Open Camera does not record in 4K60 on the Pixel 4, unfortunately. It looks like it is still doing 4K30.
Even though a toast message on the screen when using Open Camera, shows that it is recording in 4K at 60FPS. That is actually incorrect.
The folks over at Android Police tested this out, and checked out the output of video that was shot on Open Camera, and it turns out that it is indeed still shooting at 30FPS. To be technical, it’s shooting at 30.060FPS.
Open Camera doesn’t bring the feature Google left out
Among content creators, the biggest issue with the Pixel 4, has been the lack of 4K 60FPS video recording. It’s something that literally every other smartphone has had, for a couple of years now. But Google decided to keep the Pixel 4 to 4K30.
When it seemed like Open Camera was actually recording in 4K60 on the Pixel 4, this got a lot of people excited. Thinking that there was a workaround, and that it could be something Google adds later in software.
But as it turns out, it’s not the case. And this likely means that this is a hardware limitation.
Not surprising, given the fact that Google has been using the same camera lens for the four generations of Pixel smartphones. This is also how Google is able to bring so many new features to older Pixels, like the Pixel and Pixel 2.
Still no hope for 4K60 on Pixel 4
Open Camera does not bring 4K60 to Pixel 4, unfortunately, and it looks like users won’t be getting it anytime soon.
Google has been pretty firm on its stance of 4K60 on the Pixel 4. Saying that it takes up to much storage. Though there was an easy fix for that – up the base storage to 128GB from 64GB.
The other reason Google gave, was the fact that it is focusing more on photo quality than on video quality. Which is very evident. The video quality on the Pixel hasn’t really improved in quite a few years. Hopefully, next year, that is going to change.
The lack of 4K60 isn’t really a big deal for most people though. Yeah, 4K30 does look pretty choppy compared to 4K60. But most everyday consumers won’t notice the difference, or even care. In fact, we’ve already seen many people saying just that, on Reddit and Twitter. The most vocal of the bunch, are YouTubers, and video is their way of making a living, so that makes sense.
Either way, there’s no 4K60 available on the Pixel 4, even with Open Camera.