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Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

The camera sensor seems to be the same one as the one they put last year in the Nexus 6p and 5x, but the new phones have gotten a major upgrade in image processing performance and in software. They also benefit from a new gyroscope that's used for seemingly very good video stabilization (not clear if it's used for still photos as well). Oh, and it has a faster shutter speed.

Hopefully next year they use an f/1.8 or wider aperture, too.

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They're not the same sensor. The 6P uses an IMX377 whereas the Pixel uses the IMX378.

The f/2.0 aperture on the Pixel is the widest yet for a smartphone, if I'm not mistaken.

Not really: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Smartphones-with-the-widest-c...

No, all 7 series Samsung phones have 1.7

It's actually pretty mediocre. I was surprised when I read that it was only f/2.

With a modern low-noise DSLR sensor you might just be able to use that aperture indoors at ISO3200+ On a tiny phone sensor you'll need flash.

How do you know that? I find it weird that three different mobiles from three different manufacturers use exactly the same camera.

Well, like someone mentioned above, Sony is really dominating this market with its sensors. Which means it's not that strange to have a bunch of similar sized and prices phones use the same sensor.

Mainly going by the camera specs: 12.3MP, f/2.0. And it "makes sense" for a phone maker to use the same sensor for two years in a row. At least I know Apple does that (sometimes even keeps it for 3 years, like it did with its first 8MP camera).

I think it would be weirder and less likely if they ordered a "next-gen" camera that had exactly 12.3MP resolution and f/2.0 lens, just as last year's camera. There's still a small chance I could be wrong, though, so just take it with a grain of salt. Perhaps Google will confirm it either way soon.

It's really not weird at all, pretty much all high end phones use sensors from Sony because they make the best sensors for this specific application. Some of the phones I know of that had the IMX377: Nexus 5X Nexus 6P HTC One M10

It looks like the Pixel is using the IMX378 -- I'm not sure what differences there are between the IMX377 and IMX378.

It's also worth noting that there is a lot more that goes into a good camera system than the sensor

Apple, Samsung, HTC, LG, OnePlus and Sony all use sensors from the same manufacturer for their high-end models (and often just the same sensors). They're all Sony.

They've been using the same SoC, memory, etc for years. To your point, it would be interesting to see a breakdown of how much the major Android phone manufacturers actually use unique hardware.

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