It’s no secret that the Google Pixel has had its ups and downs since the first generation debuted in 2016. While this year’s Pixel 7 and 7 Pro have enjoyed quite a bit of praise for their camera prowess and extremely helpful productivity features, Google can’t seem to keep the Pixel line out of the news for suffering from strange bugs or issues.The latest of which has been circulating Reddit and involves poor video calling quality in Google Meet and other apps when compared with the iPhone and other Android devices. The specific issue is being described as producing a very blurry and smeared image using both the front and rear cameras. At first, the issue was thought to be caused by video quality limitations within Google Meet, however, other Redditors that commented on the thread added that the issue is also affecting other apps that use video such as Telegram, Instagram, and WhatApp.
To corroborate his observation, the Redditor produced three screen captures from a Google Meet call: One from a Pixel 7, one from an iPad Pro 2018, and one from a Pixel 3XL. The image comparison can be seen in the gallery below, with even the dated Pixel 3XL producing a much better picture quality that this year’s Pixel 7.
Considering these findings, one can safely assume that the issue is not caused by hardware, but rather by software, since both cameras on the device produce similar results. However, this doesn’t seem to be a brand new issue. According to Android Police, other support threads exist where Pixel users chimed in on this issue shortly after the Pixel 7 launch back in October.
It is widely speculated, especially within the video creator community, that certain apps do optimize video for certain phone models. Such has been the belief on how Instagram and Snapchat handle video from the iPhone versus other devices. However, this doesn’t seem to be the same issue as it more noticeable in Google Meet, an app created by Google, that if anything should be optimized to work better with Pixel phones. Here’s hoping that Google addresses this issue in a future software update, sooner rather than later.
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