Google Pixel 2 XL hands-on By Engadget

Hey I'm Chris, Velasco senior mobile editor and gadget we're coming at you from the Google Pixel to launch event here in San Francisco, there's a lot going on. There's a ton of journalists and some of the people clamoring to see these new devices and, frankly so, am I. So let's go take a closer look, a lot to talk about this device, starting with the bulrush cigarette of fun. This is a six-inch diagonal PIO LED display running a quad HD. It's a beautiful panel I've noticed that you do in addition to having very little bells outside. You do have quick firms down at the bottom because give this a very LG, G, 6 or V 30 kinds of feel, which makes sense considering LG was supposedly the harder manufacturer that made this device after people had designed it, we've not been able to confirm that no other Google has said anything about a foot there.

You go deer want to point out that this body is incredible, so this is built of an aluminum that has been treated to kind of feel like a very sturdy polycarbonate. This is the two-tone finish. We've got a glass window up here to allow for better propagation for wireless signal. Failure, LTE or Wi-Fi should work super, super nicely and just look. How striking that is, that beautiful white aluminum, which again does not feel like a lumen at all the black, and you've got that orange accent bright outside for a pop of color.

It feels fun and a little more fun, then I would say the red dot over the FY Series three. Does the interesting thing about the Google Pixel to excel and the pixel to for that matter is the fact that it does feel like a device that Hardware doesn't really tell the whole story. So this thing does one very quickly, thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset, with 4 gigabytes of RAM inside got point out. This is not in a 36 those rumors of Google and their hardware partner, using in a 36 to bring next generation control to this device. Well untrue, but that's it.

We are looking at fully capable 2017 levels of flagship power, I'm swiping it out of maps. No one has any games on here, because Google has these under lock and key, but everything does run incredibly fast should also point out that this device uses what Google refers to as active edge, which is very highly reminiscent of HTC's and Sense technology. So there are pressure centers built into the bottom half of the stone so like give it quick squeeze activates a Google Assistant. It does seem to work very well and, what's really for saying what I'm really curious to see is whether this can actually be remapped. If I can use that squeeze to launch, say the camera or something else that would be very nice touch.

Samsung did not do that with Bigamy, and it's the key, so I'm hoping Google takes a bit more of an open approach there. This does run Android 8.0 Oreo, with a customized pixel art on top and just to run really quickly through a couple of in a software flourishes. We ever wish it up top. That kind of gives you a date at a glance. The features I believe literally call at a glance to jump in there.

We can tailor the Preferences and will show you your calendar events, traffic. The display information, which is a nice touch, I'm glad to see Google finally, making you a set of that information that it's always displayed at the top of its pixel phones. Then, at the bottom. Interestingly enough, we've got the Google search bar, which obviously used to live right at the top of to displace baked into the dock itself, and when you sort of watch that pull that off you've got your very standard, Android Oreo watcher, it does run very quickly, but again that doesn't really tell the whole story. The ability for Google to sort of build its machine learning technology really into the fabric of this device has gone a long way and I think a great example of that is in the camera.

So really quick. There is a 12 megapixel camera here above the pixel imprint fingerprint sensor, which does seem to work very quickly, so I'm not the best photographer, and this is definitely not the best scenario but to the picture that was incredibly fast. Well notice is processing right there and that was done in just a moment, so Google's machine learning is basically taking more floors at once, combined them into what it believes is the best shot and considering the circumstances considering where we are right. Now we're getting a lot of detail, we're getting a lot of clarity here, I'm really looking forward to playing with this more just because this is what DAX and Mark has said is the best smartphone camera out there. But here's another beautiful thing about these cameras.

Let's take a photo in my wash here and done it does a quick processing again takes a pretty solid flow for what is actually happening here, but we do have that tiny icon right there that'll activate Google Lens, which is this core machine, says Google's machine, my technology again to identify, what's in the photo and to kind of give me contextually sensitive information about it, so give that a tap. It should identify this as an Apple Watch dealer. Second, with that internet and yes, it is incorrectly identified it as the series 2, but there's literally no way for Google to have told that this is serious 3, because it can't see the red dot on the side that worked very quickly and I have to, say much more accurately than Samsung's big scoot vision did so really. I cannot overstate how exciting a device like this feels. One more thing I should point out what you're not going to be able to notice this.

There is a SIM card slot here on the side. I just took a standard NATO SIM, but it does also have an east-end inside. So if you're a project 5 subscribers we're hearing T-Mobile might also support this. In short order, as well you'll be able to activate this phone on the network and manage your plan. Your feature, isn't everything directly from the device without having a switch or SIM card in and out.

It is nice that you still have that standard slot, though, because if you do travel, you're going to want that flexibility, we can throw in something wherever you happen to be again. I really can't overstate that this feels like a special device. It feels this is going to sound a little cheesy like Google's software has been given have very specific physical floors. The hardware is exactly what you'd expect from a 2017 flagship device, but it's the super tight integration between Google's software Google's, core software technologies and these pretty common parts that help the Google Pixel to excel feel like a lot more than the sum of its parts. That was our first look at the pencil to excel we're going to come back with a lot more very soon, so stay tuned.

Source : Engadget