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by ahepp 1373 days ago
I'm upgrading my iPhone 13 mini because having switched from a Pixel 4a, the camera performance is just unacceptably bad. It's a testament to how much I like the rest of the iPhone that I didn't just go back to the pixel. I briefly considered carrying the Pixel around just to take pictures.
2 comments

Huh wow, I have a 13 mini and love the camera. It’s a bit better than my 11 Pro, especially in low light, and I had no complaints about that camera when it was my main phone.

What’s not to like about the camera on the 13?

I said I'd try getting my Pixel 4a running again to do a comparison, but I'm feeling lazy and found this video comparing the 5a and the iPhone 13. So it's not exactly the comparison I had been making in my comment, but I think the video demonstrates a lot of the issues I saw between the 4a and iPhone 13.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi1Pu9ez8sI

Some of these photos are just completely damning for the iPhone.

https://youtu.be/qi1Pu9ez8sI?t=79

https://youtu.be/qi1Pu9ez8sI?t=135

https://youtu.be/qi1Pu9ez8sI?t=330

These things are largely a matter of taste. The iPhone photos look nicer to me, overall. There are a few cases of closeups shot with the iPhone where the photos are relatively soft, but I suspect that's just bad focus, camera shake, or subject movement. Also seems that the Pixel ramps up the contrast more than the iPhone, which will tend to make things look a little sharper.
The pictures just look bad compared to old ones from my pixel 4a. I'm not sure if it's a signal processing thing or what. I will try booting that up and posting a side by side in a bit.
I loved my Pixel 4a. Price point seemed reasonable, battery and camera were both very decent, and I preferred using Android to iOS.

The one downfall was that when I broke my screen this year, the replacement was so costly that I ended up switching to a friend's unused older model iPhone for now. I may still repair it at the end of the year...