Love this phone but after seeing low light comparisons with an ancient Galaxy s5 I was massively disappointed with the low light photographs, which is important to me (as well as overall camera quality). I've familiarized myself with the custom settings and they still don't provide the desired quality.
Considering a 1st gen Google Pixel or Samsung S7 (leaning to the pixel). What phones, including older phones, in a similar price range would be a good trade off?
I have the Moto G5plus and I compared the shots to 3 other phones I have access to (not all mine). These are all $200 something.
1. iPhone SE - Out of all budget phones, this makes the best pictures in this price range , the reason I won't get it is because the screen size is just a no-go for me. But camera wise, it's top dog, maybe the Note 5 and the S7 would be beating on it (in $200 range)
2. Honor 7X (I owned this for 2 days and returned it, because it had some defects and I chose not to get another one) This makes great pictures IMO, makes better pics than any moto phone although still not as good as the iphone.
3. Moto ZPlay (1st gen) - Don't get this for camera, actually the G5Plus makes better pictures, the only reason it would look better, because of the AMOLED screen it has, but look at it on a PC or another phone and compare the pics, you'd realize that the G5plus made sharper pictures. The Zplay was a mid-ranger in 2016, don't know how the Z2Play is, but as far as I know it has the same exact camera as the G5plus. Moto uses good cameras, but they just can't get their software processing right.
4. Blackberry Priv. - Despite all the other shortcomings (heats up, not so great battery life) this makes really good pictures, has a curved, hres screen too.
5. iPhone 6S- Same camera as the SE. Again, the reason I don't consider it, is because I had it and I got spoiled by my Note 5 (which I broke and gone now) which was way better and the large screen made me hate my iphone screen.
6. Used Galaxy S7 (or edge, but it's $100 more) this has to be the best shooter if you can find one for $200 as a refurb or used. Same thing with the Galaxy Note 4 or 5. Unless of course you hate touchwiz.
7. If you can find a first gen Pixel, you gonna have a good camera. also LG G6 are going dirt cheap on ebay and it's a 2017 flagship. It has an awesome camera with secondary wide angle shot. As of right now I'm getting an LG G6 soon to replace my G5 Plus.
8. Sony experia - I don't know much about it, although people claiming to make as good or even better pics as the S7. Sony seem to be the primary maker of the best cams on most of smartphones so they won't wimp out on putting a really good one on their own smartphones.
