In selfie mode, you can even apply a little in-camera face-tuning, although I recommend using a light touch (unless your aesthetic is “featureless blur”).

As novel as the feature is, I found most of the photos I captured with the AI Cam wanting. Depending on what the AI thought it was seeing, the tones were either overcooked, or the white balance was noticeably off. If you’re shooting off-the-cuff, trying to capture a spontaneous moment, the AI Cam will probably hurt more than it helps.

Fortunately, the G7 ThinQ also has a manual mode. The dual rear lenses have apertures of f/1.6 and and f/1.9 (super wide-angle) and you can adjust the ISO, shutter speed, exposure, white balance and focus for total control over the final image.

I really enjoyed shooting in wide-angle mode; the distortion adds interest to otherwise static landscape shots.

Like most newer phones on the market, the G7 ThinQ has a portrait mode, which imitates the shallow depth of field you’d achieve with a lens with a wide aperture and also works with the selfie camera. If you look closely you can see some errors in the blurring around me and the background is a bit overexposed, but overall this is a nice snap that I’d be content to share on Instagram or put in my travel album. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnkYodBnP-8/?taken-by=xela.explores

One other cool feature of particular note to travellers is Google Lens, accessible from the camera. Say you’re walking around a new city and happen upon something interesting — a flower you’ve never seen before, or a landmark you want more information about. Just snap a photo of it and Google Lens will serve you the most relevant search result. It’s not great at big-picture stuff — it couldn’t tell me name of the historically significant river that flows through Ottawa, for instance — but it did recognize our summer exhibit at 50 Sussex Drive as being on loan from the Fram Museum in Norway.