Google Pixel phones have built a reputation for delivering great photos with very little effort. For a lot of people, the appeal is that you can open the Camera app, tap the shutter, and trust Google’s software to do the rest. That ease of use is one of the Pixel’s biggest selling points, but it also means many features find themselves sitting unnoticed in the background.
Earlier this month, my colleague Joe Maring dug into that side of the Pixel Camera app, highlighting seven hidden settings that many owners either forget about or never discover in the first place. The list covered everything from composition tools and focus controls to storage and Motion Photo tweaks, all aimed at showing just how much flexibility is hidden beneath the surface.
We ran a poll in Joe’s article asking which of those lesser-known camera settings is actually your favorite. A large number of readers participated, providing us with a clear sense of which features Pixel owners value most and which ones tend to be overlooked or aren’t particularly useful. Let’s take a look at the results.
What’s your favorite hidden Pixel Camera app setting? Framing hints and grid overlays came out on top with 33% of the vote, making it the most popular option by a comfortable margin. It’s interesting that this came out as a clear winner, and could be related to it being the first tip on Joe’s list. That said, it is a very simple and useful tool. Locked focus followed in second place at 21%, suggesting that a sizable chunk of Pixel owners care about having more control over composition and focus, even on a camera that’s largely designed to be point-and-shoot. This is undoubtedly the one that I use most often.
The remaining results were much closer together. Motion Photo settings (12%) and disabling selfie mirroring (11%) ranked in the middle of the pack, while quick access controls (10%), changing the volume key action (6%), and Storage Saver (6%) garnered smaller but still significant shares of the vote. Only 1% of respondents chose “Other,” which suggests that Joe’s list may have comprehensively covered most of the features people actively consider using.
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There isn’t a lot more to read into these results, other than perhaps Pixel owners are less excited by shortcuts or optimizations and more interested in tools that help them line up a shot or lock in exactly what they want. Even with Google’s heavy emphasis on computational photography, a lot of you still want a bit of hands-on control.
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