Google Pixel 2 XL in 2021 - Best $100 phone? By Ben Clarke

Pixel 2 XL was google's flagship smartphone in 2017. In 2021. How did it stack up today? First things. First specifications on this phone. It is running on a snapdragon, 835, four gigabytes of ram and a 35 20 William hour battery. I must have certainly come on a long way from those specifications as I'll discuss later in this video.

None of them feel particularly old. I never really noticed apt closing more than usual. I noticed smooth performance in games in general. Day-To-Day tasks, as well as the battery has not degraded, and it runs exceptionally well, given the size, the pixel 2 is where we first started, seeing the trends that came in with the pixel line. Whilst it was a grand departure from the pixel one, the only thing it really kept was the glass up top.

It started this two-tone design, colored power button and, of course, who could forget this phone in particular, was the panda phone. I would always get questions asked about. It was such an unmistakable device, as opposed to nowadays, where everything sort of these rectangles with black squares up in the corner, full of multiple cameras, the majority aluminum back of this phone does actually make me feel really comfortable to use it without a case. I ran this phone as my daily driver for around two years, and during that time I only really ran a case. If I was out in a nightclub, because there was a solid chance, it would have ended up knocked out of my hands, which had happened on multiple occasions with a case on.

It's also a quick reminder for, if you are enjoying this video, please consider dropping a like and subscribing for more videos like this in the future, helps me out a lot. Thank you. This was also the first pixel that brought ip67 water and dust resistance with it. Only real drawback due to this majority aluminum design is that it has no wireless charging. However, I don't use wireless charging, so that's not really an issue for me and in terms of the fast charge that's available to make up for it.

It's 18 watt fast, wired charging, which is the same across every single pixel ever, and it fully charges the phone in around 90 minutes. This phone also sports, dual front-facing speakers, something very rarely seen nowadays and wow. I forgot how much I missed this like, whilst the speakers themselves aren't great they're, pretty average speakers, the fact that they're pointing at you is so much more immersive uh compared to my four XL, which has one on the top and one on the bottom. The fact that the sound is coming directly at you and not elsewhere, just it makes the sound much more immersive. I just wish the speakers were better.

These speakers at the time were actually very good issue with these. Speakers, though, is because they are quite sizeable. They do create quite a large forehead and chin. This was the year when bezels first started shrinking. This was the year of the iPhone x, the s8, the lg, g6 and so on.

It does make compared to modern phones. These bezels do look quite sizeable, and it can make the phone feel somewhat claustrophobic. Due to these sizeable bezels, given its uh screen size comparative to the actual size of the phone, this was the first pixel to drop a headphone jack. This phone features a rear, fingerprint scanner which, in today's day and age, might seem a bit dated compared to the face IDs and the under screen scanners of this world, but this is far faster, far more consistent, far more accurate than those under screen ones and well with face ID, do I really have to describe the biggest downside of face ID in today's age in terms of the performance on this phone? I'm going to keep it pretty short and sweet. It's good games like cog, mobile, PUBG mobile, because this was a flagship processor.

When it came out it has a high-end GPU, so it runs all those games, absolutely perfectly high settings, smooth frame rates and day-to-day tasks, so emails browsing social media. Of course, this faces no slowdowns at all with those sorts of things, and this is mostly because google knows how to optimize their software so well, if you compared it with today's flagships. Obviously, you would notice a difference in terms of how quickly an app opened up or whatnot. If you were to do it in a void. You would feel that this phone was incredibly fast, and you would have no complaints at all, especially at this price range, try and find a brand-new phone that costs as much as one of these do on the used market that performs at the same speed in regard to the camera.

It's a pixel, so you know we have to talk about the camera. This phone saw a generational leap. This phone absolutely wiped the landscape with anything else that came out in this year, uh, although it's only got a single camera, it has features such as portrait mode also features night mode, which other phones released around this time, not to mention any fruit based companies lock their night mode behind specific hardware models when the phone is more than capable of doing it. This camera was so ahead of its time that even today is still capable of hanging with the big boys when the iPhone 10s came out a year after this reviews compared it with this and said that it still hadn't got it beat and the only phone at the time that did beat it was the pixel 3 and even then it was a really narrow gap, because it's running the same main sensor. The other aspect of the camera, I'm not going to get into it too far.

I can do 4k, 30 or 1080p 60, and the video output until very recently on pixels has always been subpar or, in this case straight up bad pixel, specific features such as squeezer for assistance or call screening, if you're in the US or now playing. They also made their debut on this phone, and they are incredibly helpful. I personally absolutely love squeeze for assistant. It feels so much more natural than saying hey g word, and it encouraged me to do like quick things with my phone walking along quickly. Squeeze it and ask.

I don't know to set a reminder for an hour's time or start a timer when I was cooking or whatnot and related to those pixel based features adaptive battery where, because Google are so good with their AI, it seems to be the main thing they're focusing on at the minute. The battery gets better over time, the battery of this phone. When it came out, it was good and over time it's gotten better. When I ran it as my main phone, I was easily getting five and a half six hours of screen on time. Uh, with this being my secondary phone, I don't actively use it, but the standby time, with the time that I've been filming.

This video I've been filming for about half an hour, or so I've only dropped by one percent, and I've been using it for the past two days for b-roll and whatnot, and it's only dropped to be exact 48. The battery on this phone is very good, and the standby time is fantastic, although, unfortunately, this phone is no longer supported by Google's software update program, which was like one of the main reasons to buy a pixel. However, this phone was so popular that on forums like DA, there are still people actively developing new ROMs for it. Having this run, 12 when it comes out just unofficially should be no issue at all the vibration motor um. It's a pretty standard vibration mode.

To be honest with you more of a buzz one than a click one, which you would then see in the pixel 3 and later devices, and last but not least, the screen. Oh boy, this screen when it came out the screen was the main controversy for this phone, as was the notch for the pixel 3 and, as was the battery life on the pixel 4. , the issues that people had with this screen. It's a 1440p PO LED display made by lg and whilst on paper that sounds perfect, and it is definitely really sharp and clear the colors on it. Weren't, great and people were facing issues with burning and google then put out an update, because people were saying that the colors were too washed out then make it saturated.

However, the settings on this phone you either go from boosted, colors, which look way too washed out or to saturate the colors, which look something like a s7 or a s8, where the colors just look unnatural, and they are crazy, colorful and just crank the saturation far too high. I don't find that I'm happy with either setting and current displays have come on a lot further, but it's very much and once you get used to the colors, you stop noticing it and, like I mentioned with the screen burn in, if you are buying. One of these used just be careful with the navigation bar at the bottom, which android used to use for moved to gestures on android 10, and then how much do these phones go for nowadays, at least here in the UK. So I looked one bay and some you can even find people just trying to get rid of them for like 90 or, if you're, trying to buy it from places that might include something like a warranty. They typically want about 140.

For that do I think that this phone is worth say, 140 pounds if it was to be either your main or your backup phone. Absolutely. I think that this phone has aged really well. The only real downside is like I mentioned the screen, but it's a 1440p. Like I mentioned at the end of the day, you get your true blacks and your high contrast, and once you sort of get used to the color science, because it's very much a personal preference on what people prefer for those sorts of colors, it's an absolutely fantastic screen performance is good, the battery's good it did get updated until android 11, which can't be said for many.

If any phones of its age closest is likely the OnePlus 5t and even that didn't get android 11 officially, even though it's not getting updates, it's still running a lot newer of a version than any phone. Its age, if you ignore the existence of the iPhones, so that's in it for this video, let me know in the comments below, if you could see yourself running a 2xl as your daily device or, if you're, even picking one up as your daily device. If you did like this video, please consider giving it a like a subscribed, would help too, if you want to see more videos like this. Thank you very much and goodbye.

Source : Ben Clarke