2 Weeks with the Google Pixel/Pixel XL! By Danny Winget

What's up everybody, this is Danny and this is the Google Pixel and pixel excel. These are Google's new phones that they built from the ground up to make the Android experience simpler and more mainstream to compete with the most popular phones out there. The iPhone, 7 and 7, plus, so I've been using these phones for a couple of weeks now, so I think I'm ready to share with you all the things that I think Google did right with the pixel and some places where it falls short. So let's go ahead and get started. It comes in three different colors, a black silver and limited edition blue and the design is definitely going to be a hit or miss for some. In my opinion, I think the design is uninspiring at best, but in saying that so is the iPhone 7 this year, I think it's going to come down to personal preference with this top glass design and unibody metal mix.

It doesn't matter if you don't like the design or not. The phone does feel premium and I actually don't mind a slightly thicker form factor, and it fits into the hand nicely with nice, click tactile buttons and no camera hump after using these two I think the smaller pixel feels better in the hand. Overall, it's more usable, the 5-inch 1080p display it looks very sharp, and you won't really be able to tell the difference between this and the larger 5.5 pixel AFCEL's quad HD display in terms of sharpness. You have to look pretty closely. The AMOLED displays really work here.

Nice, blacks, punchy, colors and watching content on here is great, but I do wish. The panels were a little brighter, because outdoor visibility is not the greatest. This is not a dealbreaker by any means, but even the iPhone 7 and other Android flagships, like the Galaxy S7 edge, have a much brighter display. This may look like dual speakers on the bottom, but it's only one single speaker, but it does have decent volume, sounds much better than I thought it would. But it's really easy to cover up like any other smartphone.

With this type of speaker arrangement, I mean check this out for the money the pixel XL is worth. It arguably offers more I really wish. There were front-facing speakers like the Nexus 6p I feel like this is a step backwards in the audio department in terms of Google's offerings. There is a 3.5 millimeter, headphone jack, so you can easily just plug in, but the output really does just sound average. So don't expect a high quality deck in this thing now, don't get me wrong.

It's awesome to have a 3.5, millimeter headphone jack. There trust me I still can't get used to it on the iPhone 7. But what's sad is that HTC built this thing and the HTC 10 had an amazing deck. So, overall the hardware is okay, but if you're anything like me and miss the Nexus branding on these peer, Google phones then bring back that nostalgia with these D brand skins for the pixel link down below. If you want to give it that Nexus touch.

So here is where the pixel starts shining. For me, it's the software experience and the speed of this phone. The decision for Google to control the hardware and software this time around really paid off, because the combination of the Snapdragon 820 1 processor and the 4 gigabytes of RAM, working together with Android 7.1, is one of the most fluid experiences that I've had on an Android phone. Yet I mean this thing feels fast from the animations to the touch response to triggering the new Google Assistant. There's just not much to complain about here in the performance Department.

Now that doesn't mean there aren't some hiccups here and there, and maybe some apps not working correctly under 7.1 nougat, but overall it is a perfect experience. Speaking of that Google Assistant, it is exclusive to the pixel for right now, and I've enjoyed using this thing. So far you can speak more naturally to it. It's almost like having a conversation with your phone, and it has some fun things too: okay Google, who won the World Series the World Series, was won by the Chicago Cubs. When was the last time they won the World Series before this.

According to Wikipedia, the 1908 World Series matched the defending champion, Chicago Cubs against the Detroit Tigers I love. How I remember is what you said before and how you can have a conversation with. It is way more natural, and I love how you can play games on it too. That's pretty cool, so I can't wait to see how they improve this in the future. I think this is definitely something awesome.

The optimizations also paid off in the battery life Department, but should have no problems with getting through a full day with both of these phones, even on the smaller pixel, with the two thousand seven hundred and seventy William hour, battery I was easily getting four and a half hours to five hours of screen on time, and I was getting approximately six on the larger pixel XL, with the three thousand four hundred and fifty William hour battery. Of course, usage differs, but I'm usually pretty hard on my phones at about 50% brightness. If you do need to top off in the middle of the day, because you are a superpower user, there is rapid charging here, even though it's not advertised as quick charge 3.0 it charges just as quick using the USB type-c PD tech, but I found quick charge accessories work just fine here. What is missing here is wireless charging and I feel like with the glass back. It was definitely possible to implement this, but they just didn't I'm kind of disappointed by that.

But let's talk about my favorite thing about the pixel, and that is the camera. I might be a little excited here, but that's because the pixel camera is way better than I thought it was going to be on. The back is a 12 megapixel, Sony IMF 378 sensor that is stacked and backside illuminated and has some cool, HDR processing capabilities, and you will also see laser autofocus, plus phase detection autofocus working in combination together. So this equals to some superfast autofocus I mean definitely one of the fastest that I've seen on any mobile phone. The software is pretty standard here, but not much on the manual control side, but what you'll see is that auto, HDR plus is enabled by default, and you don't even realize it you just snap away.

So before you even take the picture, the camera is using Qualcomm hexagon technology built into the Snapdragon 820 1 chip and the camera is already capturing raw image data constantly. In the background, when you hit that shutter button, it only takes those images and starts processing the HDR. So you don't notice this unless you even look quickly back at the photo after you take the shot. So this entire process is really fast and produces a nice image, and if you use the Nexus 6p before you know, the painful lag. That's on that HDR plus here are some photos that I've taken with the pixel and pixel XL over two weeks and I think the images are great.

For the most part, I mean it's nice and detailed lots of information on the pictures, and it can produce some nice contrast. The images with nice, color and I'm going to say it's a camera that you can depend on in most situations. Yep I am having problems with those halo, reflections and Google acknowledged this and stated that a software update could help with this. But beware of these weird light wings in certain lighting conditions. I really don't think this is fixable by software.

Low light performance is surprising as well, and it can take some stunning shots, but this is where I feel like the pixel might give you a little trouble. The images are more detailed than I've seen on any other phone, including the iPhone 7. So this is a major plus, and you can see how much more details retained. Even in these low-light shots, the color sometimes can be off and when it is, the colors are too saturated, and it's not a bad performer by any means, but you will notice some really heavy noise, even with the HDR off. It is a consistent, fixed noise pattern, so some might not even care that it's there, but that's something that I just cannot overlook.

What's good is it could probably improve this with a software update, but for now the noise reduction is pretty terrible. Overall, this is an impressive camera. I wouldn't say this is the best camera on the market right now, but it definitely puts it in the same class as the iPhone 7 and the Galaxy S7 edge. So this is a definite win for Google. So some of you may be concerned that there's no optical image stabilization in this camera, but it does use digital stabilization using gyroscopes information, and it works surprisingly.

Well, when you look at it, it's almost too good to wear. You can look at the movement of this video and there's a slight pause when it's processing when you're moving the camera back and forth, it can look a little unnatural, but it works great. For the most part, the 4k video is also great here. It's nice and sharp I'll do a separate video on this in the future, so stay tuned. So where do I stand with this phone? Actually, I am torn here and I.

Guess it depends on how you look at this phone. If you are a hardcore, Android user, you may be looking at this phone for what it lacks, such as no micro SD card expansion, no water resistance, no dual speaker setup and no wireless charging. But if you're looking at it from the general user standpoint, it could be a solid choice since it has a premium, build nice display, great camera, fast performance and the latest and greatest software experience. I think the biggest problem is the distribution of this phone. So if Google wanted a more widespread and mainstream experience, then why would they limit this to just one carrier? Doesn't make any sense? Yes, yes, I know that you can buy it unlocked, and you can take it to any carrier after that.

But it's going to cost you pretty heavy, because the pixel is $650 and a pixel XL is 750 dollars and those are for the 32 gigabyte variants. And if you want to step up to the 128, you have to pay an extra hundred dollars. On top of that, this means you're competing directly with the iPhone 7 and 7 plus, and if there aren't enough features for the pixel to differentiate it from the iPhone, can it justify this high price tag now personally, I think the pixel in pixel Excel is the best Android experience that you can get right now, but I don't think it's worth the money that it's commanding. But if budget is not an issue, then you're not going to be disappointed if you buy this phone, but if you are in a budget or if your budget conscious, then you need to think about if this pixel at pixel Excel is worth the extra money on top of very capable mid-ranges that are out there right now and even other less expensive flagships. So my verdict is that this is definitely going to be my daily driver on the Android side for the rest of the year and I, really like it, I think it's impressive I just think it's overpriced.

So what do you guys think of the pixel and pixel excel make sure you leave a comment in the comment section below? Let's start a good discussion: there make sure you smack that like button, if you enjoyed this and make sure you subscribe for more videos like this and join that notification squad, so you don't miss another video, and I'll see you guys in the next one thanks for watching.

Source : Danny Winget