Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably noticed that Google
seems to be trying its hardest to be a company that does seemingly everything.
I mean, they're working on a space elevator. But closer to home, they've
recently rolled out their first ever smartphones, the Pixel and the Pixel XL.
Whoa, hold on a second. What about that Google Nexus sitting in my pocket right
now? Well, although Nexus devices carried Google's branding, they weren't
designed by Google. Rather, Google intended for them to be a reference for
what the vanilla Android experience should be like. But phones themselves
weren't all that different from other devices available from the manufacturers
contracted to produce a Nexus. Companies like LG or Motorola. But this time is
different, man. Google designed the Pixels in-house, intending for them to
be the first smartphones they could truly call their own. Even if it is
contract manufactured by HTC and looks suspiciously iPhone like from the front,
the hardware, while upper tier, mostly isn't anything we haven't seen before.
1080p AMOLED screen or 1440p if you opt
for the larger Pixel XL. Quad core Snapdragon 821, either 32 or 128 GB of
internal UFS 2.0based O based storage, but no micro SD slot and USB type-C. It
does however come with some really next level stuff like a non-exloding battery
and a headphone jack. All joking aside, there is at
least one hardware feature that does legitimately set the Pixel apart. Google
has hyped the Pixel's camera quite hard, even going so far as to call it the best
smartphone camera ever. And while Google might not be the most unbiased source of
such a statement, most independent reviewers have already had high praise
for the Pixel's wide dynamic range, solid lowlight performance, and accurate
color. It also packs 4K video, 240 FPS
slow-mo, and image stabilization to round out its feature set. And there's
more. The fingerprint sensor is on the back of the phone, which is supposed to
make it easier to access when you're holding the phone in your hand. and it
also comes with full support for Google's upcoming Daydream VR headset.
Aesthetically, the pixels are a little polarizing. The upper third of the rear
is covered with Gorilla Glass, which Google claims helps with cell reception.
And the phones are available not only in the more traditional black and white,
but also in a very intense shade of blue
that Google literally calls really blue.
They got that right. But color choices aside, where Google has really tried to
set the Pixel apart from its competitors is its software. The Pixel does, as you
might expect, run Android 7, but there are some interesting touches that are,
as of now, Pixel exclusive, something
that we never saw with Nexus devices. The most prominent of these is the new
Google Assistant, a competitor to Siri and Cortana that is based more around
having conversations with the user instead of just spitting out search
results. Google even went as far as to hire writers from the Onion to give the
assistant some personality. And while the Pixel doesn't come with an iPhone
like pressure sensitive screen, you can learn more about this up here, it does
feature app shortcuts, which are quick context menus that show up when you long
press on an app icon. Then another big selling point is support for what Google
calls seamless updates, where a separate partition of your phone's storage is
updated in the background, and the Pixel just boots from that partition the next
time you turn it on, meaning no more absurdly long wait times just to use
your phone after a system update, which is pretty cool in my opinion. So, with a
focus on solid usability rather than possibly extraneous bells and whistles,
it'll be interesting to see how Google's first real foray into smartphones
ultimately goes. But no matter what happens, it can't be worse than the
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