Google launched its two new smartphones, the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, on Thursday October 12, particularly in France, with an original strategy. Faced with Apple, Samsung and its other competitors, the Mountain View giant relies on the cloud to promise even better images.
The quality of images produced in photo and video is today the heart of the battle between smartphone manufacturers. And each manufacturer puts forward its own argument: a fourth sensor with 200 million pixels, in the case of Samsung and the S23 Ultra; an ultra-bright telephoto lens on the iPhone 15 Pro Max side; and the “Video Boost” for Google and its new Pixel 8 Pro which, at 1,099 euros, is also the cheapest of the three.
Google does not only rely on the relative power of its smartphone to produce the best possible images, but also on their processing, a posteriori, in the cloud.
Increase the level of detail
The cloud, remote, dematerialized servers, this has been Google’s specialty since its creation 25 years ago. Indeed, why insist on wanting to manage absolutely everything on the phone? Especially since the new Tensor 3 chip, used by Google, cannot compete with the processor of the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, the only one in the world engraved in 3 nanometers.
In Mountain View, we therefore turned to the cloud to boost the video images, and increase the level of detail, by optimizing the brightness and color saturation: a “Video Boost” – that’s the name of this function. – after shooting, which consists of sending the raw file to Google’s servers where it will be analyzed, processed, then automatically returned to the Pixel 8 Pro, with a notable improvement in quality, but with two constraints: firstly , you must be connected to the network.
In the middle of the desert, Video Boost will not work. Then, sending videos to Google means sharing, and therefore access to your images, which are all information about you, and images potentially usable to, incidentally, train Google’s artificial intelligence.
Google fears a hefty bill
However, a lot of artificial intelligence is needed to achieve this improvement in video images. Google also admits that it doesn’t really know where to go with this function, which consumes a lot of resources and energy to improve your plans, frame by frame.
This is certainly not very good for the planet, but the processing of these videos could, in the end, cost Google a lot of money. This is why, apart from the marketing argument, Video Boost is currently reserved for the Pixel 8 Pro while the Pixel 8, 300 euros cheaper, is based on exactly the same processor.