Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
What Google did to photo colors on its last few Pixel phones is criminal. There is no other way to say this, but the degradation in color quality and science was so palpable since the Pixel 6, culminating in the washed-out photos of the Pixel 9 Pro. Even me, a staunch Pixel camera fan, had somewhat given up on getting good, lively photos from my phone last year. Every time I snapped a picture, especially in a colorful environment or a warm indoor, the result came up dull and boring.
I say this because I know what the Pixel’s camera was capable of in previous generations and because I’ve been testing the new Pixel 10 Pro XL against the Pixel 9 Pro XL. The results? They’re not even funny. Nearly everything I complained about with the Pixel 9 Pro’s camera has been fixed on the 10 Pro, which makes me equally happy and angry. See for yourself.
I noticed it first at a concert A couple of days after I got my Pixel 10 Pro XL, I was at a concert and had both my Pixel 9 Pro XL and the new phone with me. While the opening band was blasting their music, I decided to snap some pics with both phones. And that’s where I saw it for the first time.
Pixel 9 Pro XL Pixel 10 Pro XL Pixel 9 Pro XL Pixel 10 Pro XL
The colors on both phones were different. Where the Pixel 9 had whitened the yellow flood light, the Pixel 10 kept it warmer. It also grabbed the right skin tone and shirt color of the guitarist instead of the pinkish hue that the Pixel 9 had chosen.
The Pixel 9 over-corrects the white balance and tries to force a uniform look across the whole image. The Pixel 10 doesn't.
The most jaw-dropping difference, though, is in the two images below. I don’t think I need to explain what’s happening here, but just look at it. Look at what the Pixel 9 Pro XL did to the warm spotlight shining on the guy’s face. When I use words like “bland,” “lifeless,” and “washed out,” this is the perfect example. The Pixel 9 tries too hard to apply a single white balance across the entire photo and forces tones that aren’t there in reality. The Pixel 10 Pro XL, in comparison, understood the scene; it didn’t take away from the cold blue of the crowd while also letting the warm spotlight effect shine.
Pixel 9 Pro XL Pixel 10 Pro XL Pixel 9 Pro XL Pixel 10 Pro XL
So I did more comparisons After I noticed this staggering change, I started looking for more opportunities to see how differently these two phones can interpret colors. During the day, the difference is there, but it’s subtle. A bright outdoor white balance environment was never a challenge for my Pixel 9. But when the lights dim a bit and there’s more nuance to the hues, that’s when the difference in color performance becomes much more obvious between these two phones.
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