Google Pixel 4 XL Review! By Soldier Knows Best

Hey was sup guys soldier knows best air. So a lot of people don't like this phone. If you've been watching other reviews from other reviewers, you find that a lot of them have been really negative, and I'm not going that way, because I actually do like this phone now it ain't perfect by no means but I, think it's a good phone with bad timing, and I'm explaining all of that in this video. But first, let's take a look at the phone itself, which I think has a really nice design, especially the colors. Now I really do like the Panda color, but this also orange color. That I have here really has started to grow on me and I, really like the matte black trim around the phone which really, unless the color on the back of the phone really standout and then on the right hand, side, you will find the power button that is going to be a slightly kind of lighter color than the orange and then also till you find the volume buttons below that and then at the bottom.

You have a USB, C port and, of course, no headphone jack, and so the phone that I have is the pixel for XL and for its size. It doesn't feel too big, and it's also not slippery. So it feels great to hold it, especially without a case and I like the front of the phone too, even though it does have a little of a chin in a big forehead compared to other smartphones. I really haven't noticed those two while using the phone and then the screen itself is a nice screen. It's nice quality, nice colors and this display does run at 90 Hertz.

So that's a really smooth refresh rate, so things are just gonna look better, especially video content and as you're browsing through the OS. But one thing I did notice was the average battery life of this phone now I really notice this, because I was coming from using the iPhone 11 Pro Max, which has insane battery life. So when I went to this phone, it's not that the phone has horrible battery life. It just doesn't stand up to a phone like that. So if you are coming from a phone like that or the Galaxy Note 10, you will notice that this phone's battery is just okay, and so, even though this battery isn't going to last you a super long time.

I was still super impressed with the cameras on this phone and, let's start with the front-facing camera and I, want to say camera this year, because, instead of having two cameras like they had on the pics of three, you just have one. So this means you can still take some fantastic selfies, especially Portugal's selfies, but you're not going to be able to easily get extra people in your shot, because it's missing that wide-angle front facing camera that the pixel 3 had, but they did add an extra camera on the at this year. So you have two rear-facing cameras, so you have the regular wide-angle camera and also the new telephoto camera and Google is promising that, when you zoom in with this phone you're still going to be able to get perfect quality in your image compared to other competitors and I find that that is the case for most situations. I do find myself zooming in a lot and the quality was still there to where I would still use that photo versus other phones. If I started to pinch and zoom in I, just really wasn't happy with the results, because it was too grainy and too blurry and so having this new telephoto camera.

It's nice, but I still would have liked to have seen an ultra-wide camera. Be added to this huge camera pump on the back, which I just automatically thought. This was going to be the case when I saw the size of these things, but Google said not this year, but they're hoping to make up for that because they have added some new software features to help with these cameras, especially the new dual exposure mode, which helps because this camera does not have a pro mode. But this does give you some more control over your photos and then also they have the macrophotography mode which, out here in st. Louis, is still a little too much light pollution around.

But you can see that you can get some decent shots of the Stars and also too in combination with Night side mode. It just really allows you to really brighten up those nighttime shots, and you can see here the difference between it really is a difference between night and day when you are using night site and also Castro photography, but the one new camera software features that I do find myself liking. The most is the live, HDR plus mode, which allows you to see exactly what your HDR photo is going to look like before you press that shutter button- and this is really useful, and you can see the side-by-side comparison to what you see on the iPhone 11 Pro versus what you see on the pixel four. It doesn't allow you to get a better idea of what your photo is really going to look like before you take it. Then Google has worked on better, auto white balancing which it does sometimes work, but other times like this example with this orange pumpkin.

Here it did a bad job compared to the iPhone 11 I do find that it does do a better job at taking portrait, more pictures and really making sure your subject is separated from the background, especially with animals like my ROG gadget here, and so, if you want to give me one choice and I had to pick one phone to take with me throughout the day. To take photos with I still would go with the pics before I. Just really like the way. The photos look and I just that they nail in almost every single time and that's really kind of a staple of pics of phones. They have fantastic cameras, but what Google is finding out this year is that you just can't live off of that.

You have to bring everything else with this phone up to the level of the competition and, unfortunately, a lot of people don't feel that they've done that this year. Now me personally I like this phone, it's a good phone, but it just has bad timing, and so why do I say that well, Google released his phone after the new iPhone after the new Galaxy phones this year and even OnePlus had another phone release. And then you have Huawei throwing a new phone out there as well, and the pixel 4 is one of the last ones to come. After all of those- and you know, the saying is safe the best for last, but unfortunately this just isn't the best phone of this year and people start to notice when you release it kind of off by itself, and so when I mean by that is that the pixel for only comes with a Snapdragon 855 inside it, but the cheaper one plus 70 has the 855 plus inside it. Now it's not a huge jump and performance, but you start to notice that, because the phone cost more than that one and then the pics of four starts with 64 gigabytes of storage and the 70 starts with 128 gigabytes of storage and then Google went ahead and got rid of the one perk that I really liked a pixel phones, and that is the ability to be able to have free, unlimited storage of your original quality photos and videos, meaning at their highest quality.

All for free for at least a certain amount of time, because you are buying the pixel phone. But we don't have that anymore. So, I, don't know why Google got rid of that I think they can afford some storage space, but they went ahead and did that, so I. Don't think that sole reason would be enough to stop somebody from buying this phone. But when you look at everything starting to add up, I can see why some people have a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to this phone.

Now again with that being said, I like the phone and I think Google still does what they really set out to do, and that is to give you the best core, pure stock Android experience which this phone does deliver and Google is still perfect at giving you. Some of these software features that other smartphone manufacturers don't really worry about like live captions, which adds captions to any video that you're watching online. So if you are in a quiet environment- and you can't turn your volume up on your phone, and you don't have any headphones, so you can turn this on, and now you can still see what people are saying in that particular video. And then you also have the new recorder app, which transcribes, what you're saying in real time, and it is incredibly accurate, and it's cool because after the fact you can go and search for certain words that you've said in different recordings, and you can find those, and you can also find things depending on the location that you've taken them in, and it's just really cool, and it also can recognize when you're. Just talking to it, and it'll, show up as speech.

And then when you turn on music. It will actually just show you that as well. So it's just a really cool handy app and this, along with the live captions and a couple of other things that are in the new stock version of Android 10. Just really allow you to have some really cool features that are useful, that you just don't find in other operating systems. And then there are some software features that are also dealing with the hardware like the squeeze to activate the Google Assistant.

So you squeeze the bottom of the phone and then the assistant will pop up with a really nice animation now and then also you have a new radar system on the front of this phone next to the front facing camera. So with this radar is able to track your hand. So if your alarm is ringing, you can swipe your hand over the front of the phone and that will snooze your alarm and I use this all the time and then, if you're, listening to some music in the Play Music app you're able to swipe your hand, let the right go back and forth between your songs, and then it works with the new face unlock feature in this phone. So when you reach to pick up your phone, it will sense your hand reaching towards it and go ahead and get the phone prepped and ready to scan your face. And by the time you pick up the phone, the odds are.

The phone is already going to be unlocked because it's already recognized your face and for me this feature worked with no problems most of the time, and this is necessary because this phone does not have a fingerprint scanner. So if you don't want to put in a password or use a pattern unlock, this is the only way you can really unlock your phone, and it's good that it works well. So this new radar system and these hand gestures, aren't really gimmicks to me, and they could have been, but I think they worked well enough for me to use them and incorporate them in my daily life, and this is really only just a peek into the future of what this system is. Going to allow your phone to be able to do so when I think about it. I, just really think that Google could definitely benefit from the pixel being released and maybe early summer, so they can kind of beat the smartphone rush and the fall, because I don't think they can go blow-for-blow when it comes to hardware with like Apple and Samsung, and then now we find that smartphone companies are starting to catch up to Google with optimizing their camera.

Software and Google really was number one in that for the last few years. But now you have phones like the iPhone 11 Pro, which may not be my choice for photos over the pixel for, but when it comes to videos it hands down is better because it can still record at 4k at 60 frames per second with the rear and the front facing cameras and the front-facing camera on the pixel for still can only record in 1080p. So you start to see that difference, but I still have faith in Google. Well, I, don't think the pixel needs to die off like some people are saying. I do find that this phone still is a solid foam, and so we'll see how this phone matures over the next few months and also how low that price drops.

Because you know the price drops are coming, but stay tuned for more information about this phone by subscribing to this channel and hitting that notification bell and also check me out on all my different social media networks. Those links are down below as well, but, like always do leave your comment down below and let me know what you think about this pick: support foam, and thanks for watching, and I will catch you later. Peace.

Source : Soldier Knows Best