The Pixel 5 is DISAPPOINTING // One Month Later! By Sam Beckman

So this is the pixel 5 and for the first time I found myself feeling incredibly torn about a pixel device. I used the last two flagships from Google, so the 3xl and the 4xl as my main devices, for as long as I could, and even amidst all the other devices that I reviewed throughout the life of both of those phones. I always came back to using the pixels, but with the pixel 5, I'm actually finding myself feeling less and less like. Furthermore, I want to keep using this as my main device before we get to why this is the case. Let's first start with what's good about the phone, so, firstly, the front of this phone looks excellent and that is mainly down to the fact that somehow, for the first time on an android device, we have consistent thin bezels all the way around, and it really does make the front of this phone look fantastic. Probably my favorite of any phone that's been released so far this year.

Now, in order to achieve that full screen display, though Google has opted to ditch the sold radar and all of those facial recognition, sensors that debuted with last year's pixel, 4, lineup, and they've gone back to the good old capacitive fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone. So I love the return of the rear, mounted fingerprint scanner. It works far better than any in-display scanner. I've ever used, but I will admit I do really miss having any form of facial recognition. Even just a less secure version using the front-facing camera would have sufficed.

But, alas, now I always have to physically pick up the phone to unlock it right, quick pause in the video to thank today's video sponsor raid shadow legends. So if you've played rage, shadow legends before then, you know that it is a truly world-class game in regard to quality and gameplay. There are 500 champions to collect each with their own set of skills, and there are millions of artifacts to find and equip your champions with as well, which means that every single champion you build is pretty much unique. What I personally like about the game is the PVP aspect. I'm a big fan of the fact that you can challenge another player.

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So what are you waiting for? Go to my link down in the description and if you are a new player, you'll get a hundred thousand silver plus one free champion, and all of this treasure will be waiting for you right here. Good luck- and I will see you in the game now back to the front of the phone and in terms of this display, it's pretty great, really well. Color balance not grossly over saturated, like a lot of other phones on the market, and it gets pretty well bright enough for outdoor use a little brighter than last year's pixel flagships to my eyes, but still not quite as bright as other flagships on the market. Oh, and pro-tip. If you have adaptive brightness enabled, then the display will get even brighter when it's in direct sunlight compared to.

If you have it set to max brightness with adaptive, brightness switched off the things you know. The 90 hertz refresh rate also sticks around from the pixel 4 lineups, but it would have been really nice if Google had bumped this up to 120 hertz, just to split the difference between it and the pixel 4 a5g even further and then battery life. We have a much larger 4080 William hour cell inside the pixel 5, and you can tell an easy five to six hours of screen on time. Every single day, which is pretty great for my usage, and I've, always found that battery life only gets better as you use pixel devices thanks to its adaptive battery feature. So it's only going to get better from here now from there pretty much everything else on this phone is a downgrade or a step backwards from last year's pixel, 4 flagships.

You know what plastic or no plastic. The back of this phone feels very similar to the matte back of the pixel 4 flagship light, which I love so somewhat unbeknownst to me at the time that was kind of a lie for a bit of context. The phone that I was using in the lead-up to reviewing the Pixel 4a was the OnePlus word, which has a glossy back and in comparison to that phone. Yes, the pixel, 4a's matte plastic back feels far superior in my opinion, but what phone did I switch back to after using the 4a yep, the Pixel 4 XL, and then I quickly realized that I kind of made a false statement. The mac glass on the back of the 4xl feels so much more premium than the matte plastic back on the 4a and now the pixel 5.

Now the Pixel 4a's price point. That's actually totally fine. For me, it's a perfect compromise that allows the price of that phone to come down to a point where its incredible value, for me same goes for the Pixel 4a 5g, but on the pixel 5, a phone that is a decent amount more than both of those two phones. Not so much now, don't let the specs fool you! So whilst yes, a good portion of the pixel 5 is made out of recycled aluminum, keep in mind that there's actually a big cutout in the middle here that allows for the wireless charging coil to be exposed, so no aluminum there, and secondly, all of that aluminum is coated in what google calls a special bioresin. This means that you don't get that premium cool to the touch metal feeling when holding this phone and in fact it feels virtually identical to the back of the Pixel 4a.

So then my next biggest disappointment, and you might laugh at me, but it's the haptics, and they did include their incredible haptic motor, which in combination with their software implementation, is unparalleled in the android. Well now I also kind of got that one wrong again. I was kind of comparing the haptics on the 4a to the haptics on the OnePlus word and in comparison to that phone. Yes, they do feel much better, but then, when I went back to using the 4xl, I realized that they're actually nowhere near as good as the haptics in the 4xl and the pixel 5 has the same haptics as the 4a, not the 4xl, it's really hard to describe. But when you use a phone with haptics as good as the Pixel 4 XL or the iPhones, for example, it feels less like a vibration and more like a little tap on your hand, but the haptics on the pixel 5 do have that more vibrate feel to them for lack of a better term.

And then we have the software and I tweeted about this a little while ago, but I really prefer android 10 over android 11, which is what ships by default with the pixel 5. Long story short ever since introducing gestural navigation, it's become much harder to use a third-party launcher without there being a big impact on the fluidity of using the phone, and it's become even harder again with android 11. As a big fan of tweaking the look of my home screen setup to suit my style, this hurts deep. Now, as you can see, I have managed to customize the look of my pixel launcher's home screen, but this does require root and the use of widgets. So it's not an easy task by any means in terms of performance.

Look I'll be honest. I do notice a difference between the pixel 5 and the 4xl, but I'm hoping this is more to do with software bugs rather than the efficiency of the chipset for most use cases. You probably won't notice the difference, but there have been a couple of instances where the phone has just stopped for a beat and has had to catch up to me again. This is probably software related because the 765g chipset performs beautifully in the OnePlus word that I reviewed not too long ago and then there are the speakers. You'll notice that there's no speaker grille at the top here, like all past pixel devices, including the 4a and the 485g, and that's because the speaker is underneath the display and whilst call quality, is perhaps even more superior compared to past pixel devices.

Speaker performance is definitely not quite as good, and so finally, it's the cameras and the issue this year isn't that the cameras on the pixel 5 are bad. Of course, they're, not bad, but the issue is that they're pretty much the same cameras that we've seen on all pixel devices, since the pixel 2 launched in 2017. The only changes or improvements that have been made, they're all software based and these all end up, trickling down to older pixel devices through software updates. Later on, anyway, now this year, google ditched the telephoto lens that came with the pixel 4 lineups and instead went with an ultra-wide, and whilst I applaud the inclusion of the ultrawide lens, I just don't see why we couldn't have kept the telephoto lens as well having kids who like to run off into the distance. I actually found myself using that telephoto lens quite a bit over the past year, and so I definitely do notice not having it here with the pixel 5.

And even more than that. The ultrawide lens on the pixel 5 offers a considerably narrower field of view compared to most other phones on the market. Now google has introduced a new set of stabilization modes with the pixel 5, and they've been fun to play around with. So you get active stabilization, locked and cinematic. Pan cinematic pan is fairly similar to what you get if you took the 4k 60 shots and slowed them down to 50 in post, but it does all the leg work.

For you keep in mind. The audio does get muted when you're using this mode, though no way to bring it back. Active stabilization is just a slightly more aggressive version of the stock electronic stabilization provided by default, but perhaps the most mind-blowing stabilization mode is locked all right. So here we are about to hit record using locked mode and uh. You know if we punch into five times you can see the frame is moving around as per normal.

Then you hit record, and it literally locks things off. So I'm obviously moving the exact same amount and even if I try and tilt down which I am right now, it'll take a good minute before it sort of catches up and then moves down very smoothly. So that's it five times. So that's a really cool feature and the other stabilization modes are nice to have as well, as is the option to now shoot at 4k60, using the main lens on the back, but guess what all of those fancy new stabilization modes they've been disabled on my phone for the past few weeks, no matter how hard I try clearing the camera, apps cache clearing its storage. Whatever I do.

I cannot access that stabilization menu anymore, yeah, so check this out, I'm at one times mode. At the moment. If I tap on the stabilization settings there, it comes up with an arrow, so it's indicating that it's registered my touch but no menu pops up, no matter what mode I'm in ultra-wide 4k 60 4k 30! I cannot enter into that stabilization menu. I'm guessing this will be fixed in a future software update, so google, if you're listening, please fix my phone but overall for me yeah, the cameras are underwhelming on the pixel 5. , and so there it is the first pixel phone that I've personally felt a little underwhelmed.

By do I like that, they've targeted a lower price point. Absolutely do I wish that they still offered a full flagship phone with all the bells and whistles. Also, absolutely so. Here's what I'll leave you with if you're coming from a Pixel 4 XL, do not upgrade to this phone unless you desperately need an ultra-wide lens, otherwise it'll feel like a downgrade in pretty much every other way if you're tossing up between this and the Pixel 4a. Well, unless you're, all about having wireless charging and a higher refresh rate panel, just go with the 4a or even the 4a5g, and look in its own regard, the pixel 5 is actually a really decent phone.

It's just that it feels far too similar to the Pixel 4a and 4a5g, both of which are fantastic values for money. It's also a downgrade from the Pixel 4 XL, which you can also now get for less. So all of this combined just makes the pixel 5 a much tougher, sell.

Source : Sam Beckman