JANUARY 2020 PCWorld 53The Galaxy S10+ (bottom
left) handled my son’s
messy hair slightly better
than the others in this
portrait shot, but it’s
hard to find fault with
the iPhone 11 (top left),
Pixel 4 XL (top right),
or OnePlus 7T (bottom
right).when you tap the shutter, no matter the
subject, mode, or lighting condition.
The bigger jump over last year can be
seen in the iPhone 11’s Night Mode. While it
will be criticized by some as merely playing
catch-up to Google’s Night Sight, which
debuted to wows on the Pixel 3, Night Mode
is a revelation for
nighttime
photography, with a
mind-blowing
algorithm that
produces better results
than the Pixel 4 in
some instances.
The iPhone excels
in its understanding of
what’s being shot.
Other night modes
simply amp up the
brightness and
exposure with varying
results, while the
iPhone 11 does a better
job of preserving the
shadows and overall integrity of the scene.
While both the iPhone 11 and the Pixel 4
XL usually snuffed the competition, more
often than not, I preferred the nuance in the
iPhone 11’s shot. Where the Pixel 4 XL’s Night
Sight shots often seem like a Photoshop
brightening filter had been applied, which