The Pixel Visual Core is a special piece of silicon that's unique to Google's Pixel 2 phones. In short, it's a custom chip designed to help with the Pixel's HDR+ image processing — that's the computational secret sauce that makes the Pixel 2 camera so great.
But it's also a little misunderstood — the visual core isn't necessarily used in every photo your Pixel takes, even since Google enabled it by default in the February update for the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.
So we're going to take a step back here, and go over what the Visual Core is, what it does and doesn't do — and the differences now that Pixel 2 owners can use it. Check out our explainer video above to find out everything you need to know about the Pixel Visual Core!