Celso Azevedo maintains a collection of Google Camera app ports for Android phones and writes about Android and device tinkering.
HN commenters link his GCam builds as the way to get Google's camera app on other phones, with one saying it beats other camera apps.
I usually don't get attached to brands, but this makes me sad.
I bought the OnePlus One in 2015 after Apple killed my iPhone 5's performance and I was told to just buy a new iPhone (this was before they were sued and added a setting to control throttling on "old" batteries). The phone was fast, had more storage than the iPhone, better camera, no bloat (it ran Cyanogen!), had a notification light, felt nice on the hand (sandstone back), and as a nerd, I loved the amount of Android custom ROMs for it. Liked it so much that at one point everyone at home was using OnePlus Ones.
Also had my disappointments. The OnePlus 2 kept overheating (mainly due to the terrible Snapdragon 810), the camera on the OnePlus 3 wasn't as good as their social media posts made me believe, the slow/lack of software updates, etc, but they were cheap devices.
My last OnePlus was the 8 Pro. By the time I gave it away, it was no longer the same old OnePlus. OxygenOS was replaced by ColorOS (even if they kept the old name), which I never really liked, and prices kept increasing even though some of the weaknesses were still there, etc. It was time to move on.
Still have an old OnePlus One "bacon". No longer use it, but during the Covid years I wiped it and installed LineageOS (currently runs LOS 18.1/Android 11 from August 2023). The battery is bad and the display has some discolouration around the edges, but still runs:
- https://celsoazevedo.com/files/2026/oneplus_one_front.jpg
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The serious downside to Android One is the absence of GCam. That photo app is simply the single best one out there. I own a Nokia 7 Plus, and it comes with a Camera app that only shoots blurry photos, even though I don't have shaky hands. Finding a GCam version that worked was a major PITA: I pretty much tried every version here [0]
I'm getting a Pixel 5 on day one, for the camera, camera app and security updates.
[0] https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/
There's a whole GCam (Google Camera) modding community that manages to get image quality that's often better than what non-pixel OEM vendors offer. These ports usually work on LineageOS (and other ROMs) This site has a large collection of models and the config files generated for each device: https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/ I think they link to some Telegram channels too where people share the kinds of photography they get with the modifications.
I've downloaded the latest APK from apkmirror but the app is force closing at launch on stock. It was the same 2 years ago when I first tried, is it working for you? Do you have a suggestion?
EDIT: Ok so I've searched a bit on XDA and stumbled upon this: https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/dev-parrot043/
The latest beta doesn't work but the one before it does work.
The Pixel camera app is available from the Play Store, and there are third-party ports of Gcam to other devices that offer extra configuration options. https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/
You can get Google Camera to work on lots of other phones with a bit of effort: https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/
I'm using it on my Poco F1 and the night sight works really well.