This is the Google Pixel 4 XL and you see, although the Google Pixel isn’t that popular of a phone, at least not when compared to Samsung, Apple or even OnePlus or Huawei, it’s actually one of the most interesting smartphones on the market right now.
You see, the reason why iPhones are so successful, why the UI is so smooth, why they get day one updates, and why they integrate so well in Apple’s ecosystem is that Apple makes both the hardware and the software. Then on the Android side it’s pretty much impossible for anyone to do that aside from Google because they make Android, and if Google made their own hardware they would be the only direct competitor to Apple’s crown.
And they have been making their own hardware for the past three years now, with their Pixel phones. This is their brand new fourth generation of Pixel phones that just came out in October, and this is my full in-depth review, and I have mixed feelings about this. You’ll see why in just a second!
DESIGN
Ok, so starting off with the design, let’s be honest. Google hasn’t really been the best at designing things.
The Pixel 1 which came in 2016, looked like an iPhone 7 did, but we did have a massive on-screen navigation bar, which actually made the bottom bezel look even bigger so it wasn’t the best looking phone. Then back was equally as bad as we had a dual tone metal and glass back, but it was all dark grey and looked very odd. I was never a fan of the first Pixel’s design.
Then the Pixel 2 came out in 2017, and this was the year when smartphones drastically changed their designs, with the iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy S8, which removed the home button and shrunk down the bezel considerably, in favour of a full-screen display design that we were all wishing for. But rather than doing that, Google gave the Pixel 2 massive bezels again, it was an improvement over the Pixel 1 but still pretty outdated when compared to the competition. However, I did really like the Pixel 2’s Panda look, I think that back was one of the best backs on any smartphone but the front was still outdated.
The design of the Pixel 1 (Left) 2 (Middle) and 3 (Right)
When the Pixel 3 then came out in 2018 we had that very deep notch, which was even uglier and deeper than the iPhone’s. But the Pixel 3 didn’t really have any smart tech inside of that notch, aside from a more powerful speaker and a wide angle camera module, which was just a single module. The back was improved again, so now it had a dual tone look, but all of it was glass. The top portion was standard glass, whilst the bottom portion was now frosted glass which had a really nice touch to it. The frame had a ceramic feel even though it was just polished metal, but overall the Pixel 3 had the most amazing back I’ve ever felt on any smartphone. Design wise and feeling wise, from the back at least, the Pixel 3 was just amazing. So things were getting better.
Now we have the Pixel 4, which is pretty much the same recipe as the previous Pixels. From the front it reminds me a lot of the Pixel 2XL from 2017, which wasn’t a bad design by any means, but we’re in 2019 now and phones have very thin bezels, and large and bright displays, but the Pixel 4 still looks like it came out three years ago, from the front at least. When you remember that the Pixel 5 will come out in October of 2020 which will make the Pixel 4 look even worse and even more outdated in the meantime.
So that’s the front, but the back is a completely different story. We now get a much bigger camera module than on the other Pixels, but don’t be fooled because even if this camera module looks extremely similar to the ones on the iPhone, the Pixel 4 only has a dual camera module rather than the triple one that, most other smartphones received in 2019. So Google’s again behind the competition in terms of the number of camera modules, more about that in the camera section of this video.
The Clearly White Pixel 4XL and the Oh So Orange Pixel 4
But I have to say, if the Pixel 3 had the best back on any phone for me, the Pixel 4 is even better! We now have a single smooth piece of glass, so no more dual tone this year, which is a bit unfortunate, but this glass is again frosted glass which feels absolutely amazing. You see, it leaves no fingerprints, yet it still has that glass feel to it. Then the frame of the phone has a matte plastic-like texture to it, but it’s not plastic it’s actually metal. It is hard to describe it, but in a way, it feel like paper. So overall, this is by far the best looking and feeling back I’ve ever seen and felt on a phone. The power button is also made of a different colour, which adds a very nice touch to it.
The Pixel 4 now comes in three colours. We have ‘Just Black’, which I’ve personally never held in my hands or even seen one in person, but that’s the only one that has a glossy back. The others, ‘Clearly White’ and ‘Oh So Orange’ have the same matte texture on the back, and yes, I’m absolutely in love with how the phone looks from the back. It’s got that Nintendo feel and look to it so to say, love it!
DISPLAY
Moving on to the display, the Pixel 4 comes with a 6.3” 3040x1440 resolution OLED display, which is actually pretty good. It’s very sharp at 537 PPI, it’s got a 100% DCI-P3 coverage, so it’s actually very colour accurate.
A colour comparison between the Note 10+ (Left) and Pixel 4XL (Right)
Now I do have two complaints regarding this display. The first being that the colours are a bit dull when compared to the Galaxy Note 10+ for example, but that’s more to do with Google’s colour profile than the display itself. Then my second complaint is the brightness of this display. So it’s just over 400 nits which is ok, it’s actually brighter than the OnePlus 7T Pro’s display by a tiny bit, but noticeably dimmer than the Samsung Galaxy S10, Note 10 or the iPhone 11 Pro Max. Now this is not necessarily a big issue, but if you use your phone outdoors a lot in bright sunlight, then this is something to consider.
However, my favourite part about this display is that just like on the OnePlus 7 Pro and 7T’s, we now have a 90Hz refresh rate! The means that everything you do on this phone, the UI, and all the animations are 50% faster and more fluid than on any other phone with a standard 60Hz refresh rate display. Also, after a recent software update, the Pixel 4 is pretty much at 90Hz all the time, compared to just when it had over 60% brightness, like it was when it was released.
Then something else that I really like about the Pixel, is that they’re are pretty much the only phones that come with an Always-On Display, aside from Samsung and some LG phones. For me, being able to see the time and notifications all the time, is a huge plus.
So overall, while the display is pretty good, I would’ve loved to see thinner bezels alongside a slightly brighter display.
CAMERA
The camera is an interesting one, because you see, Pixel phones have always been considered as one of the best if not even the best device, for mobile photography.
The Pixel 4, just like the 3 and 2 before it, has an incredible camera, but not as good as I would’ve hoped. You see, firstly the main back camera uses the exact same sensor as on the Pixel 3. It does however have a larger f/1.7 aperture compared to f/1.8 on the Pixel 3, so it does let more light into the sensor, but other than that it’s the same camera from the Pixel 3, which is quite disappointing. I was hoping Google to make some big changes with the Pixel 4’s main camera.
An example of the SuperRes zoom from the Pixels (Source: Slash Gear)
So whilst they haven’t changed the main camera they have added a second module. However, rather than Google adding a wide angle module, like everyone else is doing in 2019, Google decided to finally add a telephoto module, like everyone else was doing in 2017! Now, I’m not implying that Google should be up to date with the latest trends here, no. My point here is that the wide angle module is technically more useful than a telephoto module. You see, whilst you can zoom in digitally, you cannot take a wide angle photo without a wide angle lens. Google even had their SuperRes zoom before, which actually did a very good job, for a digital zoom, even rivalling some high end smartphones that had a dedicated zoom module. But what’s worse is that it’s not even a 5x telephoto module, it’s just a regular 2x optical zoom.
Also, I’m very disappointed with the video on this phone. The Pixel 4 still cannot do 4K60 video recording, which the iPhone added in 2017, again two years ago. All the major smartphones can do 4K60 now, even most of the mid-ranged ones can.
The front camera is good but Google has now removed that wide angle module, meaning that you cannot take group selfies anymore, since the front camera isn’t as wide. However, they have made the regular lens wider than the previous regular one, meaning that you still get an overall wider field of view, which is good! But what’s not good is that the front camera can only shoot 1080p 30fps, which compared to the iPhone 11 Pro’s 4K60 or the Note 10’s 4K30, is just terrible.
An example of the Astrophotography capabilities of the Pixel 4 (Source: Google AI Blog)
Night mode is great, same exact one as we have on the Pixel 3, however I did find the Pixels to add a lot of noise in some of the shots, so overall I actually ended up preferring the iPhone 11 Pro’s night mode and the OnePlus 7T Pro’s night mode, over the Pixel’s. But what Google has added with the Pixel 4, is a brand new Astrophotography mode, which is huge! You can now take photos of the night sky, similar to what you can take with a DSLR camera.
But that’s pretty much it. Aside from the Astrophotography mode, the camera is pretty much the same as before, even a downgrade on the front. I’m genuinely disappointed, and because of those issues I just cannot recommend the Pixel 4’s camera, as the competition offers a much better camera overall, with significantly better video, a significantly better front camera and a wide angle lens on the back.
PERFORMANCE
Performance wise, the Pixel 4 is ok. It’s very fast and fluid, I give it that. In our Ultimate Speed test between the Pixel 4 and the Note 10+, the Pixel 4 loaded apps just as fast as the Note, even-though the Pixel 4 has a much slower UFS 2.1 storage, compared to the twice as fast UFS 3.0, like the OnePlus 7T & 7T Pro or the Note 10+.
CPU wise, we don’t get the Snapdragon 855+, just the 855 which is almost a year old at this point. The 865 is now official, so Google’s already a year behind in terms of the CPU. This is down to their weird release cycle, where they release their phones in October, whereas Qualcomm announces a new CPU in December.
RAM wise, we do get a bump to 6GB of RAM from the Pixel 3’s 4GB of RAM, but even that’s still half of the 12GB of RAM that Samsung or OnePlus offer and that definitely shows. RAM management is pretty poor on this phone, it could barely keep any apps open in the background when compared to the Note 10+.
However, we do get day one updates and software support for around three years. The Pixel 1 from 2016 is still fully supported which is great. You cannot really get this level of customer support, unless you go with an iPhone. OnePlus is another great option, but they don’t offer you day one updates, you do have to wait a few weeks or months in order to get those.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Face Unlock is now available on the Pixel 4 XL
Now, when it comes to the Special Features, we do get one that stands out from the competition, and that is FaceUnlock. This is actually the reason for that big forehead, since that’s where all the 3D depth mapping sensors are housed. It’s essentially the same system that Apple uses for FaceID on their iPhone X and newer. But the difference is that Google also added a small Radar chip, which is from their Project Soli, that can detect your movement much more accurately than a camera could. This chip works in conjunction with the FaceUnlock system, in order to make the FaceUnlock process insanely fast. Literally, from the moment you pick up the phone, the Pixel lights up the display and in less than a second, it’s already unlocked. Which is pretty nuts! It’s noticeably faster than the iPhone’s FaceID system but it’s far from perfect. You see, third party app support is non existent at this point, so if you’re thinking of using your face to access your banking apps or anything like that, you cannot do it yet. Another slight issue is that it also works when your eyes are closed, which Google said that they will fix but we just don’t know when that’s going to be.
Now that Soli Radar chip I mentioned also allows you to control your music and interact with the Pixel by using your hand gestures, which is a really cool party trick, but in practice it just doesn’t work. It’s the Samsung Galaxy S4 from 2013 all over again and it just does not work the way it should, and the way maybe Google was hoping it would work. While you can indeed swipe left and right to go back now, it seems like Google forgot about the case where some apps use swipe gestures to bring the Menu up and the new Pixel Gestures are messing up with app menus because of this.
The speakers are no longer front facing, like on the Pixel 3, they do sound good, not as good as on the iPhone 11 Pro Max or the Note 10+, but still pretty good.
Apart from that, we don’t have WiFi 6, or reverse wireless charging, or a microSD card slot, or even more than 128GB of storage, which is the maximum amount that you can get on this phone. In fact Google has even removed some of the features that the Pixel 3 used to come with, such as the unlimited photo and video storage at full resolution for free, with Google Photos. That was one of the key selling features of the Pixel phone and Google removed it! What are you doing Google?
BATTERY
So you have probably seen a pattern so far in terms of how I feel about each section of the Pixel 4, and the battery is the same, it’s decent.
It is far from what the competition offers, and that’s because the battery itself is quite small, at just 3700mAh on the XL and 2800mAh on the regular Pixel 4. When you take into account that 90Hz turn on, it’s noticeably worse than on the OnePlus 7T Pro, which wasn’t that great already. So overall the Pixel 4 XL has an ok battery life with a decent fast charge of up to 50% in just 34 minutes, which is right on par with the competition, so there’s that at least.
VALUE
So the final question, is the Pixel 4 worth it? Sorry Google, but it’s a no from me.
It costs £830 or $900 which is cheaper than the Note 10+ which costs £1000 ($1100) and the iPhone 11 Pro which costs £1150 ($1150), but if you compare the Pixel 4 to the OnePlus 7T Pro which costs £700 or $550 for the OnePlus 7 Pro in the US there’s no competition, they are much better phones! The 7T Pro for example has better performance with the Snapdragon 855+, up to 12GB of RAM, up to 256GB of Storage, a more modern design, a larger display, a larger battery.
The cameras are worse on the OnePlus but not really by that much, and you can even install the Google Camera apk and get a much more improved camera that way. I was honestly bored with the Pixel, so much so that I just could not use it as my daily driver, because it was a downgrade from my iPhone, my Note and even my OnePlus.
So Google, I’m guessing fifth time’s the charm?