0MP (3280 x 2460) |
|||
| Rear Camera - Sensor | IMX219 (1.12 µm, 1/4") |
|||
| Rear Camera - Focal Length | 33mm eff | 32mm eff | ||
| Rear Camera - Max Aperture | F/2.4 | |||
As always, the first comparisons puts the Pixel C against other devices when taking photos during the day, followed by tests done in the dark, which ends up being heavily influenced by the quality of a tablet's ISP and photo processing.
| Daytime Photography Scene 1 |
The Pixel C doesn't perform very well in this test. It wouldn't surprise me if Tegra's ISP was still to blame, as was the case with the Nexus 9. Compared to the iPad Pro, which has essentially the same camera capabilities as the iPad Mini 4 and iPad Air 2, the image is quite disappointing. There are issues with autofocus on the Pixel C which cause problems with achieving a sharp image, along with color noise in the frame despite the photo being taken in the day at base ISO. While I think tablet cameras should only be used in a pinch, when you're selling one for $500 it's not acceptable to lag so far behind your competitor's $399 mini tablet. This is something Google and NVIDIA need to work on if Tegra SoCs are going to continue being used in Pixel and Nexus device
| Daytime Photography Scene 2 |
In this second scene the Pixel C was able to lock its AF, and as a result there are no issues with bluriness. Unfortunately, the color noise in the frame is still present and there's generally just less detail than the photos taken with the iPad cameras. Color noise is something that's very distracting, and the fact that Google is having problems eliminating it in the daytime is very concerning.
| Low Light Photography Scene 1 |
| Low Light Photography Scene 2 |
Moving on to the low light testing, we see that the Pixel C has an enormous amount of color noise across the entire frame. The Nexus 9 suffers from this as well, and it appears that the ISPs in Tegra X1 and K1 ISP struggle with doing things like hot pixel compensation in low light, as in the dark areas of the photo there are obvious bright speckles of pixel noise. In comparison we have the iPad Pro, which is essentially equal to the Air 2 and Mini 4 as far as image quality is concerned. It produces a much sharper image with very little color noise and relatively fine grained luma noise. The Pixel C simply isn't competitive here.
| Low Light Photography Scene 3 |
This next low light scene echoes the results of the previous one. The Pixel C lags behind the iPads as far as detail and noise is concerned.
| 1080p30 Video |
The Pixel C can record 1080p video at 30fps. This is in line with most tablets on the market. Unfortunately, the video is encoded using the H.264 Baseline profile with a bitrate of 14Mbps. This is yet another Android device using a profile aimed at applications like encoding real time video for streaming and easy decoding for very low performance devices, and I continue to wait for a smartphone or tablet that will buck the trend and be competitive with what Apple is offering in this area. For comparison, the iPad Pro records 1080p30 video using the H.264 High profile at 17Mbps, and the difference in quality is noticeable to say the least. On top of that, the Pixel C's video ends up suffering from some processing issues, including contrast which is too high, which reduces the detail in dark areas.
I don't really use the cameras on tablets, but the Pixel C is another offering that just isn't remotely competitive with what you get on an iPad, or even on a tablet like the Galaxy Tab S2 which is on par with the iPads for still images, and still much better than the Pixel C for video recording. With this trend of poor image processing on Tegra devices Google may want to work with NVIDIA to improve that part of their SoCs, or adopt an external ISP to do processing, because the current solution just isn't working.
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ImSpartacus - Wednesday, January 27, 2016 - link
You're paying for something that "just works". You'd be surprised at how attractive that is for a lot of people that are simply incapable of using modern tech.So you can either stick your fingers in your ears and demand that everyone spend years of their life becoming experts in modern tech, or you can realize that there's some money to be made. Apple is in the business of making money.
Alexey291 - Saturday, January 30, 2016 - link
No offence to your and your expertness. But do you honestly think that it takes "a few years" to become an expert of playing with touchscreen devices?Oh boy...
jbelkin - Monday, January 25, 2016 - link
Well, not ignorant, just an economy that only supports 9% of buyers being able to afford the stnadard bearer.Vlad_Da_Great - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link
@jbelkin. EU are not as shallow and easy to manipulate as their USA counterparts. Also, biggest % of iPhone purchases in USA are done from people over 60y old. If you look around the globe the second biggest country with huge engineering population (India) has no interest in the iPhone.Asians on the other side love magic, that is what APPL is good of selling.
vanilla_gorilla - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link
That's mostly related to income. The vast majority of those people would much prefer an Apple device if they could afford it. Most Android devices are incredible cheap devices.the_comment_guy - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link
What are you talking about? Apple hasn't been ableto open stores in India due to their laws requiring 30% of their components to be sourced from small to medium enterprises: that's why they've barely made a dent in the Indian phone market. Despite this, Apple's sales in India have been increasing every year. If India relaxes its backwards laws, and Apple is allowed to open their own stores, Apple sales will explode.Alexey291 - Saturday, January 30, 2016 - link
Sure the sales have grown in india. Shame about the sales in the rest of the world.Essentially last quarter's sales have been propped up by the Chinese and Indian sales growth. The rest of the world however...
akdj - Thursday, February 4, 2016 - link
Rest of the world? As in North, South America and a dozen European countries? Apple's BLOWN their OWN records out of the water with iOS device sales. iPads are down ...unfortunately for Apple, they're built too well! Seriously, as I've owned each iPad ...we use them with our business and both original and iPad 2s are still BOTH working & battery life on the first iPad continues beating a dozen hours watching movies. Eight browsing or a good 25-30 listening to music, screen off!My iPad '2' purchased on launch day and the kids use it all the time. No issues ...they're replied amid don't die. Apple is continuing support for older devices. Kicking their own selves in the sack! Or ...maybe not.
While geeks like me justify with my job, personal business and personal 'wants' the purchase of each new iPad that drops, and because of each gen's phenomenal updates. iPad 3 aside, which I owned until 4 dropped - iPad 3 left on Craigslist the following day with its updated performance so obvious. The 'new' iPad 3, IMHO, is the only anomaly to the updates and performance increases, display/resolution updates, shaving weight, maintaining battery life and dramatically boosting its 'guts', sensors, display accuracy and smaller but significant user bonuses like the A/G display stack and their lamination & out of factory calibration ....make each iPad, in my line of work, play & education priceless! Original to iPad 2, the difference was/is obvious. 2-->3, 'Retina' on the iPad, a complete game changer. Oops, same engine as the iPad 2, 4 times the resolution, drop the 4 with its Apple designed SoC monster A8X --- exponentially bettering the iPad w/Retina experience!
While somewhat less Ferrari, more Subaru ...Air 1 is today a fantastic tablet (I've both Air 1 & 2). It's slower than its younger sibling but its sporting the first 64bit processor in a tablet and mine continues to get a lot usage. My Air 2, there's nothing on the market comparable. Not w/the App Store and its million optimized, all inclusive app/software accompanying options to aggregate and integrate with the home Mac, studio Macs or your phone/tab with Handoff. The continuity Apple's built into iOS and OS X as well as supporting older devices with both desk OS's, it's no wonder folks aren't replacing them as quickly as a phone! They're still selling a quarter more than the rest of the field does in a year! When you take the <$149 tablet choices off the table, iPad in its slump is outselling the entire industry 2-1 quarter vs. year! It's a top 100 in the Forbes 500 business itself! That's crazy IMHO. But the addition of iPad Pro changes things. Doubling the RAM on the iPhone 6s & iPad Air 2 was obvious in use, day to day ...it was just a LOT quicker at everything than my Air 1. They've now doubled to 4GB in iPP and as an owner for 3 months, I've never been happier with an iPad. The iPad A2 still ROCKS! I use it daily and it's as robust and reliable as any predecessor, just a helluva lot faster and finally now, finally being targeted by developers to take advantage of the hardware...as older products are phased out
Which left me curious about Josh's final comment/words
'Overall, I’m not even sure this measures up to the iPad Air 2 which is well over a year old by this point. I cannot in good conscience recommend anyone buy this tablet until the touch screen issues and generally poor performance has been resolved, and even then that recommendation would be to a limited group of people solely interested in a touch-only Android tablet.A
I read the review a second time all the way through. I went back and read the Air 2 review as well. While a couple of benchmarks seem to have parity or even exceed A2's --- the display performance, also beating A2, it's close in your measurements but EVERY other word strongly suggests not just an inferior experience in comparison (Pixel v A2), but performance destroyed by my iPad 4! Janky, unable to maintain connection, freezes and crashes and.... I can go on, it's not necessary though. Just seems to very much understate iPad A2's performance and without reading the rest, complete overstatement of the 'experience' of PixC as a couple of benches close, neck & neck, means absolutely nothing when it comes down to the user's overall experience. My iPad 2 seems to be a better comparison!
Yikes
lilmoe - Monday, January 25, 2016 - link
Nice ignorant comment bro. Way to go.id4andrei - Monday, January 25, 2016 - link
Hardware has nothing to do with Android's problem. Dev support for tablet operation in Android is lacking. Simple.