Google Pixel 7 review

Portraits

The Pixel 7 Portrait mode operates at two magnifications, both captured on the main camera. They're labeled 1x and 2x in the Portrait mode viewfinder, but they correspond to something like 1.6x and 3x if you match their field of view in Camera mode - why not. Then there's the matter that if you tap on the 2x zoom in Camera mode and then switch to Portrait mode, the Phone will be at 1.3x in Portrait mode (which will match the FoV of the 2x in Camera mode).

That's all part of the otherwise most welcome behavior of the Pixel phone (and none other that we can think of) not to default to 1x whenever you switch between modes but to maintain whatever magnification you were at. If looked at from that perspective, and with the argument of consistency, perhaps it makes sense. But we still find it disconcerting that the fields of view of the zoom levels in Portrait mode don't match those in Camera mode for the same 'x' designation.

If you rely on the 1x mode, however, you can be assured that your portraits woo look great. The samples below demonstrate a high level of detail, good sharpness, natural color reproduction and wide dynamic range, with the subject's face always well exposed. The faux bokeh effect is also quite convincing, with good edge detection and nice blur. The portrait mode works on animals, too, although the fur will most definitely mess up the background separation.

Portraits 1x zoom

On the other hand, the 2x zoom mode is appalling, especially for a phone in this class. There's obvious oversharpening to compensate for the lack of detail, and the background blur is less intense for some reason.

Portraits 2x zoom

Selfies

There's some wild zoom action on the selfie camera as well, with the supposedly 10.8MP sensor capturing 10MP images at two zoom levels - the native 0.7x and what has to be a crop-and-upscale-and/or-super-res 1.0x zoom level.

In ideal lighting conditions, you can have good selfie quality, and by "ideal," we mean outside on a bright sunny day. If there's a strong backlight behind the subject, their face will turn out soft. If it's an indoor selfie, sharpness suffers again. At least when compared to other top-tier flagship phones. At least you can expect your face to be always well exposed without clipping the background, which is what competent HDR does for you. The colors are also great, but the detail could use some boost.

Selfies 0.7x

Due to the confusing nature of the 1.0x mode, we can't dismiss it as simply a crop from the main images in the same way Samsung's and Apple's selfie crops work. That said, these do generally look softer than the 0.7x ones (expected), but only ever so slightly so (somewhat surprising). Again, lighting is key, and anything remotely demanding hurts the per-pixel quality.

Selfiex 1x

Portrait selfies turned out to be a bit softer compared to the standard selfies, and the edge separation could be a bit rough around the edges, depending on the complexity of the background.

Portrait selfies

Video recording

The video recording capabilities of the Pixel 7 cap at 4K@60fps with all of its cameras, but there's no 8K, though. We don't blame Google as 8K recording is rather niche and still could be better on smartphones. It's more of a tech showcase than anything. At least for now, that is. Stabilization works with all three cameras, too.

The 2160p@30fps footage below is excellent, with little to complain about. It has a wide dynamic range, plenty of color, lots of detail and no noise around. The contrast is on point sharpness is impressive.

Expectedly, the 2x zoom is considerably softer, but it does maintain the same rendition as the 1x mode. If you are not pixel-peeping, you will be fine with the 2x zoom quality. We've definitely seen way worse.

The ultrawide's ability to record 4K videos is impressive, especially for an ultrawide. You shouldn't expect the same level of sharpness and detail as the main camera, but it's solid nonetheless.

The low-light video taken with the main camera is downright impressive. It has virtually no noise, keeps the colors lively, resolves a good amount of detail, and the footage is generally sharp. Excellent dynamic range, too.

The ultrawide camera's clip is in stark contrast to the main camera's during the night. The video below is considerably noisier; colors are washed out, dynamic range is narrower - dark shadows, clipped highlights, and sharpness is unsatisfactory.

Here's a glimpse of how the Google Pixel 7 compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete picture.

Google Pixel 7 against the Galaxy S22 and the Xiaomi 12 in our Video compare tool