I’ve just moved from the Phone (3a) to the Phone (4a) Pro and overall I’m really enjoying the upgrade. However, I’ve noticed something with the camera that I think is worth flagging, because it feels like a software tuning issue that could be improved with an update.
I took comparison shots of the same scene — a woodland canopy with sunlight dappling through the leaves — on both phones, same conditions, seconds apart. The 3a produced a noticeably better image, and I think the reasons come down to how the 4a Pro is processing the scene rather than any hardware limitation.
The 3a captured the scene pretty much exactly as it looked to my eyes. You can see the sunlight catching individual leaves, creating warm, natural contrast between the lit foliage and the shaded areas behind. The greens are warm and true to life, the bark texture on the tree trunk is well defined, and there’s a real sense of depth to the image. The white balance feels accurate for an overcast day with patches of sun breaking through.
The same scene on the 4a Pro looks noticeably flatter. The greens have a cooler, more muted tone, and the sun dappling effect has essentially been erased. The image looks like it was taken under heavy overcast when it wasn’t. Shadow detail in the canopy is muddier, with less separation between leaves and branches. The bark texture is there but lacks the same definition. Overall it feels like you’re looking at the scene through a filter that’s removed the character of the light.
What I think is happening
It looks like the HDR tone mapping on the 4a Pro is being too aggressive. The phone is evening out the exposure across the whole frame — pulling down the brighter sun-lit areas and lifting the shadows — which removes the natural contrast that makes woodland light look the way it actually does. The result is technically “more detail everywhere” but at the cost of atmosphere, accuracy and depth.
The white balance also seems to run cooler than the 3a, which robs greens of their warmth. In natural outdoor light, this makes foliage look less alive than it should.
For me, the most important thing a phone camera can do is capture what I actually saw. The 3a did that. The 4a Pro gave me a technically processed version that doesn’t match reality. I’d rather have natural-looking contrast with some blown highlights than a flat image where everything is evenly exposed but nothing looks real.
I don’t think this is a hardware problem. The 4a Pro sensor should be at least as capable as the 3a’s. This feels entirely like a software processing decision, which means it’s fixable. If the camera team could dial back the HDR tone mapping — particularly in outdoor scenes with mixed natural lighting — and warm up the white balance slightly, I think the results would improve significantly.
Happy to share the comparison images if that’s useful for anyone else seeing similar results. Would be interested to hear whether others have noticed the same thing
