When the Pixel 2 was launched, one of the surprising aspects of the phone was its camera which was ranked by DxOMark as the best camera smartphone for 2017. Another surprising feature was its Portrait Mode, which despite the Pixel 2 launching with a single rear-facing camera, proved to be a worthy competitor to those with dual cameras, thanks to the use of smart software.
Unfortunately the feature has been an exclusive to the Pixel 2 phones and while we’re not sure if Google ever plans on making it available to other phones, not to worry because developers over at XDA have managed to port the Portrait Mode feature onto non-Pixel smartphones running on Android 8.0 Oreo.
Basically what the developers did was that they modded the Google Camera APK (also known as Camera NX) that enables Portrait Mode on non-Google handsets. There are a couple of versions of this mod, one of which enables Portrait Mode on the first-gen Pixel, Pixel XL, and the Nexus 5X, while the other version will enable the feature on non-Pixel/Nexus handsets.
However the only caveat is that your device needs to be running on Android 8.0 Oreo, and if it does, you can head on over to XDA’s website for the details on the download, and the best part is that no rooting is required.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Android 8.0 Oreo, Google and Pixel 2.