Pixel 4 XL Is It Worth It In 2021? By thekidister

Hey how's it going you guys. It is the kid Aisha here welcome back to another video, and today I'm going to be talking about the Google Pixel 4 and in this video in particular the Pixel 4 XL, and see if this is a phone worthy of getting in 2021. So without further ado, let's go ahead and dive right into it. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, we are tonight's entertainment, so the first thing I want to go ahead and talk about is the design. Now the design on the Google Pixel 4 takes a very simple approach, starting off with the back. You have this very clean colorway, either white orange or black.

In this case, I have the white model, which has a matte texture. Also, if you get the orange model, it'll have that same matte texture, and if you go with the black model, it's just your regular glass. But again it has this nice little simple g logo at the bottom. Your squared off camera, with your dual camera sensor, also hides a microphone led flash and some autofocusing system there on the right hand, side of the phone. You can see a plastic springy power button which allows you to distinguish the metal volume rocker that lives right underneath, but the cool thing about that it has a very firm feel to it so again very distinguishable at the top.

A microphone on the left hand, side a sim tray at the bottom, a microphone again for your calls, your type c port and a speaker now on the front of the phone. This is where things get a little interesting. You do have a pretty giant bezel at the top, a very minimal bezel at the bottom, but the giant bezel at the top has a purpose, and one of those purposes is the project solely sensor, your face recognition, sensors, and on top of that, your front facing camera and your earpiece that doubles as another speaker. So this gives you a very nice stereo, sound system that really comes a long way, not to mention this phone also offers wireless charging, and it's water resistant. So that is also a plus here when it comes down to the design.

But before we continue, I just want to go ahead and mention how comfortable this phone really feels and again that's thanks to the materials thanks to that matte finish back and this metal frame that's coated with a plastic coat that makes it kind of feel polycarbonate. It feels very, very comfortable to hold and because the corners are not sharp they're, just rounded you can easily hold this phone for hours and the palm of your hand will not get tired. Believe me, but enough about the design. Let's go ahead and talk about that display. Now that display is a 6.3 inch, quad HD resolution paired with a 90 hertz refresh panel. Now this just entails that you're going to have a pretty smooth experience when using the display and because of that nice high resolution watching movies- or you know anything in that video aspect standpoint will be a very fun experience.

But I will say something about that: 90 hertz display is that unfortunately, typically with a 90, hertz refresh you'll expect a very smooth display and don't get me wrong. The pixel definitely delivers and giving you a smooth display, but unfortunately it's at times not all the times, even if you go into the developer settings and switch it over to force 90 hertz um. For some reason, google software just doesn't allow it to perform at 90 hertz all the time it does. This weird software trick where it'll go ahead and lower the refresh rate back down to 60. , and you can definitely tell when it does that, because you'll,, you'll see the lag between the actual refresh and all that stuff, the phone itself is not lagging.

It's just that the display is having a hard time catching up to your touch responsiveness. So it is unfortunate, but it is something that you have to kind of live with when it comes down to this particular display, but nevertheless it's still a beautiful display. It can get pretty bright, not the brightest, but definitely still bright. But one weird quirk about this particular display is in certain videos. It can sometimes make videos look kind of grayish if you put the brightness all the way up, and vice versa.

If you put it all the way down, it can sometimes again give you this gray hue to it, it's very hard to explain, but you'll notice it whenever you watch certain videos now, if you kind of keep it between the middle, then the black levels are definitely the way that they should be stuff like that, but nevertheless, it's again still a beautiful display. Now, let's go ahead and talk about software. Now software on the pixel 4 excel is currently running. Android 11 and this particular software is definitely my favorite software in pixel. In many years ever since the first generation pixel, I think google kind of lost their way with the pixel 2 and the pixel 3.

I think the pixel 2 they kind of tried to do too much with the software. Then the pixel 3, the ram management was just horrible on it, so it made the software kind of unusable in a sense for certain applications and to top it off. The android gestures on the pixel 3 were horrible. Very confusing didn't really make a lot of sense, but with android 11 on the pixel 4. It definitely has fixed a lot of those issues and again, I think they kind of went back to those original routes from the first generation.

Pixel very simple, very easy to understand very easy gestures to understand as well. So I think that does definitely come a long way when using the pixel 4. , but not only that they also redesigned Google Assistant. For example, you have this nice black outline, look to it at the bottom, so it has again a unique kind of touch to it, um to top it all off, though the paired up with that 90 hertz refresh again, even though it's not locked in at all times, it still gives it this nice smooth experience when it does work and believe me when it works, it looks phenomenal, and I think, to just also kind of point out the fact that the software's not being interfered by a punch, hole display or a notch, or anything like that. I think it definitely takes it takes the cake here when it gives you that nice simplistic look to it, but the software isn't perfect.

There are certain areas where I think it locks in, for example, I still don't think it's completely optimized. There are certain bugs here and there, and sometimes the software can feel a little jittery at times, but overall, most of the time it's really smooth. Now, when it comes down to the software alone, we cannot forget about these other cool little features, for example, project solely now, project solely allows you to do some really cool stuff, and one of those things is air gestures. So air gestures basically allow you to pause. Your music skip, songs, snooze, alarms, quiet down phone calls little things like that, and that definitely can help in certain areas now.

Is it something that you'll be using a hundred percent of the time? Probably not, but it's still a really cool feature to have in case of a situation does arise where you can't necessarily touch your phone you'll. Be able to just use these gestures. So again, that's pretty cool, in my opinion. Now not only does it have projects solely. It also has this other nifty cool feature now on android 11, which is the way you take screenshots and select text now.

This is my personal favorite, because there are times, for example, if you do, if you do it on an iPhone, if you do it on an OnePlus, if you try to select text on it, it won't. Let you there are certain applications that you just cannot copy and then paste somewhere else, but the Google fixes that, with this simple feature, called select which allows you again it'll just kind of highlight the text that's already on the screen and then from there you can go ahead and copy it and then paste it somewhere else. So I think the just those little features alone again. Really it's running really a long way. Now with that being said, another last feature that I want to mention on the android 11 software is the voice recording, so voice recording has definitely made it easier for students to kind of go back and look at notes when they're listening to professors or whatever the case may be.

If you're in a meeting really can work for. Anyone, but point is it gives you a live transcript, and this gives you the ability to go back to certain voice recordings that you've had and easily search certain things from it so again, very cool there. Now we have to go ahead and talk about those specs. Now those specifications are a little lacklustered. Here, it's a 7, nanometer processor powered by snapdragon.

It has an arena 640, GPU, 64, gigs or 128 gigs of memory, with only six gigs of ram and get this UFS 2.1 storage 2.1. This is a phone that came out in late of 2019, so around october 2019, and they came out with an UFS 2.1 storage phone. Now, that's not a such a big deal here, but you have the likes of OnePlus Samsung, who came out with at least UFS 3.0. That to me is just ridiculous for them not to add, but nevertheless these are still pretty okay, specs and definitely something that is very usable. But this is where things get a little tricky, because you start to kind of worry about the longevity.

Only six gigs of ram is still pretty much plenty of ram that you can have on a phone, but if you think about it long run, eight gigs would have definitely been more of a sweet spot, because over time your applications have to update, and eventually those particular updates will start using more and more memory from your ram and then entails why you sometimes need more ram on android phones but hey. It is what it is. The Pixel 4 XL still runs really smooth with these particular specifications. So I really don't have much to argue here and again. These specs definitely do well with the actual software itself.

So again, I don't have too many complaints here with the specifications themselves. I just think google could have done a better job to make this phone even more future-proof. But again it works just fine. The way it is now before I forget this is a 3 700 William hour battery, so again not the biggest size battery here, but definitely still something um that can somewhat lasts you throughout the day, but we'll get to that in just a second, the battery life department. With that being said, though, with the specs, let's go ahead and talk about the camera.

The camera on the Pixel 4 XL is a 12 megapixel main sensor with a 16 megapixel telephoto two times, telephoto camera to be exact, but before we get to the actual still photography, let's go ahead and talk about the video department. Now this particular model can shoot up to 4k 30fps. Yes, there is no 60fps here, but nevertheless, 30fps will still definitely do the job, and it still looks really, really good in my opinion. But if we go ahead and talk about the other modes, you do have 1080p at 60fps, 1080p at 30fps and so forth. You also have some really cool slow motion.

Video that you can shoot on this particular model. Now there are two different types of slow motion. You have something called sport and then something called fast action. Something like that. So point is you have your different levels of slow motion and let me tell you the slow motion, video that you can capture in direct sunlight on the pixel 4xl is pretty phenomenal.

Now another cool thing about the video camcorder is that it'll actually go ahead and do this cool feature called zoom audio now this was introduced uh way back when with the HTC, I believe it was the u11. If you guys remember correctly, it was called acoustic focus. Now a lot of manufacturers are coming out with this feature, but the pixel 4 excel is one of those phones that now offer that feature, which is the zoom in audio thing. So when you zoom in your video you'll, go ahead and hear more of the actual sound that you're focusing in, I don't know it's a pretty cool feature, though um, and on top of that they actually added a new feature from the pixel 5, which is called that cinematic video fun fact. I actually pre used that particular feature and I used actually the pixel 4 to shoot my OnePlus 7 pro review video, so that was actually pretty cool, and it came in handy with the nice little cinematic shots, but nevertheless the video camcorder is definitely nice.

I think it would have been even cooler to see 4k 60fps on here, but again, I still think it does a perfect job and to top it all off, what's really cool is that the actual audio can come out pretty great here. So here's an example clip for that here now. Last but not least, let's go ahead and talk about the actual, still photographs right. Yes, the pixel is known for taking some amazing photos, and again you will not be disappointed here with this particular camera. I mean when just shooting from the main sensor I mean dude.

Google just has it nailed to the t here. Their software just does some really magical stuff here, because they're using the exact same sensor, they've been using since the pixel 2. So that really means a lot here. How much powerful the software really does its job so point of the matter? Are you can easily take this phone out of your pocket point? Your camera and you'll be able to take some phenomenal pictures 9 out of 10 times. I should probably go ahead and say that, but yes, still, photographs are just really, really nice now, when we go ahead and switch it over to that telephoto camera because of that 16 megapixel information sensor that it has, it has a pretty cool software trick here as well.

Now again, it's two times: optical zoom, meaning it's hardware, that's zooming in two times, but you can go past that by six more times, so you can go up to eight times zoom here now. What's really cool is that once you pass that optical zoom, so once you go above that two-time zoom google, does this really cool software trick? Will it'll go ahead and detect your motionless? Your motion, when you're zooming in so close, and I'll, goes ahead and stitch a bunch of photos together to give you some pretty cool image, a pretty cool image? It's really nice and detailed, even though it's using digital software to go ahead and take this photo so again. I think that really does come a long way when just shooting your regular photography now, obviously, what would have been nice to see here is that ultra-wide, but unfortunately they decided to opt out on that particular camera sensor, but that is definitely very unfortunate, but nevertheless the camera on here is just phenomenal and when you go ahead and turn down the lights, the pixel 4 introduced a new feature called macrophotography, but it still has your traditional night sight and all that good stuff, but it does a great job in low light as well. I mean google again has done a perfect job here. Furthermore, I think the only thing really that the Google sort of lacks is a pro mode, giving the user the ability to truly control the exposures and shutter speeds and all that stuff can definitely make the camera experience even more versatile, but I will go ahead and give credit where it's due.

Google has technically added some cool little functionalities, for example, you're able to adjust the HDR your exposure, and you can even shoot in raw format now so again there is some sort of versatility on the pixel camera, but just not something that I think could make it even more versatile than it is right. So there's that and last but not least the front facing camera. It is an 8 megapixel, sensor, um, and that is yeah. That's pretty much it! That's really. All I have to say about the front facing camera.

Just kidding, though the front facing camera is definitely perfect. I think it's probably the best front-facing camera you could possibly get in a mobile phone um. It just does perfect again with the software and all that stuff it can shoot again up to 1080p. At 30fps, so no 60fps here but again the front-facing camera. I don't think it really matters a lot, but if you are into selfies, you won't be disappointed here.

So let's go ahead and wrap things up here. Um. The final verdict is: is the Pixel 4 XL going to be a phone worthy of getting in 2021? Well, yes, and no, I think it really depends on the type of deal you can get for it because of the small battery size uh, and before I actually ended the battery size on here again, 3700 barely lasts me a full day, if I use it moderately so if you're a heavy user expect to charge this thing, pretty often, if you're a light user- probably not, but if you're a moderate user definitely charge it sometimes right um if you're a moderate user, for example, like myself, I can easily end the day with at least maybe 10 percent, and we're talking about unplugging it from 9am and then going home till maybe around 10, maybe 9 p. m, and by that time I have to charge it because it is at around again 5 to 10 um. But again the final verdict here is: it's definitely a toss-up again.

If you can find a pretty good deal for this phone, I definitely recommend it. It's a great phone. It has some really cool features, but if you find it for like 400 450 dollars, definitely don't buy it again with only 64 gigs of memory or 128 gigs of memory. If you can get the 128 gig model, definitely go for it for maybe 350 360. , but for more than that, it's very uh.

It's its a tough bargain. If you can find it brand new for 400 bucks, then yes, I think that's definitely worth it as long as it's the 128 gig though, and we're talking about the XL model here. So imagine the smaller model, the smaller model has even worse battery life. So just be very careful when you buy the pixel 4. Is it still worth it in 2021? Yes, but you have to be very considerate about the price itself, so there you guys have it.

Hopefully you guys enjoyed this video if you guys have any other questions, leave a comment down below, but that's it peace. You.

Source : thekidister