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The Google Pixel XL Review: Life After Nexus

The Nexus brand has been around for nearly seven years now. As technology matured, the Nexus phones demonstrated consistent improvement from one generation to the next; however, the brand’s inconsistency resulted in a series of seemingly one-off devices rather than a cohesive family. Screen size steadily increased from the original Nexus One’s 3.7-inches to 5.96-inches on the Nexus 6, which was then followed by two smaller-screened models the next year—the 5.2-inch Nexus 5X and 5.7-inch Nexus 6P. Price too has fluctuated over the years: After the Nexus One launched at $ 529, subsequent models jumped back and forth between the midrange and flagship categories, with launch prices dropping as low as $ 299 and reaching up to $ 699. Even the naming convention has varied: one phone used letters (Nexus S), one used numbers in letter form (Nexus One), some used numbers that roughly correlated with screen size, some used numbers and letters (Nexus 5X and 6P), and there was even a Galaxy thrown in.

The one feature shared by all Nexus devices, the one that sets them apart from all other Android phones, is the software—a pure Google experience that’s free from OEM and carrier bloatware with access to timely software and security updates directly from Google. The fact that Google, predominantly a software and services company, needs to commission its own line of phones to showcase Android’s latest features speaks to the fractured nature of the Android ecosystem and the sorry state of software support among OEMs and carriers. Even a year after its release, only 19% of devices are running Android 6 and less than 1% are running Android 7, which was released nearly three months ago. This means that 80% of all Android devices are running an operating system that’s at least two major versions old, according to Google.

Google’s latest phones, the Pixel and Pixel XL, still provide that pure Android experience along with at least two years of timely software and security updates, but the new branding is about more than clearing away the Nexus naming clutter. Google is now asserting more control over hardware development, ostensibly to deliver a more cohesive, premium experience centered around artificial intelligence (AI) and Google’s ever-expanding Knowledge Graph, a semantic-search system that catalogs objects and the many connections between them. The new Google Assistant, an integral part of the Pixel experience, serves as a gateway, allowing you to query this treasure trove of data using natural voice commands and contextual queues from the environment.

Google is also pushing for a more unified VR experience with new features in Android 7 and its Daydream View VR headset and controller that works with Daydream-ready phones like the Pixel and Pixel XL. Because of its steep hardware requirements—accurate sensors for head tracking, high-resolution displays, powerful processors—VR will be limited to flagship phones initially.

Google’s Pixel branding may also be seen as a shot across the bow by its Android partners, who rely on an impartial Google to provide them with an operating system and an equal opportunity to compete in the hardware market. The last time Google tried building and selling its own hardware running its own operating system, which occurred several years ago during its ill-fated acquisition of Motorola Mobility, Samsung almost jumped ship, threatening to use the Tizen mobile operating system instead. Google clamped down and persuaded Samsung to stay with Android, and after it sold its Motorola unit to Lenovo, the waves subsided. In the years since, Google has placed further restrictions on what its partners can do with Android, and now that it’s getting back into the hardware business in a roundabout manner, selling phones that directly compete with its partner’s products, competitive tempers could flare once again.

Google Pixel Phones (2016)
  Google Pixel Google Pixel XL Google Nexus 5X Google Nexus 6P
SoC Qualcomm Snapdragon 821
(MSM8996 Pro AB)

2x Kryo @ 2.15GHz
2x Kryo @ 1.59GHz
Adreno 530 @ 624MHz

Qualcomm Snapdragon 808
(MSM8992)

4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.44GHz
2x Cortex-A57 @ 1.82GHz
Adreno 418 @ 600MHz

Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 v2.1
(MSM8994)

4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.56GHz
4x Cortex-A57 @ 1.95GHz
Adreno 430 @ 600MHz

Display 5.0-inch 1920×1080 AMOLED 5.5-inch 2560×1440 AMOLED 5.2-inch 1920×1080 IPS LCD 5.7-inch 2560×1440 SAMOLED
Dimensions 143.8 x 69.5 x 7.3-8.5 mm 154.7 x 75.7 x 7.3-8.5 mm 147.0 x 72.6 x 7.9 mm
136 grams
159.3 x 77.8 x 7.3 mm
178 grams
RAM 4GB LPDDR4 2GB LPDDR3 3GB LPDDR4
NAND 32GB / 128GB (UFS 2.0) 16GB / 32GB (eMMC 5.0) 32GB / 64GB / 128GB (eMMC 5.0)
Battery 2770 mAh
non-replaceable
3450 mAh (13.28 Wh)
non-replaceable
2700 mAh (10.3 Wh)
non-replaceable
3450 mAh (13.18 Wh)
non-replaceable
Front Camera 8MP, 1/3.2″ Sony IMX179 Exmor R, 1.4µm pixels, f/2.4 5MP, 1/4″ OmniVision OV5693, 1.4μm pixels, f/2.0 8MP, 1/3.2″ Sony IMX179 Exmor R, 1.4μm pixels, f/2.4
Rear Camera 12.3MP, 1/2.3″ Sony IMX378 Exmor RS, 1.55µm pixels, f/2.0, PDAF + Laser AF, HDR+, dual LED flash 12.3MP, 1/2.3” Sony IMX377 Exmor R, 1.55µm pixels, f/2.0, Laser AF, Auto HDR, dual-tone LED flash 12.3MP, 1/2.3” Sony IMX377 Exmor R, 1.55µm pixels, f/2.0, Laser AF, Auto HDR, dual-tone LED flash
Modem Qualcomm X12 LTE (Integrated)
2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 12)
Qualcomm X10 LTE (Integrated)
2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 6)
Qualcomm X10 LTE (Integrated)
2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 9)
SIM Size NanoSIM NanoSIM NanoSIM
Wireless 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2×2 MU-MIMO, BT 4.2, NFC, GPS/GNSS 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2×2 MU-MIMO, BT 4.2, NFC, GPS/GNSS 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2×2 MU-MIMO, BT 4.2, NFC, GPS/GNSS
Connectivity USB 3.0 Type-C, 3.5mm headset USB 2.0 Type-C, 3.5mm headset USB 2.0 Type-C, 3.5mm headset
Launch OS Android 7.1 Android 6.0 Android 6.0
Launch Price $ 649 / $ 749
32GB / 128GB
$ 769 / $ 869
32GB / 128GB
$ 379 / $ 429
16GB / 32GB
$ 499 / $ 549 / $ 649
32GB / 64GB / 128 GB

Powering the Pixel’s VR and machine learning experiences is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 SoC. The biggest difference between the 821 and the Snapdragon 820 that powers most of the flagship devices released earlier in the year are higher peak frequencies for the CPUs and GPU. However, the Pixel’s four Kryo CPU cores and Adreno 530 GPU use the same peak frequencies as the Snapdragon 820, negating the 821’s performance boost.

The Snapdragon 821 SoC is backed by 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, which should prove sufficient for heavy multitasking. The Pixels come with either 32GB or 128GB of UFS 2.0 NAND, and like the Nexus phones before them, there’s no microSD card support for storage expansion. Instead, Google expects Pixel owners to leverage its cloud storage and is offering unlimited backups for photos and videos. This should help alleviate at least some storage pressure when paired with Android’s Smart Storage feature, which automatically removes photos and videos that have been backed up, although the stock phone’s 32GB of internal storage may still prove inadequate, especially for people who want to watch videos offline. For those users who do need more space, Google offers 128GB models as a premium option.

The Pixels’ wireless capabilities are equal to other premium flagships, including dual spatial stream 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi (2.4GHz and 5GHz), Bluetooth 4.2, and NFC for use with Android Pay. There’s also a Qualcomm X12 LTE baseband processor integrated into the Snapdragon 821 SoC that supports speeds of up to 600 Mbps on the downlink (3x20MHz carrier aggregation with 256-QAM) and 75 Mbps on the uplink (1x20MHz with 64-QAM).

Frequency Band Support
  North America Rest of World
FDD-LTE 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 8 / 12 / 13 / 17 / 20 / 25 / 26 / 28 / 29 / 30 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 8 / 12 / 13 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 26 / 28 / 32
TDD-LTE 41 38 / 39 / 40 / 41
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
WCDMA 1 / 2 / 4 / 5 / 8 1 / 2 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 8 / 9 / 19
CDMA BC0 / BC1 / BC10 BC0
TD-CDMA 34 / 39

Rounding out the cellular hardware chain are a pair of Qualcomm RF transceivers, which work together to enable 3x carrier aggregation, and a Qualcomm QFE2550 dynamic antenna matching tuner, the principal piece that enables Qualcomm’s TruSignal Antenna Boost technology, which works to improve reception and reduce power consumption by matching the impedance between the antennas and the RF front end. The Avago and Skyworks power amplifiers include envelope tracking, which saves power by adjusting the power supply to better match the requirements of the output signal.

Google’s Pixel phones come with an impressive list of internal hardware, but it’s not enough to guarantee a premium experience. Hardware calibration, software tuning, and industrial design also play important roles in shaping our overall perception of how a device performs, and this is where Google’s more hands-on approach could pay dividends. Now it’s time to take a closer look at the Pixel XL and determine if it’s really the ultimate Android phone.

The Pixel XL, designed by Google and quietly manufactured by HTC, uses an aluminum unibody construction with a thin metallic mid-frame, giving it decent stiffness in torsion and bending. Radiused corners and curved edges around the back make the XL comfortable to hold; however, it feels rather top heavy, which makes it want to tip out of your hand when holding it in portrait mode. 

Google stated that a flush-mounted rear camera was one of its design goals; it did not want a camera hump jutting out from the back. It accomplished this by placing the rear camera in the upper bezel above the display assembly and then tapering the phone’s thickness from 8.5mm at the top down to 7.3mm at the bottom. This tapered profile contributes to the phone’s imbalance, however. Its battery also sits relatively high, leaving very little in the lower part of the phone to act as a counterweight.

The Pixel XL has a very distinct look from the back, much like its predecessor, the Nexus 6P. There’s a large window cut into the upper portion of the aluminum chassis that’s covered with glass backed by a plastic insert. The partial glass back provides more grip for your fingers than the sandblasted aluminum, but it also attracts more fingerprints. There’s also the possibility that it could crack if dropped. I suspect the decision to add the glass panel was about more than just cosmetics, though. Replacing a chunk of metal with lighter plastic and glass keeps the phone’s top-heavy character in check.

Set into the glass is an extra-large, circular fingerprint sensor. The capacitive, touch-based Pixel Imprint sensor instantly wakes and unlocks the phone, independent of finger orientation. The sensor is subject to the same environmental limitations as all capacitive sensors, but is otherwise very accurate. Given how large the recessed sensor is—it’s the largest I’ve ever seen on a phone—you would think it would be easy to locate; however, my index finger does not naturally fall onto the sensor when I pick up the Pixel XL like it does with the Nexus 6P and most other phones, forcing me to slide my finger around a bit to locate it. My hit rate improved with practice, so this was only a distraction during the first few days.

One thing I do not like about the Pixel and some other phones with rear-mounted fingerprint sensors is there’s no easy way to wake the phone to check notifications when it’s sitting on a table. Having to pick it up or press the power button on the side is less convenient than double tapping the screen or waving a hand over the phone.

The Pixel’s rear camera sits flush with the rear glass in the upper-left corner. There’s a circular dual-LED flash with a slightly raised chrome ring to its left, and a rangefinder for the camera’s laser autofocus and microphone to its right. Despite the glass window, there’s still plastic antenna lines that wrap around the sides and top, along with a traditional antenna strip at the bottom.


The sides of the Pixel are flat with a chamfer around the front glass. The SIM tray is the only feature on the left edge, while the right edge holds a single-piece volume rocker and power button. Both buttons give a nice, solid click when pressed and the power button is textured to give it a different feel.

One of the things I found annoying about the Nexus 6P was how I could not pick up or handle it without accidentally pressing the mushy volume and power buttons, a result of placing the buttons so close together at the midpoint along the edge. Fortunately, this is not an issue with the Pixel XL because the buttons are further apart and positioned closer to the top of the phone.


The Pixel still has a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top edge. Centered on the bottom is a USB Type-C port, which supports USB 3.0 (Superspeed) data transfers, and is flanked by two symmetric slots. The single, downward-firing speaker sits within the left slot, while the right slot hides another microphone.

The front of the Pixel XL is covered edge-to-edge with Gorilla Glass 4. The glass basically sits flush with the sides but still avoids any sharp feeling edges. Unlike the back, the Pixel’s front is rather nondescript and boring. The only remarkable detail is the virtually non-existent black border around the display, which is especially nice for the colors that come with a white front.

A sufficiently large earpiece sits centered above the screen, which conceals a notification light behind its grille in the left corner. The Pixel’s ambient light and proximity sensor module is stacked below the earpiece, a poor design choice that makes the upper bezel needlessly large. Placing the headphone jack at the top means there’s no room for the sensor module between the front-facing camera and earpiece. The internal volume to the right is occupied by the rear-facing camera, flash, laser AF module, and microphone, so no room there either. By relocating the headphone jack to the bottom edge, where there’s plenty of room, Google could have placed the sensor module to the left of the earpiece and reduced the size of the upper bezel and the overall height of the phone.

The Nexus 6P, Moto Z Force, and iPhone 7 Plus all share something in common: They all have smaller lower bezels than the Pixel XL. Unlike the Pixel’s lower bezel, however, which is a featureless expanse, these three phones include a second forward-facing speaker, a square fingerprint sensor, and a large, circular fingerprint sensor, respectively, below their screens. The internal volume behind the lower bezel contains a lot of wasted space, so either Google missed an opportunity to include an additional feature, such as a front-facing speaker or capacitive navigation buttons, or it failed to optimize the Pixel’s internal layout.

The Pixel and Pixel XL come in three different cheekily named colors: Quite Black, Very Silver, or Really Blue. Our Quite Black review unit is more of a “Pretty Dark Gray” with a matching dark gray front bezel, rear glass window, and fingerprint sensor. The Very Silver model comes with a white front and white accents on the back, while the Really Blue also has a white front but matching blue accents around back.

In the end, the Pixel XL is neither the best looking nor best designed flagship phone. It has a distinctive look from the back, and color-matching the fingerprint sensor and antenna lines is a nice touch. The front is pretty plain, however. I’m also not impressed by the internal layout that makes the upper and lower bezels needlessly large and contributes to the phone’s top-heavy, unbalanced feel.

Section by Brandon Chester

Google was one of the first companies to deploy AMOLED displays in their smartphones. While they were made by partner companies, the Nexus One, Nexus S, and Galaxy Nexus all used AMOLED displays. The Nexus One actually shifted to LCD midway through its lifetime, although it was mostly due to supply issues rather than concerns about quality. When the production of Nexus smartphones was taken over by LG during the time of the Nexus 4 and 5, the devices moved to LCD displays. From a cost perspective this made a great deal of sense, as those devices were all very aggresively priced and using LCD displays helped in bringing down costs. With the Nexus 6 Google went back to AMOLED again, and for the Nexus 5X and 6P there was a split between LCD on the 5X, which was made by LG, and AMOLED on the 6P, which was made by Huawei.

With the Pixel and Pixel XL being the first phones being branded as purely Google, the choice of display technology is a good indicator of where Google feels the market is headed. In this case there’s no need to make any concessions to drive down price, and because of that, Google has decided to go all in on AMOLED. The smaller Pixel has a 5.0″ AMOLED display with a resolution of 1920×1080. The larger Pixel XL that I’ll be examining here is a 5.5″ 2560×1440 AMOLED display. These are the same specs as Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Edge minus the curved edges, so that will be an interesting point of comparison.

Both models of the Pixel have a sufficiently high resolution, and I think it’s worth stating again that opting to go with a 1080p display on a 5.5″ phone is the wrong decision if you’re shipping a PenTile AMOLED display, because your chroma resolution is reduced. Google has definitely made the correct decision in that regard by going with 1080p on the smaller model, but moving to 1440p on the larger one.

Meanwhile, as smartphone manufacturers are starting to look at wider color gamuts, Google is no exception. Both versions of the Pixel ship with an AMOLED display that (oddly) supports the NTSC gamut, and defaults to using that gamut. We’ll get into the guts of how this works and the tradeoffs involved, but importantly, the phones also support being put in the more standard sRGB mode, which clamps the gamut to the afformentioned standard. This adds another facet to our testing, especially given the pros and cons of using the different gamuts.

Ultimately a display has many factors beyond resolution, and evaluating displays in an objective manner requires each of these properties to be measured and compared to a common standard. In this case, we use the sRGB standard which is the standard color space for all content on the web, and for essentially all computers in general at this time. Measurements are taken using an X-Rite i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer and compiled in SpectraCal’s CalMAN 5 software.

Display - Max Brightness

The Pixel XL’s peak brightness is on the lower side, topping out at 403 nits. This is higher than the Nexus 6P, but not as high as the best we’ve seen from AMOLEDs on Samsung devices where the displays can reach nearly 500 nits in manual mode. Competing LCDs can go even brighter, with many being able to sustain a manual brightness of 550 to 600 nits indefinitely. 

The larger issue here is that Google provides no boost mode when the phone is set to automatic brightness. Samsung does this on their AMOLED devices, and other vendors have begun to offer the same sort of feature on LCD displays. This means that in bright ambient lighting, other devices will reach anywhere from 600 to 800 nits in order to maximize visibility, while the Pixel XL will remain at 403 nits. The OnePlus 3 is another example of a recent AMOLED device without a boost mode, and at $ 399 I considered it acceptable, but with the Pixel XL’s starting price of $ 769 I really don’t know what Google’s excuse is for being so far behind the competition here.

While the Pixel XL doesn’t fare well when you look at its brightness, the use of AMOLED displays means that you get perfect black levels and an essentially infinite contrast, although one does have to consider that reflections from ambient light generally prevent that theoretical contrast ratio from being realized in practice. Even so, when put next to a standard LCD the Pixel XL’s black levels make the LCD’s deepest possible blacks look like light grey in comparison.

Display - Grayscale Accuracy


Google Pixel XL (NTSC)


Google Pixel XL (sRGB)

The greyscale situation on the Pixel XL is actually quite interesting. In both cases Google has a relatively straight gamma, but the default NTSC color mode is slightly blue-shifted, while the sRGB mode is lacking in blue, and actually shifted a bit toward green. The overall error level is lower in the NTSC mode, and I would agree that skewing toward blue is better visually than skewing toward red, particularly because human vision is least sensitive to blue.

The issue here is that the sRGB color mode will provide more accurate colors, but a less accurate greyscale. While you can’t tell from the correlated color temperature average alone, if you look at the RGB balance for each greyscale shade in the sRGB mode you’ll see that it’s shifted toward red, but it also has too much contribution from the green component as well. Even slight skewing toward green has a profound impact on the appearance of greyscale shades, and I find the greyscale reproduction in the sRGB mode is very unpleasant. With the OnePlus 3 side by side it’s clear that they’re both warmer than the target of D65, but the OnePlus 3 is still looks like white, while the green-shifted Pixel XL looks quite ghastly. Having the bulk of your error come from hue and chrominance instead of luminance is not a good way to go, and I’d say that the Pixel XL misses the mark on greyscale accuracy in its sRGB mode.

Display - Saturation Accuracy


Google Pixel XL (NTSC)


Google Pixel XL (sRGB)

The NTSC color mode is just a disaster for saturation accuracy, although it’s that way by design. Targeting a wide gamut is the wrong way to go on Android because the OS is not color aware, but if a company feels the need to offer a wide gamut mode it should at least be a gamut that is actually used for consumer content instead of an ancient, irrelevant gamut from the days of analog television. What really shocks me is how Google has gone so far backward from the days of the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 (2013) where its devices were shining examples of how to make a mobile device with a great display. 

Thankfully, the sRGB mode is quite accurate, although heavy competition in the smartphone market means that it’s still in the bottom half of the chart despite its accuracy. The only thing you could really complain about is that blues are a bit farther off than they should be, and 100% saturations for red, blue, and green fall a bit short as well. This is just nitpicking though, and I don’t think anyone will have an issue with the accuracy of primary and secondary colors when using the sRGB mode.

Display - GretagMacbeth ColorChecker Accuracy


Google Pixel XL (NTSC)


Google Pixel XL (sRGB)

The GretagMacbeth ColorChecker follows the same trend as the saturation test. In the NTSC color mode the error is relatively high, with many colors actually falling outside the sRGB gamut. Not surprisingly, chrominance errors constitute the largest portion of the overall error for each color mixture. The sRGB mode brings the errors under control, and the only colors where the error is a bit concerning are the blue shades, which makes sense given that the greyscale is deficient in blue which leads to the issues in rendering pure blues of varying saturation, as well as color mixtures with significant blue color components. One again, despite the good level of accuracy, the Pixel XL is actually just in the middle of the chart due to many devices with exceptional accuracy shipping in recent times.

The AMOLED display on the Pixel XL is a very high quality panel. I would say it’s at least as good as the Nexus 6P, and further investigation into power usage may show that it’s actually improved in that regard due to improvements in emitter efficiency in the past year. As far as color accuracy goes, both color modes have their own issues. The NTSC color mode is clearly not going to have a good level of color accuracy relative to the sRGB standard, which makes sense given that the gamut has completely different chromaticity values. I would like to reiterate that nobody who actually understands color and the color standards used today would ever choose the NTSC gamut, and I’d really love to know if it was actually something Google decided or if this is just how panels are coming from AMOLED suppliers.

The sRGB mode is very good for color accuracy, although as I mentioned earlier, being really good as far as an objective analysis goes now means your accuracy is just decent relative to the competition. Realistically, I think the color accuracy on the Pixel XL is more than sufficient for any users. The only issue is that the greyscale exhibits significant green shifting. This is a big problem, and it’s enough to make the sRGB mode unpleasant to use because the white background of the app drawer, apps, and web pages has a sickly green hue. The NTSC mode is skewed toward blue, but it’s much less distracting than the sRGB mode’s skew toward green.

Unfortunately, using the NTSC mode means you have to deal with inaccurate colors. For me, both color modes have at least one significant problem that negatively impacts my experience as a user. It’s enough of a problem that I don’t enjoy the Pixel XL’s display because I’m used to devices like the OnePlus 3 and iPhone 7 which have accurate greyscale and color rendering. I believe that I’m more sensitive to this than most users because I’m coming from devices that are very close to the sRGB standard so I have that point of reference. Even so, as far as an objective display evaluation goes, I’d have to say that the Pixel XL has a very high quality display, but neither color mode is quite as good as what you can find on competing devices, including some that cost significantly less than the Pixel XL.

Google’s Pixel phones use a 1/2.3″ Sony IMX378 Exmor RS sensor that captures 12.3MP images with a native 4:3 aspect ratio. Its large 1.55µm pixels have a larger full-well capacity than the 1.12µm pixels found in most smartphone camera sensors, which should improve dynamic range and gather more light per pixel. While similar in many ways to the Sony IMX377 Exmor R sensor in last year’s Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, the Pixels’ IMX378 offers two key improvements. First, it uses a stacked CMOS topology that moves some of the circuitry to the support substrate below the backside-illuminated pixels. Second, it adds support for phase detect autofocus (PDAF), which greatly improves AF speed and accuracy in well-lit scenes.

The Pixels combine PDAF with laser and contrast AF to create a hybrid autofocus system that works well in most lighting conditions. The laser-ranging module sits next to the rear camera and its time-of-flight sensor is supposed to work in lower-light conditions at distances up to 2 meters (6.5 feet).

One feature the Pixels lack is optical image stabilization (OIS), which was MIA on the previous Nexus phones too. OIS helps improve low-light camera performance by removing the small vibrations caused by shaky hands that can lead to blurry images during long exposures. Google claims OIS is unnecessary, partly because of the sensor’s larger pixels and partly because of its HDR+ feature.

Google’s HDR+ processing works a little differently than other HDR capture modes. Instead of taking two or more images at different exposures—a fast exposure to capture bright areas and a slow exposure to capture darker areas—Google’s HDR+ mode combines multiple fast exposures. Using fast exposures avoids clipping bright areas, while combining multiple shots reduces image noise in dark areas by the square root of the number of shots taken. For example, taking four shots would reduce noise by a factor of two and nine shots would reduce noise by a factor of three. Tone mapping and other post-processing can then be used to further brighten and fine tune the final image.

The primary drawback to using HDR+ on previous Nexus phones, however, was the slow image capture rate. Depending on the phone it could take anywhere from one to three seconds to capture and process a single picture. Thanks to the processing speed of the Snapdragon 821 SoC (the HDR+ algorithm takes advantage of vector instructions when running on the Hexagon 680 DSP to improve performance and reduce power consumption) and some capture trickery (the camera is already taking pictures before the shutter button is pressed), this is not as big of an issue for the Pixels. Google claims its new phones have zero shutter lag when using HDR+, implying you can snap pictures as quickly as you can press the button, but that’s not entirely true. In my experience, there’s about a 0.5 second delay when taking HDR+ images, which is still pretty good, although not as fast as taking HDR pictures with the Samsung Galaxy S7. Also, after taking four to five HDR+ images as fast as possible, the Pixel’s camera slows down and can only take a picture about once per second. This is not a typical scenario, however.

Camera Architecture
  Google Pixel & Pixel XL Huawei Nexus 6P
Front Camera: Resolution 8MP 8MP
Front Camera: Sensor Sony IMX179 Exmor R
(1.4µm, 1/3.2″)
Sony IMX179 Exmor R
(1.4µm, 1/3.2″)
Front Camera: Focal Length 3.38mm (26mm equivalent) 3.41mm (26mm equivalent)
Front Camera: Aperture f/2.4 f/2.4
Rear Camera: Resolution 12.3MP 12.3MP
Rear Camera: Sensor Sony IMX378 Exmor RS
(1.55µm, 1/2.3″)
Sony IMX377 Exmor R
(1.55µm, 1/2.3″)
Rear Camera: Focal Length 4.67mm (26mm equivalent) 4.67mm (26mm equivalent)
Rear Camera: Aperture f/2.0 f/2.0

The Pixels use a 6-element lens array with an f/2.0 aperture. Increasing the aperture area (decreasing f-stop value) allows more light to reach the camera sensor, but it also increases the design complexity and z-height of the camera module. The Pixels end up with the same aperture area as the Nexus 6P and are competitive with, but a little behind, other flagships. Their aperture area is 10% smaller than the LG G5’s camera, 13% smaller than the Galaxy S7’s and Moto Z Force’s, and 16% smaller than the HTC 10’s.

The Pixels inherit their front-facing cameras from the Nexus 6P, an 8MP Sony IMX179 Exmor R sensor with 1.4µm pixels and an f/2.4 lens. The Pixels do not have a dedicated LED flash for the selfie camera like Motorola’s Moto Z phones, and there’s no screen flash feature with the default camera app either.

Google is very proud of the Pixels’ camera. Its marketing materials prominently proclaim that it’s the “highest rated” smartphone camera based on the tests of a particular camera testing site. This certainly piqued our curiosity, so we took a bunch of pictures with the Pixel XL in various lighting conditions to see just how well it performs. Normally, we leave HDR turned off except for specific scenes that serve as good tests for HDR image quality; however, Google recommends leaving HDR+ on all the time, and the Pixels are fast enough to do so, so we’re including photos with HDR+ both disabled and enabled for each scene.

Even though the Nexus 6P’s camera is very similar to the Pixel XL’s, we’re including it in our roundup to see how the Pixel’s software processing has evolved. The Samsung Galaxy S7 edge has one of the better cameras currently available, and it looks similar to the Pixel XL on paper (12MP, 1/2.6″ Sony IMX260, 1.4µm pixels, f/1.7), so it will be interesting to see if the Pixel XL’s larger sensor and HDR+ processing translate to better image quality. Motorola’s Moto Z Play costs significantly less than the Pixel XL and comes with a decent camera, so it will serve as our value comparison. Unfortunately, the iPhone 7 Plus, HTC 10, and OnePlus 3 were all unavailable for testing. All of the images were taken using the stock camera app’s Auto mode unless noted.

Daylight Photo Comparison 1

In this first daylight scene, the sun is almost directly overhead, providing excellent light and casting some shadows. Right away we see the Pixel XL produce better photos than the Nexus 6P. With HDR+ turned off, the Nexus 6P produces the darkest image of the group but still manages to clip the bright clouds. Its white balance is good, but its colors look a bit too saturated. The Pixel’s exposure is better (but still a little dark), and its white balance and colors look good too.

The Pixel, with HDR+ turned off, captures an image that looks almost identical to the Galaxy S7 edge’s: similar exposure, similar white balance, similar colors. One obvious difference, however, is how much more dynamic range the Pixel’s image has, showing far more detail in the shadows beneath the tree. And while the Pixel does apply an unsharp mask filter to make edges appear sharper, it’s not as aggressive as the S7’s filter and produces more natural looking results.

Activating HDR+ produces some notable changes for both the Nexus 6P and the Pixel. The images are a little brighter overall. White balance and color look good, although the sky turns a shade of blue that’s a bit darker than natural. The white clouds are no longer overexposed and some areas in shadow are brighter, as we would expect; however, some shadowy areas under the tree actually get darker, which is odd and undesirable. The images still maintain a natural-looking appearance at least.

The Pixel’s photos show very little noise, noticeably less than the Nexus 6P’s photos, and even a little better than the S7, especially shot noise in the sky. The HDR+ images from both the Pixel and 6P show a bit more noise than the non-HDR+ images in busy areas where there is not a lot of constant color like the sky, which is surprising given Google’s explanation of how HDR+ works. This is most obvious on the plants and rocks in the foreground, and the net result is a perceived loss of sharpness.

While this issue is pretty minor, I’m concerned by how blurry the left edge appears in both of the Pixel’s photos, an issue that does not show up in the 6P’s images. As we’ll see below, this is a problem that persists across all of the pictures taken with this Pixel XL. We recently received a second Pixel XL review unit that shows some softening on the extreme left edge and a little in the corners, but it’s nowhere near as bad as. Both Pixel XL review units perform the same otherwise, so this issue seems to be specific to our first review unit.

Daylight Photo Comparison 2

The second daylight photo replaces green grass with brick and concrete, which highlights some differences in exposure. The Moto Z Play overexposes its image a little bit, while the Nexus 6P underexposes, producing a darker image that still looks alright but does not accurately reflect the brightness of the scene. The photos from the Pixel XL (HDR+ off) and S7 edge show the best exposure. Using HDR+ on both the Nexus 6P and Pixel XL reduces brightness across the entire frame. Without any highlights on the building, the photos look like they were taken under a cloudy sky rather than in direct sunlight, which is not accurate.

Each phone’s auto white balance routine works well, and there’s no major issues with color after accounting for the differences in exposure, although the Nexus 6P and Pixel XL (with HDR+ on) produce a darker blue sky again.

Both the Nexus 6P or Pixel XL (the Moto Z Play did not focus correctly) capture more detail than the S7 edge, whose more aggressive noise reduction processing wipes away texture on the bricks and sidewalk. The 6P and XL clearly perform more noise reduction when HDR+ is turned off; however, even when HDR+ is turned on, noise is still minimal with a very fine grain, making it about the same or even a bit less noticeable than in the S7’s image.

Gallery: HDR Photo Comparison 1

Gallery: HDR Photo Comparison 2

When comparing the photos of the parking garage with the camera’s HDR modes turned off, we again see that the Nexus 6P produces more saturated colors than the Pixel XL. Also, just like in the first daylight image above, the S7 edge shows less dynamic range than the Pixel XL and other two phones, capturing less detail in the shadows inside the garage. The S7 edge and Pixel XL are almost identical again when it comes to exposure and white balance.

All of the phones perform well after turning HDR on, reducing the glare on the white sign on the far left, significantly brightening the dark area inside the garage, and leaving properly exposed areas alone. The Pixel XL’s HDR+ mode shows some subtle differences—it does not brighten the garage’s interior as much as the S7 edge or Moto Z Play, but it does a better job bringing out the concrete’s detail in the foreground—although there’s no clear winner in this scene.

The second series of images of the bush largely reinforce previous observations. In this scene, the sun was just outside the frame, with the cameras facing into the sun. This scenario finally trips up the Pixel XL’s auto white balance routine, resulting in a yellow cast to both of its images.

Evening Photo Comparison 1

This first low-light scene was taken just after sunset when there was still a bit of light left in the sky. Without HDR turned on, all of the phones overexpose the sky, which is really the best solution for this tricky scene when faced with capturing an image with a single exposure. The Moto Z Play opts for a brighter exposure again, completely blowing out the sky and washing out some color. The S7 edge handles this situation the best, with a decent exposure and good white balance. The Pixel XL comes very close to matching the S7’s performance, but its colors are not as rich and warm, there’s some flares around the lights on the ground, there’s less detail on the bricks and walls, and there’s more noise grain.

Activating HDR+ on the Nexus 6P and Pixel XL improves image quality dramatically. The sky is no longer overexposed, the foreground is clearer and brighter, and colors are accurate and rich. Image noise is also reduced and there’s more detail in the bricks. There’s still flares around the lights on the ground, however, and the S7’s image still shows less noise. The Pixel XL’s HDR+ image also shows some odd, speckled artifacts around the brightest edges that are not present in its non-HDR+ image or in the S7’s. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture using the S7’s HDR mode for an apples-to-apples comparison. If I had, I suspect the S7 would have the edge after combining its lower noise and sharper detail in this image with the improvements we saw earlier when using its HDR mode.

Evening Photo Comparison 2

This second image was taken after the first just before the sky went completely black. Comparing the non-HDR images, the Moto Z Play clearly produces the worst image of the group. It overexposes again, the green in the trees and bushes is too saturated, and its autofocus had issues, resulting in a blurry image. The best image goes to the S7 edge. Its colors look natural, avoiding the yellow cast in the Pixel XL’s image, and it captures sharper detail with less visible noise than the Pixel XL and Nexus 6P.

Turning on HDR+ once again boosts image quality, although the Pixel XL produces a better image than the Nexus 6P. The biggest changes occur at the front of the building where the overexposed highlights are eliminated, making colors look richer. The Pixel XL uses much less noise reduction in its HDR+ mode, resulting in much sharper detail over its non-HDR+ image. The side effect is more visible noise, but it’s a fine pattern and not that noticeable, except for artifacts that show up around bright edges again (lights along building’s roof). The S7 edge captures more detail with less noise along the front of the building, although detail and noise are similar to the Pixel XL with HDR+ along the side of the building where there’s less light.

The Pixel XL certainly has a very good camera, but I would not crown it the best. In good lighting, it equals or surpasses the S7 edge’s image quality, but in low-light situations the S7 edge performs better, capturing sharper detail with less noise even when the Pixel XL uses its HDR+ mode. Overall, the Pixel’s auto exposure and white balance routines perform admirably, and colors appear saturated but natural. I also did not notice any vignetting (darkening in the corners), an optical issue the Nexus 6P suffers from pretty strongly, or chromatic aberration. Our first review unit shows pretty severe softening along the left edge of the frame, but a second unit only shows mild softening in the corners, so this might not be a widespread problem.

There’s no doubt that Google’s HDR+ mode performs well, improving exposure and detail while producing natural looking results. There are a few cases where turning HDR+ off will produce a better image, but given how well it performs, both in terms of image quality and capture speed, it’s best to take Google’s advice and leave it turned on all the time.

Section by Brandon Chester

The Pixel XL’s SoC is designed by Qualcomm and comes with four of its custom Kryo CPU cores—two with a peak frequency of 2.15GHz and two more that top out at 1.59GHz. The quad-core CPU is paired with an Adreno 530 GPU. After hearing that, you may think that I’m describing Snapdragon 820, but in this case I’m actually describing Snapdragon 821. Qualcomm’s SoCs often come in two versions with different sets of frequencies, and in the case of the Pixel XL Google has opted to use MSM8996 Pro-AB, which shares the same clock speeds as the normal MSM8996 that shipped in many of 2016’s flagship smartphones.

On paper, there’s not really any room for Google to have improved general CPU performance compared to the other Android flagships from this year. However, the Pixel XL comes with Android Nougat, along with Google’s firmware. System performance on a smartphone is hardly just a function of how fast the CPU is, and it’s generally not something that you can determine based solely on the hardware, even if you consider all the parts of the system. A phone’s software plays a big role in its UI performance, as well as the performance of critical Android APIs. We’ve seen devices with the same SoC achieve very different results in tests such as PCMark that utilize frameworks such as RenderScript and core APIs like the system WebView. In order to get a better idea of how well the Pixel XL performs, I’ve run it through our standard set of benchmarks.

PCMark - Web Browsing

PCMark - Video Playback

PCMark - Writing

PCMark - Photo Editing

PCMark - Work Performance Overall

Like the Nexus 5X and 6P, the Pixel XL performs very poorly in PCMark. The overall score actually comes in below the Nexus 6P despite the Pixel XL being a much faster device on paper. The Web Browsing score is much lower, which is shocking when one considers that improvements to Android’s native WebView in Marshmallow put the Nexus 6P at the top of the chart in that test. Video Playback sees a slight reduction, and the Writing score is in line with the Nexus 6P, which performs exceptionally poor in that test. The Photo Editing test, which utilizes some GPU compute, is the only area where performance improves thanks to the Adreno 530 GPU, but it’s not near enough to offset the poor performance in the other tests. Devices that use Snapdragon 820 or Kirin 950 outperform the Pixel XL by a large margin, and it actually sits among devices using SoCs from 2015 like the LG G4, the Galaxy S6, and the previously mentioned Nexus 5X and 6P.

Google should really be investigating why their performance is so poor in PCMark for Android. All of the tests are perfectly legitimate scenarios that reflect real-world interactions, and these performance problems will be replicated in real apps that perform these tasks using similar code. For example, the web test uses Android’s built in WebView, while the writing test manipulates text and does file IO using Android’s own Java APIs. The performance issues when executing tests written purely in Java suggests that there are software problems that may trace back to the Android RunTime, and it’s concerning that such problems can exist when building software that mainly uses Android’s own APIs.

Kraken 1.1 (Chrome/Safari/IE)

WebXPRT 2015 (Chrome/Safari/IE)

JetStream 1.1 (Chrome/Safari)

While the performance in PCMark’s web test using Android’s native WebView is nothing to get excited over, the performance in Chrome on the Pixel XL shows much more promising results. The Pixel XL ships with Chrome v54 out of the box, which promises improved performance. In Kraken and WebXPRT 2015 Google achieves the best results of any Android device, and in Jetstream only Huawei’s Kirin 950/955 devices with their Cortex A72 cores are able to best it. However, when looking at the overall results it’s clear that Google is still lagging far behind the web performance of Apple’s mobile devices. It’s actually concerning that in the grand scheme of things, the only praise you can really give the Pixel XL is that Google has finally beaten the iPhone 6 in web performance, even though the iPhone 6 is over two years old.

The general CPU and system performance of the Pixel XL is something of a mixed bag. Google has done work to improve on Chrome’s poor JavaScript performance on Android devices, but there’s still a long way to go. PCMark also highlights the fact that there are odd issues with general performance, even in cases where the code being executed is purely Java code using Android’s own APIs. These issues existed on the Nexus 5X and 6P, so it doesn’t look like Google has spent any time trying to figure out what the cause is. In addition, the score in the web test which uses Android’s native WebView is actually significantly lower than the Nexus 6P, and it’s never good to see performance regress.

Of course, none of this really speaks to the Pixel XL’s UI performance, which is exceptional. Google has clearly put effort into reducing jank and optimizing the performance of application switching. While it’s hard to measure UI fluidity, it’s obvious that some devices are better than others, and that’s very true of the Pixel XL. As for app loading and switching, we would normally use DiscoMark to measure this. Unfortunately, this is no longer possible as of Android Nougat. Changes that Google have made to the operating system mean that observing accessibility events on the system will not give you an accurate idea of how long it took for an application to load. I initially noticed this when I realized that the Pixel XL was logging as being four times faster when launching apps after a reboot compared to apps already in RAM, which obviously doesn’t make any sense. We reached out to the developers of DiscoMark, and they confirmed that this is a known issue.

Ultimately, it’s a bit unfortunate that there are still obvious gaps between the performance of Google’s best Android device and an equivalently priced iPhone. Tasks like web browsing and working with large groups of text or other data are just simply faster on the iPhone 7 than the Pixel XL. The fact that there are improvements to web performance compared to competing devices is a good sign, and I hope we’ll hear more about efforts to improve performance in these areas as time goes on. I think users will greatly appreciate the work that Google has done to optimize UI performance and the loading of applications, as it has a substantial impact on your perception of how fast the phone feels. I’m also hopeful that we’ll be able to quantify the lead that Google has here compared to other devices sometime soon.

Section by Brandon Chester

The Pixel XL’s Snapdragon 821 SoC uses the same Adreno 530 GPU that is used in Snapdragon 820. In the case of MSM8996 Pro AB, the max GPU frequency is set at 624MHz, which is also the same as Snapdragon 820. This means that at least on paper, one can expect the same GPU performance from the Pixel XL as existing Snapdragon 820 devices. Of course, there are always improvements to drivers and to the SoCs themselves as the manufacturing process matures, so there’s always room for improvements in peak and sustained performance, but there won’t be any major gains like what one would see from a completely new GPU or a bump in peak clock speed on the same part.

3DMark Sling Shot 3.1 Extreme Unlimited - Physics

3DMark Sling Shot 3.1 Extreme Unlimited - Graphics

3DMark Sling Shot 3.1 Extreme Unlimited - Overall

The Pixel XL performs similarly to existing Snapdragon 820 devices in 3DMark Sling Shot. All the devices from the past twelve months generally achieve the same overall score in this test, although when you look at the separate graphics and physics scores you’ll see that some devices do better in each category than others. There’s not much else to say here, as the Pixel XL isn’t breaking any new ground, but it’s also not behind the other Android flagship competition either.

GFXBench Manhattan ES 3.1 / Metal (On Screen)

GFXBench Manhattan ES 3.1 / Metal (Off Screen 1080p)

As expected, the performance of the Pixel XL in GFXBench’s Manhattan test is in line with existing Snapdragon 820 devices. This year devices have really standardized on a resolution of 2560×1440 and Snapdragon 820, so the Pixel XL’s performance in both tests is essentially identical to other phones such as the HTC 10 and the Galaxy S7. It’s hard to overlook the fact that the Pixel XL’s performance is competitive with smartphones that launched in the first quarter of the year, while the most recent smartphones like the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are over 30% faster in this test despite being the same price.

GFXBench Car Chase ES 3.1 / Metal (On Screen)

GFXBench Car Chase ES 3.1 / Metal (Off Screen 1080p)

In Car Chase the situation is essentially the same as Manhattan, with the Pixel XL performing similarly to existing Snapdragon 820 devices. In both cases the performance is actually a bit better, but not significantly so. The OnePlus 3 pulls ahead of the Pixel XL in the on screen test, which makes sense given that it’s a 1080p device sitting among 1440p devices. Car Chase isn’t available on iOS so there’s no way to compare to Apple’s A10, but among Android devices the Pixel XL does provide the best GPU performance available right now.

The Pixel XL’s GPU performance is in line with the current flagship Android phones. Of course, it’s already November, so it won’t be too long before we see the next generation of phones arrive. Launching this late into the year means that performance isn’t going to be significantly better than the initial wave of Snapdragon 820 devices that have been available since February or March, which does put the Pixel in a bit of an awkward position as far as price is concerned. You can grab a OnePlus 3 for $ 399 and it will perform equally as well in GPU-bound applications as the Pixel, or you can spend the same amount as the Pixel on an iPhone and GPU performance is significantly better. Whether or not this matters really depends on the customer, but it’s something to consider when considering the balance of performance and features relative to the cost of a device.

Section by Brandon Chester

When a phone comes in two sizes, battery life is always one of the big questions on a potential buyer’s mind. In general, if you have two devices with a similar hardware platform but one is able to fit a significantly larger battery due to its larger size, it’s going to achieve better battery life. Obviously this is not a strict rule, as we’ve seen with web browsing on the iPhone and iPhone Plus, where both models have a very similar battery life. Even so, as a general rule it’s usually a safe assumption.

The Google Pixel is one of those devices that comes in two sizes. There’s a 5″ model and a 5.5″ model, both with equal thickness, and both sharing the same internal specifications. They differ only by the size and resolution of their AMOLED displays, and accordingly, the larger Pixel XL has a 25 percent larger internal battery.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the 5″ Google Pixel on hand, so testing will have to rely solely on the Pixel XL. As I just mentioned, it is usually the case that when a smartphone ships in two sizes the larger model provides better battery life, which is something to consider when thinking about where the normal Pixel would sit relative to the larger model. As usual, our battery testing begins with our internal web browsing test, followed by PCMark’s general use battery test, and ending with a GFXBench GPU battery rundown.

Web Browsing Battery Life 2016 (WiFi)

In our internal WiFi web browsing test the Google Pixel XL comes in just under 8 hours. Considering the thickness, mass, and battery capacity of the Pixel XL, this is not a very impressive result. In comparison, the thinner, smaller, and lighter Galaxy S7 edge with a display of equal size and resolution manages to last for 9.72 hours in this test. Apple’s iPhone 7 and 7 Plus do similarly well at 9.22 hours and 9.32 hours, despite the fact that their batteries are significantly smaller than the Pixel XL’s. The S7 edge and the Pixel XL have very similar specifications, right down to the CPU configuration and the display. The S7 edge only has a 4% advantage for battery capacity, which isn’t nearly enough to explain the gap. It could very well come down to greater power usage by the display, and this appears even more likely when one considers the additional power burden of using the wider NTSC gamut instead of sRGB.

Normally we would also run this test on LTE, in order to compare battery life between devices when browsing on a cellular connection instead of WiFi. Unfortunately, the Pixel XL presents a problem here. Both Matt and I have noticed that cellular reception on the Pixel XL is not very good. In particular, Matt was unable to achieve our target signal strength of -90dBm or better in the same area where he tests all other LTE devices. The best signal he was able to achieve was -100dBm (outdoors). Because we’re dealing with a logarithmic scale, the difference in transmission power is not 10% like you might imagine based on the numbers, it’s ten times the power. Unfortunately, we aren’t equipped to do laboratory tests on the Pixel XL to directly compare RF performance to other devices, but it does seem that the signal strength is generally not as good as other smartphones.

PCMark - Work Battery Life

In PCMark’s battery test, the Pixel XL is much more competitive than when it’s browsing on WiFi. The result is actually slightly higher than the Galaxy S7 edge, which is a good position to be in. However, the reasoning behind this has more to do with the Pixel XL’s poor performance in PCMark than any sort of advancements in energy efficiency. While running PCMark’s workloads, the Pixel XL’s CPU cores run at lower frequencies for longer stretches of time than the Galaxy S7 edge’s CPU cores, which helps to explain the Pixel XL’s lower performance and longer battery life. In the end, PCMark is a test of general usage, and so this shows that the Pixel XL can last for a good length of time on a single charge, but only by sustaining a relatively low level of performance during that time compared to other smartphones.

GFXBench Manhattan ES 3.1 / Metal Final Frame Rate

GFXBench Manhattan ES 3.1 / Metal Battery Life

The Pixel XL does quite well in the GFXBench Manhattan battery test. The total runtime is 3.19 hours, which is lower than other Android devices, although in most cases the gap isn’t enormous. The Galaxy S7 edge is an exception once again, coming in at 4.88 hours despite its small battery advantage not being enough to create such a gap.

GFXBench battery always has two sides though, and when you look at sustained performance it’s clear that the Pixel XL has an advantage over existing Android devices. It’s hard to say how much of this is due to improvements in Snapdragon 821 and how much could be due to differences in thermal design between different smartphones. When you consider the battery lifetime and the sustained performance, the Pixel XL definitely does a good job.

A Note About Charge Time Testing

Due to changes made to filesystem access in Android Nougat, we are unable to perform our standard charge time test on the Pixel XL. The test requires data related to current, voltage, and charge level that are no longer accessible, meaning that there’s no way to produce a result that is comparable to existing data. We will be evaluating potential options going forward, and may decide to migrate to a test that measures power at the source rather than on the device.

Google is clearly and unambiguously targeting the flagship market with its Pixel phones. With a starting price of $ 649 for the smaller 5.0-inch Pixel with 32GB of storage ($ 749 with 128GB) and $ 769 for the 5.5-inch Pixel XL with 32GB ($ 869 with 128GB), Google is competing directly with Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and Apple’s iPhone 7 lineups. Especially in North America where Samsung and Apple dominate, Google needs more than an impressive list of hardware and features to attract customers. It needs to deliver an excellent user experience with few pain points. With its Pixel phones, Google is asserting more control over hardware and design, hoping tighter integration leads to better phones that are worth more than the sum of their parts. Unlike Apple, who executes this strategy well, Google fails to realize any benefit from its more hands-on approach with its Pixel phones.

Its aluminum and glass hybrid design is unbalanced and top-heavy. The front is boring and unattractive, which could be forgiven if it was not for the overly large and useless bezels. The wasted space below the screen is a direct result of the Pixel’s poor internal layout. On the plus side, the Pixel XL feels solid, has virtually no black border around the display (which is especially nice with the white front), and the color coordinated fingerprint sensor and antenna lines are a nice touch.

The Pixel XL’s 5.5-inch 1440p AMOLED display is also somewhat disappointing. Maximum brightness tops out around 400 nits, well below what Samsung’s Galaxy S7 edge, or pretty much any phone with an IPS LCD, can achieve. Its default display mode delivers good grayscale accuracy with only a mild blue tint, but colors are oversaturated because of its wide gamut coverage and use of color compression. This may not be a drawback, however, for people who enjoy more vivid-looking colors. For those who prefer more accurate colors, the Pixel XL does have an sRGB mode hidden in the developer options menu. When using this mode color accuracy is good but not great, and grayscale accuracy is actually worse than the default mode with a distracting green tint applied to white backgrounds. In this respect, the Pixel XL is a bit of a regression from the Nexus 6P.

Inside the Pixel XL is a slower-clocked version of Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 821 SoC, whose four Kryo CPU cores top out at the same peak frequencies as the Snapdragon 820. Performance is generally good, but inconsistent. Android Nougat’s user interface feels fluid and responsive, but opening and working in apps can sometimes feel a bit slow. This behavior is partially captured by the Pixel XL’s score when running PCMark’s real-world scenarios: It scores lower than the Nexus 6P, a phone that’s not particularly quick either, and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro, which uses Qualcomm’s midrange Snapdragon 650 SoC and costs less than $ 200. In other cases, such as web browsing, the Pixel XL is as fast or faster than any other Android flagship phone, but again the issue comes down to inconsistency. Other Snapdragon 820 flagships, such as the Galaxy S7 and OnePlus 3, and Apple’s iPhone 7 are noticeably faster during use. The Pixel XL’s Adreno 530 GPU performs well, and the Pixel exhibits good thermal stability, exhibiting less throttling than other Android flagships.

The Pixel XL’s battery life results are a bit mixed too. In our Wi-Fi browsing test, it clearly loses out to Samsung’s Galaxy S7 edge and Apple’s iPhone 7/7 Plus. It also does not last as long in our GFXBench gaming test, although that’s mainly because it throttles less and maintains a higher level of performance than other Android flagships. When running everyday code that relies on Android system APIs, the Pixel XL fares better, equaling the S7 edge’s runtime; however, this comes at the cost of reduced performance, so this is really more of a draw than a win.

According to Google, one of the Pixel’s key selling points is its camera performance and HDR+ mode. Based on our subjective testing, its camera is certainly very good, but it’s not the best. The auto exposure, auto white balance, and autofocus routines deliver consistently good results in most conditions, and its colors are nicely saturated but accurate. In good lighting conditions, the Pixel’s rear camera equals or even surpasses the Galaxy S7 edge’s camera, but it cannot match the S7’s detail and low noise levels in lower-light conditions.

Google’s HDR+ mode is definitely a winner. There were a few occasions in good lighting where turning HDR+ off produced a better photo, but in nearly all cases, especially with less light, HDR+ improved image quality. Using HDR+ on the Pixel XL is also noticeably faster than on previous Nexus phones. It still takes between 0.5-1.0 second to capture an image, but it’s fast enough that it makes sense to leave it turned on all the time.


Pixel Launcher home screen (left) and app drawer (right)

The Pixel XL comes with Android 7 along with a couple of extra Google goodies. The first is Pixel Launcher, which makes a few tweaks to the standard Android home screen. Swiping right takes you to the Google search screen (the search box does not appear on the home screen) that also displays a list of Google Now cards showing news updates or personalized information about your day. The app drawer functions more like a drawer, sliding up from the bottom of the display with a corresponding swipe. Personally, I like the swipe gesture a lot more than tapping a button. The app drawer is arranged alphabetically, with the top row showing the most frequently used apps. Long-pressing app icons on the home screen or in the app drawer opens a list of shortcuts. Unlike Apple’s 3D Touch, the Pixel’s display is not pressure sensitive, but there is some haptic feedback. Unfortunately, this feature is not really useful, at least not yet, because it only really works with Google’s apps, and even then there are not enough shortcut options.

We did experience some issues with Android 7 and Pixel Launcher, however. Occasionally, the phone would stall, and it even locked up once. Pixel Launcher also has an annoying tendency to be evicted from RAM, resulting in a blank home screen until it can reload. There’s really no excuse for this behavior, and it gives the phone an unpolished feel.


Google Assistant

The second new software addition is Google Assistant. This is not really a brand new feature, but an improvement upon the existing Google Now service and “Ok Google” voice assistant. Google Assistant basically wraps these features together with natural language processing that makes it possible to have a conversation with your phone much like you would another person. The Assistant taps into Google’s Knowledge Graph and other web services, which makes it a fairly powerful tool and a big improvement over Google’s previous assistant.

Another software feature worth mentioning is the option to pull down the notification shade by swiping down on the fingerprint sensor (swiping up on the sensor closes it), which makes it much easier to access notifications one-handed.

In the end, the Pixel XL is a decent enough phone, but it is not the ultimate Android phone that people were likely hoping for. It fails to stand out in a crowded market and cannot claim to be the best in any single category; at best it is a jack of all trades. This is a serious problem for a phone that is positioned as and priced like a flagship phone. It also does not help that it’s missing support for microSD cards and wireless charging (it does support the USB Power Delivery specification for 18W fast charging), features that are available on the Galaxy S7 edge. There’s also no environmental protection against water and dust, which both the S7 edge and iPhone 7 Plus include. Even its exclusive software feature, Google Assistant, should be available on future Android phones. In the end, the Pixel XL is a Nexus phone with another name. It still delivers a pure Android experience and timely software and security updates, but is that enough to justify its flagship price?

Autore: AnandTech

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