I bought the Google Pixel 7 after all. It was essentially a choice between that and the Samsung A54. The Pixel was reduced on Prime Day, the A54 wasn’t. I was leaning towards the Pixel anyway as 1) I don’t really like Samsung’s Android UI style that much and 2) The camera comparisons I could find all had the Pixel producing better photos. On the A54’s side, the battery is probably significantly better and the connectivity is supposedly better, but I am a bit sceptical of this because my mum has an A34 (mid range model below the A54) which frequently drops wifi if the signal strength dips temporarily and refuses to reconnect until the “signal is stronger” despite the signal recovering almost instantly – it turns out there is a setting under ‘Intelligent’ wifi to disable this stupid feature, though.
I am super pleased with the camera. The picture quality in low light is amazing. Here are some examples of the Pixel 7 versus my Pocophone F1 in artificial light. I won’t bother to label which one is which because it’s pretty obvious! And as well as being actually in focus, the photos are smaller (1.7MB vs 5.6MB for the first two, 3.4MB vs 4.8MB for the second).
Portrait mode on the Pixel:
Rambles 