The first set with a person (woman in front of leaves, sun from behind) are particularly worthless. They didn't control for whether direct sunlight was hitting the sensor. Even a wannabe photog like me knows how that can wreak havoc on a shot and/or create beautiful effects.
Which ones? Are you talking about the fact that the Pixel has a wider angle lens?
I mean, you could crop those pictures but that wouldn't exactly be fair to the Pixel.
The portrait with the tree and the sun in the background is a clear example. Whether the sun is shining through the leaves of the tree or not will overwhelm any inter-phone differences.
I'm not convinced. You can see a little bit of flare in the 8 and 7 Plus photos, but global contrast doesn't seem to be affected.
I agree, these don't seem like carefully controlled experiments.
I think the actual dxomark tests are, but the pics in the article are prettier custom takes for the audience?