The latest Google phones have significantly improved their camera apps. And it is possible to port this application from Google Pixel 8 Pro to other models: BSG’s latest GCam adapts version 9.2 of the Google camera quite stably, not only offering its functions to other Androids, but also add some special touches.

A characteristic image processing, natural tones in shots with a certain emphasis on studio photos, Artificial Intelligence to enhance the portrait mode of images with a fairly well achieved bokeh and other functions that GCam usually brings to other Androids. Sometimes even to improve the native camera app; Like any modification, without any guarantee that GCam will work, Not always completely stable. So it’s worth trying to see how it performs.

Google Camera based on version 9.2 with tons of tweaks added

GCam BSG on Nothing Phone (1)

BSG is one of the most well-known Google Camera modders. It has a notable frequency of releases, runs on the latest Google software, and is usually a Infinite manual developer settings and, like the GCam example in question, maintains enough stability for the app to run on a variety of Androids. According to our tests, it runs quite well on Qualcomm processors. And there is a version for Samsung Galaxy.

Google recently released version 9.3 of its camera app for Pixels, but the previous version, 9.2, still doesn’t have a huge number of GCams. One of those that continues development is BSG: Stable version 1 seemed highly recommended to us.

This GCam transfers the Google Pixel 8 Pro’s capture interface to other phones that can run the app without problems (it doesn’t always work; it probably even some settings work and in others the app freezes). From our testing on several Androids, photos were satisfactory, most of the tools were present, manual focus control accurately displays the “focus peaking” indicator (BSG lets you disable this by clicking the on-screen bubble, something important if you Pixel doesn’t offer) , portrait mode worked well enough for us, and thanks to the developer settings we were able to fine-tune the behavior of the application.

BSG’s work is worth following; He knows how to perfectly adapt his GCams to work on a wide range of Androids. It even allows you to bring up the Pixel 8 Pro’s extra settings. Other Pixels that aren’t lucky enough to enable advanced camera features: A pretty radical change to the GCam experience. The manual results that can be achieved are brutal.

Development continues, currently stable version 1 of BSG is available for download from Celso Azevedo. It is suitable to be packaged as a parallel application on Google Pixel and the APK is free of malware.

Cover image | Ivan Linares

Xataka on Android | 21 essential tips for taking good photos with your Android mobile phone