The Google Pixel 8 series ranks among thebest Android smartphonesyou can get today. Although AI capabilities are bundled on both devices, some of these are exclusive to the more expensive Pixel 8 Pro,including Video Boost. Although the feature was first revealed back during the October Made by Google event, it only began rolling out to the 8 Pro’s Pixel Camera appearlier this month. We’re now coming across a small UI tweak to the app aimed at alerting users to enable Video Boost in certain situations.
While trying to capture a video in a dimly lit environment, the Pixel Camera app on one of our Pixel 8 Pro units returned the following onscreen prompt —Try Video Boost with Night Sight. To be clear, this is different from the introductory message Pixel 8 Pro users received to try out Night Sight upon its arrival, which captured almost three-quarters of the screen and also had a big toggle to enable Video Boost.
This new prompt is less intrusive by comparison, popping up at the center of the screen. Based on our understanding, this message only appears while trying to capture videos in low-light situations on the Pixel 8 Pro. Tapping the message takes you to the toggle within the camera settings to enable or disable Video Boost.
The Pixel Camera app notifying users to turn on Video Boost is important given that it is set to off by default. So if you capture a video using this capability and close the camera app, Video Boost will be set to off when you reopen the app. It’s unclear why this restriction is in place, but we presume it’s the fear of large file sizes eating into storage allocation or Google not wanting to overburden its servers.
Video Boost links up with Google Photos and the company’s cloud servers. So each time a video is captured with Video Boost, it is sent over to Google’s servers and then back onto the phone. However, the process in its current state is too time-consuming, taking over three hours in some cases to get the touched-up video back after the initial upload.
With these factors in mind, the decision to notify users about Video Boost when they’re in a low-light area makes sense. It’s unclear at this time if this new pop-up was rolled out as part of a server-side update or through a new version of the Pixel Camera app.
Although Video Boost on the Pixel 8 Pro isn’t without its flaws, it’s certainly one of the most exciting feature additions to the Pixel 8 Pro. We couldn’t find much utility in using Video Boost during the daytime, but when paired with Night Sight and a dimly lit environment, it does the job pretty well.
Google Pixel 8 Pro
The Google Pixel 8 Pro is still a good deal in 2025, with plenty of software support and a premium flagship experience. The Tensor G3 is powerful enough for most tasks, and you’ll enjoy plenty of Pixel extras on Android 15. If you’re in the market for a Pixel but don’t want to pay flagship prices, the Pixel 8 Pro is worth a look.
