Google Pixel’s Camera App with HDR+ Ported to Other Snapdragon 820/821 and 835 Devices

BY Rajesh Pandey

Published 13 Aug 2017

Google Pixel XL - camera sensors and lens, flush

The secret to Google Pixel’s amazing camera performance is Google’s HDR+ and computational photography tricks which help the phone capture some amazing photos. While OEMs like Samsung and HTC have tried implementing their own taken on HDR+, their efforts have not been as successful as that of Google.

Now, a Ukrainian developer B-S-G has managed to port Google’s Camera app with HDR+ to all Snapdragon 820/821 and Snapdragon 835 powered devices which feature Hexagon 680 or higher ISP. This includes the likes of OnePlus 5, OnePlus 3/3T, LG G6, Galaxy S8 (US variant), and more.

The modded APK of the app can be installed on any non-rooted device just like you would sideload any other APK. The modded APK essentially forces the Google Camera app to think that it is running on the Pixel 2 which is why it automatically turns the HDR+ mode on. Like with on any Pixel device, when you click a pic with the modded camera APK on your device, you will get a familiar HDR processing notification in the background.

So, how much of a difference does the HDR+ make on devices like the OnePlus 3? Quite a lot. Right away, you will notice that HDR+ photos taken from the modded Google Camera app have less noise, more details, and better dynamic range.

It is possible that the modded Google Camera app will end up crashing on your device once in a while. This is still the first beta of the app though and the developer will likely work on fixing such kinks in future releases.

You can download the modded Google Camera APK for your Snapdragon 820/821 or Snapdragon 835 device from here.

[Via XDA Developers]