Wow this is really bad. Was it zoomed? If this is the case, it is interesting that it is still 4k resolution and companies prioritize "4k" even with horrible processing or whatever artifacts are these, rather than reducing resolution eg when zooming. Similar with low light, where binning the pixels could increase light sensitivity.
If that's really only 2x zoom then I don't know how you can possibly have gotten a result that bad. I don't have a Pixel 7A, but it's certainly not representative of what 2x zoom looks like in daylight on a recent iPhone Pro. (My Pixel 3a used to do a better job of 2x zoom than that, FWIW.)
Yeah I have no idea what the hell it was doing either. Had similar problems on a few other shots inconsistently. I did wonder if it was some artifact of image stabilisation.
I have an iPhone 15 Pro now which is ok if you are careful but has lots of other wierdness instead.
Wow this is really bad. Was it zoomed? If this is the case, it is interesting that it is still 4k resolution and companies prioritize "4k" even with horrible processing or whatever artifacts are these, rather than reducing resolution eg when zooming. Similar with low light, where binning the pixels could increase light sensitivity.
If it is not zoomed in, it is much worse.