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Google took a major shot at Apple's iPhone camera while announcing its new $400 Pixel smartphone

Google I/O 2019
Google's vice president of product management, Sabrina Ellis, introduced the Pixel 3a and the Pixel 3a XL onstage in Mountain View, California, on Tuesday. Google

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Google's Pixel smartphones are nowhere near as popular as Apple's iPhones, but they boast one major advantage: photography.

Though the iPhone camera is excellent, the Pixel line has best-in-class camera tech — especially when it comes to photos taken in low lighting.

We confirmed as much with the Pixel 3a in a recent review:

iPhone XS (low light photo) vs Pixel 3a XL
The photo on the left was taken with an iPhone XS Max, and the photo on the right was taken with a Pixel 3a XL. Lisa Eadicicco/Business Insider

Google is clearly aware of this discrepancy, and it took Tuesday's announcement of the Pixel 3a and the Pixel 3a XL, which start at $400 and $480, as a chance to take a jab at Apple's far more expensive smartphone.

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"What other smartphone cameras try to do with expensive hardware, we can deliver with software and AI — including high-end computational photography," Google's vice president of product management, Sabrina Ellis, said onstage. "So here's what that means: Pixel 3a can take amazing photos in low light with Night Sight. It's one of Pixel's most popular features."

As the words came out, an image showed a side-by-side comparison portrayed as demonstrating the superiority of Google's Pixel line at capturing low-light photos.

Google Pixel 3a vs iPhone X (camera comparison)
Google

Notably, Google's image didn't explicitly spell out the competitor — saying only that the comparison is to "Phone X." We're taking a wild guess that Google isn't talking about the Moto X.

Check out the full presentation right here:

On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

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