Google Pixel & Pixel XL Review - My Favorite Smartphone
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,536 words · ~7 min read
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Nexus is dead Long Live
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pixel tunnel bear is the simple VPN app that makes it easy to browse privately
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and enjoy a more open internet to try tunnel bear for free check out the link
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in the video description yes it is true the long line
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of Google Nexus phones has ended its successor will be pixel which is
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currently my favorite phone yeah we'll dive into the details of that later the
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pixel is a phone made by Google yet still manufactured by someone else HTC
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in this case but they weren't Google's First Choice that would have been Huawei
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who bailed out because Google wouldn't put their logo on the phone which brings
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us to the design easily the most talked about and polarizing aspect of the pixel
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visually is the gorilla glass pane on the back of the phone but it turns out
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that it's not just for looks it is intended to help with cell reception
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along with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals which is cool and if you really hate it
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you can just put a scan or a case over it anyways
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debrand also on the back of the phone is a fingerprint reader which you can also
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use to pull down or put away your notification tray with some finger
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flicks and maybe it's because the last phone I reviewed was the LG G2 but I
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absolutely love having it in this position no it's not ideal for when it's
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on a table but when you pull out of your
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pocket you can unlock it in one smooth motion while having your hand in the
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perfect position ready to use it m so
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good absolutely love that what some people are saying isn't so good is the
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thickness a pixel XL is 0.33 in thick while an iPhone 7 plus is
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only 0.29 in thick but to be honest guys
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I really can't bring myself to care especially when the pixel XL is also
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rocking a 3450 million hour battery W
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seriously the battery mixed with the new software stuff which we'll talk more
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about later gives me the ability to just charge whenever I want instead of having
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to constantly be chasing down power sources it's awesome in the time that
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I've been using it there have been a number of occasions where it has lasted
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2 days with no additional
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charging so good what's arguably even
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more awesome than that is the camera which happen s to be the highest rated
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smartphone camera ever its specs are darn impressive 12.3 megapixels f2.0
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apture and a 1.55 Micron pixel size
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along with 4K video recording and 240 FPS slow-mo naturally I gave our
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resident camera expert Brandon Lee a spin with it and while he wasn't able to
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appear on camera because he's off being a cinematographic wizard somewhere he
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did leave me with some notes lens flare is an issue as others have noted in
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their reviews however thanks to our natural habitat being the Cloudy
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rainforest of Southwestern British Columbia he actually never encountered
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it he described the lowlight performance as not groundbreaking per se but said
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that it was very good for a smartphone
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but then he was a little bit disappointed with the lens blur
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apparently iPhone's implementation is notably better as the pixel would blur
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out odd parts of an image and add grainy effects to some other images the HD r+
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mode is impressively fast but a little overdone at times which can make images
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look less natural though that's great if that's what you're looking for and if
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you're looking for more true to life images you can still get those rather
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easily after a few tweaks in a photo editor like VSCO his conclusions were
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that the pixel gives detail that he never thought one could get out of a
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smartphone photo and in his subjective opinion he sees this as the best noedit
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smartphone on the market blam that's
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awesome moving on we have the hardware for both a pixel and pixel XL you're
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looking at a Snapdragon 821 an adreno 530 GPU 4 gigs of RAM and either 32 or
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128 gigs of ufs 2.0 storage with the
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pixel specifically you'll get a 5in 1080p screen with for its size a large
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2770 mAh battery the pixel XL steps it
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up a notch with a 5.5 in 1440p screen
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screen and that massive battery that I mentioned earlier all those impressive
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specs however might cower and fear a little bit when they hear that both
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versions have an IP water and dust resistance rating of 53 meaning it's
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somewhat Splash and dust resistant and that's it which leaves a bit to be
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desired as it's quite behind the curve compared to other modern phones even
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apple is finally rating their phones at
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ip68 that's lame Google what isn't lame
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however is the software pixel is running Android 7.1 and oh my gosh is it smooth
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on this hardware easily the most buttery experience I have ever had on a phone
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the UI just Glides at your fingertips nothing takes time everything is
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effortless even when playing games the phone doesn't even notably heat up at
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all because that might dare take away from the experience it's
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glorious which makes the total flood of a speaker implementation that much more
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disappointing especially from the likes of HTC who have ample experience with
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how to do this right there are no front-facing speakers to go on those
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giant bezels where they would fit right in just an unfortunately easy to cover
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up sounding speaker near the USB type-c
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port sad but anyways the swipe up motion
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for the application tray is a little odd at first but grows on you quick
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especially if you've installed a similar aftermarket launcher of your own in the
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past it works nicely with the whole smooth idea of the pixel and so does the
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long press option that I expect many people to overlook you can now hold your
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finger on an app and it will flip up some additional shortcut options like
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incognito tab in Chrome or the take a video option in the camera app pretty
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neat then we have the Google Assistant what time is it
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the time is 11:41 a.m. which is a more conversational version of Google now
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which means it will remember the previous questions that you've asked and
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will be able to provide context appropriate answers to followup
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questions without you rephrasing the entire thing on the surface the pixels
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are very good smartphones but not necessarily perfect ones or even great
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ones for that matter it has a crappy speaker non-expandable storage bad water
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resistance large bezels and it's kind of thick all of that going along with its
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surprisingly high price tag but when you
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use it it's not much short of amazing
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it's the smoothest phone I have ever witnessed the best camera in Brandon's
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opinion which is good enough for me along with
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Incredible battery life it's truly more
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than the sum of its parts and I am super stoked for Pixel 2 where they can fix
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the speaker and water resist problems along with the other
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things dbrand is your source for awesome vinyl skins they're available for phones
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tablets laptops consoles controllers and
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even more they use highquality authentic
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true textured 3M vinyl on every product
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and they feature unrivaled Precision they measure many times to ensure that
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they have a factory fit for your products that'll fit on nice and look
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like it actually was supposed to come that way their configurator is great and
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it allows you to view and pick out exactly what you want for your product
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not only does your phone look great it protects against damage and scratches as
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well and they even ship worldwide you can check them out in the link in the
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video description all right guys that was my first phone review in a long time
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so if you liked it like it and let me know what you thought in the comments
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down below I'll be reading them because I hope to do more of these in the future
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I want to review the pixel 2 when that comes out uh if you hated it dislike the
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video and leave a comment explaining why as well so I can get better at the
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things that I do if you want to buy something like this check it out in the
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Amazon Link in the description down below where you will also see our shirts
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in a link like slightly around that
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somewhere I don't I don't know uh if you want to check out Linus's one plus
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review check that out up here and I'll see you guys next time