Google Pixel XL Review By Android Central

Since 2009 Google has been building Nexus phones with various Android manufacturers. They were targeted at developers and enthusiasts who wanted to see what Google's vision for Android was now in 2016 we have a brand-new brand, the pixel phones that are targeted at a wider audience of people, but are clearly Google's vision for what an Android phone should be hardware, software and services all made in-house by Google. This is our pixel XL review. Now, Google isn't a stranger to building its own hardware. They of course made the Chromebook pixel laptops. They had two generations of those, and they had the pixel C tablet laptop convertible, but this is the first phone that they've made HTC is doing all the manufacturing, but make no mistake about it.

Google designed and built this thing all the way through on its own. Now, the important part about the pixel is that you have two sizes to choose from, but there are no compromises. The standard, pixels 5 inches that pixel excels is 5.5 inches. You get the same hardware throughout either way and that's important because the hardware on the pixel excel is gorgeous. It's a solid piece of aluminum built just as well as any other phone out there.

Today you get metal all the way throughout with some nice bevels and chamfers on the side to help you hold on to it and a huge pane of glass on the back. This surrounds the camera and the fingerprint sensor. It just adds a little of pop as well. Now the screen flows into the hardware perfectly and there isn't a Seed out of place and that's really important. If you're talking about a high-end phone, that's going to go up against Samsung and Apple to be doing this kind of hardware for years on, the inside.

You of course, get all the highest end specs, but nothing that's going to blow you out of the water and speaking of water. There's no waterproofing either! That's one big missing point here, but the specs aren't all that important. It's all about what it enables in the software for the phone to work together and give you the best performance possible. The pixel XL is running Android 7.1 nougat, with the so-called Google UI on top and what you notice here. Doesn't look too much different from what you see on a nexus running 7.0 today, of course the launcher is a little different. You have these rounded icons, and you can just swipe up to look at your apps, but Google now is silly year and even though it looks a little different, you have the Google search bar there as well.

You swipe down the settings. Look the same. All of that is basically identical to what you expect in Android 7.0 nougat, but you notice that the real star of the show here is Google Assistant. It's built right into the home button, and you wouldn't know it until you tap it a couple of times and start to see the Google colors come out when you press and hold that you're launched directly into a voice command system with Google Assistant. What's the weather like in Seattle today, and you can start to see that you get this conversation going with the Google Assistant and anytime, that you say: ok Google! What about this weekend? It'll start to continue the conversation, and they'll give you information based on the context of what you're talking about.

How did the Sounders do last night, and you can change the point of attack at any point? You can start talking about sports. What are the MLS standings, and you start to see these standings for what you're talking about, and so it's built into the home screen at any given time anywhere you want it. Google Assistant also works for you inside of apps, so you'll see that I have this article pulled up on ESPN and I can press and hold the launch Google Assistant and just swipe up, and it starts to search the screen for anything it can find. It finds the author's name, Gabrielle Marlette II, and offers me information, but also the subject of the article and, if I tap the Google button, I start to get all the Google search results for Bob Bradley. Now, that's the only way.

Unfortunately, the Google Assistant can work without your voice, anytime, that you launch Google Assistant, no matter what it already starts. Listening to you and there's no additional input methods, so you can only give it voice commands if you want to do text commands you have to tap up here and do a regular Google search. It's that disconnect it's a little worrying about Google Assistant, because you can't always talk to it, and it can't always parse everything that you're saying. Sometimes you just want to be able to type and Google Assistant doesn't do that for you, aside from that small issue, with the implementation of the way Google Assistant works today, the entire software experience is absolutely excellent on the pixel excel. The first point is that it's extremely fast and smooth it's faster and smoother than any Nexus phone I've used it's just as smooth as any Samsung, HTC or Apple phone that I've used as well.

It's also extremely simple and deeply integrated with all of Google services. That's the most important part for regular users, but also extremely important for people that are going to pay top dollar for a pixel excel for most people. The performance of the camera on their smartphone is the most important part of the buying decision. It needs to be able to take photos quickly. Take the photo that you expected to get and be able to quickly share it and have it look great on their friends, phones and computers as well.

The pixel excel does all of this, and it does it better than any Nexus phone ever. Could the marriage of hardware and software means that the 12 megapixel photos that you get out of the pixel excel? Looks absolutely great. You can put them up against any other phone on the market, and they come out at the top, and that's really important for people that are looking to buy $700 plus phone. Now it accomplishes this with a different kind of setup than other cameras. It keeps things pretty basic with 12 megapixels a resolution, but they're huge pixels one point five microns, and that means that it can take in more light in all kinds of situations and Google says that that means it doesn't need optical image stabilization.

It does it in software only and because of that it means that Google can also take HDR plus photos all the time it's turned on by default, and that means you're getting the punchiest clearest photos all the time without any additional shutter lag, Google's camera software is doing some pretty impressive things behind the scenes, and it means that you don't have to do anything in the settings to get great photos and video that continues on to the electronic image stabilization when you're shooting video, whether you're shooting in 1080p 4k it doesn't matter without. Oh, is Google keeps the camera completely steady. So when you're walking with shaky hands, or you're in a bumpy car or on a roller coaster, it doesn't matter. The pixel XL can keep all the frames steady and do it in real time to stitch things together without any shake or movement. The pixel excels, best-selling feature, isn't its high-end hardware, its display, its high-end specs or even its camera.

It's about how it all comes together into a cohesive experience and that's only possible because Google controlled the entire stack it built the hardware, exactly how it wanted. Put just the specs inside that it needed and built the software that leverages the specs to the maximum, so you get the best possible experience all together. It's because of that cohesive experience that the pixel XL absolutely justifies is $750 price point, but also cements itself amongst the highest end phones available from Samsung, LG, HTC and even Apple. You can get the pixel excel and know that you have the best available phone today. You.

Source : Android Central