I’ve been using the Google Pixel 2 XL now for about a week and, if you’ve been following my posts, you’ll know I am kind of impressed with the handset. Big time.

The battery life is superb. Ditto the software and overall performance. Basically, nothing has been left on the table. The Pixel 2 XL gobbles up anything you throw at it and always feels like it has plenty left in the tank for more.

But one of the Google Pixel 2 XL’s coolest features, which is also available on the Google Pixel 2, is Portrait Mode, which you’ll find inside the camera app. Portrait Mode lets you take truly stunning, unique-looking shots.

I had a blast testing this aspect of the camera out over the weekend with my niece and nephew, both of whom were also very impressed with the results too.

How Does The Pixel 2 XL’s Portrait Mode Work?

The main thing you need to remember is that the Pixel 2 XL and Pixel 2 does not have a dual-lens camera; instead, Google leverages clever software to create the effect of having a dual-lens camera and the results, as you can see above, is pretty impressive.

How it works is also pretty simple (well, in theory, anyway): basically, the sensor, once you’re in Portrait Mode, isolates, via machine learning, the subject of the image. Once it has done this, the background is blurred, creating that DSLR-style finish.

The INS and OUT of how this technology actually functions is rather complicated, but the resulting effect is designed to create a dual-lens-style shot with a single lens setup, thereby negating the need to have a dual-lens camera on the rear.

“Starting from an HDR+ picture,” said Google, “we next decide which pixels belong to the foreground (typically a person) and which belong to the background. This is a tricky problem because unlike chroma keying (a.k.a. green-screening) in the movie industry, we can't assume that the background is green (or blue, or any other colour) Instead, we apply machine learning.”

You can read more about how Portrait Mode is achieved over on Google’s Research Blog.

This technology is also available on the front-facing camera too, so if taking selfies is something you do a lot, you can get some pretty good results using Portrait Mode.

The idea behind this technology is to mirror, as closely as possible, the way a DSLR captures images, with that tell-tale background blurring.

Granted, you’re going to get better results with a $2000 DLSR, but for a phone, Portrait Mode is a great addition to an already very impressive piece of kit.