Google Pixel 5 review: An off year for Pixel fans By Engadget

For years, if you bought a Google Pixel, you were buying the best hardware and software that google could squeeze into a smartphone, but things started to change with the introduction of the Pixel 3a and that we get a line of more affordable, pixel phones. This year, things are a little different. There is no clear flagship. Instead, we have the pixel 5, a very good upper mid-range phone. I'm pleased to report that google's approach to android is as clean and as clever as ever and at 700. This thing is more accessible than most non-a.

Pixel phones have been, I mean, remember. This thing is selling for a hundred dollars less than the pixel 4 did last year, and now that 5g networks are widely available, you can finally use a pixel to tap into them. Google's problem is, there's now a handful of perfect phones in the same price range and after testing. This thing, I'm not convinced the pixel 5 has what it takes to beat them, but we will get to that. Let's start where I so frequently do the design.

If nothing else, Google made a really good-looking phone. It's heavily inspired by the Pixel 4a, or maybe the other way around, we're not sure, but either way we're looking at a compact all-screen design, with symmetrical bezels running around a six-inch display- and I do mean compact. This feels, like the smallest six-inch screen phone I've ever used. That said, if you want a pixel with a bigger screen, you don't have much choice. You can either get a pixel 4 a5g try to find a good deal on a pixel, 4 XL or wait until next year.

That said, this is a pretty nice screen all the same. It's plenty bright, although it could be a little brighter, and it's got loads of vivid colors, though exactly how vivid is really up to you, since there are three color modes to choose from and like the pixel force before the pixel 5's display can ramp its refresh rate up to 90 hertz for smoother on-screen motion, which is definitely nice, but not nearly as impressive as what we've seen from other devices in this price range. I should also point out that at 2340x1080 this screen isn't nearly as crisp as some of these screens. We've got, for example, in last year's pixel 4s, and I know some people were worried about that. But unless you make it a point to press your face up right against the glass trust me, you would never be able to tell the rest of the pixel 5's design is pretty straightforward.

I have been testing the sorta sage model and I get why google chose the name. Sometimes it looks like a nice pale, green and other times it's more of a baby blue, almost like that one version of the pixel 2 from a few years ago, which one of my favorites just for the record. Google also went with the metal body for the pixel 5. This year, though I have to say I wouldn't have been able to guess. If Google didn't tell me part of that is because the pixel 5 is really light, and part of it is because the coding google used here does not feel like metal.

It's actually kind of hard to describe how this material feels it's textured, but not dramatically, and it's sort of smooth almost like a stone but not a polished one. I know all told the pixel 5's design is simple and clean, and I like it as much as I like the song from kingdom hearts with the same name. So a lot is how much I like it. It's worth pointing out, though, that google had to leave a bunch of longtime pixel features out this time. I really hope you didn't enjoy squeezing your phone to activate Google Assistant, because you just can't and there's no giant forehead here either, because there's no solely radar for motion gestures.

That change also means there is no secure face unlock here, which is honestly just fine by me, because a're still living in weirdo pandemic world and b, the pixel imprint fingerprint sensor around the back, is among the fastest and the most accurate I've ever used. Oh, and like last year's pixel 4s, the 5 is rated ip68 for water and dust resistance, which makes it the most durable new pixel of 2020, which came in handy the time. I was watching YouTube videos and decided to toss this phone into a fountain. Clearly, water resistant phones are a lot of fun, but there are other decisions here that google made that I really can't get behind. There's no headphone jack here, which is really only annoying because both versions of the Pixel 4a have it.

It also would have been nice to have the option to buy a pixel 5 with more than 128 gigs of storage, but, as we saw with the Pixel 4a, limiting the number of configurations helps google keep costs down and then there's the pixel 5's audio situation, which is not great. The phone's bottom firing speaker does basically all the heavy lifting which isn't unusual, but the top speaker is actually built into the screen this year. There's a driver under the display that makes that panel shake and transmits sound. Is it a neat solution absolutely, but that also means audio can sound, really tinny and unbalanced. Sometimes I find it's most notable when you're watching a video or taking a duo, video call.

You know situations where you generally have the speakers going full blast, while you're holding the phone in one hand, I'm not sure if this is going to be a dealbreaker for most people, but it definitively does not sound that great and people who bought phones like the pixel 3 for its dual firing front speakers. They are going to be disappointed. Thankfully I haven't run into any pesky Bluetooth connection issues the way other people have with earlier pixels. So you shouldn't have any trouble pairing your trusty, all wireless earbuds. I have been doing that for a couple of days straight with no problem and speaking of no problems, I have to say the pixel 5 is really competent on the performance front too.

If you had your concerns about this phone's snapdragon 765g chipset, with 8 gigs of ram, I could not blame you. This is the first time a non a level. Pixel phone has used anything less than the year's highest and snapdragon chipset. I'm here to put those concerns to rest, though, for the most part, because as fast as those other chipsets may be, there's still plenty of power here for multitasking and gaming, to the point where I actively stopped worrying about whether the phone had enough oomph to get something done because in all but the most demanding edge cases, it does. But that's not to say it's perfect for one.

This metal body can get really warm when you're pushing things. When I jumped back in to knock out some quests in gen impact, the game itself ran just beautifully, but it wasn't long before the pixel 5 got a little warm for my comfort you're- probably not going to run into that too often, but it is possible and beyond that I did notice some of Google's stock apps hanging briefly and once or twice the recent apps view where you can easily pop into your other running. Apps just stopped working entirely. I don't really know what's going on, but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the pixel 5's processors. It strikes me as an issue to do with using launch day software and speaking of software, the pixel 5 ships with android 11.

And for the full rundown on what that update brings to the table. I strongly suggest you check out our full review in the meantime. I'll just add that I appreciate a lot of the little quality of life changes here, like the smart home and Google Pay controls and the power menu and the better organized notification shade. Now, as usual, the pixel doesn't run 100 clean stock android because to give its phones an edge google likes to squeeze in clever software features that only sometimes make their way to other phones. That means the pixel 5 cans, among other things, sit on hold for you and give you a live transcript of what's happening on the other end.

That way, if you're, calling Verizon or whatever like I have to do for billing stuff, you can go back to your life, and you'll be notified when someone actually picks up and is ready to talk to you. This is by far one of the coolest and most practical applications of Google's duplex technology. I've ever seen, and it worked like a charm. That said, I can't vouch that that's going to happen all the time. This is technically a preview feature, so you know expect some weird stuff to happen from now and then and second, it's generally most helpful when you're contacting a smaller business since big companies generally know that they'll have long waited times and give you the option to schedule a callback.

What else uh the pixel recorder app got some really nice upgrades. When you record a long enough conversation, the pixel will scan through the transcript and flag certain keywords: it thinks you might want to go back to from what I've seen its pretty hit or miss. It sometimes marks words as notable, even though you've only said them once or twice and words that you say more frequently in the conversation, just don't get noticed at all, but fine I'll take it. You can edit transcripts and audio more easily now and also if the person you're recording, says something absolutely wild, you can export it as a video clip with an animated, waveform and transcript, which is just a fun little thing. My personal favorite software edition, though, can be a little tough to find.

If you open the Google feed or launch Google Assistant and tap a tray icon, you can access the assistant snapshot, which basically just collates a lot of the data google has on you in one place, your mileage will probably vary, but my snapshot shows me how long it'll take to get to the office, which I can probably get rid of plus bill reminders, a shortcut to control my basement license. I need those a lot and even recipe, suggestions that seem to take my search history into account. I'm still getting used to having this smart agenda around, but I kind of hope google replaces the news feed with snapshot entirely. It's really cool. Of course.

None of this would matter if the phone's battery life stunk, but google seems to have taken to heart all the battery criticism leveled. At last year's models, the pixel 5 packs a 4080mah battery, which is the biggest we've ever seen in a pixel. That, combined with a power sipping chipset and a full HD plus screen means you can easily get a day and a half a fairly consistent use. Out of this thing, sure there will be times when you push this phone like we do on shoot days and that number can dip as low as 12 hours of usage, but for typical day-to-day stuff. I feel comfortable, relying on the pixel 5 in a way that I never did with the four or the four XL.

The thing about reviewing a pixel close to launch is that there isn't usually a ton of time for Google's adaptive battery feature to kick in and, if you haven't heard of it, adaptive battery is a clever tool that analyzes the way you use your phone to train an algorithmic model that ultimately blah blah. It tunes your battery. That means, for me at least about a day and a half of battery life, is the baseline and there's potential for that to get at least a little better, throw in an extreme battery saver mode that can disable all but the most crucial apps. When you need your phone to last a little longer and I have to hand it to google in the time that I've had with the pixel 5. I have been very pleased with its battery.

There is something I'm a little less pleased with, and some of you might have seen this one coming. The cameras are one of the biggest reasons we've recommended pixels for years. They are incredibly simple to use, and they produce nice looking photos with basically zero effort. On your part, the pixel 5 uses the same 12 megapixel main camera sensor. It relied on since the pixel 3 and for years google has been relying on its computational photography chops to make the images this sensor captures look as good as possible.

In fact, Google's vast experience with this exact sensor is why it hasn't moved on to any of the bigger better sensors out there. They've just put a ton of work into optimizing, their software for this exact camera. That makes a lot of sense on paper and the pixel 5's main camera still takes really solid shots, they're very similar to what I've got out of the pixel 4 if a little warmer on the whole. The word I like to use most when looking at these photos is moody. You generally get a lot of vivid, colors and high contrast, though Google isn't quite as hard on the shadows as they used to be.

Meanwhile, the new 16 megapixel ultra-wide camera has been pretty good, but nothing mind-blowing expect to see a lot of softness fast when you start zooming in, and it struggles in edge cases where lighting is dim, but not dim enough to automatically trigger night sight. I'm glad google went with a more flexible ultra-wide as the second camera here, but here's what you've got to keep in mind when it comes to still camera performance, the rest of the industry they caught up. That's especially true of low light. This year, the pixel 5 can automatically activate night sight when it's dark out, which means google could get rid of the automatic flash mode and on the whole, that seems like the right move, because a harsh flash is usually the last thing. That'll make a night photo look good.

That said, phones with bigger main sensors, like the galaxy s20 Fe, are naturally going to do a better job, even if Samsung's image processing might not be as clever or as nuanced as google's. It's gotten. Pretty. Damn good, though, to the point where I enjoyed many of the s20 FES photos more than the pixel 5. , even the OnePlus 8t, which just dropped stacks up pretty favorably, and it's worth noting that both of these phones, which cost as much or less than the pixel 5, also have telephoto cameras for better long range shots, they're, just more flexible setups.

As usual, Google tries to make up for it with features like portrait lighting, which lets you brighten up the face and move a virtual light source around to get just the look you're after and this. This is probably the best experience I've ever had with a portrait mode. It blows apple's approach clear out of the water if you're a selfie fanatic you're going to love it, but since I'm not the overall camera experience kind of leaves me cold and then there's video, which was always pretty bad on pixels this year. You can shoot footage at resolutions as high as 4k at 60 frames per second, which is a first for a pixel, but I'm still not very impressed with its quality, which might be why google added some new video stabilization modes to make the most of your footage. There's one for regular shooting one for more active run and gun style shoots, but the most fun by far is the new cinematic pan mode.

It stabilizes your video and shoots at a higher frame rate at half speed, which results in really smooth sort of lingering movie-like shots. I still need to play with this more, but as much fun as I've had using it. I'm not convinced it's going to change many pixel skeptics minds and really that's kind of how I feel about the pixel 5 as a whole. It's a solid phone, no doubt, but unless you were a pixel fan to start with, I think you could do at least a little better for the same amount of money. I mean look if clean, clever, effective software with long-term support is the first thing you look for.

The pixel 5 will still do a great job for you, but you could get a galaxy s20 Fe with a more flexible camera system, better performance, a bigger, more beautiful screen and expandable storage for around the same price, and while its new software might not be for everyone. The OnePlus 8t is another feature, packed option in the same price range and then there's the 4a5g, which uses the same chipset as the 5 packs the same cameras and has a bigger screen. That's still really easy to handle for between 500 and 600. As much as I have loved past pixels, the pixel 5 just isn't right for me and honestly after everything, I've just talked about. I suspect a lot of you might feel the same way.

I really wanted to love this phone. Furthermore, I really did, but I don't know, I don't think google got it this year. Maybe things will change once they revert to their flagship format, but we'll just have to see if you have thoughts about the pixel 5 or our review, please let us know down in the comments or email me at videngadget. com, as always. Thank you so much for your support and for joining me in my basement once again to talk about a phone that well, maybe not for you.

I hope you get the chance to at least try out soon. It is, if nothing else, a fascinating device. We'll see you next time, you.

Source : Engadget