The Pixel 4 and 4XL come with many interesting camera features that make them fairly compelling for mobile photography enthusiasts, and while most of those will be rolled out to at least some of the older Pixel devices, the same can’t be said about all the myriad new functionalities. A couple of those are ‘Dual Exposure Controls’ and ‘Live HDR+’, neither of which will make their way to the Pixel 3 or 3XL, leave alone the other devices in the Pixel lineup.
Replying to a query on Twitter a few hours earlier, one of the official Twitter accounts of Google (@madebygoogle) confirmed that the two aforementioned features will remain exclusive to the Pixel 4 twins because of hardware restrictions in the older devices. “Dual Exposure Controls and Live HDR+ require low-level capabilities in the hardware that are only available on Pixel 4, so they will not be available on older Pixel devices”, said the company.
Hi Mahfooz, Dual Exposure Controls and Live HDR+ require low-level capabilities in the hardware that are only available on Pixel 4, so they will not be available on older Pixel devices.
— Made By Google (@madebygoogle) October 21, 2019
It’s not immediately clear as to why exactly the Dual Exposure Controls and Live HDR+ will not be ported to the older devices, but given that Google argues it’s a hardware limitation, it could very well be that the features make use of the Pixel 4’s new Pixel Neural Core instead of the Pixel Visual Core, which is present in the older devices.
While Pixel 3 and Pixel 3a owners will be sad to miss out on two of the coolest camera features of the Pixel 4, they will be getting some of the other new features via software updates over the coming days. One such feature is a new addition to Night Sight that will enable users to capture the starry night skies in all their glory. The feature will be rolled out to not only the Pixel 3 and 3XL, but also the Pixel 3a and 3a XL.
