On the back, Pixel 4a inherits the square-shaped Pixel 4 camera. The Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL are the best argument that specs don’t tell you everything you need to know about a phone — because the experience of using a Pixel 4 is better than any other Android phone.There is a nuanced difference between saying “specs don’t tell you the whole story” and “specs don’t matter,” because they absolutely do — if only because the wrong ones can ruin the whole thing. The camera UI encourages users to zoom continuously, as if they were using a single lens, rather than switching between wide and telephoto perspectives. For starters, there's that eyesore of a square camera module on the rear.

That's an issue Google admits it must solve quickly, though it's mostly the responsibility of third-party developers.In practice, however, Google's first crack at Face Unlock works well and offers a few advantages over Apple's approach. Still, it’s less annoying to groggily fling your hand over the phone than it is to pick the thing up and fumble for the right spot on the touchscreen to silence an alarm. New York, But it's not the fundamentals or usability that have me concerned but that That's really a shame, because if rumors are true, The flagship Pixel received a noticeable performance bump for 2019, moving to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 chip and gaining another 2GB of RAM compared with the Pixel 3, for a total of 6GB. It’s also available on all four major US carriers for the first time. Because what I’ve learned in reviewing the Pixel 4 is that Google has improved on the Pixel 3, but it’s not a massive year-over-year change.

The Google Pixel 4 comes with a 90Hz 5.7" OLED display, a dual camera, a Snapdragon 855 chipset, 6GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a 2800mAh battery, a dual-camera (wide + telephoto), and availability across all major US carriers. I have been testing Deep Fusion (aka “sweater mode”) in beta on the iPhone 11, but I’m not going to compare shipping software on one phone to beta software on another. No matter what's on screen or what app you're using, if there's speech, Live Caption will spell it out, on the fly. Here, look at these photos of our podcast studio.Both are from the Pixel, but I adjusted the second to look more accurate. I am, as you might guess, equally bummed about this choice.The good news is that the selfie camera is set to a 90-degree field of view, which is wider than the usual 70-degree field of view. Apple's rendition is also brighter, with more eye-catching specular highlights on the metal screws at the center of the pole. Google calls it “Smooth Display” and it makes Android feel so much... smoother.

The corner radiuses on the screen are larger and actually come closer to matching the radiuses on the phone itself (they even subtly cut off 21:9 video, just like on the iPhone 11 Pro). They were released on October 19, 2017, and serve as the second set of smartphones in the Google Pixel hardware line. They were announced during a Google event on October 4, 2017, as the successors to the Pixel and Pixel XL.

When Samsung pushes the limits of packaging with devices like the But these things are all a matter of taste, and personally, I dig the Pixel 4's unique aesthetic. Many other Android phones and both the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro are able to do better.As for for more traditional performance specs, I don’t have any complaints. The 90Hz refresh rate can dynamically switch between 60Hz and 90Hz depending on what the Pixel 4 … I suspect many users will pay the $100 for the XL version with the bigger screen, the $100 more for 128GB of storage, or both. Mountain View has yet again put on another master class in doing more with less and building a handset that's far greater — and smarter — than the sum of its parts. Something about the look reminds me of thick, heavy Buddy Holly-style eyeglasses.Even though the Pixel 4 shares the iPhone 11’s square camera bump, the overall design and aesthetic is unique and feels of a piece with the Pixel’s lineage. There are a few places where Google could have done better, especially with battery life. The Pixel 4 doesn't draw quite as close to the subject as the iPhone 11 Pro can, so Phil's hair, skin tone and blue sweater appear slightly blurrier through Google's lenses.

That helps significantly with grip but also makes it stand out — the rails are black whether you have the black, orange, or white model.

Smooth Display is on by default, and it essentially means the Pixel 4's 5.7-inch, 2280 x 1080 OLED panel updates on-screen content more frequently than the 60-Hz displays in the majority of phones. As your hand approaches, the phone can react and start doing something before you grab it.

The lights are kept on by a 3,140mAh battery. The $599 Graphics crunching didn't end much better for the new Pixel, with Google's phone notching 4,923 in 3DMark's Sling Shot Extreme OpenGL ES 3.1 test. It’s better than it was on the Pixel 3, but I don’t think it has caught up to the iPhone 11 Pro. Google Pixel 4 & 4 XL Display Analysis — Outshined by serious phonemakers.