Late last year, Google introduced a new camera feature called Night Sight that allows users to take surprisingly clear and detailed shots in otherwise poorly lit environments. What Night Sight is able to do is nothing short of magical and easily outclasses what even the iPhone XS brings to the table.
What makes Night Sight mode all the more impressive is that the feature is built on advanced software, which is to say that users don’t necessarily have to have the most recent Pixel phone in order to take advantage of it. With that said, it’s not at all surprising that Google’s recently unveiled Pixel 3a — which is a budget version of the regular Pixel 3 — includes Night Sight mode.
The Pixel 3a is priced at $399 and offers up a lot of bang for the buck both in terms of features and overall performance. In many ways, the Pixel 3a — which is positioned as a premium device that won’t break the bank — fills a gap Apple left open when it curiously discontinued the iPhone SE last year.
Google, meanwhile, wasted no time in touting Night Sight mode on the Pixel 3a while taking a few solid jabs at Apple in the process. Over the weekend, people in Washington D.C. noticed a new billboard ad that cleverly highlights the iPhone’s subpar low light camera performance while also reminding folks that it’s $600 more expensive than a Pixel 3a.
Google’s marketing strategy in this regard shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given that we’ve seen the company take similar shots at Apple over the past few months.
And back in January, you may recall that Marvin Chow — Google’s VP of Product Marketing — fired off the following tweet featuring a side-by-side comparison shot of a photo taken with an iPhone XS and one taken with a Pixel 3.
Night Sight mode is unquestionably a cool and differentiating feature, and it makes sense that Google is using it as part of a full-fledged marketing assault on the iPhone.
