If you're thinking about getting the new Pixel 7 Pro for taking photos, you should check out these images right away. The gallery, posted by Google's Alexander Schiffhauer, shows what the next generation Super Res Zoom is capable of and the photos have completely blown me away.
The images, via 9to5Google, show scenes from Manhattan, San Francisco and Mendocino taken at different zoom levels from 0.5x to the full 30x Super Res Zoom. I've used one of the lower-zoom images at the top of this post but it's the fully zoomed ones that are really jaw-dropping. I know for a fact I wouldn't be able to do this on my iPhone 14 Pro.
Google set out to make the Pixel 7 Pro one of the best Android phones for photography, and one of the best phones of any kind. These pictures, albeit carefully chosen, suggest it's definitely doing something right.
What's so great about the Pixel 7 Pro camera?
There are multiple things going on here. The 48MP telephoto lens has an optical zoom of up to 5x, but software enables you to go beyond that. When you hit 15x zoom, the Pixel 7 Pro uses stabilisation so you can get decent shots without having to stick your Pixel on a tripod. And when you hit 20x zoom, there's a new, machine learning-based upscaler that uses the new Tensor G2 processor to deliver crisper, clearer images. If you're used to software-based zooms producing awful results, these pics will be a revelation.
Google isn't the only Android firm offering this kind of feature. Samsung has its Space Zoom, which is 30x on the Galaxy S22 and 100x on the Galaxy S22 Ultra, and Honor's Magic 4 Pro does 100x too. Google doesn't claim to be better than those phones, but it does say that the Pixel 7 Pro has the best zoom of any Pixel so far, and that's clearly no idle boast.
If you'd like to see how the Pixel 7 Pro compares to the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, we've got all the details here: it's not just the camera that sets the two tech firms' flagships apart.
