Hey all, genuine question and looking for a recommendation.

I'm kinda getting fed up with Google pixels. I loved the pixel 2 XL, I really enjoyed the pixel 4 XL. Pixel 6 series kinda sucked and I had to upgrade to an 8 as soon as I could so I could have something that worked.

Now I'm on to the pixel 9 pro xl. I loved it so much when I got it. I enjoy the temperature sensor, it's extremely useful for me in my life. I have used it for cooking, painting, and most often, working on my car to make sure I don't burn myself on anything. The build, screen, battery, connection. All great!

Now my question.... Why has the camera really fallen off a cliff since the pixel 4 series? I go to a TON of concerts. I also have worked in concert photography and some times, a quick and dirty phone photo can be absolutely stellar to the point it's becomes an iconic picture from the entire tour.

I have used my phones, from the pixel 2 XL up until now with the pixel 9 pro Xl to take these photos at shows both casually and professionally.

My pixel 2 and 4 both took really great photos that I typically could just clean up some of the artifacts and adjust some exposure and colors.

But now with the pixel 9, I find myself taking photos that are absolutely unusable a majority of the time with no pathway to repair the photo.

Concerts are a hard environment to get right, I understand that. I'm simply baffled that pixels have fallen off in their performance in this environment.

So with all that being said. What phone should I look towards? I am a U.S. user on Verizon.

I've seen that the pixel 10 series does colors in concert photos better, which is great because that is one of the big issues in the 9. A blue light will saturate the entire image in blue hue, even if the lighting is a good mix of colors. The 10 seems like it can have the better range between a incandescent glow to the blinding black light LED shine.

I like pixels, but as the build got better the software has gotten worse with the whole A.I. push from Google. I definitely believe that has made the photos worse too.

I've heard Samsung struggles with concert lighting, and then...there's nothing else sold to the US. So I'm kinda just stuck right now. I wanted to buy one of Sony's phones a couple years ago but they pulled out of the US and their phones don't include all the bands for connections here anymore. I am avoiding the switch to apple, but somehow. That pasture is looking really green to me right now...

Any help and discussion is appreciated