 Many of you criticized our coverage of the Google Pixel 4's camera when we declared it to be on par with the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max. And one of the biggest critiques was our failure to address Apple's Deep Fusion computational photography feature, which at the time was in beta. So now that it's out for real, we are taking that opportunity to reopen the case of iPhone versus Pixel 2019 edition. And for good measure, we've thrown in both the Note 10 and the Mate 30 Pro. With Pulseway, you can remotely monitor, manage, and control all of your Windows, Mac, and Linux machines from one app. Create your free account today at the link in the video description. Let's start off with a quick explanation of Deep Fusion and how it works. When the feature is active, the iPhone's camera is constantly buffering in the background. In the buffer, the camera takes four standard exposure shots, as well as four short exposure shots, with a final long exposure shot at the very end once the shutter button is actually pressed. The iPhone then blends the best elements of the short exposure shots, making a reference frame. Then it blends the standard exposure shots and the long exposure shot, making a synthetic long frame. The reference frame and the synthetic long frame are then run through more processing, pixel by pixel, to improve the appearance of sky, hair, skin, and textures like fabrics. All of this happens within about a second or two of pressing the shutter. So that is great that Apple has managed to cram a bunch of processing steps into just a couple seconds of a shutter press. But does it really make that much of a difference? The answer is yes, mmm, some of the time. So Deep Fusion adds more detail and sharpness without the undesirable effects that we commonly associate with normal image sharpening. So check out this shot of a Petro-Canada gas station. Upon immediate inspection, honestly, the two images don't look that different. But check out these roof tiles in the background. Our Deep Fusion shot clearly retains more detail here, but without any ugly noise or sharpening artifacts. As for the grills here and the concrete segment lines in this nighttime boat shot, while the lines are both easily resolvable, even if we zoom way in on both of the images, what's notable is that there are no dark pixels that are out of line. The line is much straighter and much finer. Again, here in this Bentley parking lot, our Deep Fusion shot is better, but this one, the effect is definitely more subtle and we can mostly see it here in the sign. As for this night boat shot, the building in the background here is one of the best examples we've seen of Deep Fusion working its magic. It is so clearly, so much better defined than the non-Deep Fusion shot. As a best case scenario, that one actually makes a lot of sense. Deep Fusion was designed for medium to low light. So it hits nicely right in the middle of Smart HDR and Apple's new night mode. But the thing is, guys, if you were expecting this technique to dramatically change the quality of the photos you take on your iPhone, you probably haven't been paying much attention to the multi-frame capture techniques that are widespread in the industry, even at Apple, already. So while the technique may be unlike what we've seen before, the result is not that different in most cases. So let's change gears here and compare the iPhone with all of the weapons at its disposal to our other phones. This dim, incandescent-lit restaurant with afternoon daylight outside is an extremely challenging situation. And it's one of the shots that actually made me doubt my conclusion about the Pixel 4. The window in the back here is completely blown out and the contrasty look of the Pixel is not doing our subjects face any favors. The Note 10 actually handled this shot the best in terms of skin tone, with the iPhone winning out on overall dynamic range and detail, thanks in part here to Deep Fusion. Though I should note that, in my opinion, the iPhone image makes our subject's skin look a little bit too pasty due to the iPhone's more lifted look to skin. Now let's use this shot to talk about the way that the iPhone handles shadows on the face. Now to me, the layperson, this image honestly looks wonderful and I would pick it first out of the lineup every time. But Brandon has an understandable bone to pick with Apple about the way that they processed it. Now the Pixel 4 image clearly has deeper shadows under the chin and the eyes, making our subject look more tired to my eye. I mean, who would want that? But given that this was shot under overhead light, the Pixel's image is actually a lot closer to how she actually looked at that time. So Apple is tinkering with the image a lot here and when they get it right, the subject ends up looking like a doll, which is great for posting to Instagram. But when you tinker with lighting, you can also end up losing a lot of the perceived depth and the character of the shot. As for Samsung, they're clearly going after an Apple-esque look, so if you like that aesthetic, then they did great. But the image comes out a bit softer than Apple. And the only nice thing that I can say about Huawei's effort is that their larger sensor seems to be contributing to a really great natural bokeh in the background here. Moving into a studio situation, the iPhone and Mate 30 Pro both had trouble white balancing to our daylight balanced lighting here in the studio, where the Pixel 4 and the Note 10 both delivered a pleasing warm image. Punching in, even with deep fusion, I would actually give the edge in detail to the Pixel 4, with the Note 10 doing a pretty good job as well. And that pattern of the Pixel 4 being sharper overall is one that was actually quite consistent throughout our testing. As you can see in these images, Apple's team, with or without deep fusion, has clearly made the choice of taking a less contrasty approach to their image sharpening. But a lot of the time, people like a more neutral, less contrasty image. And the thing is, we're not bringing up Google's better sharpness as a way to prove that Google's images are better every time. There's a lot more to image quality than the detail that gets retained when you are super duper zoomed in. In this shot, for example, the iPhone did an excellent job of delivering true to life color. The blue in this photo is the blue of this car straight up. The Pixel, on the other hand, ended up making our car look quite a bit duller. The Note 10 then does the same thing while having less detail when punched in on the front of the vehicle. But, I mean, it's still overall a pretty good looking image. And as for the Mate 30 Pro, okay, actually, surprise, surprise. This is a cooler overall look, but Huawei did a fairly good job here with noise, color, and detail. Getting into some low light stuff. Just before Apple's night mode would activate, deep fusion is definitely working its magic here. The detail in this car to go vehicle is significantly improved, and the noise is also managed better than the non deep fusion image. Looking at the deep fusion shot versus the other competitors, I'd say it's close overall with the Note 10 faring the worst and struggling to capture much detail. Going through a bunch more low light shots taken around downtown Vancouver, the iPhone with deep fusion really shines in managing detail with noise performance that, in my opinion, beat out the Pixel 4 a lot of the time. In most cases, the Note 10 and the Mate 30 Pro fell farther and farther behind as the lighting conditions worsened. The Mate 30 in particular has such an aggressive noise reduction in low light that it just ends up smoothing everything over to the point where it looks almost posterized in some cases. In night mode, the iPhone has hugely improved this year, no doubt. I wouldn't go as far as to say that it is better than Google's night site on the Pixel 4, but it's close enough that most people wouldn't be able to notice the small differences that put Google ever so slightly ahead. Images from both phones show that they're at the top of their game when it comes to nighttime photography. Now onto video. This is a situation where I think Google ended up with a pass because we didn't challenge the Pixel 4's camera enough. The iPhone has long been the golden standard when it comes to recording video on a mobile device, and that is still true today. In daytime scenes, all four phones in our test did a fairly good job of judging exposure. The Mate 30 Pro seems to like its color on the warmer side more often than not. The Note 10 seems to struggle with its dynamic range in the highlights, depending on the scene, and our Pixel 4 suffered the most in low light, coming in as the noisiest of the bunch. But honestly, the thing that stands out most about the iPhone 11 Pro series is the way that Apple has managed to handle sudden changes in the shooting conditions. When we move inside with Dennis here, notice how the Note 10 clips Dennis's pants, so there's no detail left in that light material, and the Pixel 4 ends up quite noisy, until both of them have some time to adjust. The iPhone, on the other hand, manages not just to avoid this pitfall, but if we move over to this walking shot of Riley, we actually find multiple situations where, as the lighting changes, the iPhone is the only device that manages to keep the color of his jacket reasonably consistent throughout the entire clip. That sh** ain't easy. I mean, if it were, I'm sure Huawei would have done a better job of it. So, I have to take back what I said about the Pixel being as good. There are some areas where it excels. Its slow motion is still close, and its stabilization is pretty damn good. But in a wider variety of situations, the iPhone is clearly going to end up flexing its muscles. So, bottom line, were we wrong? Yes, and also no. It's obvious, from looking at everything today, that under good conditions, any modern cell phone camera can look absolutely spectacular. I mean, look at all the praise the Mate 30 Pro gets. So, were we wrong to say that the Pixel 4 is as good as the iPhone? Well, for most people, probably not, since most people view images like this, not like this. And a lot of the differences do come down to aesthetic processing choices these days, rather than quality. However, where the best gets separated from the rest... Caught it....is when it comes to consistency. And this is where I feel like we let you guys down. We failed to identify the iPhone 11 Pro's greatness in the quick comparison that we made in our Pixel 4 review. It may not take the best shot every time. And especially in a deeper roundup like this, we can absolutely find situations where it falls behind one competitor or another. But between me and Brandon, we couldn't find a shot where it clearly came in third once. And as a consumer, think about it. I mean, I'd rather have the camera where I get at least a silver medal every time, versus the one where I, you know, win a few golds but break my ankle from time to time. So, then, sorry, guys. I was wrong about the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max, but if it's any consolation for me, at least I get to say I was right about one thing. Huawei still makes the most overrated cell phone cameras on the market. FreshBooks is the all-in-one business solution. If you need to do your accounting and your invoicing and all that business thing, it's designed to be simple and intuitive to you so you can spend less time on paperwork. You can automate your tasks like invoicing and organizing expenses and tracking your time and following up with clients. And the best thing is that everything is stored in the cloud, so you can switch from your PC to your mobile device and pick up exactly where you left off. So start your 30-day free trial right now at freshbooks.com forward slash tech tips. Pricing starts at just $15 a month with their $25 a month package handling up to 50 billable clients. Now that's business-ing. That's definitely not their slogan. So thanks for watching, guys. I hope you enjoyed watching me eat humble pie. I certainly did. Yeah, if you enjoyed this video, go check out my review of the Galaxy Fold. I didn't even talk about the camera. Who cares? So cool without it. I actually did talk about the camera at all. Nobody even noticed. There wasn't a single comment that was like, what about the camera line?