HDR may be coming to budget Android Go phones
Last month Google announced that the number of active Android Go phones passed the 100 million mark. The company also launched a dedicated camera application for those phones called Camera Go. It's a stripped-down and snappy version of the Pixel's Google Camera app offering some nifty features like Portrait Mode and Translate for low-spec Android Go phones.
It seems that the app may soon get another useful feature from its bigger brother - HDR. XDA Developers found a new Detail Enhance toggle hidden in the application code and performed some tests. It turns out that the toggle gives access to an HDR mode screen with three available options - On, Auto, and Off.
HDR (High Dynamic Range) enhances contrast and details in images by stacking information from multiple shots and combining it into a final image. The process requires some computational power, as it's done by software algorithms locally on the device. This might be a problem because of the slower chipsets found in Android Go phones. Google might have to tweak the settings and go for a lower frame count to allow smooth and trouble-free operation of the new feature.
Image source - XDA Developers
HDR (High Dynamic Range) enhances contrast and details in images by stacking information from multiple shots and combining it into a final image. The process requires some computational power, as it's done by software algorithms locally on the device. This might be a problem because of the slower chipsets found in Android Go phones. Google might have to tweak the settings and go for a lower frame count to allow smooth and trouble-free operation of the new feature.
The option is not active yet, and turning HDR on and off doesn't do anything. It's a sign, however, that Google is at least considering the HDR camera feature for budget-tier phones.
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