New Nexus cameras include support for slow-motion video, improved HDR, Smart Burst only on 6P
Martim Lobao / Android Police :
Context & Ripple Effects
Camera capability has been quietly climbing the Nexus line: last December, the third-party FV-5 app used Android Lollipop to unlock RAW photo capture on the Nexus 5 and 6, and August's leaked images of the Huawei-built Nexus 6 showed an unusually prominent camera bump beside a USB Type-C port. With today's announcement, the camera moves from footnote to headline spec.
The rollout is deliberately tiered across the two new devices: slow-motion video and improved HDR reach both, while Smart Burst is reserved for the 6P alone — making Huawei's flagship the camera-forward model of the pair.
First-order effects
- Buyers choosing between the two new Nexuses now face a camera-feature split: only the 6P gets Smart Burst, so Huawei's device carries the stronger imaging pitch at launch.
- Google's own camera stack is absorbing capabilities that previously required third-party apps like FV-5, pulling RAW-era flexibility in-house as built-in HDR and burst modes.
Second-order effects
- Huawei gains flagship-grade camera credentials that extend beyond this phone, raising expectations for whatever Nexus hardware it builds next — pressure sharpened by the later 6P review's note that photo processing runs slow even as it praises the camera itself.
- Feature gating inside a single product family sets a precedent Google must manage: excluding Smart Burst from the smaller Nexus invites direct comparisons between the two models' sensors and software.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the Nexus program is the proving ground for Google's shift from sensor specs to computational photography — a line that runs from RAW-via-Lollipop through today's HDR and burst work toward the Pixel 4's live-view HDR+ and Night Sight astrophotography.
- Tiered camera software across price points points toward imaging becoming the primary differentiator in Android flagships, where the software pipeline, not the sensor count, decides which device photographs best.
The trend: Android flagship cameras are shifting from hardware specs to software-defined imaging, with Google using the Nexus line to build the computational photography stack that later defines Pixel.