Google Pixel 5 unboxing and first impressions By Neowin

Hey guys I'm Richard Edwin, and today we're unboxing the Google Pixel 5 5g. I guess it's got a 5g in the title. I thought it was just the pixel 5. Um, I'm excited about this. As you can see, I have several pixels on my desk. This is the 3a XL.

This is the 3xl and the designs have changed over the last couple of years right. So this is the pixel 3xl. Has this sort of two-tone design and that's kind of signature? Pixel, look the first three generations kind of looked like that. Then they moved to what um some people called the uh desire. Pixel look which is um a shout-out to HTC desire, and it's got that um.

It's got a black border with a white back or different color backs, but different color borders as well, and then now we're going with pretty much flat colors, and so this is the Pixel 4a. It's the regular 4a. I don't have the pixel 4 a5g just yet um. It's fascinating to me, though, because they announced the 4a. I don't know bullish right a couple of months ago.

It's supposed to come out in May might actually have been august, but it was supposed to come out in May and then a pandemic happened. Things got pushed back, pushed back and like the thing is like when, when you name things after generations like that, the flagship it been the pixel 4 that came out last October and the 4a comes later um. If you wait until the next generation is coming, then 4a just seems old. Now you uh launch a 4a 5g alongside the 5. , but whatever you know, this is an awesome phone.

It doesn't have wireless charging, it doesn't have 5g um. So the thing is the pixel.4A 5g sits right between the 4a and the 5, where um there's still no wireless charging in the 485g. But you do you have the two camera sensors that you have on the pixel 5? You have um snapdragon 765g processor. So that's what google went with this year so back to the pixel 5. It does use a snapdragon 765 g.

Now the issue with that is that it's it makes an upgrade proposition a little harder um. We do have an ultra-wide camera. This year, they google quite a lot of flack for adding a telephoto lens here, instead of an ultra-wide or instead of just using three lenses like everyone else does and um this year, they got rid of the telephoto lens and they went all in on ultra-wide. So um. You know, honestly, though the thing is that, like you, go up to 8x zoom on this and still looks pretty good, because they do a lot of computational stuff to make that good.

And the thing is, you could go up to like 7x with this single lens, and it's still pretty good, so really that second, that telephoto lens wasn't really helping too much so ultra-wide lens. That's like that's, probably one of the main things about this phone because remember seven, series chip, um, the like the pixel 2 just ended support, or it will end supporting its getting its last update in December. So if you got a pixel 2, you might want to upgrade to the latest pixel. That makes sense if you got a pixel 3, if you're usually on a two-year upgrade cycle. It might not make sense, because this thing's got a snapdragon 845 in it right.

This one had an 855 in it. So I mean the pixel 4 is definitely going to have better performance than the pixel 5. It's a weird upgrade proposition same thing with Motorola's motor z4. They switch from eight series to six series processors, so you kind of have to look and say: wait. If you have a two-year-old phone, am I even going to do better by upgrading to the new one and so um as far as performance goes, maybe they're, probably right about on par with each other.

I'm pulling the pixel 4. They're, probably right about on par with each other, between the uh pixel 3 series and the pixel 5 series between the two-year-old uh snapdragon 8 series and the brand-new snapdragon 7 series. But you do get 5g! You get that second camera lens. You get that um edge to edge screen, which looks awesome. So let's get this guy open, you can see.

We have our little uh tabs on the side. So there's a very easy box to open google also sent along one of its cases, and they sent along Pixel Buds. Now the Pixel Buds do not come in one of these very easy to open cases. They come in a regular plastic wrapped case, so here's the device, the color is called sorta sage. I think it's awesome, and it's its a lot.

More subtle, subtle, subtle, colors do seem to be a common thing, but this year it seems to be a common thing, but it's a lot more subtle. Last year, with the pixel 4 series, we had white black and orange and the art they love to. Do these uh little quirky names for colors, which I'm not a fan of, but whatever uh it was called. Oh, so orange. I think now um.

I didn't actually get my hands on an oh, so hard, but this was bright art. It was a bold color. So now we're seeing something. That's a lot more subtle. With this generation, the Pixel 4a 5g comes in white and black there's no uh fancy color for that, and then, of course the 4a only comes in black, and so a lot of people have said that google seems to be giving up on its smartphones.

Let's get rid of that plastic um just because, like with the 4a, especially it's just plastic black unibody um, they haven't they. They didn't do much in terms of designs with this and I actually kind of like it um with this one uh I like it. It feels really nice to hold I'll. Tell you that right now, that's because it's actually made of metal, and it's its it's wild, because it supports wireless charging, so you can actually put it on a wireless charging pad it'll charge and apparently there are some parts of the metal that are cut out and filled in with plastic or something and that's how they get that wireless charging through the metal, which is, is pretty awesome. So, let's start booting this up and see what else is in the box.

We've got paperwork. I've to love that paperwork um USB type c to type c cable. Of course, we've got an 18 watt, USB type-c power. Brick, Google has not stopped shipping. The power brick just yet, like apple, is apparently doing this year um and I imagine that other companies are going to follow suit.

That is, this is like I'd, say: I'm not made at apple for uh for not shipping the power brick anymore, because we all have power bricks in our homes. We don't actually need them, and it's really not environmentally friendly to keep shifting these things. So that's fine! You know, and then we have a type, a to type c adapter down here for a little USB OTG, maybe but yeah. This can also be good for um uh, transferring your stuff from another phone. If you have an USB type, a to micro, USB, cable or something that you want to use to transfer.

This is going to help you out a lot. Here's over here, uh finishing setting up and copying all of my apps from the phone I was previously using. What's great is now I'm setting up the fingerprint sensor and yes, here's another big thing. This actually has a fingerprint sensor. That is something that um the pixel 4 did not have.

They went straight to facial recognition, just like um, just like Apple did, and I ain't no surprise. Everybody was big on the facial recognition train. It worked great, but then a pandemic happened, and then we had to wear masks in public and then trying to use facial recognition to unlock our phones really became a pain. It really became a pain point. So now surprise, surprise, fingerprint sensors are coming back okay, so I think this is just about done.

We could also take a look at what's inside the Pixel Buds. Yes, I have been waiting to get my hands on some Pixel Buds. You know I'm a big fan of what do we get? Oh some, some ear tips, um and a type, a to type c. Cable sure why not um. As far as I know, pixel is shipped with uh a type-c to type-c charger or forever- I don't know, but anyway um.

I appreciate having the truly wireless earbuds that come with phones, you know, um or in the ecosystem is the phone so say like with Huawei. I use the free buds and with a Samsung phone I use galaxy, but all right, so we do get a new default um a new default wallpaper on here, and you see it's got some a little animation there, and we do have a 90 hertz OLED display on here, which is quite nice, and so that's another thing that you're going to get over say a Pixel 4a or the 4a 5g. For that matter, those devices do have OLED displays, but they're, not 90 hertz. Now the pixel 4 had a 90 hertz OLED display as well, but of course this one is edge to edge and what one thing is you can barely tell where the screen ends and the bezel begins. That's one of the benefits of OLED.

You get that true black all right and if we picked uh, pull that something, that's maybe white, I don't know I'd have to find something. That's that's actually why most things have dark theme now. So we could pull up, maybe Neo in there. You can see that that screen goes right to the bottom um. It's also having the same dimensions.

The bezels are the same size on all sides. That's actually pretty rare in a smartphone. I don't know why it's still rare. Why? So many companies had a hard time with that, but Google did it um apple's one of the few other ones that I've seen. That does it so, like I said we do have a fingerprint sensor on the back: it's where they used to be back when we had fingerprint sensors um two cameras.

One of them is the main sensor. One is ultra-wide and then, of course you have the flash on top that design hasn't changed. It's still that square with rounded corners, which is fine. I guess I mean um. If that's what you're into I, I feel like it's a very common design this year, um just rectangles with rounded corners in general as the camera housing, it's its I just wish companies get a little more original.

I like to see circular camera housing, that's kind of rare, but it's nice- I don't know um the power button. Is this glossy green color, which is nice, but it's a little different from a lot of the pixels that we've seen in years past, for example the 4a that I've got right here. This has a white power button on the black body, and then you can see on all the units that I have um pretty much the same story: um. Oh, no! Actually, I'm sorry! The pixel 3 XL had a black button on the black body. I could go through them all this uh, this white pixel 4xl had an orange button on the on a black border.

You know, so I mean that's always been something that I've I've kind of liked. The um I don't know what they called it, not purple or whatever um on the 3a has a yellow button. I always thought it was kind of cool that they uh give you a way to um. You know um just kind of see which button is the power button, so I still like the design. I wouldn't use a case on this, especially since it's made of metal, which is actually kind of exciting.

You know when it's made of metal. That means that the back is not going to shatter a lot of companies switch to glass backs because it's pretty because remember metal, you can't do wireless charging through metal in general um, so you could do it through plastic. You do it through glass, but plastic to most. People feel cheap and so companies went with glass and the problem with going with glass is that it means that the phone can shatter the back of the phone can shatter. So this is gonna, be a pretty sturdy phone, it's pretty cool, and it looks nice.

You got this metallic green google logo on the bottom. You got the fingerprint sensor. Furthermore, you got that um metallic power button and other than that, it's very minimal. Furthermore, you don't have that glass back with the stainless steel frame. Look that everybody else is going for um.

You got an edge to edge screen, which I'm very impressed with the bezels. You've got the the hole, punch, camera cut out, looks nice and, and I'm going to enjoy using this phone. I love pixels, you know, I love the camera, like the camera on a pixel. Smartphone is one thing: that's just not replaceable to me and um they're perfect and, like everybody has a night mode now, um almost every smartphone camera is passable. I don't care about cameras in the same way that I did um a couple of years ago, because now everybody's got a night mode and everybody can take at least decent pictures.

You know um, but this there's something about it. The colors look natural um. It can handle different kinds of lighting. Things. Look like they're supposed to look and um like when I take pictures of products they actually use a pixel and I use night mode even at uh during daylight, and they come out beautiful.

You know also regarding that snapdragon 765g process. We've got to talk about it, a little more, it's good. I don't wanna, get it wrong. Where I'm saying it's not good, it's good. I've used several 765 devices, and they're excellent, and I've often people don't need a snapdragon 8 series processor, it's its its overkill for most of the people that buy a flagship phone because when you buy a flagship phone, you're, probably not buying it for the process you're buying, because it has the best camera the best display stuff like that, and then, when you want the best camera in the best display that usually comes with the best processor and also the most expensive processor.

So if someone's building a flagship phone with a snapdragon 765, it can still be the best phone if you're not like playing games or whatever. You know, and I mean like serious games, you know but yeah it's good. It's just like it might not be much better than a pixel 3 in terms of performance and that's still fine. But it's its just something to be aware of. If you're thinking about upgrading so um yeah I'll have a review on this soon um, I always have a pixel with me.

It's its a device that I love. So I'm looking forward to spending time with the Google Pixel 5. Anyway guys, that's it! I'm Richard Edwin have a great night.

Source : Neowin