Unboxing the Google Pixel 5 (Sorta Sage) By Auto Technica

I'm a little late to this party, but I finally have the Google Pixel 5 uh in-house, and I am very excited to try this out so uh. This one came out over a month ago, but the reason I didn't buy it was because I honestly just wanted to wait for the Black Friday deals. I knew this was going to get some sort of discount and I said I had enough phones to work on right now. So let's wait until this gets discounted and of course it did so. I got this for 650 bucks instead of the 700. I was really expecting a bigger deal, but 50 bucks is 50, bucks I'll take it, and this is the pixel 5 in sorta sage.

So it's its a greenish color, but they call it sorta sage. You know they have this crazy naming scheme, there's not much to choose from here. It's got 128 gigs, and it's pretty much very similar to the Pixel 4a in a lot of ways. So let me go ahead and open up this box uh so this year. A big change is that google has kind of backtracked since they were with the pixel 4.

Um, so wow, okay, I'm sorry kind of interrupting myself. There I'll come back to what I was saying before, but here's the phone right here, man. This is a weird look. This almost looks like when you look at it that the texture looks like cardboard for some reason, but uh all right. Here we go here's that color um.

I don't know if you guys can see that, but there is dust on the camera right out of the box, not a fan of that. I noticed this on my iPhone 12 mini, I believe as well. It's kind of weird to see that uh, never a good sign right. You should never do that. The when you open the phone you want it to look nice and clean, but uh.

So let me pull this out. Looks pretty nice. The green is a unique color. I'll say that for sure I haven't seen any phones in this color before it feels good in the hand. Let me put that off to the side: let's see what's inside uh, so there's just this pamphlet right there.

It's not very high quality, just got stuff there uh you got your sim card removal tool and then just warnings and stuff like that in the box, you've got charger. You've got uh your cable, USB c to c. You've got an USB c to an adapter as well, which is very helpful for um. Furthermore, you know connecting to an USB-C, you know you can use it as a dongle for uh, your laptop. So this is what I usually do with these.

I just use them as a dongle for my laptop, which is great, it's just nice to have that in the box. So not a lot going on in here, but really I didn't expect much in the first place. So let me go back to what I was saying before. I got this out of the box so uh this is the pixel 5 right, so the pixel 4 was very different. So what happened with this was.

This was a very expensive phone. It came in two sizes, and it was kind of what I want to say about it is it was googled being a little too ambitious in a lot of ways, so right off the bat they had a face, rec so face I'd type system, so facial recognition and the thing is they put a radar in here as well to help with something I really don't know, but really it was really a waste of space, they never utilized it, and it just ended up being very useless. This was an 800 phone and 900 phones out of the box only and that's starting at 64 gigs, and there was just not a lot of going for this phone uh. You know it had a tiny battery and overall, not the greatest phone. This, the pixel 5 they've gone they've backtracked in many ways, so this has uh.

This doesn't have a high-end processor like this did, so this has the snapdragon 865 or 855. I'm sorry, the 855. This doesn't have that this has the snapdragon 765, which is a mid-range processor compared to the um more high-end processor, that this has and honestly, it's a little weird to think about it right. This is now the flagship from the most expensive new phone that Google sells, and they don't have the highest end, chip, which is a weird thing to see, because you always have at least one phone that has the highest end chip when you're such a big company, but they're definitely going a very different way with a strategy. Another new element here is that they have the Google logo in a metal build right there.

So that's really cool uh. The button. Also, the power button is uh, not it's not a different color, but it is metal. It's got a shiny metal finish compared to the more matched finish the volume button has I like it. You know it's its cool.

It's definitely google's thing to do a unique, looking power button and I think this suits it. Well, not the biggest fan of this color I'll, be honest with you, but the black was way too boring. So I just like whatever. Let's get this and um, what we see also on the back is a return to the fingerprint scanner, so they have ditched the facial recognition, the face ID uh setup. They had they've gone back to fingerprint another, but one thing you will notice is the camera setup looks quite similar.

There still is two lenses, but the thing is uh. We no longer have that telephoto. There is now an ultra-wide, so uh google was really making fun of the ultrawide when the pixel 4 came out, but now they have realized that ultra white is actually kind of the more useful lens of the two, and they finally came to their senses with this. So let me go ahead and get the plastic off of here and let's power, the phone on, so now the display does not have a huge notch at the top. I'm sorry a huge uh cut bezel at the top.

It's got a punch, hole uh on the very extreme left and honestly, it looks perfect like these bezels are really tight to the corners, and they look very, very uniform, like I think, is one of the most uniform bezels I've seen all around in a very long time. It looks fantastic like really a big step up from this, where you guys can see like this is a night and day difference, uh comparatively uh, the the size. One thing I'm very happy that they stuck with this size. It's almost exactly the same size as the pixel 4, and I specifically went with the pixel 4, even though I knew it would have battery problems, because I prefer the size, I don't like the larger sized phones, uh and the Pixel 4 XL honestly, I just wasn't feeling it anyway, so I got a smaller one. The battery life was an issue, but at least the size was great, so I'm happy they stuck with this size, but also a little um.

You know it was confusing why they didn't at least have another uh larger size option. With this you know just the pixel 5 XL, like they've, always had uh they're. They are simplifying their line, but it is weird. The weird thing, though, is that the Pixel 4a have 4a 5g has a larger screen than this, which is weird. So what I'm going to do is real quick set this phone up, uh, you know, try it out, see what it's like and come right back to you guys all right so spent the last couple of minutes, setting up the pixel using it, comparing it to the 4a and the four, and let me start off talking about the build quality, so the material used is so.

This is technically an aluminum phone, but they have this coating on top of it. That doesn't feel really that good. It really does harden back to the pixel 2 days, if you guys remember how that phone felt it was metal as well, but had this weird coating on top of it that I never liked- and I still don't like it- continues to just be annoying. If much rather preferred the smooth plastic design of the pixel 4 4a, but I really did love the glass back with matte finish on the pixel 4. So this was definitely my favorite uh compared to uh the past pixels, but this one is good too, but this one just not really a fan of uh.

The color is called sword of sage. This is a green color, as I said, I'm not the greatest fan of it, but I think I will warm up to it over the days. The Google logo is now a metal insert, which is a nice touch. It definitely adds a little of contrast there. I think.

That's definitely a cool touch. The button as well. The pixels all have kind of been known for their colored power buttons. You guys can see they always kind of go with a colored power. Button theme this time around.

The color is matching, but the material isn't. So this is a little more of a shiny metal compared to um the volume buttons that just match the rest of the texture of the phone. So that's a cool. Little touch looks cool it. Definitely it matches the Google logo inlaid right down there.

One more thing I did notice was that the fingerprint scanner- this is actually, if you guys can tell on camera, it clearly looks like it's recessed in it. Just looks like there's a cut there, and it's placed in there. It doesn't look like it's seated all the way through, which is weird when you compare it to the Pixel 4a, which is just so much better it just when you look at it. The Pixel 4a feels like the more expensive phone just the way the fingerprint sensor is set up compared to this um. I don't know what's going on there.

It just like makes no sense whatsoever, because this is the more expensive phone. This is twice the price, but somehow manages to not uh keep up with the pixel on that uh buttons. So buttons are weird a little uh less tactile than the Pixel 4a, and they definitely don't come out as much they're a little sunken in comparatively. So I definitely prefer the button feel of the Pixel 4a and the four as well. The four had pretty good button feel as well.

This has slightly reduced button, feel uh, it doesn't travel as much, and it doesn't stick out as much either otherwise build quality feels pretty good uh. Just I really wish that they'd chosen some other type of material. Next, let's move on to the display, so this is a six-inch display. As I said, it's got that cut out at the top left, and it's a pretty. I want to say like this is a very modern looking display, it's probably the most modern, looking pixel out there, and it's got ridiculously thin.

Bezels like I did not see that coming um these are uniform, and they look fantastic. That's uh! That's a perfect move! The pixel 4 had this huge bezel on the top. The 4a is perfect too, but it does have a little of a thicker bottom bezel than the top bezel, but this is way more uniform, almost identical. I want to say- and it looks great so display wise- that's fantastic. I did compare it to the color and the accuracy of it uh to the Pixel 4a.

They look almost identical, but this does have 90 hertz refresh like the pixel 4 does, so that is a little of an upgrade. So moving on, let's talk about the cameras, the thing the pixels are known for now. One thing I find extremely annoying, even though this does have a wide angle lens. Now they don't give you a quick toggle to just change between the camera. So you guys can see right here, I'm on the camera app and there is no toggle whatsoever to switch between the cameras.

The oh, the way you do this is I'm not kidding. You literally have to pinch out and that's when you can actually see the slider show up in the first place and then, if you want to go back to the normal zoom, what you have to do is you have to literally slide it back to one x, exactly you can't just tap on it and have it change it'll. Just not do that. You literally have to tap and slide it back to one carefully make sure you don't overdo it, because if you overdo it, you'll be digitally zoomed. Instead of being at the exact crop that the sensor should be at, it's so frustrating like who even thought of not adding this like whoever was in charge of this should really be fired like that is uh inexcusable like come on, that's crazy! I can't believe you would do this.

It's just okay! That being said, let me move on uh. Let's talk about the elephant in the room. This has a mid-range processor and not a flagship processor like the previous pixels, usually did so with the cameras doing a lot of post-processing. How does it keep up? So what I'm going to do here is uh I'll. Take a portrait, selfie uh on both of these cameras, and what we'll do is we will compare them and see how long they take to process.

So all right so front camera photo in three two one, all right: let's move in and processing there processed all right, so, as you guys saw they took about the same amount of time to process, but I will tell you this: the pixel 4 quality on the front camera is way better like it is no competition at all. So let me do that one more time you guys can just even see with the viewfinder like this. This looks way worse, um, honestly, the front camera is a step-down on the pixel 5 compared to the pixel 4. That's definitely somewhere where they have cut a little of cost, but, as you guys saw the processing power, there is pretty stacked. So uh, that's one thing you definitely don't have to worry about.

That was something I was definitely worried about whether this uh you know because of the intense post-processing will the mid-range chip be able to keep up and luckily enough, it's looking like it will be able to at least for the time being, we'll see in the future how it plays out. But I'll definitely mention this a little more in my full review. Finally, let's talk about something else. I noticed the speakers, so this does have a stereo speaker setup, but the weird thing is: if you guys look very closely here, there is no earpiece like absolutely none there is. It is not present, and this was confusing to me, but then I realized I did a little of googling.

The earpiece is, I thought for a second wait. Does this have one of those earpieces that just vibrates the screen and that's how you're supposed to know but no turns out? This has a speaker behind the screen so right in the center behind the screen, there is the speaker for the earpiece and the audio just kind of comes out from, however, it can and that actually makes it sound a lot more muted and almost like it's uh being muffled a little. So when I played the same song on the 4a and compared it to the 5, the 4a speakers just sounded more clear, a little better and overall definitely the more um the one. I would choose the way they sounded, so it's interesting right um how trying to be more modern, they've kind of missed something I would have absolutely been okay, with a little cut out like this one has, if you guys, can see right there. I would have been absolutely fine with this.

If I had gotten the same speaker quality, I really don't know why sometimes you're trying to reinvent the wheel there's more than enough spare space right there to stuff it in. I, I guess maybe there's more into this- that I don't know about, but I feel like that's a downgrade right. You're, the phone. That's cheaper sounds better than the more expensive one, and really you don't get much in return for that uh there. I would have much rather taken that little earpiece up there.

So that's it for this one guys. Let me know what you guys think of the pixel 5 compared to the 4 and 4a. I, as I said, very surprised with the way pant things are panning out, but I am kind of happy with the overall product lineup going here, and I'm sure since I'm a little late to this party uh, there must be people watching that have already been using the pixel 5 for a couple of weeks. So let me know what you think of it if you're watching and let me know what your thoughts are, comparing these phones, you know, are you on the same page with me. Do you think there's something I'm missing I'd love to know what you guys think down the comments below and if you haven't already be sure to follow me on social media? All the handles right here on the screen and, of course down in the description as well, and if you haven't already be sure to subscribe to the channel for more pixel, 4 and pixel 5 and 4a content coming really soon.

Thank you so much for watching guys I'll catch you in the next one. You.

Source : Auto Technica