Pixel 2 & Pixel 2 XL – This review was FUN
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,856 words · ~9 min read
0:00
luke loves his pixel xl but the issue with the original pixel for me was that
0:05
while i did end up using it for a couple of months it was a bit of a one-trick
0:09
pony an expensive one at that and a good
0:12
camera or even a great camera is not enough for me
0:17
i need a phone that knows what i want a
0:21
phone that shares my interests a phone that i can't wait to greet at
0:25
the end of the day with a great big hug
0:28
or failing that a little squeeze
0:32
i also need sponsors like Intel who keep this show going
0:36
cyber power pc's lineup of gaming desktops featuring Intel 7th generation
0:40
core i7 processors check them out at the link below these are the top results
0:45
yeah yeah
0:54
in some ways google launched two different sizes of the same phone both
1:00
the pixel 2 and the pixel 2 xl feature
1:04
basically the same internal specs with the main difference being the amped up
1:08
battery on the larger model to power the larger screen
1:12
and i was both surprised and pleased to find out during the october 4th event
1:17
that both phones even get the same optical and electronic image
1:21
stabilization and portrait mode camera features a move that is much appreciated
1:26
by those of us with both small hands and precious moments to capture
1:31
but pretty much any flagship Android phone
1:35
these days has the same internal specs including the galaxy s8 that launched
1:40
six months ago so we have to look a little closer
1:44
to see that while they are clearly related
1:48
they are also as different as i am from my siblings
1:52
they both still sport a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor
1:56
satisfyingly clicky lock buttons a 12.2 megapixel single rear camera and the
2:02
partial glass-backed design that debuted on the original pixel but is somehow
2:07
much more refined looking this time around but then
2:11
when we flip them over they're like
2:14
nothing alike it's almost like they were made by
2:19
completely different contract manufacturers with different
2:22
capabilities so the pixel 2
2:26
is lightweight with squared off edges making it easy to handle but a little
2:31
chunky looking with larger top and bottom bezels to make room for stereo
2:36
speakers and i guess the rest of the basically no compromises internals
2:42
the xl by contrast is the far more
2:46
2017 looking of the two devices
2:49
little changes like the seamless transition from the body to the sexier
2:54
curved glass and wider gamut not to
2:57
mention much higher resolution display
3:00
wouldn't really bother me as a pixel 2 buyer but the taller aspect ratio of the
3:06
display makes the handling of the devices
3:09
very different in day-to-day use the pixel puts less strain on your
3:14
thumbs to reach the spacebar while you're typing while the xl uses its
3:18
extra screen height to compensate for the space lost to the on-screen buttons
3:24
by comparison it also fits a lot more
3:27
content on the screen at a time though it should be noted that both of
3:31
them lose out to the galaxy s8 and the note 8 in this regard
3:36
and this affects media playback in a big way too if you're a movie watcher
3:41
buy the xl2 period
3:44
surprisingly they both managed to pack similar and impressive sounding stereo
3:51
front-facing speakers like seriously htc
3:55
boom sound lovers y'all got something to upgrade to
3:59
finally but while six inch versus five inch doesn't
4:03
sound like that big of a deal the pixel wastes
4:08
far more of its screen real estate in ultra wide content so think about how
4:13
much bigger a 50-inch tv looks compared to a 40-inch tv
4:17
that is the difference on to day-to-day usability uh once i
4:23
added a specifically compatible well
4:26
thankfully inexpensive type c to three and a half millimeter adapter to my
4:30
headphone pouch the pixel 2 and the 2xl
4:33
are they're just a pleasure to use gone is the stress about incidental
4:38
water splashes from last gen and i gotta
4:42
say while i had no pressing desire for a
4:46
squeezable phone how tall is Linus sebastian i really like it as a super
4:52
natural way to bring up the google assistant to the point where i even
4:57
found myself just using the google assistant a lot more
5:01
than i have in the past now you'll hit it by accident a fair bit
5:05
at first just trying to pick your phone up off the table or put it into your
5:09
pocket but the sensitivity has a wide
5:12
adjustment range so if you're not the kind of person whose
5:16
voice saying okay google would take about three minutes to capture and steal
5:21
okay google ok google ok google and
5:25
you're comfortable with the reduced security of a voice recognition unlock
5:29
man there are a lot of fast ways to get things done ok google assuming of course
5:35
that what you want to get done isn't that complicated
5:38
the thing for me is that the more that these digital
5:43
assistants can do the more obvious it becomes what they cannot do
5:48
so i can open google docs handy
5:52
but i can't then open a specific document or start dictating without
5:56
touching my phone i can search for drive badminton center
6:01
and i can navigate there but then i can't add a stop at an amw on
6:06
my way without touching my phone while i'm in the car
6:10
and it's stuff like this that makes the whole exercise feel
6:13
a little pointless i mean no not not pointless that's not
6:17
fair but but definitely incomplete i mean i can see how folks
6:22
who just want to perform discreet singular tasks like turn off the light
6:26
or play that song that i like would be really happy with the current state of
6:31
things but for some reason a lot of what
6:34
i end up wanting to do is going to result in me entering it manually at
6:39
some point anyway and if that's the case it's usually faster to just do it myself
6:45
correctly the first time rather than relying on what is much better but still
6:51
imperfect voice recognition a perfect example is that it recorded
6:55
this as in perfect instead of imperfect
6:59
and the screen turned off while i was finishing the recording because i've
7:03
been talking for a minute psy
7:06
and of course i meant phi not that sigh
7:11
the good news is that even if you don't give a crap about google assistant
7:14
Android oreo has plenty to love in no particular order here are a few things
7:19
that made my life better versus the iphone 8 and the galaxy s8 upcoming
7:23
events at the top of the home screen super nice to have
7:27
holding task switcher to run multiple apps on screen doesn't work with netflix
7:32
boo but with supported apps it's faster
7:36
smoother and more intuitive for multitaskers than ever before
7:41
being able to snooze notifications is a
7:44
godsend for busy people like me so finally there is a middle ground between
7:49
dismissing them and forgetting about them and having them just pile up and
7:54
better management of background app power usage makes the pixel 2 behave
8:00
very nicely for a phone with only a 2700
8:03
milliamp hour battery i have gripe still though google allows
8:08
bootloader unlocking but i shouldn't need to load a custom rom to
8:14
do something as simple as swapping the on-screen nav buttons and this
8:18
suggestion that i found on reddit was even more annoying than reaching all the
8:22
way over for back and while we're at it i capture mark up
8:27
and send out a lot of screenshots and stock Android screenshot management
8:32
sucks compared to iOS 11 and third-party
8:36
variants of Android bringing us to
8:39
the camera even though it lacks a few shooting modes compared to its competitors like
8:43
60 FPS 4k or ultra high frame rate slo-mo it's
8:49
great but oh don't take my word for it
8:52
here's our resident camera guru brandon to tell you guys how the front-facing
8:56
camera is okay if you turn off the tier facial processing and the back shooter
9:01
is great and you're gonna love it the front-facing camera is okay
9:06
if you turn off the face retouching and the rear camera is
9:10
great that's it
9:14
i mean could you do a follow-up video next week maybe comparing the pixel 2 to
9:19
the iphone 8 and the note 8 or something i guess
9:22
okay well great then so
9:26
bottom line should you buy
9:29
it's actually kind of hard to evaluate especially the pixel 2 xl
9:34
in the absence of its true competitor the iphone 10 but
9:39
squeeze changed the game a lot more for me than i thought even if almost
9:45
everything else about it especially the absence of wireless charging still feels
9:50
like the nexus to pixel price hike was a
9:53
bit of a kick in the balls so i like the design much better than the
9:58
super boring iphone 8 but iOS 11 and 3d
10:02
touch are great so is face id better than squeeze and
10:08
google assistant how about the camera on the 10. these are all questions that
10:12
need answers unless of course you're a die-hard
10:15
Android user and you were never going to consider the dark side anyway so for you
10:19
guys the pixel 2 xl gets a strong recommendation with the two just behind
10:25
it due to its fat bezeled and last gen 16x9 screen so
10:32
yeah you probably already knew this but these are the Android phones to have
10:37
right now assuming of course that you're a great
10:40
big baller
10:44
speaking of being a great big baller why not look like a baller with a d brand
10:49
skin on your phone dbrand is your source for awesome vinyl skins and they've got
10:54
them for laptops phones tablets consoles controllers and more they use high
10:59
quality authentic true textured 3m vinyl on every product and their skins are cut
11:05
with unrivaled precision so use their
11:08
configurator see what your product's going to look like you could go with the
11:12
panda or the reverse panda for your pixel 2 even if you can't get one and
11:17
not only that but you get a little bit of protection against incidental scuffs
11:21
and scratches they ship worldwide they've got great customer service and
11:25
you can check them out at the link below so thanks for watching guys if you
11:29
disliked this video you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like get
11:32
subscribed maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at
11:35
the links in the video description also down there we've got our merch store
11:39
which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you should
11:42
totally join