Pixel 5 - I Was Wrong. By This Is

- Hello and welcome to This Is. Austin. Why should Google and OnePlus make me care about Android? - So over the last week or two, I've been spending a lot of time with not only the Pixel 5, but also the OnePlus 8T. There's a lot going for both of these phones, but, there's definitely a few reasons why the Pixel 5 has made it to my front pocket. Not my back pocket, that's for my iPhone or whatever secondary phone I'm using. - This is the first phone that has made you ignore the Galaxy Z Flip.

- Out of all of the insanely, cool, exciting, great phones that have come to the studio in 2020, the Z Flip has been my daily driver, my main phone ever since February. First the 4G model then the 5G. - And he has not shut up about the Z Flip. So this is big news. - So here's the thing, I like a small phone.

That's one of the things that's important to me, because, we've hit a point where even a mid range phone, like the Pixel 5 has a Snapdragon 765G, same processor inside like the OnePlus Nor unlike the LG Velvet and the LG Wing 100% fine. Yes, do I notice a little bit of a performance head, sure Because I had my 90 Hertz display, I kind of don't mind that much. As that's a major improvement over the Z Flip. - I care so much more about how a device feels in my hand, than I do about the specs in it. And this is one of the best feeling phones I've ever felt.

- So they've done a couple of things uniquely to the Pixel. So and in fact since we have the OnePlus right here it's a good example of a very traditional smartphone design. So it's got a metal aluminum chassis and you have glass in the front, glass on the back. This is fine, there's nothing wrong with this. But, I don't feel comfortable with any glass back phone without some kind of protection.

Be it a skin, be it a case, be it a later case, which is what I usually run on something like an iPhone. The Pixel 5 feels 100% safe because it is an aluminum built, right? So its aluminum unibody, so it's just a nice (mumbles), but has this sort of, I don't know how to describe it. - It's very, I don't think there's anything else that does have this type of finish on it. so I can't even be like, Oh it feels like this phone. - It's like painted, slightly plastic (mumbles) I can't quite put my finger on it, It's nice.

- It's soft, like soft to the touch, but it's textured. I'd said that it feels kinda like a composite plastic you see in packing materials, but in a good way. What are you doing? - I'm just showing that it's terrible. - You're going to break it. - Let's be fair to the OnePlus 8T.

I feel like, we're immediately jumping into pixel town, which I think is a place that I've not been in in a while. So, the OnePlus 8T is the only new OnePlus we're getting right now. So its not like an 8T pro or anything. This replaces the OnePlus 8. There's a lot going for this phone, for sure.

- So we have now irrediculously fast 65 watt, fast charging, or warped charging as they call it. - But no wireless charging. - You know what, I'm okay with that. I am a big fan of wireless charging. I usually wireless charge my devices, the Pixel even though it's aluminum, it does have wireless charging built in.

- And reverse wireless charging. - And reverse wireless charging. - So charger bungs, charger headphones, whatever, - Charger (mumbles). All right lets to say OnePlus, you can't do that. (laughs) - Can't do that, Can't do that.

(beeps) - But, as much as I like wireless charging, and it is a helpful thing to have, I will happily trade that for this. So, 65 Watts seems fast. This is a fast charging device, It's 18 Watts , 65 is crazy fast - Let me poke on that for you That 65 Watts is only with their charger, right? - It's not like you can say grab, a 100 watt, 65 watt laptop charger and, - You can still charge it quickly I believe. - Quickly but it's not for, - I rely on Jimmy to fact check me. I believe you can charge up to 27 Watts with a generic USB pro.

And the power brick that comes with the OnePlus 8T, will actually charge your laptop or something at 45 Watts. So that one charger actually can be the only USB-C (mumbles) - Which is nice, I do carry around just 100 watt USB, Like, I think it's like an old razor blade laptop charger. And that's just my USB-C charger for everything. - Yeah, it's only until you spend some time with something that charges this fast, that you really get your head around how nice it is? So for context, the other day I was down to like 15%. It was in the morning, I said, why would you charge it overnight when you can just plug it in really quick? So, 15% plugging in with the work charge, and about 10 minutes or so its at 50%.

Five zero, crazy town, that is crazy town. I have completely changed my charging habits with this phone. I'll just plug it in when I just need a quick charge. Literally I'll go down to the bathroom, or I'll walk like upstairs, Oh cool, I've got another 15, 20%. So It's very impressive.

- It's hard for me like, I mean, yeah, that is really fast, but it's hard for me to wrap my head around changing my charging habits. I'm so focused on something like wireless charging like, my mouse pad has a wireless charger in it. So, I just throw my phone down, and it's charging just throughout, like just by how I would naturally set down on the table anyway. - Before we get too far into the video, just to put some context into this, right now the Pixel 5 costs $700, not cheap. And the OnePlus 8T here in United States costs 750.

However I will say in much of the world it's cheaper, because we only get the 12 gigs of Ram in 256 gig storage model. So in a lot of other places have roughly a hundred dollars equivalent cheaper. So, generally speaking, the OnePlus is cheaper than the pixel in most markets. So just key that in mind as we talk through these phones, because this has become a very, very competitive space with things like the upcoming iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini, you've got the galaxy S20 (mumbles) There's a lot of phones in this roughly $700 price point, for me, the hardware of the pixel is really what pushes over the edge for, again, I want to be very clear for me personally, because there are a lot of disadvantages, When you look at the pixel versus the OnePlus. I love the feel of it ,I love the size.

So this is very similar in size to something like an iPhone 11 pro, definitely smaller than most flagships. You see the side by side. - So you can see it compared to a regular iPhone 11. It is a good deal smaller. And I'm excited for the size too, but I'll tell you that that actually makes me more excited for the iPhone mini.

just cause again small, smaller, smaller, smaller. I'm so much a proponent of, I want a smaller phone. Now this feels super comfortable size wise, but I think it could be better. That's my ding on something like the OnePlus, it's so tall. - So here's the thing, OnePlus is a big phone.

OnePlus' have always been larger phones. I will say personally, this is not a size that I love. So again, not just speaking as advice for you to pick up a new phone, but just for me Austin Evans, I don't like phones that are this big. It's also a little on the heavy side, but, I think with so many phones and so many flagships being this sort of glass and metal design, OnePlus have done a great job as always, but the pixel just feels refreshing. Now if we step away from the actual hardware for a second, there are some major advantages on the OnePlus side that everyone in the comments I'm sure is screaming right now.

Better processor, 865 versus 765 G, essentially this is a mid range processor. So what you get on the pixel 485G the OnePlus Nor and again the LG velvet as well as the LG wing and a lot of other sort of upper mid range devices. It does have 5G and the pixel actually does have millimeter wave as well as sub-6. Whereas this only has sub-6 5G. So, a slight advantage there.

Although, if you look at the pricing on the pixel a with 5G they charge an extra hundred dollars to get millimeter wave, where it's built in by default on the Pixel 5. If I could save a hundred dollars and pull millimeter wave out of it, I would definitely do that, because I think this at a $600 price point would be a very compelling deal. - It's interesting, this is not so much about the pixel. It's just in general right now cause there's so many like 5G's just not really rolled out in so many markets. It's actually kind of baffling to me that there are so many different phones with different skews of like, because, all right whether you're millimeter wave or sub six or whatever, I mean, the millimeter wave variant, that is only for a small group people in like three US cities right now.

- It depends on which network you're on. It is rolling out quickly, but like the thing with millimeter wave is that it's great if you have line of sight essentially. Like you drop off that really quick. And let's be real, as long as I get decent downloads, I don't like care from getting gigabit speeds like. - I mean most day to day, that was fast enough with the LTE.

So, are you gonna notice an extra two thirds of a second, like, - Yes I count every second. - (laughs) (beeps) Another of advantage for the OnePlus 8T is the screen, this has a 120 Hertz display compared to 90 on the pixel. I will say it's not really much of a contest. While the OnePlus screen might not be quite as good as some of the upper end flagships, well it has the refresh rate. The actual quality of the panel is, I would say very good, but not excellent.

There's still a little bit of like rain bowing off access. But the pixel doesn't run it at a consistent 90. So, this is a real problem on the pixel four. And that a lot of apps would run at 60 would kind of be a little inconsistent , because you can't just force 90 Hertz on without diving into kind of getting into a little bit more of tweak town. The Pixel 5 also has a little bit of an issue there where, I can just visually see some apps don't seem to run 90.

Now, that being said, the pixel has excellent battery life largely because of that. It's got a more efficient processor, It's got still a very large 4,000 milliamp power battery and a very small form factor and the screen is. - Its a smaller screen and it's a lower refresh rate. So just more power efficient. We talked about like the 120 versus 90, we do them side by side and you can definitely tell the difference when you're doing them side by side.

In a vacuum, the pixel works really well. So like, if you're just picking it up and you're not used to 90 Hertz, like I don't really have anything that's high refresh rate. It's a lot faster than like my iPhone. - So it's an improvement. I would just say that, it very much feels like a half step.

If you have like a 60 Hertz like iPhone here, you have a pixel and then a OnePlus, the OnePlus feels significantly faster for multiple reasons, it's got better specs and it's got a faster screen. So, for many years, the pixel was pretty much hands down, the best smartphone camera you could get. It wasn't really a competition. Now OnePlus has always been, I would say a step or two behind. Now I don't think that that's necessarily a fair thing to throw the OnePlus 8T, but it doesn't have as good of a camera.

So if I was gonna grade it, If was gonna pull out Marquez style rating. I probably start with this, giving this like a B and this an A. The OnePlus has a ton of cameras, and almost none of these are actually all that useful. So you have an ultra wide, Pretty good. - Yeah, I prefer ultra-wide over telephoto any day.

- Agreed, you have a pretty decent 48 megapixel main sensor. It is a much larger sensor, It's the sort of 2020 style. Like I think it's a one over 1.8 inch sensor, larger sensor, decent image quality not always spectacular, but pretty good. But then you have a macro camera, which I'll just be real, its complete trash. You have a monochrome sensor, never gonna use that.

And you have two flashes for some reason, mostly to make this nice and symmetrical. - Now, are they using the monochrome for like more detail in like photo sharpening? - If your taking, no, as far as I know you, use the monochrome only for when you're just taking a black and white still. It's still taking on the main camera, but it's using the monochrome data to like, - Interesting - Look, they put it there because they wanted to tell you that it has four cameras and it looks more symmetrical. The pixel goes for a much more simple strategy. So we instead of having the telephoto from last year, we have an ultra wide, thank the Holy ghost of Steve Jobs for that one.

We also have - You know that you didn't do google. - Yeah, I know. So also on top of that, this has a good main camera. Pixels have always been good. The problem is that, this isn't really much better than earlier pixels.

So, in large part, that is because this has the same sensor. - Same exact sensor - So, basically, the Pixel 5 has the same sensor as the 485G, and the a, and the four and the a. Basically I think Google have been holding themselves back by using what is a very old sensor at this point. It's not as large as the OnePlus and the vast majority of phones out there right now. And I think that they're leaving dynamic range, they're leaving some stuff on the table.

They continue to improve their sort of processing and it gets better and better. But while the pixel has gotten slightly better over the last two years, other phones like the iPhone and Samsung devices have gotten leaps and bounds better to the point where, I don't think it's an easy call to say the pixel has the best camera anymore. It's a very good one, but I would still say the iPhone, even the iPhone 11 has an edge in many cases. - Right, so like you said, this is no longer a flagship, everything that you said that this doesn't have makes sense when you're talking about not being a flagship, promise it's flagship priced in, in 2020. - It's at that mid tier flagship, we need an actual phrase for it, because (mumbles) - Yes that's what I was about to say, is that this is almost now a class in itself because the build quality, the feel of this, this is better than any phone I think right now, period.

- I will say that I like the hardware of the pixel 5, the size and the feel in the hand and everything, more than anything else. - We need to stop tying flagship to being a premium form, because flagship by definition is like the best one they're putting forward. All the specs in the world with the OnePlus, this just feels uncomfortable to me. - That's a bit (mumbles). - It's funny because obviously we did a video recently talking about too many phones.

How many devices, and we talked a little about these in that, I don't know if we had, we didn't have the OnePlus at that time. - No, we didn't. - I think I was secretly using the pixel that time. But regardless, I've found that recently with devices such as the surface laptop go and the Pixel 5, both of which I would say are not the most premium specs in the world. Neither of them are the most expensive devices in the world, but they both give me something that I don't get in those very expensive devices.

Before it was a really simple decision. You had a lot of money, and you wanted the best phone, you bought the expensive one. Whether it be OnePlus, whether it be iPhone, whether it be Samsung, whatever the case is, you spend more money and you get a better thing. I don't think that's necessarily the case anymore because, mid range specs, whether it be a core i5 on a laptop or a Snapdragon 765G on a phone, are just simply good enough. - I think that's the better indication of what phone you should buy right now, is what you feel in your hand.

And it's so much harder now where we can't do that and just looking spec to spec. - I will say, going into, not only just this video, but Tech Tobar has come fierce and I feel like every five seconds is another device and we're trying to crank through stuff. On my list of priorities and things I thought were important. Pixel was very low, I'll be completely honest. I used a pixel for 20 minutes, I was like no, you know what? This feels right, I'm gonna start using it more.

And then at like the end of the day, I'm like no, no, this is actually just my daily. Like it wasn't even a question. There's something to be said for those, I won't say they're intangibles, but they're hearts of a device that now that everything to a large degree is good enough. You've got good enough performance, you've got good enough battery life, you've got good enough cameras, you've got a good enough screen. Like, as long as you hit that good enough level, then I think a lot of the things that used to not be quite so important, such as the feel in the hand, such as the software updates, such as the little things like, oh, I feel happy about the fact that this is a Small portable phone that I don't feel like I need a case for, which makes it even smaller.

There's those kinds of stuff becomes much more important. - Yeah ,agreed - The choice like, I don't care how much this pixel costs for me personally. Like it's in my hand right now, like I have, I'm a very fortunate person to have a lot of tech at my disposal. So I'm not thinking about this as, Oh, this is great for the money, side note I do think it's slightly more too expensive. But regardless, you might put a completely different list of priorities on what kind of device you wanna use, compared to even a couple of years ago.

which is why this sort of upper mid range, whatever you want to call it. This sort of section of the market is so interesting now, because there's so many legitimate choices based on your personal preference. And that just simply is not the way it's been in the past. I mean - I mean I remember when a flagship just meant a phone, you had the iPhone, you had the Samsung galaxy S. It used to be the smartphone for each carrier.

- I mean, a few days ago, Apple announced four iPhones. But we have so many choices in price, we have so many choices in the spec that you're looking for. we have so many choices in the physical size where we don't all have to use giant ugly phones. We can use stuff that is smaller or larger, whatever your personal preference is. And there's no way that you can be upset about that.

So thank you very much for watching. Make sure you subscribe here and this is for other moments of (mumbles) that was wrong about this product and please, Like the video , until next time, I'm gonna go switch to a Nexus five.

Source : This Is