I was blown away by how well this $530 phone's camera compared to Google's $650 Pixel 2, the best smartphone camera in the world (GOOG, GOOGL)

Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

What better way to test out a couple of the best smartphone cameras than on a casual stroll through town.

I was curious to see how the $530 OnePlus 6 fared against the $650 Google Pixel 2 — the latter of which sports the best camera on any smartphone at the moment. The OnePlus 6 performs way better than its price would indicate, so perhaps a significantly superior camera would help account for the the price difference with the Pixel 2.

At least, that's what I was expecting. After testing both smartphone cameras, though the Pixel 2 is still the leader for taking the best shots, but the OnePlus 6 isn't very far behind at all. I can't say the Pixel 2's camera is $120 better. Its camera even captures colors better than the Pixel 2, in some cases.

And as a sidenote, the OnePlus 6 has better overall specs than the Pixel 2, a larger screen, and it has a much, much better design, too. And yet, it costs $120 less than the Pixel 2.

To be fully transparent, I actually used the larger $750 Pixel 2 XL for this comparison, as it was the device I had on hand. But that doesn't affect anything, as the smaller Pixel 2 has the exact same camera as the Pixel 2 XL.

Check out photos taken with the OnePlus 6 and the Pixel 2 XL to see how close the cheaper OnePlus really is: