Google Pixel XL Review: Android Phone from Google | Detail Review and Specs

Google has retired its Nexus phones and came up with a new branded Google Pixel smartphone. Pixel is launched in two variants one is Google Pixel and other is Google Pixel XL. Both the phones seriously features some flagship calibre hardware.  Google’s self-design and marketed phone Google pixel XL is a complete package of quality stuff. So, it is not a cheap phone and what you have to pay is close to iPhone.

Google Pixel Xl Design

The Google pixel’s body is carved from a single piece of aluminium. The phone design is smartly engineered that one can see by its smooth curved edges that taper slightly at the rear side. The nice white strips at top and bottom sides look amazing.

If we give a shot towards its back, Google has made the interesting decision to give Google pixel a large glass panel surrounding the fingerprint sensor. Also, the phone’s main 12Mp camera and LED flashlight is placed at the glass panel. It’s really an odd look that we cannot deny but after using it some time it really grows on us.

In this year Apple in thier iPhone 7 has dropped the support to 3.5mm jack but Google does not seem to do this yet, the top portion of the phone has 3.5 mm headphone jack. On the right side, you find power and rocker buttons with the nice and textured surface. And down below you got a USB 3.0 TYPE C port next to the phone speaker.

Google Pixel XL Display

The Google Pixel XL face is dominated by a 5.5 inches Quad HD 1440 X 2560 Pixels AMOLED Display. At first glance on the display, it looks good, it’s super sharp and producing bold and eye-popping colours against the deep black of AMOLED. But when we used the phone outdoor the screen is struggling due to reflecting surface of the glass. The white balance of display is not bad but the colour has a bad habit of being over saturated. Overall the display is awesome.

Google Pixel Software

Google Pixel runs on Android Nougat 7.0 with plenty of new and interesting functionality. When it comes to the display, Google has inbuilt an ability to filter the blue light to enable the Nightlight mode that helps to reduce the strain of eyes. It gives comfort to your eyes during after hour of phone usage. New system software means a new way to use the things and its true in Google Pixel. The Pixel user interface is not like regular Android stock ROM but this time Google has made a number of adjustment in Pixel such as app drawer. Like from Nexus phones, we are used to using an app drawer where the apps are hidden behind an icon, however, in the pixel, the apps are living in a tray that slides from the bottom to top of the screen by a swipe to reveal the apps. You will get used to it after using a couple of days and really it is pretty fast than the traditional app drawer.

Beside the app drawer, on the home screen, you will get a Google search widget in the completely new form of icon that you need to tap to search. And it much like 3D touch on iOS, you can now long press on icons to pull up quick access to the shortcuts. Google Pixel with Android Nougat finally able to give native support to apps split screens feature. With access to apps switcher, you can work on two apps side by side. Split screen is not a feature you’re going to get benefits every day but sometimes it would help you lot.

The Google Pixel now assist in much better way by using Google Assistant. Google Assistant is very much enhanced version of Google Now. To start the Google assistant just hold the home button. Google Assistant is like iPhone Apple Siri and respond very quickly and can prove useful to know something instantly such as an update on latest sports score, bus ticket booking and more. Also, it is the best way to kill your boring time.

Google also offers some nice gesture control using fingerprint sensor. By swiping down the fingerprint scanner you can check out your notifications and quick settings. The whole interface of Google pixel XL is smooth like butter.

Google Pixel XL camera review

Google has packed the pixel with 12.3 MP rear and 8 MP front cameras. The photos captured by Google pixel xl is superb. The rear camera has 1/2.3″ sensor size & 1.55µm pixel size combines with f/2.0 aperture lens to captures plenty of light and also it comes with Electronic image optimisation, phase detection & laser autofocus which helps you to grab a picture in hurry. Most of the time, the pictures captured by the pictures with Google pixel XL are impressive with high details.  Especially when shooting in Auto HDR mode the camera software works very well and capture colour rich photos without slowing down the shutter speed.

If there is any weak point in the camera then it would be in low light mode capturing but still that is manageable. The front selfie camera is also fine but wth smaller pixels and tighter aperture, it struggles to across the board in low light environment. Vidoe recording in Pixel is pretty successful by giving a resolution of up to 4K along some digital stabilisation . The pixel is not supported any optical stabilisation but Google pixel software is able to reduce the hand shake during video recording.  You can record 4K video at 30fps, 1080p at 120fps, or 720p at 240fps for slow-motion effects.

 

Google Pixel XL Performance

Google arms the phone with Qualcomm snapdragon 821 SOC, the 821 SOC processor is the slightly faster and better version of Snapdragon 820. This mean Pixel is not going to blow the snapdragon 820 phones but however, it would be a little bit better. This powerful processor joined by 4 GB Ram which is plenty to run multiple apps and to operate two apps simultaneously in the split screen mode. For storage option it gives us a base 32GB at Rs 67000 and 128 at Rs. 76,000.

Honestly, the 32 GB is pretty much to survive but if we look on its price then 32 Gb is not enough when there is no way to expand it.  Google also offer an unlimited cloud storage on their servers for your photos and videos without any compression. Google has optimised the OS in so balanced way that we didn’t find any lag, heat or performance degradation while playing heavy games. multitasking, browsing, watching vidoes on YouTube and using camera.

Google Pixel XL Antutu benchmark

 

3D Mark Google Pixel XL Benchmark

Google Pixel XL Vallemo benchmark result

Google Pixel XL Speaker

Google pixel XL has two speaker grills at the bottom but unfortunately the only one grill possess the speaker. The Pixel’s speaker sound production is pretty much impressive and promising. We find a good mixture of treble and bass and also it is the one of the best sound we ever heard in a smartphone speaker.Voice calls also sound decent. Although the phone size doesn’t comfortable specially if you have small hands but still we didn’t find any problem while calling.

Google Pixel Xl Battery

The Google Pixel XL is powered by 3450mAh battery just like on the Nexus 6P. In our test, we get roughly 7.5 hours of screen on time which pretty good for this type of hardware package. There is an option of battery saver that can use to extend the battery life further and give you some more time to play with it. It also has TYPE C  USB port for charge charging option and take 2 hours to charge from 0 to 100%

Review Synopsis

With Google pixel, Google really succeeds to give an attractive Android flagship quality smartphone.  The HTC is manufacturing the hardware of pixel while the software and designing part is handled by Google team itself. However, the Google’s pixel is one of best smartphone available in the market both by performance and specs but still the price point is little bit issue for us. The price of 32 GB is Rs 67000 whereas OnePlus 3 at RS 27000 comes with 64 GB.

Although the Google is giving unlimited cloud space storage on their servers for videos, photos and music but in India where data connectivity and its charges is still an issue, we don’t thing so the free cloud space would attract the users. Moreover, if you go for 128 GB then it will give you a bump of 10,000 rupees.  At this price range, people would like to go for iPhone 7.

Yes, if you are existing user and fan of Android then the Google Pixel with brand new Android Nougat and unlimited cloud space, lag-free performance, rich sound and good battery backup will feel you nice and enough armed to fulfil your all smartphone needs. It might be not so flashy but really a well-done phone and the beginning of Google’s smartphone era.