They claim the camera is "AI Enhanced" which means pixel phones aren't shipping with the stock camera, but a camera modified to utilize the tensor cores in the phone. Allegedly. It's not like they publish that code though so it could also be 100% marketing BS.

I've never used Google's picture software so i cant attest to quality differences. However, the pixel+grapheneos photos i've taken seem fine to me (in terms of quality). But I'm sure there are picture enhancements google's software does that you wont find on grapheneos.

Probably. I use the Google camera app anyway and turn off its network and location permissions.

I downloaded the google camera and the quality seems to be the same, just removed some permissions I don't want it to have

I don't think the images are as clear on Graphene. It seems to be a lack of focus. It's good enough for my basic camera needs but annoys me sometimes.

Generalizing here (and folks may disagree) but open source is almost always "not quite as robust" as commercial software.

And that makes sense--OEMs have more resources, more developers, and can tailor apps to their specific hardware.

(Just peek at OpenOffice vs. Excel--the "basics" work, but advanced functionality like PowerQuery available in Excel isn't to be found in OpenOffice).

Just my $0.02 though - YMMV

p.s. please don't view this to mean I'm not a fan of open source - I'm a huge supporter, and a Linux user -- but just offering an honest opinion.

The way it was explained to me is that the hardware is the same on the Pixel.

But there is a lot of software in the modern cameras in your phone, Pixel being no exception.

Stabilization is the most noticable for almost all pictures. Digital zoom probably one of the more unexpected degredations.

There is certainly software that can be run on the privacy focused OS, but I have not personally tested out any of these.