OnePlus 5T vs Pixel 2 XL camera comparison : oneplus

I looked at all of the photos in your comparison. What I can say is this: it's obvious the Pixel 2 kills the 5T. But, here's were I diverge: the Pixel 2 puts about everything to shame. Look at the ISO/shutter of the Pixel 2 compared to other top end devices like the GN8, iP8+/X, Huawei Mate 10 Pro, etc... they're all put to shame by the Pixel 2, as they all post-process too heavily and end up processing noise of the photo out in expense of sharpness, many of which simply oversharpen images. The GN8 gets destroyed due to overly aggressive noise reduction and sharpening making for an image looking like Minecraft zoomed out ×500, and both it and the Mate 10 Pro use color saturation and boosting more obvious than post-applied color filters. And the iPhones look especially bad: The user below who compared the 5T to the iPX camera-wise did get relatively accurate results: the iPX has poor exposure in images compared to even the 5T, and it processes a lot of detail out of its images as well compared to the Pixel 2. It tends to use slower shutter speeds to keep ISO low, but due to the relatively small pixel size of the sensor, after noise is reduced and oversharpening is applied, it's processing artifacts galore on the iPhones that damn for sure aren't on the Pixel 2, and aren't even on the 5T, even though its pictures (especially pre-update) look like 19th century watercolor Romantic paintings. Having seen numerous proper photo comparisons between this year's notable smartphones, full sample shots and occasionally EXIF data included, it's clear that the Pixel 2 XL is definitely the best this year has to offer. It shames the GN8, Huawei Mate 10 among others, and absolutely decimates devices like the OnePlus 5T and this year's iPhones. Just about the only phone that can even compete decently is the little-mentioned HTC U11, which isn't as good either. While it's using some of the same processing technology the Pixel uses, its noise reduction is actually a little too lax, as its photos, while very detailed, are completely filled with noise. And in the grand scheme, the 5T does well. It's not as good as many of the devices mentioned, but it is better than LG's offerings this year, everything that Sony's put out this year, noticeably better than other devices at the same price points (LG G6, Nokia 8, Xiaomi Mi 6/Mix 2, Huawei P10/Honor 9, Essential, etc), and up there with last year's best (OG Pixel aside). So for $500, the 5T performs well. And overall picture quality does exceed the 5, 3T, and 3.

Now, the 5T does shoot at much higher ISO than devices with OIS, and has a sensor with the smallest pixels of anything in the top-of-the-line this year save for the V30, whose camera performs worse than the 5T's. While detail has been improved greatly with the OnePlus camera 2.5.11 update that came with the OOS 4.7.4 update, the phone still has less detail in images than many of its competitors, due to the fact it has to shoot at higher ISO with a faster shutter, and at least some of the excessive noise created from this camera hardware has to be processed out. OnePlus software is relatively poor at managing this, though.

About the dot pattern: no, the excessive noise reduction is not implemented in order to process out the dot pattern. If this were the case, OnePlus wouldn't have been able to improve the sharpness of its camera's images as noticeably as it did. The dot pattern does not appear using the stock OP app at all, due to the fact that OP's app utilizes the Camera1 API. Apps that use the Camera2 API show the infamous dot pattern in images. While this could be due to a faulty Camera2 API implementation, that's only an assumption at this point. Say the implementation of the Camera2 API was the same as on the 3T. Then it technically wouldn't be broken. Furthermore, other devices in the BBK lineup using the same Sony IMX398 primary sensor, i.e. the Oppo R11 and R11S, suffer the same dot pattern issue. This all suggests that the problem likely stems from the imaging sensor itself, of which neither OnePlus nor Oppo can fix. At this point, seeing as I've seen countless reviews and opinions regarding the OnePlus 5T's cameras among others, I can say that the issues that the 5T's camera has are overblown, especially here on Reddit. The 5T has a good set of cameras overall that aren't the best flagship cameras this year, and never will be anything close to what the Pixel 2 is capable of (as barely anything is) in this regard, but the camera performance here is better than basically everything at the price the thing is sold for, save for the OG Pixel. And the fact that we're letting the few negatives of one aspect of this device cripple the whole experience of using something this well rounded and well executed overall is a testament to the fact that this $500 device competes on the same level with devices costing 75% more than it does, and compares well with some of them in regard to the camera, beating those like the aforementioned LG V30, Sony Xperia XZ Premium/XZ1, Moto Z2 Force, among others.