Whether a $499 smartphone can qualify as “budget-friendly” is up for debate. But after extensive testing, what’s not up for debate is that the Google Pixel 4a 5G is the absolute best budget smartphone you can find in the price range. A 3,800mAh battery, a better-than-decent camera, a sleek design, and a powerful processor help catapult the Pixel over most of its competitors.
In fact, it’s got most of the same features as the $699 Pixel 5, though they diverge in several small but meaningful ways. It’s not water-resistant, it doesn’t have wireless charging, the battery is a tad smaller, and its display is 0.2 inches larger. It also sports a polycarbonate body, while the Pixel 5’s is aluminum. Despite the weird official naming, the Google Pixel 4a 5G is a totally different – and much better – phone than the Pixel 4a. The 4a is physically smaller, with a smaller battery, a slower processor, and (obviously) doesn’t have access to 5G.
While Google did release a “flagship” Pixel 5 this year, I think the more budget-friendly Pixel 4a 5G has stolen its thunder. The sleeper-hit is basically a bigger Pixel 5 that’s missing a few features, but $200 cheaper. That means skipping out on an IP rating, 90Hz display, a bit of RAM, and a metal (ish) build, but you get a bigger screen and a headphone jack, paired with with the same camera, internals, and the Pixel software experience. At just $500, this is my favorite phone of 2020.
The Pixel 4a 5G was announced on September 30, 2020, alongside the Pixel 5, the Google Nest Audio, and the latest Chromecast.
The Pixel 4a 5G is, in essence, the 5G-enabled version of the regular Pixel 4a, which came out on August 3. However, there are more upgrades to the Pixel 4a 5G. The phone has a bigger screen, features a faster Snapdragon 765G processor, and comes with a bigger battery.
Pixel 4a 5G is a value-oriented phone made for people who don’t want or need a flashy high-end phone. Like the Pixel 4a, the 4a 5G model’s strong points are its cameras, smooth software, and rock-solid update policy.
Google Pixel 4a 5G – Design and Features
It might sound a bit hyperbolic, but the Pixel 4a 5G is one of the best feeling phones I’ve ever held. The size is perfect for my hands. At 2.9 x 0.3 x 6.1 inches (W x D x H), it’s on the larger side – a full half-inch taller than the iPhone 11 Pro. But the Pixel 4a 5G can hide its size behind a weirdly sleek plastic frame, one that makes it feel sturdy, relatively high-quality, and much grippier than something like the aforementioned iPhone.
The Pixel 4a 5G could be confused with the smaller Pixel 4a at a glance. It has the same matte plastic unibody design, rear capacitive fingerprint sensor, hole-punch front-facing camera, and even identically sized bezels. The cutouts for microphones and speakers on the top and bottom, buttons on the right, SIM tray on the left, and ports on the bottom are all in exactly the same positions as the smaller phone. It’s impressively consistent. However, there are a few key changes, like the wider camera hump, which houses an extra wide-angle camera module, and the overall larger design.
As with the smaller phone, the Pixel 4a 5G’s matte plastic finish is a bit too finely textured and easily picks up oils from your hands. Though the plastic seems durable enough, it does accrue wear more quickly than metal or glass would; mine’s already marked up with a handful of barely-visible scratches from normal use in the last week. The fingerprint sensor itself is also too shallow when the phone is naked, though that’s probably a non-issue, because you’ll use a case. Outside that, it was entirely reliable.
The 4a 5G has a good heft to it, with a similar feeling of density in-hand when compared to the smaller Pixel 4a. The curved edges yeild a comfortable and ergonomic shape to hold, even for extended periods, though it’s a little less easily gripable than the smaller phone. I’d consider this the upper-limit of easy one-handed use.
Mid-range phones always have to strike a balance when they cut corners, and screens usually get the short end of the stick. Even last year’s Pixel 3a and 3a XL had pretty mediocre panels. But this year, Google seriously stepped up the quality of its displays. Like the smaller Pixel 4a, I have no complaints about the screen in the 4a 5G. It gets bright enough outside, dim enough at night, it’s visually quite sharp, and it doesn’t have any issues with uneven backgrounds or “green tint” in dark themes. Google tells us it hits up to 700 nits of brightness at peak and 2 nits at its dimmest, though there are a lot of ways to measure that which makes it hard to compare numbers with other phones. Sure, I’d prefer if it had a higher refresh rate or greater than 1080p resolution, but at this price, it’s hard to get too picky.
Like the Pixel 4a, you don’t have any IP-rated water resistance. While there are gaskets in its design, like around the SIM tray, there’s no way to know how aggressive the ingress protection is throughout the phone without an actual rating, so better to err on the side of caution and refrain from underwater photography or phone calls in downpours.
The stereo speakers work as usual via the top earpiece and bottom-firing speaker, and they sound slightly different compared to the 4a, just a little less shrill/treble-heavy with a more rounded sound and marginally more bass (though these are smartphone speakers and they’ll never thump). Haptics aren’t the best that Google‘s done, and a clear step back compared to the Pixel 4, but they’re marginally better and stronger than the 4a. At least, as a non-“flagship,” you get an actual headphone jack — score one over the more expensive Pixel 5.
In fact, I think it might make more sense to compare the Pixel 4a 5G to the Pixel 5, even though it shares a name with the Pixel 4a. It’s equipped with the same Snapdragon 765G and dual-camera configuration with a new wide-angle secondary. While the outward design and materials resemble the Pixel 4a, inside, this is basically a Pixel 5. Google even has a separate mmWave version of the 4a that will be sold by Verizon, bringing it almost to network parity with the Pixel 5 model sold in the US (minus a handful of Sub-6 bands). From a particular perspective, the phone would be better named the “Pixel 5 Lite.”
In more pure hardware terms, you get 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage, which is good enough for a mid-range phone to last a few years. I’m glad that Google has stepped up and realized that’s the minimum these days, and I hope other manufacturers follow in its footsteps.
In the box, you get an 18W USB PD Type-C charger, a three-foot cable, a Type-C to Type-A adapter, a SIM-ejector tool, and the usual warranty cards and manuals.
Software, performance, battery life
Some disagree, but consider Google‘s vision of Android on the Pixels among the best out there, especially on Android 11. With the number of exclusive features Pixels get, we can’t quite say it’s “stock” anymore, but it’s probably the closest you can get with the deep changes most manufacturers implement now. And while it’s very, very hard to express why I like Pixel software so much, I’ll try.
First: The Google Assistant. I’m not as all-in when it comes to smart home hardware as my fellow Android Police editors — I don’t have any Nest cameras (yet) or thermostats — but I still use the Assistant daily on smart speakers, displays, and my phone to control lighting, play music, remotely harass my roommate, and enjoy a remote-free TV life. While I can do all that regardless of the phone in my pocket, Google‘s extra Pixel-exclusive Assistant features are so useful, I’d probably pay a subscription to get them on other phones.
Automatic call screening is among my favorite features. While some of the folks calling me don’t like it too much, spam calls are still a serious issue regardless of whatever progress carriers claim to be making. So the fact that the Assistant can automatically screen calls that come my way and filter out the junk is fantastic, saving me from multiple interruptions a day.
The Pixels also get Google’s snazzy “new” Assistant, with faster on-device recognition and Continued Conversation. That last feature means, once you’ve triggered the Assistant, you can issue follow-up contextual commands and not have to preface them with the hotword either. I use it quite a lot while driving, and I miss it on other devices; although it’s weird Google still doesn’t turn it on during setup.
Beyond the Assistant itself, there are other software perks to Pixel ownership. Google’s Recorder app, for example, comes in handy for us bloggers when taking notes at an in-person event (if we ever have those again). But if you’re the sort that likes dictating notes to yourself, it can just as easily be used for that. The Pixel Launcher is so simple and good I go out of my way to install an improved clone of it on other phones. And, from my perspective, Pixels are mostly free of bloatware; every app they come with is something I’d install myself on another device anyway because I’m so deeply integrated into Google’s ecosystem.
While Google’s software design can still be a little inconsistent across first-party apps (I can’t believe YouTube still refuses to fit in), it’s generally more cohesive than most other Android skins, and it meshes better with third-party apps since many follow Google’s Material guidelines. In total, that makes for a less jarring or disruptive visual experience when you use a Pixel compared to almost any other phone.
There are only a few things I don’t like about the Pixel software experience. For one, Google seems to have re-tuned things like animations to favor higher framerate displays, and something feels just a little bit off on the 60Hz screen on the 4a 5G. (We touched on the same thing in our Pixel 4a review.) I may be alone in this, but I also dislike the effect the hole-punch camera cutout has on software. Google pads it with enough space that its latest Pixels have the largest status bars I’ve seen in years — it’s even bigger than the Essential PH-1. It doesn’t need so much wasted space, and as tall as the screen is already, I don’t like giving it up more of it to empty padding.
Performance on the 4a 5G struck me as odd. The phone is clearly faster than the smaller Pixel 4a — side-by-side with last year’s Pixel 4, which has a higher-end chipset, it loads most apps in almost the same time — but it’s simultaneously more prone to so-called Android “jank” for me, dropping frames more often than the less capable Pixel 4a feels like it does. We know from experience with other phones that the Snapdragon 765G is a capable chipset, and yet something still feels off at times. I have to assume that it’s a software issue, and other curiosities like too-small resolutions for the first-party hole-punch wallpapers imply to me that we might see a sweeping bug-fix update land soon (we’ll update our coverage if and when that changes).
But outside that “jank” — imaginary or otherwise — the phone was plenty fast. The GPU may not be the most powerful, but it was strong enough for some light Fortnite as well as more casual titles. Day-to-day performance was also generally good, and I didn’t notice any issues with app slowdowns or freezes.
5G remains mostly useless, and I usually get slower speeds on T-Mobile’s 5G here in Boston than I do on LTE. If and when 5G becomes truly relevant, the 4a 5G will support it — though there’s 5G and then there’s 5G. While Verizon will be getting a version of the phone with mmWave, the “standard” unlocked version only supports sub-6Ghz 5G. That’s the 5G that actually matters for most of us, but it’s also the 5G that will make the least difference to things like speeds. Ultimately, there’s really no reason to go out of your way to buy a 5G phone right now unless it happens to come with it, but the 4a 5G does.
The 3,800mAh battery in the 4a 5G may not be the biggest you can get in a phone this size, but Google manages to stretch it out to last all day — and then some. While I look forward to putting it through its paces in more circumstances, the phone managed just over eight hours of screen-on time over two days, and this was in mixed use with a few hours of GPS navigation as a standalone Android Auto screen, browsing, reading, and taking photos across Wi-Fi, LTE, and 5G connections. I even tested this on Google Fi, which is notorious for wrecking battery life. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the 4a 5G may break 10 hours of screen-on time in a single day in certain use cases. In short: this is an even bigger battery champion than the smaller Pixel 4a was.
That’s good, because it’s not the most convenient phone to charge. While it can top up at 18W with the universal Power Delivery standard, and that’s enough for the majority of us that plug a phone in overnight, it lacks wireless charging for convenient topping-up during the day, and it doesn’t have an ultra-fast high-wattage charging mode for emergencies. Personally, I think 18W is still fine at this price, but more powerful specs like OnePlus’ Warp Charging have saved my butt in emergencies, and I’d like to see more phones support faster charging speeds.
Camera
Google‘s Pixels are known for having some of the best smartphone cameras you can get. Even with an older sensor, that remains true today — proof that software matters more than hardware in this era of computational photography. While I still prefer the utility of a telephoto, Google did convince me that the wide-angle camera can actually be useful with the Pixel 4a 5G.
The primary camera’s performance seems about equivalent to the Pixel 4, 4a, and prior Pixel phones. That makes sense, It’s using the same sensor and probably the same lens configuration. But there is one notable difference compared to last year’s Pixel 4: Camera processing takes a little longer. I’m told the Pixel 5 suffers the same behavior. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it is noticeable. Otherwise, you get the same hyper-real photos with great clarity, sharpness, and a tendency to favor slight underexposure (which makes for attractive contrast). Some super detailed, super high-contrast scenes can look a bit muddy on a very close crop (like the photo looking through the branches of a downed tree in the gallery above), but Google generally does an exceptional job preserving detail.
This, in tandem with the Pixel 5, is the first time Google has done a wide-angle camera in a Pixel, and it delivered. My biggest complaint is that its minimum focus distance is too far out, somewhere around two feet. That’s not unexpected, but it does mean I can’t use it for quite as many fun shots as I’d hoped. Though I did notice some very slight chromatic aberration (i.e., “purple fringing”) with leaves against the sky, it wasn’t too noticeable or distracting outside a crop, and I was stunned at the dynamic range.
Usually, the smaller aperture you get on wide-angle cameras means worse performance indoors or in poor lighting, and that isn’t the case here. Google’s wide-angle camera is equally good indoors our outdoors, and it even does okay in low-light. It’s definitely noisier in challenging circumstances than the primary, and even a tiny bit muddy with certain textures, but it does a great job. Although overall results are sharp enough, it’s also a little soft on a crop, and more likely to lose fine detail (like the leaves on the forest floor in some of the photos above). While both the primary and wide-angle suffer some unavoidable lens flare if bright lights like the sun are in scene, the long shape of the flare on the wide-angle camera is less pleasing and unexpected. Color balance between lenses in the same scene changed a little more than I hoped, but it was much more consistent than some manufacturers accomplish. For all I know, Google may actually be doing it intentionally to take a better shot.
The Google camera also has a couple new features like portrait light, that lets you dynamically adjust lighting for a portrait photo after the fact. It’s technically very cool, but I know I’ll never use it.
While I still lament it, the loss of the telephoto isn’t the end of the world. Google’s Super Res Zoom is probably the best software zoom solution out there, and it plugs the gap well enough. Paired with the wide-angle, the camera is now objectively more versatile, even if I know I would use a telephoto more often, myself.
Night Sight and Astrophotography are both still great features, and they both work with the wide-angle camera, though results are noisier and a bit streaky.
In short, Google made another amazing camera here, wide-angle and all. When the day finally comes for Google to switch to a bigger, more modern sensor in Pixels, the results will probably be incredible. But for now, it still takes the Android crown unless you need a sharper telephoto or wider wide-angle.
The more I ruminated on it over the last few days as I sat down to write this review, the harder I struggled to find things to complain about with this phone, and that’s weirdly high praise. When things are great, and nothing is really wrong, that’s a neutral state for a tool; it’s just doing what it should. It’s when things are bad, or something breaks, you can feel bothered or even frustrated. But the Pixel 4a 5G didn’t leave me complaining — and that’s enough to call it great in my mind.
Buy it if:
You want a Pixel 5 on a budget — it’s basically a bigger, “lite” version.
Camera performance, battery life, and price are your biggest concerns.
You’re so deeply integrated into Google’s services that you honestly can’t see a way out please help me.
Don’t buy it if:
You want The Real Flagship Experience™ and need more power, a smoother screen, and an IP rating.
Budget constraints are either narrower or looser — there are better values at both ends of the spectrum between the baby Pixel 4a and Samsung Galaxy S20 FE.
Google has taken a drastically different approach with the Pixel lineup. They’ve focused on providing a great user experience without maxing out the specs on the processor or the screen. The Pixel 5 maybe this year’s Google‘s flagship, but it’s not a flagship device as we know it.
Google did away with the finnicky radar sensors that enabled Motion Sense features on the Pixel 4 and 4 XL. Motion Sense wasn’t really as useful as the advertisements made it out to be. Because of this, the fingerprint scanner is back. Next, we don’t have the latest Snapdragon chipset on the Pixel, but we do get the capable Snapdragon 765G with support for 5G networks. Finally, the Pixel 5 swaps out the 2X telephoto from last year in favor of a new ultra-wide camera.
The overall form factor is far more manageable with a 6-inch display with a punch-hole selfie camera cut out and compact size. The Pixel 5‘s design is largely based on the Pixel 4a that came just weeks before it, but it comes with the slimmest bezels we’ve ever seen on a Pixel phone. It also has a beefier 4080mAh battery compared to the Pixel 4 XL’s 3,800 mAh. Combined with the power-efficient Snapdragon 765G, the Pixel 5 should also see improvements in battery life, but we’ll get to that.
Google Pixel 5 specs:
Body: 144.7 x 70.4 x 8 mm; 151g; Gorilla Glass 6 front, recycled aluminum enclosure reinforced with plastic; Colors: Just Black and Sorta Sage; IP68
The Pixel 5 does achieve something new. It’s got a housing made of recycled aluminum. However, it still supports wireless charging (and even supports reverse charging this year) – proving that smartphone makers don’t need to make fragile glass sandwiches to achieve the popular feature. Google did this by putting the charging coil on the outside of the housing before applying the texturized coating and ran the coil through holes cut out of the back of the chassis.
We can’t help but think that Google is taking a step backwards with the Pixel 5. However, its lower price and focus on experience may be in Google’s favor. The need for a cheaper headlining 5G smartphone is more urgent than in the past and its price point pins it up against the recently announced iPhone 12 Mini, the OnePlus 8T, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE.
The camera hardware stays the same on paper, but we’re curious to see if the software has allowed advancements in imaging. We’ll keep an open mind and let you know if Google has solidified its software and camera experiences with the Pixel 5. Let’s move into the box and see what’s inside.
Unboxing
On the exterior, the Pixel 5‘s box shows the phone’s picture with the chosen coat of color. Our model is the “Sorta Sage”. The Pixel 5 comes with the bare necessities inside the box, which prominently features the #teampixel hashtag and 5G logos.
The phone comes with some documentation, a SIM tool, USB “Quick Transfer adapter”, 18W USB-C PD adapter, and USB-C charging/data cable. Google only included earbuds once with the Pixel 3 (XL) but later removed them for the Pixel 4 (XL) in the US.
Design
The Google Pixel 5 is not your average glass sandwich as it’s got a body made of recycled aluminum. In fact, Google deserves praise for proving that phone makers don’t need to use plastic or glass to get a smartphone to support wireless charging. You see, aside from wireless charging, having a smartphone with glass on the back makes it much easier for RF signals to pass through and makes it more prone to damage. This metal body also makes the Pixel 5 the first 5G-enabled smartphone with a metal body construction (even if it’s partially metal).
As Google explains, the Pixel 5‘s charging coil is placed right on the outside of the aluminum chassis before the assembly is placed in an injection mold. The wiring for the coil passes through the metal shell before getting a layer of “bio-resin,” which is basically a thin plastic layer. After that, the body is smoothened out and coated with either the “Just Black” or “Sorta Sage” exterior coating.
Google says you won’t be able to feel the coil behind the coating and its reasoning for going with this structure of materials over plastic or glass is to keep the phone thin. This coating feels unlike any other Android smartphone. It feels like granite or sandstone that’s been smoothened out and soft to the touch. The grip here is superb and certainly better than that of any glass.
The 6-inch screen is protected by Gorilla Glass 6, and just like the Pixel 4a, the 5 has a punch-hole cutout for the selfie camera. Under strong light, we can faintly see the proximity sensor behind the display, just below the earpiece. We appreciate these little touches that help keep the bezels slimmer than ever.
Compared to the Pixel 4’s 5.7-inch display, the Pixel 5 has got a larger 6-inch screen that fits in a device that’s slimmer in every dimension, even shaving off some weight. This is due to the extra bulk that the radar sensors took up in the previous-gen Pixels. The Pixel 5 weighs 151g and measures 144.7 x 70.4 x 8 mm, and is rated IP68 water resistance.
On the left side is a SIM card tray with space for a single nanoSIM. Remember that the Pixel 5 also supports an internal eSIM for dual SIM connectivity. The right side has a volume rocker and ultra-shiny power key. The accented power key on the Sorta Sage Pixel isn’t painted in a different color as Google has done in the past. It has made this button and the “G” logo on the back shiny, giving them a nice contrast to the soft, textured exterior coating.
The fingerprint scanner can be seen and felt easily at the back. Meanwhile, although there’s a camera hump present, it doesn’t protrude enough to cause the phone to rock back and forth on a table.
There’s no headphone jack on the Pixel 5, just the one USB-C connector at the bottom. The left port is a microphone, and the right port is one of two loudspeakers. There’s also a tiny microphone hole in the camera square on the back.
The overall design very closely mimics the Pixel 4a but with a slightly larger display and, of course, the dual cameras. We are content with the rounded sides and high-grip material on the back of the Pixel 5. We are glad to see more phone makers revert to more compact form factors as things have been getting a little out of hand, pun intended.
Competition
The Google Pixel 5‘s price point positions it in the same space as the newly-announced iPhone 12 mini, the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE, and the vivo X50 Pro. Although all of them are around the same price, some offer more value than others depending on your needs.
Then other packages offer the same or more for a lower price. The first device that comes to mind is the OnePlus Nord, which has twice as many cameras and runs the same chipset for less. The Nord even has faster Warp Charging, but it does omit wireless charging. The OnePlus 8T is priced like the Pixel 5 but offers high-end performance and 120Hz smoothness.
The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini are just arriving on the market, and this is the first year that these iPhones will offer 5G support. Their preliminary reviews reveal that battery life is weaker than their predecessors. Still, the iPhone cameras are top-tier, and iOS is smooth and responsive.
The Pixel 5 has improved video recording this year with its processing tweaks and new stabilization modes. Suppose you’re after something that’s going to give you an even more advanced video recording experience. In that case, the vivo X50 Pro has a micro gimbal built into the camera assembly with some nifty controls and shooting modes.
The LG Wing is an entirely different class. Aside from having a higher price, it’s experimental T-shaped form factor brings a fresh way to interact with a smartphone. Both it and the vivo X50 Pro are running the same Snapdragon 765G chipset with support for 5G networks.
Verdict
The Google Pixel 5 is an evolution of the kind of smartphone that Google wants to offer. It solves the battery life issue that’s plagued all Pixel phones before it, and it’s taken a decision to switch up the hardware materials while keeping Google’s obsession with using non-standard textures and an understated design and overall look. We are also glad to see something more compact and pocketable arriving in a sea of super long glass slabs.
Google was creeping up on $1000 territory with the Pixel 4 XL but pumped the brakes with the Pixel 5 while cutting corners in just the right areas that don’t compromise the overall experience. The midrange processor might be a turn-off for some who would instead go with a cutting-edge chipset, which both Samsung and OnePlus will gladly sell you for the same price. In any case, performance is adequate for a smartphone in this day in age (as my colleague Prasad would attest), and the Snapdragon 765G will age gracefully.
Then there’s the camera, which feels more like a side-step than advancement. Although Google is adamant about the features and improvements to the camera, the software side of photography can only improve so much. We feel that this ceiling has been reached, and Google is due to put out a new Pixel with a more advanced camera. The Pixel 2’s camera was ahead of its time, but today the Google Pixel 5 is really just playing catch-up with the new ultra-wide camera. The selfie camera is also due for an update.
Google’s implementation of Android 11 on the Pixel 5 is smooth and consistent – perhaps the best stock Android has ever gotten. It will be interesting to see Google’s next step from here, but the Pixel 5 is a great first move for a lineup that’s bound to benefit from a future high-end Pixel 5 “Pro” model if there ever is one.
Pros:
Less bezel, more screen, more pocketable
Plastic-reinforced metal build with two-directional wireless charging
Much-improved display brightness over Pixel 4
Speakers are loud
Superb battery endurance
Pixel-only features like Hold for Me and Robo Call-screening
Finally, an ultra-wide camera on a Pixel
Cons:
Snapdragon 765G performance is severely handicapped in this phone
Recycled main camera hardware with incremental improvements to image quality
Google‘s Pixel 4a is finally here and although it has arrived a few months behind its rumored schedule, many are eager to buy one during these trying times. How much has been done to improve the Google-fied budget Pixel 3a from last year? Well, last year’s formula was quite successful that Google didn’t need to change it up too much. In fact, it lowered the price and doubled the storage.
The 4a gets a modest performance boost with a Snapdragon 730G chipset, 2 additional GB of RAM, and updated UFS 2.1 storage speeds (The Pixel 3a used eMMC 5.1). A slight boost in battery capacity is seen as well, and the display size was stretched out to cover more surface area, and there’s a punch hole selfie camera cut-out of the screen as well.
The backside and frame are both made of plastic, but the display glass is now made of Gorilla Glass 3. In addition, the camera, while otherwise identical in hardware, gets a slightly brighter f/1.7 aperture lens (the 3a had f/1.8). We are expecting to see camera performance comparable to what we saw on the Pixel 3a last year, which was wonderful to say the least.
Google Pixel 4a specs:
Body: 144 x 69.4 x 8.2 mm; 143g; Plastic body and frame
Despite the taller screen, Google managed to shrink the footprint of the 4a (compared to the 3a) in both height and width. This is the first Google Pixel phone to feature a punch hole cut out for the selfie camera.
With the Pixel 4a, Google is solidifying its foothold in the midrange category. The higher-end Pixels that came before it excelled in camera technology, but these days the competition swerves around Google’s offerings. With the Pixel 3a, Google has proven it can make cheap hardware deliver a premium-feeling experience.
Let’s dig further into the Pixel 4a starting with the unboxing.
Unboxing the Google Pixel 4a
The Pixel 4a comes with the bare necessities inside. The box is printed with a matte finish on the outside. Google‘s branding and an image of the Just Black Pixel 4a appear on the packaging.
Inside the box is the Pixel 4a itself, a quick start guide and safety information card, SIM eject tool, a USB-C to C cable, and a USB-C Power Delivery charge adapter. There’s also a USB-C to A adapter, useful for transferring data from an iPhone or other Android device. This adapter doubles as an OTG input so you can mount a USB drive into the Pixel 4a.
The Pixel 4a doesn’t come with any earbuds, case, or screen protector.
Design and build quality
The Pixel 4a is built with a plastic frame and back panel while the display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Like the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, the Pixel 4a no longer has the “window” on the back, so it is completely matte on the back, save for the camera bump. It’s interesting to see this fingerprint scanner, which is also matte on the back, we can’t help but think it might have been more aesthetically pleasing to make it shiny to contrast the rest of the back.
The camera setup is square like its more expensive siblings, but it only houses a single 12.2MP camera, and a dual-LED flash. We like that the styling matches with the Pixel 4. The camera housing does protrude, but not enough to make rocking back and forth on the table a serious issue.
The rear cover and the frame are a single piece, so holding the Pixel 4a feels really nice and smooth with no breaks or seams. At 144 x 69.4 x 8.2 mm, the Pixel 4a is slightly shorter and narrower than the Pixel 3a, despite having a screen that takes up more space. It’s even slightly lighter at 143g and its weight is well distributed.
It’s a well built phone, but we wonder if it has any structural weak points. It doesn’t creak or buckle under light pressure, so that’s worth something. Remember that the Pixel 4a is not rated for water or splash resistance, and we would not bet that it’s even sealed well for such an event.
Google has omitted Active edge from all Pixels starting with the 4a. Perhaps it realized that the pressure sensors placed in the frame take up more space than is worth the squeezy feature. You can do the same thing by swiping up from a corner, but it won’t be the same.
The front of this Pixel finally looks like it belongs in the present day. The Pixel 3 had large bezels (and the Pixel 3 XL had the bathtub notch), and the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL had the honkin’ upper bezel for the underwhelming Motion Sense hardware. The bezels on the Pixel 4a are the smallest we’ve seen on a Pixel phone thus far and the display fills the space nicely.
There’s a 5.81-inch OLED screen with a punch hole cut out for the 8MP selfie camera. This cutout does have a border that isolates it from the display. The front-facing speaker is now a slit that sits above the display, so we wonder if it will affect the stereo loudspeaker performance.
There’s a headphone jack at the top, which you don’t see on the higher-end phones anymore.
At the bottom is a USB-C port, and two symmetrical ports – the right one is a loudspeaker, and the other is a microphone.
The SIM tray is on the lower left side of the phone, and it only takes a single nanoSIM card. There’s no expandable storage here, but dualSIM is possible via eSIM.
The power key is accented with a slightly mint-colored white. The buttons themselves are very clicky and tactile, though not too sensitive.
The phone feels great in-hand. From its curvy matte back cover to the compact size, this is going to be a wonderful phone to hold and use. Finger gymnastics are still kind of needed to reach the top of the status bar, but the Pixel launcher already lets you swipe from anywhere on the home screen to reach the notification shade.
Android 10, soon to be 11
It’s interesting that Google released the Pixel 4a this close to the release of Android 11. We’re expecting it next month along with the new Pixels, so we’ll skim over Android 10’s most prominent features.
Upon setup, you’ll be offered the chance to transfer data from another Android device, iOS device, or restore from a Google Drive backup. You do have the option to transfer via a USB cable (via the adapter included in box), iCloud download, or Google Drive backup, but this won’t be as thorough as the other two methods.
Keep in mind if you skip the initial setup, you won’t be able to transfer from another device unless you reset the Pixel, so skip wisely.
Next, the setup prompted us to set up a screen lock and register a fingerprint. This process is quick, simple, and the fingerprint scanner unlocks the 4a in a pinch, and every time.
In case you haven’t opted for Android 10’s gesture navigation by now, you’re offered a quick tutorial on how to use it. You can always switch the setting if you prefer the classic navigation bar.
The home screens are clean and uncluttered. A weather and date widget are at the top, with a dock, Google Search bar and Google Assistant shortcut at the bottom. The app drawer pops up with a swipe upwards. A swipe to the right opens your Google feed. As before, there are plenty of pre-loaded and downloadable wallpapers for the Pixel launcher.
You can change the look of the UI’s icon and quick toggle shapes, fonts, and accent color.
All Android 10 phones have universal live captioning that is accessed from the volume menu. Be advised that this feature will consume more battery when it’s enabled. Since its launch, English is the only supported language.
Dark Theme is easy on the eyes if you primarily use your phone at night. It can also be set to switch between light and dark with your local sunrise and sunset.
Google‘s Personal Safety app combines an emergency contact page, a page with your health information, a Safety Check feature, and an automatic car-crash detection feature.
Always-on display is available in the Display settings. The 4a doesn’t have the Motion Sense hardware that the Pixel 4 has that woke up the phone with a wave, but it does have “Tap to check” and “Lift to check” options to make checking the time or notifications easy. Ambient Display will also briefly show notification as they arrive.
With every passing year, Google‘s software is more solid, polished, and keeps getting deeper integration with Google Assistant. Android 11 is coming next month, so we’re expecting a slew of new features to come. The Pixel 4a is expected to be among the first in the queue to receive the update.
The Pixel 4a doesn’t stutter, slow down, or take a second to really think about what it needs to do. It handles multitasking like a champ thanks to those 6GB of RAM.
The competition
The Pixel 4a is currently on pre-order with a price tag of around 350 bucks – regardless whether that means dollars, pounds or euros where you reside.
The market has never been so full of great midrange propositions. The Google Pixel 4a enters a heated arena where all smartphones are already offering great performance and smooth user experience. It’s a compact phone so we’d admit that if that’s a particular feature you are after, you’d be hard-pressed to find equally matched counterparts as the industry has generally moved past the 6-inch mark.
The Samsung Galaxy S10e is one compact option to consider but we won’t actively recommend it at this stage because it’s already 1yr and a half old which means it’s unlikely to get major software updates going forward. It’s also considerably more expensive off-contract than the Pixel 4a.
The Samsung Galaxy A41 is a more recent midrange smartphone. It has not launched in the US yet but it’s enjoying a warm reception everywhere else and we were quite happy with it when we reviewed it. It’s got a 6-inch AMOLED screen and a larger battery than the Pixel 4a. Its great battery life is thanks to the chipset which is more tuned for power efficiency rather than performance. As a result, performance is one area where the Pixel 4a has the upper hand. The camera performance of the A41 is good but not outstanding too, which puts a second mark on the Pixel 4a checklist. However, the A41 is priced some 100 euros less than the Pixel 4a, so if camera performance is not super important, the A41 sounds like the better deal.
The iPhone SE 2020 has the camera performance to match the Pixel 4a as well as the fast-track OS updates and it’s got a much more premium build with water resistance. It’s got awesome performance thanks to Apple’s latest CPU but battery life is uninspiring and it also has a much smaller screen. Coupled with the higher price tag, it’s the phone you get if you want the cheapest or most compact iPhone possible (or both). The purchasing decision will likely not be down to specs but rather to the preferred OS ecosystem.
If the compact size is not a must-have, there are a few other alternatives hovering around the 6.5-inch mark. Due to their increased size, they’ve all got better battery life than the Pixel 4a aside from increased screen real estate.
The Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G offers an amazing value package as well with a great AMOLED screen, and superb battery life while costing around 300 euros. It even throws in 5G connectivity in the mix but camera performance is not as good.
For around 350 euros, the OnePlus Nord is another 5G capable phone that is better than the Pixel 4a. And when we say 5G we mean this comes with a better grade chipset overall even if you don’t have access to a 5G network.
The verdict
With many other midrange devices in the same price range, the Google Pixel 4a offers a fully rounded Pixel experience in a compact size and at a budget-friendly price point.
As midrange smartphones are now coming with triple and even quad-cameras, the Pixel 4a‘s Astrophotography feature, dead-simple camera UI, and distinct style of photography that it produces makes it competitive enough to stand out in its class.
The screen is plenty bright and nicely sharp. The phone’s compact size is comfortable and easy to handle – a nice break from all the budget smartphones that come in the mid and upper 6-inch range.
Software is as expected. Android 10 runs smoothly and quickly, though we are kind of puzzled that Google would release a Pixel so soon before it officially releases Android 11. It’s generally known that Google severely delayed the launch of this phone because of the ongoing pandemic.
This feels more like a refresh of the widely successful Pixel 3a, which is fine too. We have a feeling that Google is saving all the jaw-dropping changes for the upcoming Pixel 5.
If you’re coming from the Pixel 3a or the 3a XL, there isn’t any incentive to upgrade to the 4a. The phones are identical on paper and aside from the 4a’s design, added RAM and storage, and marginally better CPU, there isn’t really anything surprising about the Pixel 4a.
Pros:
Great display
Comfortable, compact size
Plenty of RAM and storage
Headphone jack
Smooth, snappy software
Still images nearly indistinguishable from Pixel 4XL, astrophotography
Cons:
Not much of an upgrade over Pixel 3a and Pixel 5 launch is imminent
Back in January, Google was testing biometric authentication support for its first-party Autofill service. Now, this feature appears to be rolling out to Google Autofill via a recent update to Google Play Services.
The new feature means that users can require successful biometric authentication before information can be filled into a form. Before, Google’s Autofill service had no additional safeguards on top of the user’s lockscreen, making it less secure than most third-party password managers.
According to Android Police, the feature appears to have become widely available for users on Google Play Services v20.33.13, but it’s also available for some on version v20.26.14. It appears this is rolling out via a server-side update, so it’s just a matter of waiting for a flag to be flipped on your device.
The new feature can be found by heading to Settings > Google > Autofill > Autofill with Google. You’ll see a new menu called Autofill Security, where you can toggle biometrics. Once toggled, users can use any biometric authentication hardware that’s supported by the BiometricPrompt API, which includes fingerprint scanners, iris scanners, or secure facial recognition hardware like on the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL. Of course, you’ll also need to turn on the Autofill with Google service in Settings > System > Languages & input > Autofill service.
Adding biometric authentication not only makes logging in more secure, but it also makes it more convenient and accessible to users.
The Google Pixel 4 duo was not Google’s best-kept secret. We saw pictures of the phone weeks before the event, and we even learned about Face unlock while Google teased the Motion Sense features ahead of its event. The Google Pixel 4 XL represents everything that Google has learned in the first four iterations of the Google Pixel, including a mid-cycle and mid-range Pixel 3a which was very well received.
The Pixel 4 XL improves the camera even further, adding a new Astrophotography shooting mode and a viewfinder that will preview the HDR+ effect before you shoot the picture. There’s also a new telephoto camera that, when combined with Super Res Zoom, can capture images from far away.
Google first introduced the fingerprint scanner on its final generation of Nexus devices, the 6P and 5X. With the Pixel 4 and 4 XL, Google is replacing its “Pixel Imprint” with Face unlock. It works similarly to Apple’s Face unlock and is a whole new concept for Google-branded devices.
Google Pixel 4 XL Specs
Body: Texture-coated aluminum frame with very soft-touch Gorilla Glass 5 backside
Misc: Face unlock; radar-based Motion Sense; dual stereo loudspeakers;
Google also added a unique radar-based motion-sensing technology aptly called ‘Motion Sense.’ It detects when the user makes wave gestures over the phone, and it can wake the display as the user reaches for it. It can also be used to switch songs with supported apps.
Then there’s the design, which Google has slowly molded over the years. We’re glad to see there’s no longer a ‘bathtub’ notch (as it was once dubbed) from the Pixel 3 XL. Instead, there’s a sizable forehead that houses all the Face unlock and Motion Sense hardware without breaking the display’s continuity.
The dual-tone textured window is no longer a thing, as the softened glass texture now covers the whole backside of the phone. This soft-touch glass is on the ‘Clearly White’ and ‘Oh So Orange’ models and is both comfortable and tasteful. The Just Black is the only model that comes in regular shiny glass.
With Android 10, Google adds more granular control over Notifications and App access to permissions – in today’s climate where privacy is constantly thrown in the spotlight, these are welcome features. We also get gesture controls done better, and Google Assistant is more responsive than ever.
The Pixel 4 and 4 XL both have the same starting price and base storage as the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, has Google done enough to justify keeping the same retail pricing on the new Pixels? And the more important question: is it worth upgrading if you have an older Pixel? Let’s unbox the phone and find out.
The new Pixel 4 XL comes in minimally labeled packaging. A colorfully designed “P4” adorns the front of the box. Although we received the Pixel 4 in the standard retail packaging, some of the first ones to pre-order the phone had them delivered in Google-fied cereal boxes.
After lifting the lid on the box, the phone is presented face down with its plastic wrapper. Under the phone is a pack of documents, which contained a round SIM tool. At the bottom of the box is a USB-C Power Delivery adapter (up to 18W), USB-C cable, and USB-C to USB-A adapter – useful for transferring data from an old device.
The Pixel 4 comes with neither earbuds nor a USB-C to 3.5mm headphone adapter. We wonder why Google decided to introduce bundled earbuds with the Pixel 3, only to scrap them this year. We’d maybe understand if Google did it so customers would buy the new Pixel Buds, but they aren’t even coming until next year. Now we’re led to believe Google stopped including these Pixel earbuds to save money.
Now that we’ve seen what’s inside (and what’s missing), let’s take a closer look at the Pixel 4 XL‘s unique design.
Design
Throughout its lifetime, the Pixel hasn’t exactly led design trends, but it did manage to put the world’s largest notch on the Google Pixel 3 XL last year. Even with the 4 XL, Google isn’t pushing any limits or trying to maximize the screen-to-body ratio. The Pixel 4 XL is probably what many wish the Pixel 3 XL looked like, without the fat notch.
Imagine if Google took the Pixel 3 XL’s display and shifted it lower, then filled in the notch with more pixels. That’s what the Pixel 4 XL feels like, and the resulting design is still asymmetrical and not as pleasing to look at as other competitors from Samsung and even OnePlus.
The Pixel 4 XL has a large upper bezel to accommodate for a bunch of new hardware, including new Radar-based motion sensors and 3d facial recognition hardware in addition to a selfie camera. More on that in the User Interface section. Otherwise, this is undoubtedly a large bezel for a 2019 flagship, so the Motion Sense tradeoff needs to be worth this asymmetrical design choice.
Google has also moved the lower front-facing speaker back to the bottom – in the same style as the original Pixel XL – and this resulted in a much smaller (but still there) lower bezel.
The frame that wraps around the 4 XL is coated in a fine-grit soft-touch texture. Our Clearly White review unit has a black frame and white rear Gorilla Glass 5 panel. The Oh So Orange gets the same powder glass and soft-touch frame, but the Just Black model has regular shiny glass on the back. Our unit has an orange accented power key.
The volume and power keys are on the right side of the handset while the SIM tray lives opposite the power key. There’s a single mic hole at the top edge, and at the bottom is a USB-C port and dual audio ports. The left port is a microphone, and the right one is a loudspeaker. There is no headphone jack on either Pixel 4 model.
Although it doesn’t feel like glass, the rear panel of the phone feels like a sheet of polished metal if you were to sprinkle some fine powder over it. The “G” logo at the bottom is the only thing left of the original appearance of the glass. The G was screened out of the glass-softening process, and the effect is almost three-dimensional.
Since the softened glass is porous, it’s less prone to showing fingerprints and looking greasy, but fingerprints are still collecting on the glass. This surface makes it harder to see smudges. The same goes for the frame, but the camera square is still regular glass, so expect to wipe it down occasionally.
The Pixel 3 had a glass “window” that was kept from the original Pixel’s design, but with the Pixel 4, Google went ahead and softened the entire glass panel. The Pixel design is evolving, but we’d say it still has some refining to do on the front.
This is the first time that Google adds a second main camera to any Nexus or Pixel phone, and it chose to go with a square island to house them. Google once claimed it didn’t need more than one camera to take portrait photos, and Super Res Zoom made up for the lack of a telephoto camera. Things have changed this year, and we’ll let you know if the telephoto camera is indeed an improvement.
Many will compare the Pixel 4 XL‘s dual cameras to the iPhone’s stove-top camera square, but the Pixel’s is blacked out. Its placement is coincidentally too similar. The square does protrude a bit from the body, but its location won’t rock the phone on a table very much.
The Pixel 4 XL measures 160.4 x 75.1 x 8.2 mm and weighs 193g. This makes the phone only barely taller and heavier than its predecessor. The new display is also slightly taller due to the 19:9 aspect ratio (the 3 XL has 18.5:9). Otherwise, the 4 XL maintains the same IP68 water resistance rating as the 3 XL.
Display
While other manufacturers keep pushing screen sizes bigger and bigger, Google kept the larger Pixel 4 XL at 6.3-inches. This is the same size as the 3 XL, only the 4 XL‘s slightly taller 19:9 aspect ratio makes it a teeny bit narrower. With more competitors using higher-refresh-rate displays, Google decided to join in and go with 90Hz displays on both sizes of the Pixel 4.
The 90Hz Smooth Display isn’t at all necessary, but it improves the fluidness and amplifies the fluidness of the phone’s operation when scrolling or swiping through feeds. The animations are also displayed at higher frame rates. Otherwise, supported games will be able to push past 60fps for a more immersive experience.
The Pixel 4 XL has a 6.3-inch OLED display, and we’re happy that the notch is gone, keeping continuity with the screen’s content and simplifying the UI. If you want the sharpest image, the 4 XL gets about 537ppi with its QHD+ 1440 x 3040 px resolution. A layer of Gorilla Glass 5 protects the screen and like the Pixel 3 XL, the 4 XL is rated for HDR playback of 1440p video @ 60fps.
New to the Pixel 4 is a new “Ambient EQ” feature that tunes the display’s colors to your surroundings. The display will adjust its color balance a touch warmer if you’re hanging out around a warmly lit restaurant, for example. It’s intended to tune images to look more natural based on the surrounding light, and a good idea considering the Pixel’s camera always leaned towards cooler tones.
The feature is enabled by default, and it’s one of those comfort features that you don’t have to think about. This isn’t entirely new to the smartphone space, though. Apple has used True Tone on its phones since the iPhone 8.
In our brightness tests, the 4 XL peaked at 436 nits with no additional brightness boost. Those raw numbers aren’t exactly class-leading, but the phone is still easily visible in direct sunlight. It isn’t too much brighter than the Pixel 3 XL and barely reached the Pixel 3a XL’s 451 nits. You can see that other flagships from Samsung and Apple are reaching past 700 nits.
Display test
100% brightness
Black, cd/m2
White, cd/m2
Contrast ratio
Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
0
820
∞
Samsung Galaxy S10e (Max Auto)
0
803
∞
Samsung Galaxy Note10+ (Max Auto)
0
794
∞
Samsung Galaxy S10+ (Max Auto)
0
793
∞
Huawei Mate 30 Pro (Max Auto)
0.028
683
24393
Apple iPhone 11
0.428
644
1505
Asus ROG Phone II (Max Auto)
0
626
∞
OnePlus 7T Pro (Max Auto)
0
596
∞
Asus ROG Phone II
0
479
∞
Huawei Mate 30 Pro
0
464
∞
Google Pixel 3a XL
0
451
∞
Google Pixel 4 XL
0
436
∞
OnePlus 7T Pro
0
429
∞
Google Pixel 3
0
426
∞
Samsung Galaxy S10e
0
389
∞
Samsung Galaxy S10+
0
385
∞
Samsung Galaxy Note10+
0
381
∞
The Adaptive profile is set as the default, and it isn’t overbearingly saturated. Colors are pleasant and vibrant, but not too punchy. In this profile, we saw an average deltaE of 3.5 with a maximum of 7 for greens. Whites are well within 2 deltaE, so they are indistinguishable to the naked eye.
Natural is the most color-accurate profile with an average deltaE of 1.9 and a maximum of 3.1. Meanwhile, the Boosted profile falls somewhere between the Natural and Adaptive profiles and has an average deltaE of 2.8. Whites are consistent across all color profiles with only the colors changing in tones and intensity.
Unlike other OEMs, Google keeps color options very simple. There is no individual color tuning or possibility for customized color calibration.
The 90Hz Smooth Display feature is a variable setting. This means that the software will switch 90Hz off wherever it doesn’t need it. Currently, it reverts from 90Hz when the phone is in battery saver mode or when watching a video.
Shortly after the phone’s release date, it was discovered that the 90Hz refresh rate only ever kicked in when the phone’s display was above 75%. Following these reports, Google stated it would update the Pixel 4 “in the coming weeks that include enabling 90Hz in more brightness conditions”.
The reason for doing this, as discovered via source code notes, is to prevent users from seeing flicker that can occur at lower brightness when the display is switching to and from its 90Hz mode. The flicker is attributed to a slight difference in color calibrations between refresh rates since the Pixel’s display doesn’t support a true dynamic refresh rate.
Google intended to fix this via a software update, but it’s really something they should have refined before launching the darn thing.
Luckily, there’s an option to force the display to run at 90Hz at all times, but its buried in the lengthy list of developer options. The setting does warn that battery life may decrease when forcing 90Hz so expect to need a charger an hour or two earlier than you normally would.
Finally, Google added a “Screen attention” option to on stock Android for the first time. This isn’t a new concept – Samsung has had this kind of feature since the Galaxy S4 and other manufacturers have it on their phoens too but it’s good that it’s now part of Android.
Battery life
Flagship devices have been getting much better at battery consumption in the most recent years. For some reason, Google tends to take a more conservative approach with its own line of smartphones. The Pixel 4 XL comes with a 3,700 mAh battery, which is admittedly a bump in battery size from 3,450 on the Pixel 3 XL but the 4 XL has the same size battery as the much cheaper Pixel 3a XL.
As far as battery endurance goes, the phone didn’t perform as well as we’d hoped. The Pixel 4 XL managed a score of 73h of endurance which quite meh!, especially coming in a year where most manufacturers are focusing a lot on providing longer battery life.
The phone yielded a call endurance of 23:32h, which is about the same as the 3a XL did with the same size battery. Meanwhile, the browsing and video playback scores were 10:49h and 11:29h, respectively.
The score below shows the Pixel 4 XL‘s score with the 90Hz Smooth display enabled. When we disabled the 90Hz feature, we saw the Pixel 4 XL score a couple of hours higher on the web browsing test, but it may not translate to a significant difference in battery life.
Although disabling both the 90Hz Smooth display and Motion sense may let you squeeze a little more juice out of the Pixel 4 XL, it defeats the purpose of having the technology in the first place. With how far we’ve come in optimization and battery technology, Google knew exactly what it was doing by using a 3,700 mAh battery here – and that’s why we’re a little salty.
If its any consolation, there’s more than one way to recharge the battery. With the included 18W USB-C Power Delivery adapter, the Pixel 4 XL recharged to 44% in 30 minutes, reaching 77% after an hour and it finally reached a full charge at about an hour and 20 minutes. Although competitors can achieve much better charging speeds, they require proprietary chargers to work.
The Pixel 4 XL supports Qi Wireless charging, but Google quietly updated its capacity to 11W. With the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, 10W charging was only achievable with Google’s own $80 Pixel Stand charger, and defaulted to 5W when used with a regular Qi charger.
Loudspeaker
Stereo speakers are the standard with the Google Pixel. With Pixel 4, the loudspeaker hardware has shifted around a bit. Where the Pixel 2 and 3 both had dual front-facing loudspeakers, the Pixel 4 has traded them in for a setup like the Pixel 3a’s. The lower front-facing speaker has been replaced with a downward-firing speaker.
Speakerphone test
Voice, dB
Pink noise/ Music, dB
Ringing phone, dB
Overall score
vivo NEX 3 5G
70.3
73.5
72.6
Good
Apple iPhone 11
70.8
72.3
76.0
Very Good
Apple iPhone 11 Pro
71.2
73.8
80.7
Very Good
Samsung Galaxy Note10+
68.4
73.7
86.3
Excellent
Samsung Galaxy Note10
70.1
72.8
85.7
Excellent
Google Pixel 3
77.5
71.7
81.1
Excellent
Samsung Galaxy S10+
74.4
74.2
83.6
Excellent
Huawei Mate 30 Pro
78.4
74.4
79.9
Excellent
Asus Zenfone 6
77.0
75.9
81.2
Excellent
Samsung Galaxy S10
82.2
74.9
85.5
Excellent
Google Pixel 4 XL
80.1
78.1
88.1
Excellent
Google Pixel 3a XL
79.3
77.1
91.1
Excellent
OnePlus 7T Pro
90.4
75.3
82.4
Excellent
OnePlus 7T
79.8
77.4
91.6
Excellent
The speakers are quite loud and yielded excellent loudness across the board. In fullness, however, we preferred the sound of the OnePlus 7T’s dual speakers. The Pixel 4 XL can sound tinny by comparison, after all, both the upper and lower speakers have smaller ports than previous generations.
Audio quality
The Google Pixel 4 XL did excellently in the active external amplifier part of our test. It delivered the expected perfect accuracy at very high volume levels.
Headphones did cause a rather big spike in stereo crosstalk and caused a tiny amount of intermodulation distortion. The other readings were barely affected though and loudness remained high, so it’s a solid performance overall. Particularly, if you compare it to the Pixel 3, which was one of the poorest phones we’ve tested.
Test
Frequency response
Noise level
Dynamic range
THD
IMD + Noise
Stereo crosstalk
Google Pixel 4 XL
+0.02, -0.19
-93.9
93.9
0.0018
0.0084
-94.1
Google Pixel 4 XL (headphones)
+0.17, -0.12
-94.0
94.0
0.0042
0.104
-53.1
Google Pixel 3
+0.02, -0.12
-71.7
83.2
0.0031
0.032
-70.1
Google Pixel 3 (headphones)
+0.15, -0.15
-68.4
80.2
0.0066
0.193
-61.1
OnePlus 7T Pro
+0.03, -0.01
-93.7
93.6
0.0010
0.0073
-91.0
OnePlus 7T Pro (headphones)
+0.13, -0.03
-93.1
92.9
0.0018
0.087
-75.9
Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
+0.05, -0.16
-94.3
93.9
0.0016
0.016
-81.5
Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max (headphones)
+0.14, -0.04
-94.4
94.0
0.0010
0.018
-76.8
Samsung Galaxy Note10+
+0.03, -0.06
-94.0
94.0
0.0011
0.012
-95.1
Samsung Galaxy Note10+ (headphones)
+0.03, -0.06
-93.9
93.9
0.0027
0.023
-69.9
Sony Xperia 1
+0.02, -0.01
-93.6
93.5
0.0010
0.007
-85.2
Sony Xperia 1 (headphones)
+0.31, -0.26
-92.1
91.9
0.0060
0.302
-55.1
Android 10 by the book
We have already reviewed a handful of Android smartphones that came with Android 10 out of the box. With the Pixel 4 XL, we’re now able to see how Google envisions the presentation and execution of its own operating system.
Major changes to the interface include a new Face unlock system, overhauled gesture navigation, and a new appearance for Google Assistant. At the event, Google also demonstrated that it could process vocal queries much quicker as it can store voice-to-speech transcription locally on the device in a much smaller database.
When first starting it up, you are prompted to register your face for security. At this point, you might realize there is no longer a fingerprint scanner, and this is because Google replaced Pixel Imprint in favor of the more generically named” Face unlock.”
This was a significant change back when Apple dumped Touch ID for Face ID, and it’s a significant change for Google now. Both use IR dot projectors and an IR camera to create and detect a depth map of the user’s face.
In practice, Face unlocking works accurately and quickly. With the Motion Sense feature, it wakes the phone and triggers face detection while reaching for your phone so you can get in quickly. Just like any other phone with face unlock, it’s more difficult to unlock while it’s laying on a table. On the upside, Face unlock works from any angle, even upside down.
Soon after setting up and using Face unlock on the Pixel 4 XL, we noticed it would authenticate and unlock even with our eyes closed. This is a security gap that Google must have expected as its own support page suggested using a passcode would be more secure. Google has since confirmed it will patch this bug “in the coming weeks,” but that doesn’t seem soon enough.
Another hurdle with Face unlock is support from banking institutions. It took years before fingerprint authentication could be used with baking and payment apps, among others. Currently, Google Pay works with Face authentication, but banking apps that once supported fingerprint to log in need to be updated to support Face unlock. Right now, only a handful of apps support Face unlock, but they are mostly password management apps.
After setting up Face unlock, the setup will quickly teach you how to use Android 10’s new gesture controls. Google’s 2-button nav gestures are gone (and we’re glad), and the nav bar has been replaced with a slimmer home bar, much like a new iPhone. You can summon Google Assistant by giving the Pixel a squeeze.
Swiping up will go Home, swiping in from the edge will go Back, and swiping up from either corner will open Google Assistant. Multitasking is done by swiping up and holding, but you can easily switch between apps by swiping horizontally on the home bar.
Since there’s no longer a fingerprint scanner to pull down the notification shade, you can now swipe down from any part of any home screen will pull the notification shade down, so there’s no longer a need to reach up to the top edge.
The homescreens are what we’ve come to expect from a Pixel. Swiping up gets you to the app drawer with the top-most row dedicated to the five frequently used apps.
Apart from wallpapers, the Pixel launcher now allows for more customization in the settings. The Style tab in the wallpapers menu lets you change the shape and color scheme of both app and quick setting icons. You can also set a system-wide accent color and font.
There is a new category of live wallpapers labeled “Come Alive,” and they all subtly respond to hand gestures over the Motion Sense detector. There’s even a Pokemon wallpaper designed to promote Nintendo’s Pokemon Sword and Shield game titles.
When Project Soli was first announced back in 2015, it was presented as a breakthrough in motion-sensing technology with the ability to detect and interpret precise hand motions like sliding a finger and thumb to scroll through settings and then tapping the fingers together to select.
Motion Sense is Google’s first implementation of Project Soli in a major consumer product and the result feels both half-baked and gimmicky.
There are only a handful of useful things you can do with Motion Sense. Several music apps are supported to skip back and forward between tracks, even when music is playing in the background or if the display is turned off. You can also snooze alarms or silence timers and incoming calls by waving over the screen. That’s about it for useful features and nothing like the initial promo video for Project Soli.
Motion sense can detect when you’re reaching for the phone and fire up the Face unlock hardware to swiftly detect the user’s face and unlock the phone. We noticed it often triggers when its placed on a computer desk, in proximity to someone actively working with a mouse and keyboard. If you decide to turn this feature off (you might save some battery by doing so), you can still double-tap the display to quickly glance at the time and notifications, and you can still ‘lift to wake’ it.
By default, you’ll skip seeing the lockscreen entirely if you enable Face unlock, but there is an option to disable that so you can glance at your notifications and manually swipe in.
The Always On Display feature is enabled by default. This screen will display icons for missed notifications, a small weather widget, the time, battery percentage left, and a couple of lines are dedicated to contextual information such as anticipated traffic or upcoming calendar events.
With Android 10, both permissions and notifications offer finer and more transparent control. Starting with Notifications, the pull-down shade’s order is priority-based. For example, if you receive notifications from a messaging app, they are a high priority, and a little bell icon appears. Otherwise, when you get notifications from less important apps like games or persistent app notifications, they’ll show up as “Silent notifications” and take up less space.
Android 10 now shows you an average of the daily and weekly number of times an app triggers notifications in a dedicated Notifications menu. This gives users the information needed to decide which apps are inundating them with useless pings and prioritize more important notifications.
Android 10 brings the much-hyped “Dark theme,” and it can be accessed from the Display settings. It darkens all menus, pop-up windows, Google Assistant, and even the Google Search Bar. Some apps will also automatically switch to their respective dark scheme, as long as the app is supports following the system-wide setting.
There are two new applications debuting on the Pixel 4 XL. The first one is a new application that organizes the emergency features of the new Pixels. The app lets you organize and fill out your medical information and assign emergency contacts in an emergency.
Finally, thanks to Google’s new transcription app, it enabled a new voice recorder app from Google that can transcribe voice notes in real-time, and it doesn’t require an internet connection. This app debuts on the Pixel 4 and 4 XL, and it enables a new way to keep track of voice recordings.
The app can transcribe your voice notes as you record them, making it much easier to search through recorded meetings or lectures.
Synthetic Benchmarks
Google isn’t technically on the cutting edge of technology with the Pixel 4 duo. Both the Pixel 4 and 4 XL are running the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset, and they only come with 6GB of RAM. Google missed out on integrating the latest Snapdragon 855+ chipset – which is technically the same silicon, but with slightly overclocked CPU and GPU. This is a similar situation to Google’s decision to use an underclocked Snapdragon 845 on Pixel 3. If OnePlus can develop and launch a refreshed 7T with the 855+ at a super competitive price point, why can’t Google?
The Snapdragon 855 used in the Pixel 4’s is built on the 7nm process and features an octa-core CPU. One quad-core low-power Kryo 485 cluster is clocked at 1.78 GHz. The second cluster has three Kryo cores clocked at 2.42 GHz and one high-power one at 2.84 GHz.
Even if not the latest and greatest, the 855 is no slouch. It’s difficult to notice a difference between the Snapdragon 855 and 855+.
On the upside, Google has finally updated the amount of RAM to 6GB. One complaint we had with the Pixel 3 was that apps were getting knocked out of the system memory too early. It’s nice to finally get some extra RAM, but 6GB isn’t even competitive anymore with higher-end Chinese phones coming with 8GB by standard and upwards of 12GB when maxed out.
Anyway, let’s get into these numbers.
Single core performance is shy of other devices running the same processor. It finds itself in its own level below the other Snapdragon 855 and 855+ devices while the Kirin 990, Exynos 9825, and Apple A13 all exceed in single-core scores.
Although the Snapdragon 855 has already been succeeded by the 855+, the performance difference between the two is almost negligible. The 855 on the Pixel 4 XL, however, is not the best performer among other OEMs. We’ve witnessed the same thing last year with the Pixel 3 and the same with Pixel 2 before that. It seems that Google is purposefully limiting the max performance of the CPUs they use.
As a result, if you’re looking for the very best device to play lots of games on, the Pixel 4 XL may not be for you. There are plenty of other devices (mostly made by Chinese OEMs) that offer a bunch of game-specific features like a gaming mode or software optimizer for getting the very best performance out of games. The Pixel 4XL is also limited to a single configuration of 6 GB RAM, so you’re better off with the much cheaper OnePlus for gaming.
One positive is the phone doesn’t warm up under moderate use. Even when playing games, the Pixel 4 XL only may get comfortably warm under high usage.
Double the HDR+
The Pixel was one of the only smartphone brands that continued to equip its phones with a single camera and Google claimed it only needed one camera to take great photos and portraits. The passing of time always tends to make things change, especially in the tech industry, because this year, Google added a second camera to the mix.
Alongside an optically stabilized 12.2MP main camera with large 1.4-micron pixels and f/1.7 aperture is a 16MP telephoto camera (also stabilized) with 1.0-micron pixels and an f/2.4 aperture lens, which allows the Pixel 4 XL to shoot 2X zoom photos. Google’s Super Res Zoom allows it to go comfortably beyond that zoom level too. Also both cameras benefit from Google’s HDR+ algorithms for improving image quality.
The industry has already moved past dual cameras and are already established with triple cameras, including the latest iPhone 11 Pro. So Google’s decision to go with a telephoto camera instead of an ultra-wide – which many OEMs have been adding to the mix – raised many eyebrows. This depends on personal preference and the kinds of environments people tend to shoot, but Google believes that the average consumer is more likely to take zoomed photos over ultra-widened snapshots. We are not going to take a side here in favor of one type of camera or the other, but we’d just say that many manufacturers are happy to provide all three without the need for compromise.
Google has introduced a few new features on the Pixel’s camera. The first is Live HDR+, which should show you what your final image was going to look like in the viewfinder after it processes it. Before that, especially in more demanding situations, the live viewfinder was only really used to compose your shots, then you’d only see the resulting HDR+ photo in the camera roll. We’re glad to see this change implemented as it makes a huge difference in the picture taking process.
Another new feature is dual exposure controls – baked right into the camera UI.
What’s more, now you can manually adjust the shadows and highlights as you are composing a shot, useful if you want to get a more artistic photo like the silhouette of a person against a bright background. Since Google doesn’t offer fully manual controls on the Pixel, this is a welcome feature. The feature combines well with Live HDR+ so you see the photo’s exposure before you hit capture.
Apart from improvements in Night Sight and portrait mode – thanks to the second camera, “learning-based automatic white balance” is available in all shooting modes where it was previously only used in Night Sight.
The camera interface is mostly unchanged from the Pixel 3. You can swipe between shooting modes and the most important ones are easily accessible: Night Sight, Portrait, Camera, Video, and a More tab containing Panorama, Photo Sphere, Slow Motion, Time Lapse, Playground, and Lens.
To make the viewfinder less cluttered, Google put the flash, timer, and Motion settings in a drawer, opposite the shutter button. It’s an extra step to reach the Flash settings, but Google did mention at its presentation that it hopes you never need to use the Flash. Still, the drawer makes it easier to focus on the viewfinder.
Even with the drawer open, you can still hit the shutter key, so you don’t miss the shot. Hitting the shutter does hide the drawer so you can keep snapping away.
Image quality
Image quality on the Pixel 4 is slightly improved over the Pixel 3. Google has cleaned up the noisy remnants we used to often see on the Pixel 3. Exposure is excellent and well-balanced thanks to HDR+. Colors are almost always true-to-life and white balance leans to cool – which gives the photos their signature Google Pixel look.
Where colors aren’t true to life is mostly when the camera is trying to compensate for strong highlights. For instance, the photo of the tree barrier in front of the rope fence is a perfect example. This was a very demanding shot, as the sun was just peeking behind the hotel building and during golden hour. The photo was exposed well, but colors were washed out as a result. You can also see lots of noise where there was an attempt to capture more details.
Capturing details in the high-contrast areas of a scene is where the Pixel excels, but if you take away the high-contrast, like if you try to shoot photos in the shade, you’ll start to see some noise.
Comparing some of the shots to the OnePlus 7T, we surprisingly preferred some of the shots it took over the Pixel. Although the Pixel managed to grab more details, OnePlus did a really good job with HDR mode (which kicks in automatically on the 7T) and here, we thought the Pixel’s colors were a little dull by comparison. This is shaping up to be a very interesting comparison.
2X telephoto
Next up is the telephoto camera, which is new on the Pixel 4 XL. We expected samples to look a little different since the cameras’ apertures don’t match. Although the telephoto camera has a 16MP sensor, it outputs images in 12.2MP, just like the main camera.
The truth is, photos shot with the telephoto are indistinguishable from the main camera, at least at first glance. Pixel peeping will reveal slightly more noise and, naturally, a slight loss of detail. The only time you might notice a more significant difference is in lower light conditions. After all, it does have a dimmer aperture.
The telephoto’s camera performance is strong, and especially so when comparing it back to the OnePlus 7T.
In stark contrast to the shots from the main camera, the OnePlus 7T’s telephoto shots are nowhere near as nice in detail and colors. Fine details are mostly, if not completely, lost when switching to the telephoto camera.
Super Res Zoom was Google’s solution to the Pixel 3’s lack of a second telephoto camera, so its nice that Google included the feature on the telephoto camera as well so you can shoot photos from even further away.
Once you get past 2X zoom on the telephoto, 4X images are decent and there isn’t even too much noise. There is however, a good amount of pixelation happening as a result of the moving waters of the Atlantic. Even from the distance, we can still make out the container ship that’s anchored further out.
We’ve seen some incredible zoom shots from Chinese makers like Huawei with the P30 Pro and Oppo with the Reno 10X Zoom, so if you’re someone who wants to shoot birds or subjects from afar, we’d nudge you away from the Pixel.
Portrait
Moving on, let’s look at some portrait photos. Thanks to the second telephoto camera, Google can capture more depth information to synthesize a bokeh effect that more closely resembles that of a DSLR.
Portrait photos are among the best we’ve seen from a smartphone. The subject line is near-perfect and the resulting bokeh, especially in the second shot in front of the green hedges, is exactly how we’d expect a DSLR camera to blur an image. Whatever Google did, we’re really impressed with the result.
Night Sight
Night Sight was first introduced last year with the Google Pixel 3 and 3 XL. Before that, the Pixel was regarded as one of the best cameras in low light, but in the span of the last two or three years, most OEMs now have some form of a long-exposure shooting mode that stacks images without needing a tripod.
We tested Night Sight in very demanding lighting situations. Let’s see how the Pixel 4 does with low light images and then compare them to the same scene with the Night Sight mode enabled.
Naturally, low-lit photos are noisy and lack details while some can’t even focus properly. The photos look just fine overall but quality really sinks when you zoom into the pictures.
With Night Sight, images are instantly better and more usable. They have more detail, albeit still with a bit of noise due to the processing. Although Google mentioned that learning-based AWB (automatic white balance) is present in all shooting modes, we didn’t find white balance to be consistent between the regular shooting mode and Night Sight.
Of course, some of these images are extreme lighting situations like the beach, which was solely lit by the dim lights of the boardwalk and nearby buildings. Let’s compare these night photos to the Nightscape ones shot with the OnePlus 7T.
Both the 7T and Pixel 4 XL were able to improve the night scene by using their respective dedicated low-light modes. Both had similar tonal reproduction and were quite similar in the boosting of shadows and highlights. However, we found the OnePlus 7T to produce sharper images.
We prefer the 7T’s Nightscape shot of the purply lit hotel with the swimming pool. Details are better preserved on the 7T and the image has applied better sharpening. Of course, too much sharpening can sometimes be a bad thing – you’ll notice excess noise if you pixel peep at the top areas of the hotel building in the 7T’s Nightscape shot.
Resulting photos aren’t very good, and that’s likely due to the f/2.4 aperture. Although we expected the camera wouldn’t take as good of Night Sight photos, at least the Pixel 4 XL gives you the option, Nightscape photos with the 7T’s telephoto camera is not possible, and it’s probably for the best.
Astrophotography mode
A new feature is an Astrophotography mode. Since there is no fully manual operation of the camera, it was previously not possible to capture long-exposure shots with 20-second exposure. Now, thanks to the magic of image stacking and software, Astrophotography can capture starry skyscapes.
To enter the mode, all you need to do is open Night Sight and then stabilize the Pixel 4 XL against something or put it on a tripod. Once stable, you’ll see an Astrophotography label on the viewfinder, and then all you need to do is hit the shutter key. Then the camera decides how long it should capture on its own, based on the amount of light available. It takes anywhere between one to four minutes to capture something.
We do admit the images are impressive, and the mere fact that a smartphone captured them is awesome. These images are mostly processed by Google’s algorithms, so you may see some light noise as a result, but nothing that distracts at all.
Whatever you manage to capture in the scene also has a lot of detail if its exposed enough. If you inspec the last shot closely, you can see the texture of the paint on the pillar of the balcony. Of course, this one did take almost four minutes to capture.
While this is a cool feature, not everyone will be able to use it. You’ll have to travel outside of brightly lit cities and find a dark sky to shoot. While its not a mode that people will use frequently, it’s certainly a cool niche feature.
8MP Selfie camera
The front-facing camera no longer has the same dual-setup like on the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, but the 8MP selfie camera is paired with a 3D ToF sensor to keep up with portrait depth with the front camera.
To switch between the front and rear cameras on the Pixel, you can make a double-twist gesture right from the viewfinder.
Although the second selfie camera is gone, the Pixel 4 XL has a wide field-of-view than some other flagships. At a 35mm equivalent length of 22mm (90° field of view), which sits somewhere between the 19mm ultra-wide and 28mm lenses on each of the Pixel 3’s dual selfie cameras.
Selfies have well-balanced exposures both in the foreground and way in the background. Skin tones are well reproduced, and you can spot details in the shadows. Let’s look at portrait selfies now.
We’re not as content with these selfie portraits. In the first image, there’s a strange halo around the subject line, although we can give it a pass since the sun is directly behind our reviewer Ricky. Otherwise, the synthesized bokeh line is not as well refined as the main camera’s was.
There’s a significant difference in the amount of details and softness from the 7T. Pixels have always been more about capturing details (sometimes too many details) in the face while most other OEMs would prefer to soften features – this makes for a more flattering image. Between these samples, we prefer the selfie portraits from the 7T.
Most selfie cameras don’t play well in lower light, but the Pixel 4 XL‘s is surprisingly good at capturing selfies and exposing everything else properly. Though the background (and sometimes foreground) can appear noisy at times, its nothing compared to taking a selfie that you can’t use because its too dark to see anything.
Video
Although much attention was given to the fact that the Pixel 4 XL cannot record in 4K @ 60fps, we can’t say many of us at the office record 60fps video at all, much less 60fps in 4K. With that out of the way, the Pixel 4 XL can still record 4K video at 30fps, and 1080p video in both 30 fps and 60 fps. You can also capture any of the modes mentioned with the telephoto camera.
1080p videos pack great detail and minimal noise. Exposures and colors are spot on. You may notice some fuzziness in the foliage, but that’s because these samples were all shot handheld. On that note, the Pixel 4 XL‘s stabilization is quite good.
Details in 60 fps video are about as good at their 30fps counterparts. In the areas of foliage, you can see a bit more noise because of the faster frame rate. Otherwise, colors, dynamic range, and exposure are consistent with standard 30fps video.
We’ve seen many smartphone cameras have issues with exposure metering when shooting in 60 fps, but there was no such hiccup with the Pixel 4 XL.
4K video packs pleasant details and colors. Although the scene is lit by a setting sun, we are happy with the way the scene was exposed. We can still see what’s in the shadows of the scene while we also get the warmth of the sun shining on the palm trees. You can see slight fluctuation of noise in the grass, but again, that’s due to the handheld nature of the video.
The competition
The Pixel 4 XL starts at $899 in the US. At this level, it is $100 below the iPhone 11 Pro and $200 more than the entry-level iPhone 11. All these phones start at 64GB of base storage and are non-expandable. This year, we have seen killer camera performance from the new iPhones. Both cameras are great and each one performs better than the other in key areas.
This year, all iPhones have excellent battery life, but we can’t say the same about the new Pixels. While Google was busy adding a telephoto camera to its lineup, Apple added an ultra-wide-angle camera to each new iPhone this year. If you’re looking for a polished software experience with an excellently balanced camera setup, great battery, and software, look no further than this year’s iPhones.
Earlier this year, Google received much praise for the Pixel 3a duo. It offered a smooth software experience along with power-efficient hardware and excellent battery endurance. If you’re after a Pixel that can keep up with you all day and you are not necessarily in need of extra horsepower for games, and an exceptionally great camera for the price, the Pixel 3a XL is the perfect budget alternative.
If you’re looking something with many more features and customization, take a look at the Samsung Galaxy Note10 and Note10+. Samsung’s flagship duo is packed with camera features, new shooting modes, an S Pen, and attractive-looking hardware. The Google Pixel can seem overpriced by comparison.
If you’re looking for better value, perhaps a Samsung Galaxy S10+ could be of interest. It has the same size display, but Samsung’s displays are second to none with excellent image, comfortable visibility in direct sunlight, and longer battery life.
Given the 90Hz display feature on the Google Pixel, it will inevitably be compared to the OnePlus 7T and 7T Pro. All phones have 90Hz screens, but the smoothness in display and hardware is seemingly more apparent on OnePlus devices. It’s a little ironic that an OEM can create a better UI for Android than Google itself.
OnePlus’ cameras have come a long way, and they have shown great potential and can probably match the Pixel in daylight photography. Otherwise, Google’s cameras are well-executed with an excellent image quality, but what’s missing is a well-executed 90Hz display.
The verdict
The Pixel 4 duo is off to a rocky start. Reports of the company’s shortcomings have been making headlines in tech news. The 90Hz display doesn’t always render at 90fps while Google’s new Face unlock works with the user’s eyes closed when it shouldn’t. These features have one thing in common – they are going to be addressed in a future update.
However, these are things that should have been addressed before launching the phone in the first place. Motion Sense is also a dud, it feels unfinished, and it’s a shame that Google believed that this would be worth hyping up in its current state. As much as Google upsold the Motion Sense feature for “getting stuff done”, we don’t believe they add up to the value of the phone.
Face unlocking, although quick, reliable, and arguably more convenient than a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, is no longer supported by the same apps that supported Pixel Imprint. We don’t believe a new technology is worth temporarily inconveniencing the customer for the sake of having said technology.
The Google Pixel is supposed to be Google’s own interpretation of Android. Given the state of incohesive features, poor battery life, and half-baked Motion Sense, perhaps this is how Google feels about its own platform: It needs other OEMs to make its own platform better.
Google has been taking note of what others have been doing. With Pixel 4, it has added more layers to the software like more advanced customization of icons and colors, as well as well-improved gesture control, and Google Assistant’s voice commands feel near-instantaneous. The instant-transcription voice recording app was a nice addition, but we were left wanting more.
The Google Pixel really excels in the camera department, but Google doesn’t seem too worried about the competition when it should be. It feels like Google is relying solely on its camera prowess to push sales of the Pixel 4 and 4 XL while merely getting by in other aspects like display technology (we want a brighter AMOLED display) but more specifically, battery life.
The Pixel 4 XL is the best that Google has to offer and if you don’t mind paying a premium price and overlooking a couple of shortcomings at launch, then you’ll be a happy camper with Google’s new phone. If you’d rather get the most out of your $899, you might want to consider getting something else or wait until the phone is discounted (which usually happens around Black Friday).
To avoid ending this review on a low note, we will say that we really like the new design of the phone. The soft-touch glass feels amazing, the textured metal frame is great, and the Pixel’s display is better than ever. The Google Pixel’s camera is amazing and its tendency to capture every range of exposure with detail makes it a joy to shoot with.
Pros
Gorgeous, color-accurate display.
Unique textured design.
Quick and reliable Face unlock.
Great camera performance.
Cons
Wonky 90Hz display execution at launch.
Half-baked Motion Sense features.
Below average battery endurance.
We’re missing the ultra-wide camera.
No fingerprint reader while the competition has already gone through a few generations of under-display readers.
Face unlock can be triggered with eyes closed and it’s not yet supported by banking apps.
No bundled cable earbuds or an adapter.
Limited market availability (even more so due to the Motion Sense radar).
It wasn’t with much excitement that we met the reveal of the Pixel 4 duo – Google’s lack of effort to contain early leaks meant that not only were the specs unremarkable, but we also knew them in advance. We already had the 4 XL for review and we have more than a general idea of this gen’s pros and cons, but now we set out to discover how the small Pixel 4 performs and how it stands in the context of its own specific competitors.
The Pixel 4 is essentially the same phone as the 4 XL, only scaled down in a couple of ways – display and battery. Where the XL packs a 6.3-inch QHD+ panel, the small phone stays at 5.7 inches (FullHD+ resolution, but that’s fine at this size). Both are OLEDs too. Then there’s battery – if the XL’s 3,700mAh capacity sounded on the meh side of okay, the 2,800mAh figure in the Pixel 4 specsheet is downright worrisome.
The rest is all the same. The soon-to-be-replaced springtime Qualcomm top-dog of a chipset, the lowest amount of RAM of any current flagship, with low base storage and low maximum storage – it sure sounds exactly like Google’s way of doing phones. That also means Android 10 in a flavor no one else has and if you’re looking at a Pixel, you clearly enjoy that.
This generation of Pixels come with radar-based Motion Sense for gestures and a front ToF camera for 3D depth mapping, but is missing a fingerprint reader of any sort. It’s got no ultra wide-angle camera either, but conversely, the small Pixel is one of the more affordable ways to get a telephoto from one of the big names – neither the iPhone 11 nor the Galaxy S10e has one.
Google Pixel 4 specs
Body: Texture-coated aluminum frame; Gorilla Glass 5 back (soft texture on the Clearly White and Oh So Orange color schemes, glossy on the Just Black); 147.1×68.8×8.2mm, 162g.
Misc: Face unlock; radar-based Motion Sense; stereo loudspeakers.
The Pixel 4 that arrived at headquarters has a more conventional package with the phone printed on it as opposed to the colorful ‘P 4’ markings on our US-bound XL unit. The contents are all the same, however.
You’re getting an 18W USB Power Delivery adaptor, essentially the same one that shipped with the original Pixel (1), and a USB-C-to-C cable to go with it. There’s also a USB-C-to-A adapter for plugging in thumb drives. There is no USB-C-to-3.5mm dongle, so if you want to hook up conventional wired headphones, you’d need to provide your own. And, speaking of headphones, there aren’t any in the box.
Pixels have never exactly been good-looking phones. Perhaps the lowest point was last year, when the 3 XL had the mother of all notches, though the small Pixel 3 remained a non-hideous alternative. With the fourth generation, the notch on the big one is gone and the two sizes look very similar.
One of the Pixel 4‘s defining design traits is the forehead. Housing a whole bunch of stuff other than a mere selfie cam, the Pixel 4‘s has a distinctly top-heavy look – you’ve sort of been conditioned to seeing phones with chins more than foreheads.
Left to right, the cutouts are home to a 3D ToF camera, the regular selfie camera, the ambient light and proximity sensors, the earpiece/second speaker and, lastly, the radar tech for the Motion Sense gestures.
Now, if we have to scrutinize the Pixel 4‘s bezels, well, it’s not a flagship look. It’s not bad, strictly speaking, it’s just that we’ve been spoiled by more recent Galaxies, for example, and the Pixel’s meatier display outlines are a bit unimpressive. Having said that, an iPhone 11 is hardly superior in terms of bezels (plus, that notch), and a Galaxy S10e has an unsightly cutout in its top right-hand corner, so it’s not like the Pixel 4 is necessarily uglier than its immediate competition.
The Pixel 4 does have some nice design quirks that make it stand out. Key among those is the accented power button – Oh so orange Pixels 4s like our review unit have a pinkish power buttons, the Clearly white back goes with an orange-red accent, and the Just black color scheme has it in a contrasting white.
Mind you, the black version comes with a glossy back, while the other two have a frosted matte finish. The black version is where fingerprints go to stay, while the matte options are not at all prone to smudge retention, though they are remarkably slippery. Neither is ideal, but while we’re debating which is better (matte is), we can’t help but wonder why they couldn’t all have the same finish.
Matte or gloss, the glass panel on the Pixel 4‘s back is Gorilla Glass 5, as is the sheet on top of the OLED display up front. All glued up nice and tight, the phone is IP68 rated for dust and water protection.
Another of the signature design choices is the square block of a camera assembly on the back. We’re not saying it’s pretty, it’s just recognizable. The two camera modules are placed side by side, a dual LED flash under them and a spectral/flicker sensor above. An extra mic is also around these quarters.
All three color options (that are the same across both sizes) do come with the same matte black aluminum frame. All hail the return of the panda – the Clearly White color scheme with the white back and the black frame is a throwback to the Pixel 2 XL’s two tone paintjob, now available on the size S model as well.
As has been the case with all previous Pixels, the fourth generation has a button layout that’s somewhat different than most other phones – both the power button and the volume rocker are on the right side, with the power button above the volume rocker. If you’re coming from an older Pixel, you’ll be instantly familiar, otherwise it might require a brief adjustment period.
With the reassessment of the bezel situation from 3 to 4, the new Pixel has its bottom speaker relocated – it’s no longer facing forward, but is ported on the bottom instead. There is a slit on each side of the USB-C port, but only the right one has a speaker behind it, the left one is for the primary mic and is only as big as the other one for symmetry.
The SIM card slot is high on the left side of the phone, a small tray only accepting a single nano SIM. Technically, you can have a dual SIM Pixel 4, but your carrier needs to support eSIM – the phone only accepts one physical card. There’s no microSD slot either, nor has there ever been on a Pixel.
Up top, a pinhole for the secondary mic is the one thing breaking the frame’s continuity.
The Pixel 4 measures 147.1×68.8×8.2mm making it one of the more compact high-end phones you can buy. If we count the Galaxy S10e as a main competitor, the two feel very similar in the hand, but the iPhone 11 is massive in comparison, both in footprint and weight. Meanwhile, an Xperia 5 is about the same width and thickness as the Pixel 4, but is a full centimeter taller.
The Google Pixel 4 is equipped with a 5.7-inch display that has a 1080x2280px resolution in a 19:9 aspect ratio. Pixel density then works out to 444ppi – more than enough, but not quite the 4 XL’s 537ppi of its QHD+ 6.3-inch panel.
Both Pixel 4 phones use P-OLED panels, the ‘P’ standing for plastic. That is, the substrate below the display is plastic as opposed to glass. In that sense, a P-OLED is no different from a Samsung AMOLED which also has a plastic underlying layer (both are also active-matrix, the ‘AM’ in AMOLED).
That minor detour dealt with, we measured a maximum brightness of 423nits on the Pixel 4, a dozen nits lower than the XL and marginally lower than the Pixel 3 as well. As with other Pixels, the 4 lacks an auto (‘Adaptive’) brightness boost that you’d find on most other brands of phones, whether they use OLED panels or not. As a result, the Pixel 4can’t get as bright as a Galaxy S10, LG G8X, Xperia 5, or a OnePlus 7T. That last one can be 100nits brighter than the Pixel even when adjusting the slider by hand, while the iPhone 11 Pro reaches as high as 800nits in manual mode. Even so, the Pixel 4‘s screen poses no usability issues when viewing outdoors, though it’s not as good under direct sunlight as a Galaxy S10, for example.
Display test
100% brightness
Black, cd/m2
White, cd/m2
Contrast ratio
Google Pixel 4 XL
0
436
∞
Google Pixel 4
0
423
∞
Google Pixel 3
0
426
∞
Google Pixel 3a XL
0
451
∞
Samsung Galaxy S10
0
396
∞
Samsung Galaxy S10 (Max Auto)
0
820
∞
Samsung Galaxy S10e
0
389
∞
Samsung Galaxy S10e (Max Auto)
0
803
∞
Apple iPhone 11 Pro
0
805
∞
Apple iPhone 11
0.428
644
1505
Xiaomi Mi 9
0
428
∞
Xiaomi Mi 9 (Max Auto)
0
620
∞
LG G8X ThinQ
0
330
∞
LG G8X ThinQ (Max Auto)
0
603
∞
OnePlus 7T
0
525
∞
OnePlus 7T (Max Auto)
0
743
∞
Sony Xperia 5
0
353
∞
Sony Xperia 5 (Max Auto)
0
574
∞
The Pixel 4 has a two-way approach to handling color reproduction. The baseline is set by the display mode, where you can select between Natural, Boosted, and Adaptive modes, the default being Adaptive. Then there’s the Ambient EQ, which adapts the colors to the ambient light – think Apple’s True Tone.
With Ambient EQ disabled, we explored the different color modes, comparing the output against the usual target color spaces. Expectedly, ‘Natural’ mode got us very close to the true reproduction of sRGB content – we measured an average DeltaE of 2.3 and a maximum of 3.9 – a pretty good showing, marred slightly by the fact that the 3.9 is for point white. The Boosted mode is there for your DCI-P3 content, and it’s accurate to within an average DeltaE of 2.4 (4.5 maximum goes to Cyan), while in Adaptive we measured a 2.6 average for DCI-P3.
The Pixel 4‘s display is HDR capable, and YouTube and Netflix happily stream HDR content.
Google Pixel 4 battery life
One of our main concerns about the Pixel 4‘s overall performance as a smartphone stemmed from its battery capacity – the 2,800mAh number is tiiiny, while similarly sized Galaxy S10e and Xperia 5 have cells in the 3,100mAh ballpark.
Our testing proved that our concerns were well-founded. The Pixel 4 couldn’t make it to the 10-hour mark in web browsing and lasted us a little over 11 hours of looping videos. The S10e can do an hour and a half longer on the web and 4 hours more, while the Xperia adds even more minutes on top. The iPhone 11, on the other hand, clocked a whopping 15:29 of running our web script and 18:43h of video playback. In all fairness, we did run the Pixel 4 in its 90Hz mode, though it does have its own concepts of when to kick in and when not to.
Anyway, the Pixel 4 was also good for almost 21 hours of 3G voice calls – as much as the s10e, 3 hours more than the iPhone, and about 8 hours short of the Xperia’s time. Adding the standby draw into the mix, we calculated an overall Endurance rating of 62 hours for the Google Pixel 4 – far from impressive.
Topping up the Pixel 4‘s battery with the included 18W USB Power Delivery adapter took us 1:27h with 49% showing in the battery indicator at the half-hour mark. It’s not the best of results, particularly when accounting for the small capacity and the comparatively low endurance that you’d get out of the 49% that a half-hour charging session will get you.
Loudspeaker
The Google Pixel 4 has a stereo speaker configuration, in which there is a main loudspeaker on the bottom and the earpiece doubles as the second channel. As far as such setups go, the Pixel 4‘s is among the least disbalanced when it comes to the two speakers tonal range and loudness – while the earpiece isn’t quite as loud as the speaker on the bottom, it does punch harder than competitors’ earpieces.
In our testing, the 4 couldn’t quite match the 4XL’s numbers for loudness, but was more than loud enough, easily placing in the Excellent bowl after our three sample tracks. It beat the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro and S10e (but not the S10), though it couldn’t threaten the OnePlus 7T for loudness. The 7T does also sound a bit better, but the Pixel 4 still does output full and balanced tunes.
Speakerphone test
Voice, dB
Pink noise/ Music, dB
Ringing phone, dB
Overall score
Apple iPhone 11
70.8
72.3
76.0
Very Good
Sony Xperia 5
68.1
73.8
79.5
Very Good
Apple iPhone 11 Pro
71.2
73.8
80.7
Very Good
Xiaomi Mi 9
70.1
74.2
81.6
Very Good
LG G8X ThinQ
69.8
73.2
83.7
Very Good
Samsung Galaxy S10e
71.2
76.8
80.6
Excellent
Google Pixel 3
77.5
71.7
81.1
Excellent
Google Pixel 4
79.1
71.8
83.9
Excellent
Samsung Galaxy S10
82.2
74.9
85.5
Excellent
Google Pixel 4 XL
80.1
78.1
88.1
Excellent
Google Pixel 3a XL
79.3
77.1
91.1
Excellent
OnePlus 7T
79.8
77.4
91.6
Excellent
Audio quality
We now move on to testing the Google Pixel 4 audio performance via its audio jack. With it lacking a dedicated 3.5mm jack, we had to resort to a USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter for the test. Since Google doesn’t even supply one in the retail package, we used the official adapter than the company is selling. So fair warning – your mileage might vary if you use a different adapter.
When hooked to an active external amplifier the Pixel 4 came somewhat short of our expectations for a 2019 smartphone, let alone a flagship. Its signal-to-noise ratio was disappointing, and so were its stereo separation and general volume level.
Headphones caused a small spike in intermodulation distortion and a further increase in stereo crosstalk – no big deal on its own, but when you are starting as low as the Pixel 4, this means a mediocre overall score. Oh, and loudness dropped further, so don’t even think of hooking your high impedance headphones to this one.
Test
Frequency response
Noise level
Dynamic range
THD
IMD + Noise
Stereo crosstalk
Google Pixel 4
+0.02, -0.12
-71.5
83.0
0.0024
0.029
-69.8
Google Pixel 4 (headphones)
+0.06, -0.24
-69.2
80.8
0.0058
0.163
-52.2
Google Pixel 4 XL
+0.02, -0.19
-93.9
93.9
0.0018
0.0084
-94.1
Google Pixel 4 XL (headphones)
+0.17, -0.12
-94.0
94.0
0.0042
0.104
-53.1
Google Pixel 3
+0.02, -0.12
-71.7
83.2
0.0031
0.032
-70.1
Google Pixel 3 (headphones)
+0.15, -0.15
-68.4
80.2
0.0066
0.193
-61.1
Sony Xperia 5
+0.02, -0.02
-93.0
92.8
0.0012
0.007
-89.4
Sony Xperia 5 (headphones)
+0.25, -0.30
-91.8
91.7
0.0045
0.312
-57.3
Samsung Galaxy S10e
+0.03, -0.04
-92.9
92.7
0.0015
0.0074
-89.4
Samsung Galaxy S10e (headphones)
+0.05, -0.05
-92.7
92.5
0.0017
0.037
-73.0
Google’s own Android 10
While we’ve seen several phones with Android 10 out of the box, it’s the Pixels that showcase Google’s vision of what the OS should look like and how it should behave. We did experience that already on the XL, and the small Pixel 4 is barely any different.
Major changes to the interface in this version include a new Face unlock system, overhauled gesture navigation, and a new appearance for Google Assistant. At the event, Google also demonstrated that it could process vocal queries much quicker as it can store voice-to-speech transcription locally on the device in a much smaller database.
When first starting it up, you are prompted to register your face for security. At this point, you might realize there is no longer a fingerprint scanner, and this is because Google replaced Pixel Imprint in favor of the more generically named “Face unlock.”
This was a significant change back when Apple dumped Touch ID for Face ID, and it’s a significant change for Google now. Both use IR dot projectors and an IR camera to create and detect a depth map of the user’s face.
In practice, Face unlocking works accurately and quickly. With the Motion Sense feature, it wakes the phone and triggers face detection while you’re reaching for your phone so you can get in quickly. Just like any other phone with face unlock, it’s more difficult to unlock while it’s laying on a table. On the upside, Face unlock works from any angle, even upside down.
As Google has noted in the Face unlock intro screen, the phone will authenticate and unlock even with our eyes closed. Google has since confirmed it will update the feature to not be such a liability, but that update is still not here on our units.
Another hurdle with Face unlock is support from banking institutions. It took years before fingerprint authentication could be used with banking and payment apps, among others. Currently, Google Pay works with Face authentication, but banking apps that once supported fingerprint to log in need to be updated to support Face unlock. Right now, only a handful of apps support Face unlock, but they are mostly password management apps.
After setting up Face unlock, the setup will quickly teach you how to use Android 10’s new gesture controls. Google’s 2-button nav gestures are gone (and we’re glad), and the nav bar has been replaced with a slimmer home bar, much like a new iPhone. You can summon Google Assistant by giving the Pixel a squeeze.
Swiping up will go Home, swiping in from the edge will go Back, and swiping up from either corner will open Google Assistant. Multitasking is done by swiping up and holding, but you can easily switch between apps by swiping horizontally on the home bar.
Since there’s no longer a fingerprint scanner to pull down the notification shade, you can now swipe down from any part of any home screen will pull the notification shade down, so there’s no longer a need to reach up to the top edge. Not that having a fingerprint reader in itself meant the swipe on homescreen action couldn’t be implemented, but never mind.
The homescreens are what we’ve come to expect from a Pixel. Swiping up gets you to the app drawer with the top-most row dedicated to the five frequently used apps.
Apart from wallpapers, the Pixel launcher now allows for more customization in the settings. The Style tab in the wallpapers menu lets you change the shape and color scheme of both app and quick setting icons. You can also set a system-wide accent color and font.
There is a new category of live wallpapers labeled “Come Alive,” and they all subtly respond to hand gestures over the Motion Sense detector. There’s even a Pokemon wallpaper designed to promote Nintendo’s Pokemon Sword and Shield game titles.
When Project Soli was first announced back in 2015, it was presented as a breakthrough in motion-sensing technology with the ability to detect and interpret precise hand motions like sliding a finger and thumb to scroll through settings and then tapping the fingers together to select.
Motion Sense is Google’s first implementation of Project Soli in a major consumer product and the result feels both half-baked and gimmicky.
There are only a handful of useful things you can do with Motion Sense. Several music apps are supported to skip back and forward between tracks, even when music is playing in the background or if the display is turned off. You can also snooze alarms or silence timers and incoming calls by waving over the screen. That’s about it for useful features and nothing like the initial promo video for Project Soli.
Motion sense can detect when you’re reaching for the phone and fire up the Face unlock hardware to swiftly detect the user’s face and unlock the phone. We noticed it often triggers when its placed on a computer desk, in proximity to someone actively working with a mouse and keyboard. If you decide to turn this feature off (you might save some battery by doing so), you can still double-tap the display to quickly glance at the time and notifications, and you can still ‘lift to wake’ it.
By default, you’ll skip seeing the lockscreen entirely if you enable Face unlock, but there is an option to disable that so you can glance at your notifications and manually swipe in.
The Always On Display feature is enabled by default. This screen will display icons for missed notifications, a small weather widget, the time, battery percentage left, and a couple of lines are dedicated to contextual information such as anticipated traffic or upcoming calendar events.
With Android 10, both permissions and notifications offer finer and more transparent control. Starting with Notifications, the pull-down shade’s order is priority-based. For example, if you receive notifications from a messaging app, they are a high priority, and a little bell icon appears. Otherwise, when you get notifications from less important apps like games or persistent app notifications, they’ll show up as “Silent notifications” and take up less space.
Android 10 now shows you an average of the daily and weekly number of times an app triggers notifications in a dedicated Notifications menu. This gives users the information needed to decide which apps are inundating them with useless pings and prioritize more important notifications.
Android 10 brings the much-hyped “Dark theme,” and it can be accessed from the Display settings. It darkens all menus, pop-up windows, Google Assistant, and even the Google Search Bar. Some apps will also automatically switch to their respective dark scheme, as long as the app supports following the system-wide setting.
Two new applications are debuting on Pixel 4. The first one is the Safety app that organizes the emergency features of the new Pixels. The app lets you organize and fill out your medical information and assign emergency contacts in an emergency.
Finally, thanks to Google’s new transcription app, it enabled a new voice recorder app from Google that can transcribe voice notes in real-time, and it doesn’t require an internet connection. This app debuts on the Pixel 4 and 4 XL, and it enables a new way to keep track of voice recordings.
Synthetic benchmarks
The Pixel 4 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, a chip that was hot when it launched but that was in early Spring. Most of the Fall releases have at least opted for the slightly higher-clocked 855+, but not the Pixels. There’s the added concern that a new chipset is coming in a few months, but after all, with Google and Qualcomm’s release schedules arranged like that, the Pixels are always going to be in a less than ideal position in terms of silicon. That’s not to say the Snapdragon 855 isn’t powerful enough; it’s more of a sour feeling that you’re paying top-dollar and superior hardware is around the corner.
The Pixel 4 comes with just 6GB of RAM, and there are no other options when it comes to that. Android flagships typically have at least 8GB these days, though the Galaxy S10e does come with 6 gigs in its base trim (8GB version is still available, though). The Pixel’s 64GB base storage is too little in our option and so is the 128GB maximum if you decide you do want to spend extra to have more.
There’s another peculiarity when it comes to Pixels, and it’s that they tend to perform a notch below competitors for the given hardware. That’s mostly the case with the Pixel 4 as well. It’s towards the bottom of the pack under both single-core and multi-core loads in GeekBench 5, with a Note being the only phone on this shortlist to fall behind the Pixel in multi-core, and the Realme X2 Pro oddly dropping the ball in single-core applications despite having the superior S855+ inside.
Wide and tele, ultra wide missing
Google has been stubbornly fitting a single cam on the back of its Pixel amidts the recent multi-cam craze that the past couple of years have been but has finally given in and equipped the Pixel 4 with a telephoto next to the regular cam. What is still missing is the ultra wide-angle module.
The setup of the Pixel 4 is identical to that of the 4 XL – alongside an optically stabilized 12.2MP main camera with large 1.4-micron pixels, and f/1.7 aperture is a 16MP telephoto camera (also stabilized) with 1.0-micron pixels and an f/2.4 aperture lens. Technically, the two lenses don’t have a 2x ratio in their focal lengths (28mm and 45mm equivalents, if you go by the FoV angles Google specifies vs. 27mm and 43mm if you trust the EXIF data) but since the tele starts off with 16MP and produces 12MP images, they just about pull off the 2x zoom.
There is, of course, Google’s Super Res Zoom, which the company claimed was good enough on its own on the Pixel 3, negating the need for a telephoto back then. Also, both cameras benefit from Google’s HDR+ algorithms for improving image quality.
The industry has already moved past dual cameras and are already established with triple cameras, including the latest iPhone 11 Pro. So Google’s decision to go with a telephoto camera instead of an ultra-wide – which many makers have been adding to the mix – raised many eyebrows. This depends on personal preference, and the kinds of environments people tend to shoot, but Google believes that the average consumer is more likely to take zoomed photos over ultra-widened snapshots. We are not going to take a side here in favor of one type of camera or the other, but we’d just say that many manufacturers are happy to provide all three without the need for compromise.
Having said all that, while the Pixel 4 XL is indeed underequipped compared to its all-out flagship competitors, the small Pixel 4 is in a bit of a different position. Going by the assumption that it competes against the iPhone 11 and the Galaxy S10e, the most affordable high-end offers from the two main rivals, the Pixel 4 offers a different setup, not an inferior one. End of philosophical musings.
Google has introduced a few new features on the Pixel’s camera this generation. The first is Live HDR+, which aims to show you what your final image is going to look like in the viewfinder before you’ve taken the shot and the phone has finished processing it.
Before that, especially in more demanding situations, the live viewfinder was only really used to compose your shots, then you’d only see the resulting HDR+ photo in the camera roll. We’re glad to see this change implemented as it makes a huge difference in the picture-taking process.
Another new feature is dual exposure controls – baked right into the camera UI. Now you can manually adjust the shadows and highlights as you are composing a shot, useful if you want to get a more artistic photo like the silhouette of a person against a bright background. Or you know, if you want to alleviate to some extent the Pixel’s slight tendency towards dark shadows and brighten them up a bit.
Since Google doesn’t offer full manual controls on the Pixel, this is a welcome feature. It combines well with Live HDR+, so you see the photo’s exposure before you hit capture.
Apart from improvements in Night Sight and portrait mode – thanks to the second camera, “learning-based automatic white balance” is available in all shooting modes where it was previously only used in Night Sight.
The camera interface is mostly unchanged from the Pixel 3. You can swipe between shooting modes, and the most important ones are easily accessible: Night Sight, Portrait, Camera, Video, and a More tab containing Panorama, Photo Sphere, Slow Motion, Time Lapse, Playground, and Lens.
To make the viewfinder less cluttered, Google put the flash, timer, and Motion settings in a drawer, opposite the shutter button. It’s an extra step to reach the Flash settings, but Google did mention at its presentation that it hopes you never need to use the Flash. Still, the drawer makes it easier to focus on the viewfinder.
Even with the drawer open, you can still hit the shutter key, so you don’t miss the shot. Hitting the shutter does hide the drawer so you can keep snapping away.
Daylight image quality
We found daylight image quality out of the main camera of the Pixel 4 to be a slight improvement over the previous generation mostly due to marginally better noise handling. The Pixel 4 still takes recognizably ‘Pixel’ photos with wide dynamic range, particularly in the highlights – that’s where HDR+ prioritizes its efforts. If you want to liven up the dark-ish shadows, the sliders we mentioned in the software section are the way to go.
Color rendition is generally spot-on, which means the Pixel takes slightly cooler and not quite as saturated photos as, say, a Galaxy. Again, that’s the Pixel ‘look.’
The telephoto camera does take ‘2x’ shots even though its lens’ focal length isn’t strictly ‘2x’ – the coverage matches the 50-ish millimeter equivalent of the iPhone and Galaxy’s 2x teles. Telephoto shots come out with slightly warmer color reproduction and are missing some of that finest micro contrast when you zoom in up close. That’s mostly nitpicking, however, and we really like the Pixel 4‘s 2x shots – dynamic range is nice and wide, and the detail is there too.
Low-light
Low light photos out of the Pixel 4 are already great without going into Night Sight, unless it’s too dark when it doesn’t expose brightly enough. They do end up a little noisy, more so than what you’d get out of a Samsung phone. Additionally, on occasion, you may get blurry shots if it’s too dark and the phone isn’t comfortable with the ISO needed to get a fast enough shutter speed.
Night Sight does make a considerable difference in a lot of ways. It recovers highlights somewhat, but more importantly, lifts the shadows in a more dramatic way, particularly in dark settings. Indoor shots with a lot of colorful lights specifically benefit immensely from Night Sight.
Another characteristic Night Sight trait that Google’s kept is the overall bleaching of photos with certain warm light sources
Unlike competitors, if the Pixel 4 is set at ‘2x’, it’s using the actual tele camera, and that’s that – there’s no light threshold below which it’ll switch to a zoomed-in view from the main one. Zoom shots in low light are okay – not spectacular, but not bad either. They are noisy, but no more than ordinary, and they’re reasonably well detailed, plus colors are preserved nicely. Night Sight takes away some of the saturation of warmly-lit scenes but does make for overall superior images.
Portraits
Portraits are nothing short of amazing coming out of the Pixel 4. Subject isolation is very proficient, and the algorithms do an excellent job of blurring areas both behind and in front of the subject, just as a real camera would.
The processing works just as well on non-human subjects letting you isolate and bring the viewer’s attention to just the thing you want in the frame.
Mind you, the Pixel 4 has two main zoom levels it can take portraits in. The 1x gives you a moderately zoomed-in the image compared to the main cam’s usual perspective, same as the Pixel 3 did, while the 1.3x matches the FoV of the telephoto cam but still uses the main module. Either mode outputs 12MP shots as if there’s no trickery going on. The 1.3x magnification mode has a particularly upscaled look to it, though still reasonably detailed. The 1x shots are better in per-pixel detail. Aside from keeping a comfortable distance away from your subject, we’re not seeing the point behind this 1.3x mode.
8MP Selfie camera
Google’s been doing a weird back and forth with its selfie cams and after fitting a couple on last year’s Pixels, it’s back down to one on the Pixel 4. Only now, there’s a ToF module too to help with depth mapping. The actual camera is an 8MP unit with an f/2.0 aperture lens that sadly doesn’t have autofocus – another step back from the AF-ing primary selfie cam of yesteryear.
The Pixel 4 may only have a single cam on the front, but it offers a wider than most field of view – the 90 degrees correspond to about a 22mm equivalent, placing it in between last year’s 28mm and 19mm snappers. It’s marginally wider than the iPhone 11’s 23mm unit and more noticeably so than the 26mm module of the current Galaxies.
Selfies have nice colors and wide dynamic range. Detail is good too, but it’s just that we’ve been spoiled by higher pixel-count selfies and these are merely okay.
That’s about what we can say of the Pixel 4‘s selfie portraits. They do come in with a slight crop, like the ones from the main cam, but google has somehow managed to mess up the processing/depth mapping and we often got imperfections along the border between subject and background.
Video
Admittedly, not many of us around here record video at 4K in 60fps, so the fact that the Pixel 4 is missing that mode isn’t hurting us, personally. That said, if every other high-end phone can do 4K60, the Pixel 4 should as well. The phone does have the rest of the important modes covered – 4K at 30fps and 1080p at both 30 and 60fps, and it does so with both cameras. Electronic video stabilization is available across the board too.
Video quality out of the main cam in 4K is quite good. The Pixel 4 captures a lot of detail, though there’s also a fair bit of noise in the footage. We are noticing some excessive sharpening halos around high-contrast details – it’s not a very natural look. Colors are on point, however. 1080p footage has essentially the same properties, be it in 30fps or 60fps, with perhaps a touch less noise in 30fps.
The telephoto camera’s 4K footage is slightly softer, like its photos, and is also a little warmer and more saturated than what you’d get out of the main module. The processing is quite different too, and… we’re inclined to like the telephoto’s laid back approach to sharpening better. 1080p is okay too, the 60fps mode noticeably softer and less detailed than 30fps.
What the Pixel 4 excels at is stabilization. There’s no discernible difference in its greatness regardless of mode when you’re shooting with the main cam – it’ll iron out walking induced shake, and it starts and stops just right when you’re panning. Meanwhile, the telephoto will stay planted in the direction you’re pointing it at, though it does have slightly weird behavior at the beginning and end of a pan.
Competition
We’ve been less than excited about the Pixel 4 duo since day one (or day minus 120, if you count the early leaks), but after spending a few days with the small version and devoting a bit of time to deliberation, a case could be made for its existence. Okay, maybe not strictly at its launch price of $800/€750/£670, but Pixel discounts do pop up often, and they’re often better than most other discounts.
Apple, on the other hand, doesn’t do discounts and whether it’s launch day, Black Friday, or Christmas, the iPhone 11 runs for $700/€800/£730 – so the ‘budget’ Pixel is cheaper than the ‘budget’ iPhone even at list price unless you’re in the US. The Google phone scores some points for its higher-res, higher refresh rate OLED display next to the iPhone’s notched LCD, but the 11 does have the upper hand in battery endurance. And just as the OSes will have buyers divided, so too will the cameras – do you want a tele (Pixel), or do you want an ultra-wide (iPhone)?
It’s the same dilemma if you pit the Pixel 4 against the ‘budget’ Galaxy. Admittedly, the S10e is much more competitively priced, being some 8 months old now, and things aren’t looking good for the Pixel 4 at its MSRP. Aside from the camera conundrum, the Galaxy has battery life going for it, and a display which, while not 90Hz, is generally superior to the Pixel’s. The S10e is also available across the globe, but every Pixel across the globe will get Android 11 and 12 the moment these are out, which isn’t quite guaranteed on the Galaxy.
Mind you, for the Pixel 4‘s list price you could grab a galaxy S10 proper, and then you’ll get all the cameras and a higher-res display.
The OnePlus 7T retails comfortably below Pixel money ($600/€600/£550), yet it offers most of the Google phone’s advantages, and then some. A no-compromise 90Hz display, battery life to spare, superior performance, twice the storage at base price, and best of all – a trio of cameras. It’s missing an official IP rating and, recognizable as OnePlus may have become across the world, the brand is no Apple or Samsung.
Verdict
We know that deep down you feel disappointed by the Pixel 4 – it’s the prevalent sentiment around the office too. There’s little excuse for the poor battery life, the one-camera-short attitude that Google is sticking with, the only-sometimes-90Hz display, things like that. Plus, the Pixel 4 isn’t exactly priced to sell, and much better deals are available, even from the big names.
Having said that, Pixels get discounted, heavily so. At the right price (say $200 below MSRP), Pixel 4 makes a lot of sense – the 90Hz display is great, whether it’s at 90Hz or 60, and no iPhones or Galaxies offer a high refresh rate yet anyway. Their most affordable high-end offers don’t have telephotos either, so that’s another one in favor of the Pixel 4, plus the specific way Google does image processing might be just your thing.
To sum it all up, if you happen to see the Pixel 4‘s price slashed at a time when you’re looking for a phone, by all means, get one. But pursue it at all costs.
Pros
Google’s showcase of how Android should look and feel.
90Hz display among 60Hz competitors.
Telephoto camera while others have ultra wides and no telephoto.
Overall great picture quality, superb portraits, okay selfies.
Spectacular video stabilization.
Cons
No fingerprint, thus biometric authorization not available in some apps, gimmicky radar-based gestures.
Odd limitations in the 90Hz display behaviour.
Battery life is at the bottom of the charts in the class.
Benchmark performance on the low end of the spectrum for the hardware.
Well, no ultra wide angle camera while others have them.
No bundled cable earbuds or an adapter.
Limited market availability (even more so due to the Motion Sense radar).
The launch of the Google Pixel 4 is only a few months away, and this year Google started up the hype train extraordinarily early by posting renders of the back of the smartphone four months in advance of its expected release. The front of the phone is still up for speculation, but what we do know is that Google is attempting to up the ante in their screen department. Google takes tremendous pride in their DisplayMate A+ rating of the Pixel 3 XL, even resorting to touting about it as a PR response to display issues (which I’ve also encountered as a canned customer service response). DisplayMate’s review clearly bolstered Google’s ego — here’s my take on the display.
The Future for Pixel Displays — A Preamble
Google is so close to making a smartphone with a display that could be considered among the best. Indoors, the Google Pixel 3 XL display is absolutely stellar with iPhone X(S)-like quality — colors, contrast, viewing angles and all. The silhouette on the front of the device is extremely sleek with a nice flat dark slab that hides the bathtub notch and chin well when the display is off (a result of the high-quality anti-reflection absorption layers), and a display that looks just as well-laminated as the iPhone X-series. Just like Apple, Google decided to use a flexible substrate on a flat screen — which I highly prefer — to achieve the plastered-screen look (hence “Flexible OLED” even though the screen appears flat). If Google implemented its panel’s high brightness mode I would give the Pixel 3 XL display an “A” rating, but Google has to go even further since the competition is boasting 600+ nits display brightnesses. Until Google does so, its displays will always seem lackluster since there are literally dozens of us that actually go outside, where the Pixel phone displays simply appear unpleasantly dim when compared to the competition.
On the opposite spectrum, Google also needs to improve the shadow calibration in their displays. Within some of our native habitats — in the pitch black — the Pixel phone displays have exhibited higher black clipping than most other handsets, making dark scenes a black blotchy mess. The Google Pixel 3 XL has done better than the rest of the Pixel devices in this regard, but it is evident that the issue lies with Google’s calibration. In every Pixel phone’s native wide gamut, there is noticeably less black crush, which suggests a low-breadth LUT or an error in the tone response curve/transformation matrix to sRGB.
To add to the low-brightness nuances, the brightness steps at the low end are jumpy and not smooth. At the minimum brightness, the Google Pixel 3 XL outputs 2.1 nits and jumps up to 3.5 nits at the very next step. This is a 67% increase from the previous step. For reference, it takes approximately a 5% increase or decrease in magnitude for a change in luminance to be noticeable (in subsequent patches), so 67% is a verynoticeable jump. The next step outputs 5.0 nits (43% increase), then 6.4 nits (28% increase), then 8.0 nits (25% increase). This happens for most of the display’s lower brightness range, and it could be annoying for your display to sporadically stutter in brightness when using auto brightness. It also lowers the available range of brightness values to choose from in dim environments; at night time the jump from 2.1 nits to 3.5 nits is pretty large, and you might want a setting in-between.
Next up is color management. I previously wrote a similar segment in my Google Pixel 3 (non-XL) display reviewthat I would like my readers to read since all of it is still relevant. With the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, Google moved on from defaulting to an accurate color profile and switching over to a new color saturation-expanding “Adaptive” profile. This profile does not have any form of color management, so using this profile doesn’t allow the viewing of photos in other color spaces at any proper fidelity. This is completely counterproductive to Google’s recent announcement that they are bringing wide color photos to Android. In the post, Google explains the importance of color management and color correctness in apps and how to prepare and implement the ideas, all of which would be pointless in the Adaptive profile.
Furthermore, I am fairly certain that the Google Pixel 4 will be the first to debut wide color photography in Android. I caught a hint of this last year during the Pixel 3 XL leaks when I noticed that the photo samples from the leaks had a Display P3 embedded color profile, coming from a dogfood-version of Google Camera. I was disappointed to see it omitted from the release product, but the recent Google wide color photo announcement leaves me no doubt that it is coming with the Google Pixel 4. They just won’t be properly viewable in the Adaptive profile, so I’m curious to see what Google is going to do. Google is also likely implementing an automatic white balance feature similar to Apple’s TrueTone, which suggests at least some focus on the display — be it just a feature — for the next Pixel.
The Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL are Android smartphones from the Google Pixel product line. The phones were officially announced on May 7, 2019 at Google I/O as midrange variants of the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL.
Specifications
Design
The Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL come in three colors: ‘Just Black’ (all black), ‘Clearly White’ (white with an orange power button), and ‘Purple-ish’ (lavender, with a yellow power button). Both the Pixel 3a and the Pixel 3a XL resemble the smaller Pixel 3, following criticism of the Pixel 3 XL’s notch. They look similar to their more expensive counterparts, but both have a polycarbonate unibody construction and Asahi Dragontrail glass, rather than Corning Gorilla Glass which is used on most other smartphones.
Hardware
The Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL come with the Snapdragon 670 and 4 GB of RAM with 64 GB of non-expandable internal storage. Both phones lack wireless charging, water resistance and Pixel Visual Core (PVC), all of which are standard on the Pixel 3. They feature stereo speakers and a headphone jack, the latter of which was omitted on the Pixel 2 and Pixel 3. Unlike the Pixel 2 and Pixel 3, only one of the speakers is front-firing, with the other speaker on the bottom. A USB-C port is used on both for charging and connecting other accessories. Both phones also have Active Edge, where squeezing the sides of the phone activates Google Assistant, which debuted with the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.
Camera
The Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL have a 12.2 megapixel rear camera, which is the same unit found on the Pixel 3, and a single 8 megapixel front-facing camera, lacking the second wide-angle sensor. They feature many of the same photography features as the Pixel 3. Some of these features include:
Night Sight – dramatically improves low light performance with no flash or tri-pod.
Super Res Zoom – employs Super-resolution techniques to increase the resolution beyond what the sensor and lens combination would traditionally achieve using subtle shifts from handheld shake and optical image stabilization (OIS).
Top Shot – takes a burst of HDR+ photos and automatically picks the best shots.
Google Lens – recognizes objects and things seen on the Pixel 3a’s and Pixel 3a XL’s camera.
The Pixel 3a’s Google Photos capabilities are more restrictive than the Pixel 3, being limited to free “high quality” backups; users have to pay for more storage if they upload too many original quality photos.
Reception
The Pixel 3a’s camera quality was highly praised, more so considering the device’s price point, with Tom’s Guide calling it “the new midrange benchmark” for cameras. Tom’s Guide gave the Pixel 3a an Editor’s Choice award and a rating of 4.5/5, concluding that it “has far and away the best camera, software and display you could ever hope to get in a $400 phone”. The Verge was similarly positive, giving both the 3a and the 3a XL an 8/10, stating that “[it] takes photos that are nearly indistinguishable from what you get out of a Pixel 3”. The battery life and build quality were praised as well, while reviewers also noted the 3a’s lack of premium features.
Issues
Some users are reporting that turning off Digital Wellbeing improves performance. The issue affects other Pixel devices as well, and Google has not yet acknowledged these reports.
Pixel 3a and 3a XL have power issues where some users have their phone randomly shut down.
Manufacturing defects have also been found on some units, with crooked cutouts at the bottom for the speakers and USB-C port, the latter of which could potentially interfere with charging.
Phones all look the same once you scrape away a few details. They’re rectangles designed to fit (mostly) into one’s hand and a display where we can tap and poke the things we see to find other things poke and tap. You can even make phone calls with them!
It’s those details, though, that makes the difference. Speakers, bevels, buttons and the physical size are the things that make a Galaxy Note different from a Moto E4. They also are a big part of the price and what we use to decide which one is better for our uses. One of those details that’s always a point of discussion, and sometimes a point of detraction is what the body of a phone is made of. Oddities like wood or gold phones aside, you’ll find three different materials are being used to make phones is all sizes: metal, plastic, and glass.
Which one is best?
Metal
Metal, done very well on the Nokia 7 Plus.
Plenty of phones use a metal band or a faux-metal finish over plastic trim, but there are also plenty that are made of metal. Usually, that means some manner of aluminum alloy that’s very thin and light because the buying public is in love with thin and light. Nobody wants a 3-pound phone built from cold forged steel to lug around all day.
Metal screams premium.
For many, metal equals premium. Seeing an aluminum phone polished or anodized with a crisp finish does make a phone look good, so naturally, a lot of people associate them with high-quality, even if only subconsciously. But this isn’t always the case as aluminum can be cheaper than other materials. Blame our perception here.
A metal phone can be a great phone. It can also be a bad phone. Let’s look at the pros and cons.
Pros
That premium look. As mentioned, a phone that’s well built will always look good with a metal design. Metal is beautiful and we can’t help but feel that anything beautiful is automatically premium. For many, having a premium phone is important.
It’s “modern”. Metal is a big part of the industrial design school of thought. Minimal markings and no extraneous parts to take away from a single piece of metal with a certain shape is a complete design aesthetic, and it often ties in well with a premium look. There are plenty of fans of this type of design.
Heat transfer. That way a cold metal phone feels when you first pick it up provokes a thought. It doesn’t have to be a good thought, but if you ever noticed that your phone felt cold you were thinking about it. Touch is one of our senses, and it’s an important one.
All of these “pros” work together to give the impression that the small metal object you’re holding is simply a superior product. Some people feel differently, but most people can’t say a phone like a Pixel 2 or a Nokia 7 Plus felt bad or was built poorly.
Cons
Bends and dents. Metal deforms fairly easily — especially light, malleable metal like aluminum —and tends to keep its new shape, at least the types used to build phones. We’re not talking about people on YouTube bending phones for a living; we’re talking about sitting on your phone and bending it or dropping it and putting a big dent in that premium shell. (Buy a case?)
RF transmission. This means your LTE, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth signals. Radio frequencies of the safe variety have a tough time transmitting through dense material. This can mean your phone needs to have antenna lines or glass cutouts for the antennas and probably won’t support wireless charging if it’s made of metal.
Heat transfer. The same thing that makes a metal phone feel solid and cold when you first pick it up will also make it feel hotter after you’ve used it for a while. Heat sinks and heat pipes (also made of metal) try to offset this, but a metal phone will always have a hot spot where the chipset is. And sometimes they can get uncomfortably hot.
The same material that can make a phone feel premium can also stop it from having premium features, like smooth lines without antenna bands or wireless charging. And they look a lot less premium when you dent or bend them.
Plastic
The Moto E5 is one of the few plastic phones you can buy in 2019.
Plastic comes in all shapes, colors, and sizes. Man-made materials have that advantage. That means plastic can also come with a number of different finishes, and phones can feel slimy or even soft when made of plastic. Plastic is also cheap and very workable which means curves and design elements can be used with plastic that isn’t feasible with other materials.
Any shape, any color, and tough as nails.
Some plastic phones look and feel great. Of course, others don’t. Consumers can be influenced by their experience enough to think all plastic phones are a slippery, glossy, slimy mess even when they’re not and the general perception is that plastic phones are cheap. But a plastic phone can be great, too.
Unfortunately, it’s becoming difficult to find phones made of plastic. Even inexpensive brands like Nokia and Motorola are moving on to metal-bodied phones, and that makes me a little sad.
Pros
Cost. Not the cost to the consumer, but the costs of making the phone from beginning to end. Using plastic means manufacturing equipment is easier to tool, which means designers have more freedom to work with the shape, which means phones don’t always have to look like a flat slab and still be reasonably priced. We love things that look nice and things that are reasonably priced. We love it more when they are both.
Resilience. Plastic is tough. Like football helmet tough. You might be able to break plastic but it will take a lot more abuse than metal or glass, and for the most part, it will snap right back into shape if it gets bent or dinged.
RF transmission. Plastic can be designed to be tough but still allow radio waves to pass through with very little signal loss. When you’re building or using a phone, this is important.
Millions of colors. You can make plastic that’s any color imaginable. Companies like Nokia (the Nokia of old, R.I.P.) and Sony have put this to the test and orange, lime, pink, yellow and even brown phones have all been offered and had their fans. Black is also a color for folks who like to keep things tamer.
Plastic gives a manufacturer the freedom to build a phone that’s tough and beautiful. And we’ve seen some very high-end phones from almost every manufacturer that were plastic, and nobody complained that they were plastic.
Cons
They feel bad. At least, they can. One of our favorite phones was LG’s G2. One of the phones we always complained about when it came to the finish of materials was the LG G2. It was the phone that coined our use of slimy when talking about bad plastic. Don’t even get us started on the Galaxy S III.
They can stain. The plastic on the phone can be stained by a colorful case or spending too much time in a cup holder in Florida-style weather, and some plastic finishes can stain you or your clothes. Remember the orange red Nexus 5? It did both.
They look cheap. Not all of them, of course. HTC, as well as that Nokia of old, built some gorgeous phones that were plastic. The LG Optimus 3D was not my favorite phone. Not even close. But it was plastic and the body, the build, and the finish were stunning. But for every good plastic phone, you can buy there will be four or five bad plastic phones in equally bad plastic clamshells on a hook at Walmart. That makes people equate plastic with cheap.
All the plastic phones that were tough, looked good and came in a plethora of colors have to compete with the bottom-of-the-barrel plastics used in phones that have none of those qualities. It’s not fair to compare things this way, but you usually won’t find a phone you think is plain ugly or that feels slimy that’s not made of plastic. Stereotypes are sometimes real.
Glass
The Google Pixel 3 and Galaxy S10 keep everything under glass.
We started seeing glass phones with the iPhone 4 and Nexus 4. They aren’t completely glass, of course, but there are plenty of phones with full glass backs to go with the full glass front. They can be beautiful and give a look that compliments a great design. They can also be fragile; phone screens break all too often and so do glass backs.
It only looks wet.
Using glass also adds to a phone’s price. Cheap pieces of soda-lime glass you may find at the hardware store aren’t suitable for a phone. Instead, specially made ultra-clear low-expansion glass and composites like Gorilla Glass are used and can add a lot to the final price. Exotic materials like synthetic sapphire can be exceptionally clear for the wavelengths of light a person can see, and very scratch-resistant. They are even more expensive, often prohibitively so.
Pros
RF transmission. Glass is dense, but still allows radio waves to pass through fairly easily. This means your LTE signal, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth will be stronger without any long antenna cutouts.
They look great. Phones with a glass back can have a feeling of depth if anything is under the glass. Glass can also shimmer and give the illusion of being wet. Both of these effects together can make for a stunning look. Samsung is a total pro at this, and its recent glass-backed Galaxy phones are simply beautiful.
They feel good in your hand. Glass can be polished until it’s very smooth. Because it’s inert it will also feel solid and cold like metal does. When you hold a glass-backed phone in your hand it just feels like a luxury product. Everyone loves luxury products, even if it’s only an illusion.
Cons
Glass breaks. There is nothing any company can do to make thin glass unbreakable. That means when you drop your phone (and you will) you have to worry about breaking both sides.
Glass scratches. Everything will scratch, but glass seems to be the best at doing it. No matter what a company tells us about the Mohs scale or hardened polymers, glass will scratch. Scratches on a phone with the wet and deep illusion like a Galaxy S9 look terrible when they have a big scratch across the back.
Glass is slippery. When your hands are damp, holding a glass phone is like squeezing an ice cube. It can pop right out of your grip and when you consider that glass breaks and glass scratches, you have a recipe for disaster.
Glass-backed phones can look amazing. That silky wet look of a Galaxy S10 or the disco ball look of the Nexus 4 makes for a beautiful looking piece of gear. We want our expensive things to be beautiful.
Unfortunately, glass is also a really risky material to use in a phone. It needs to be thin (glass is heavy!) so when you use hardened treated materials like Gorilla Glass the risk of breaking increases because hardened glass is more brittle. It’s a catch-22 situation that we gladly put ourselves in because of how great it looks.
Ceramic
The Galaxy S10+ is beautiful in ceramic, but it’s not the only phone using the material.
Ceramic phones aren’t commonplace in North America, though that’s about to change with the Galaxy S10+. Phones that have used ceramic, like the Essential Phone or Xiaomi’s Mi Mix series, look and feel amazing.
When you think of ceramic you might be picturing your grandmother’s antique china, but that’s not the whole story. Sure, ceramic can look beautiful and delicate but it doesn’t have to be — ceramic is harder than glass or plastic, almost completely corrosion resistant, lighter than metal and it’s an insulator so there is no heat transfer.
Ceramic is also expensive. that’s why we don’t see low-end watches, dishware, or phones made from the material. It’s costly to mine and manufacture because of the special equipment needed, not easily formed like metal or plastic, and requires better handling along the assembly floor to keep the unassembled parts from shattering. Still, once you feel it, there’s no denying it’s nice.
Pros
RF transmission. Like glass, ceramic allows radio waves to pass through fairly easily. This means your LTE signal, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth will be stronger without any long antenna cutouts.
They stay cool. Ceramic is what your power company uses to insulate the transmissions lines from their metal brackets. that’s because it’s non-conductive in regard to both heat and electricity. your ceramic phone isn’t going to get hot in your hand.
They feel so good. Ceramic can be highly polished after it’s formed to a completely smooth finish, and then take a clear coating to remove every surface line. Without any irregularities that your hand can feel, it’s like holding a piece of ice. Except it’s not cold because it doesn’t absorb or give off any heat dues to the magic of its insulatory properties.
Cons
Ceramic breaks. Ceramic (the type used in something like a phone) is tough, but it’s still breakable. With the right amount of abuse, it will break before metal or plastic will.
The coating can scratch. Ceramic is tough, and so are the polymers used to clear-coat it, but it can scratch. It’s not as easy as scratching glass or even metal, but if it does scratch, you’ll hate feeling even the tiniest blemish on that otherwise baby-smooth finish.
Ceramic is slippery. Wet hands? That might mean an oopsie because smooth ceramic is pretty slippery when your hands are wet or your fingers are cold and hard. Keep that in mind and take a bit of extra care.
Ceramic phones look and feel gorgeous. they also stay nice and cool because of ceramic’s insulatory properties. There is a reason some of the finest watches you can buy are made from ceramic.
Display tech has come a long way for smartphones, but what makes a good TV doesn’t work so well on mobile handsets.
This year, we partnered with our friends at Spectracal to kick the proverbial tires on the displays of all the Android phones we tested, to see just how good they could get. For the most part, phones tend to sacrifice color accuracy for screen brightness. However, while many phones are happy to make their screen as blue as tolerably possible (looking at you, LG G7 ThinQ) for brightness, there are a handful of phones with extremely good displays. Let’s explore!
What makes a good smartphone screen?
What’s “best” generally requires a certain philosophy. That may not make a lot of sense to you now, but it will in a minute.
When you ask someone what the best TV is, you generally assume you’ll be using it in a somewhat darker room, and all your content is going to be in 24, 30, or 60fps. What makes the best TV is very straightforward: you want the most accurate screen you can find — in color, grayscale, and so on.
Smartphones go with you wherever you go. They need to work as well in bright sunlight as a dark room, so your mobile needs are very different than someone making a home theater setup.
Color temperature (K)
Closer to 6500 is better
Smartphone screens need to be accurate, of course, but they also need to be bright. This poses a lot of issues for smartphones, and satisfying both demands has frustrated many manufacturers.
Peak brightness (cd/m^2)
Higher is Better
Display makers have a tough choice to make: do you boost blue values to make the overall brightness higher, or suck it up and stick with color accuracy?
When we look at color accuracy, it’s generally accepted that anything under 1 (DeltaE2000) is pretty much where nobody can tell the difference between a perfect image and an imperfect one, however for smartphones we find that the expanded gamuts mean our eyes are a little more forgiving than that. While TV calibrators look for values as close to this as possible, it’s just not something smartphones really try to do — for a number of reasons. Mostly because nobody cares how accurate the screen is if you can’t see it.
Color accuracy is outstanding in Samsung’s Cinema mode, even in the DCI-P3 gamut.
This is why our criteria for a good screen is a lot more unforgiving than what you’d find elsewhere. A good smartphone screen should meet these criteria:
It should be brighter than 500cd/cm2, so you can see it outdoors without any help from shadows.
Its display color error should be under 5 (DeltaE2000).
Its greyscale values should be reasonably accurate (how the phone transitions from black to white).
Its refresh rate needs to be able to handle common content.
It should target a color temperature under 8000K, but above 6500K
To be clear, a lot of phones meet these criteria, but not all measurements are as important as others. This is why we needed an internal scoring algorithm. Even after feeding all this data through, every phone charted above did exceptionally well, and the differences between ranks aren’t as substantial as awarding one phone “best” would imply. About 20 out of the 30 phones tested failed one of the main criteria — it’s why that 2018 Average bar is so high in that color error chart.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 boasts the top display of 2018
If you’ve ever noticed your screen looks more orange or blue than it should, what you’re seeing is what’s called a “color temperature” that’s not where it should be. If a color temperature is above 6500K, the screen will look more blue. If it’s lower than 6500K, it will look more orange.
This has all sorts of consequences for picture quality, but most manufacturers are banking on the fact that most people will only notice the increased screen brightness. For an extreme example, the LG G7 does this by wildly tuning the default screen color to a bluish tint. By doing this, it can achieve screen brightness no other phone can touch — at the expense of color accuracy.
The LG G7 ThinQ’s boosted blue levels increase color error but also peak brightness.
For the record, the LG G7 ThinQ isn’t a bad phone. It gambles on the needs of general consumers outweighing the needs of hardcore movie enthusiasts, and I think it was the right call for that phone. However, the display is nowhere near where it needs to be to make this list.
The Samsung Galaxy S9 and its bigger brother the S9 Plus both have surprisingly dim screens, so if you need a little extra juice, any of the phones in the charts below will offer you a little more screen brightness with the least possible tradeoffs in picture quality among the twenty-nine Android phones and one iPhone we put through the wringer.
It may not be obvious right away, but a wonky color temperature is something you can’t unsee.
That’s just a small taste of the testing we went through, but you should start seeing more comparisons in the near future — our database is jam-packed with every measurement you can probably think of. We also tested gamma, greyscale performance, brightness, and a few other oddities that came up along the way. If you’re wondering why we don’t compare pixel densities, it’s because all of the phones listed meet or exceed the quality someone with 20/20 vision would notice during normal use.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has the best screen for most
After we collected the data from thirty phones, and fed all of our results through our custom scoring algorithms, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 just barely edged out the OnePlus 6T, Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, and Huawei Mate 20 Pro. These phones showed their mettle by offering the most accurate colors, as well as the least gamma errors.
However I have to say, many won’t notice a difference between each display. If I could award them all, I would.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 only beat out the OnePlus 6T, and its little brothers the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus because of its much brighter screen. Even against the whole field, the Note 9 only edges the other phones out for the top spot by a couple hundredths of a point out of 100 possible points.
If you find yourself in the desert, the southern U.S., or more tropical locales, you may want to go with the Huawei Mate 20 Pro instead. It has just that extra little burst of brightness with only a minor tradeoff in picture quality when the sun is directly overhead. For everyone who spends time in offices, subways, buses, and other situations where you don’t need to melt your retinas, springing for the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is probably your best bet.
Display competition has become incredibly fierce, but Samsung still leads the way.
It tops the charts along with its smaller brethren the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus in gamma error and color error, also nailing color temperature closer than all other phones outside of the Samsung Galaxy S9. While it’s got picture quality on lock, what sets it apart is the peak brightness. It trounces its brethren, offering a picture 20 percent brighter, and only 30cd/m2 behind the brightest display in our top eight. If you want a phone display that does everything well, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is the best in the biz. We also tested the iPhone XS Max for giggles, but as it’s the only phone here that uses the much narrower sRGB gamut, we didn’t want people thinking its low error scores meant it’s better than the Android phones’ DCI-P3 screens.
However, this year more than any other there are so many good displays you’ll be happy with any of the ones we listed here. Among the contestant phones, all of the following were within a few points of each other, and you probably won’t notice much of a difference between them:
Samsung Galaxy Note 9
Huawei Mate 20 Pro
Samsung Galaxy S9
Xiaomi Mi 8
Vivo V11 Pro
Razer Phone 2
OnePlus 6T (though it’s quite dim)
Google Pixel 3 XL (though it’s quite dim)
These are the leaders of the pack — unless you’re gamer.
The Razer Phone 2 has the best screen for gamers
While more and more gaming smartphones have come out, Razer’s 120Hz screen is something special. It’s not as technically accurate as the Samsung Galaxy S9, but it’s close enough. It also offers something no other phone does: a higher than 90Hz framerate (sorry, Asus). Even if that’s something not many people really need, the vast majority of phones don’t even attempt to pass 60Hz. By experimenting with this kind of power in a display, Razer is making strides others should definitely attempt to follow if mobile gaming, gamecasting, and high-framerate content picks up. In short, its screen is a bit more future-proof than the rest. Even if you don’t need it now, it’s nice to have just in case you ever want it in the future.
The IGZO IPS LCD panel isn’t going to make anyone forget an OLED’s superior quality in dimmer lighting situations, but you’ll appreciate the ability to turn up the max brightness a little further than every other model listed here — except the LG G7 and Huawei Mate 20 Pro. In a weird way, this phone is better suited for more lighting situations than the more accurate phones out there. However, the Razer Phone 2 isn’t getting our attention because it’s the winner of some Byzantine competition of hardware performance — it’s because the phone is swinging for the fences in a way nobody else is.
While the Asus ROG phone technically does better with picture quality, the refresh rate isn’t where it needs to be to future-proof for changes in content. That’s where Razer holds the edge. If the differences in picture quality aren’t as noticeable as something like the framerate, that makes this comparison a rather easy one.
A final note on testing
Obviously, if our winner’s margin of victory is as razor thin as the Samsung Galaxy Note 9’s is, chances are pretty good that you might like another display better simply because it’s attached to a phone that’s not $1,000. Our scoring is designed to meet the needs of most people, not all people (that would be impossible).
If you add money to the equation, you absolutely have standing to say a display like the OnePlus 6T’s is more appropriate for you. That’s fine! There’s plenty of data to back up the argument that another display would suit you better. Be on the lookout for comparison articles in the future to help you pick between similar phones using the data we’ve collected.
While we aren’t ready to publish our internal scores, I invite everyone to read up on how we arrive at them anyways. We go to great lengths to squish outlier data points and get a much better picture of the story, as well as properly contextualize results that might not matter all that much to your average Joe or Jane. We don’t want test results people can’t experience for themselves to skew things one way or the other, so we avoid making recommendations without being as exact as possible.
