Google Pixel 2 Review - Review 2022

The Pixel 2 (starting at $649) combines pure Google software and a great photographic camera in a ane-manus-friendly size. But while its specs generally measure upward to the larger Pixel 2 Xl, its design and performance don't quite get there. That makes the XL our Editors' Choice, and the phone to get if you want the full Google experience.

Design

In an era of tiny-bezel phones, the Pixel two ($138.26 at Amazon) is a bit of a throwback. At 5.seven by ii.7 by 0.3 inches (HWD) and 5.0 ounces, it fits very well into i paw. But its 5-inch, 1,920-past-1,080 OLED screen is bracketed by relatively big top and bottom bezels, much like yous see on the iPhone 8.

As a 16:9 phone, the Pixel 2 is the same width as the Samsung Galaxy S8, which has a much bigger screen; the S8 is taller and narrower, and lacks the large top and bottom bezels. The Pixel 2'south screen also looks a chip yellowish, while the Pixel two XL is bluer and the Milky way S8 is balanced in the middle.

The matte metal-and-glass back feels like a warm ceramic, with a pleasant coaction of textures. The phone comes in black, white, or a blue-grey, and is IP67 water resistant. It comes in 64GB and 128GB models. Our 64GB model had 52GB available.

The fingerprint sensor is on the dorsum of the phone. The big bezels here are ostensibly for the front-facing speakers, although the Pixel ii XL manages to arrive both front-facing speakers and smaller bezels. There are a few features missing that power users might want, but they aren't surprises: There's no memory card slot, no headphone jack, and no dual-SIM version.

Modem and Battery

The Pixels may have very unlike bodies, only they have the same modem and LTE functioning. That ways a Category 15, 800Mbps modem supporting all of the The states bands except T-Mobile'due south new Band 71, which volition cover rural areas in the future. (For Band 71, you need an LG V30 right at present.) The phone is 600Mbps on Sprint because it lacks 4x4 MIMO on Sprint'due south Band 41, but information technology has 4x4 MIMO for the other The states and Canadian carriers (fifty-fifty Freedom!), which extends coverage and speed in weak signal areas. Co-ordinate to modem experts, the Pixel has the hardware for gigabit LTE, simply Google chose not to support the full spec.

Wi-Fi support is splendid, on par with the Samsung Galaxy phones. The Pixel ii XL also has Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC.

Those big forepart-facing speakers really pay off with the Pixel ii's speakerphone, which is very loud, if rather harsh. Loud but harsh is too how we'd describe the earpiece phonation tone; nosotros prefer the Pixel two XL, which has a rounder sound, if non quite as loud. Noise cancellation is fine, if non manufacture-leading.

The Pixel just has a 2,700mAh bombardment, but Google's software has e'er been great at conserving power. Nosotros got 8 hours, 48 minutes of LTE streaming on our Pixel 2, which is terrific for a modest phone similar this. It doesn't quite measure up to the Pixel two 40 (9 hours, 25 minutes), but of form, the Xl has more room inside. The phone supports fast charging, but not wireless charging.

Software and Performance

When information technology comes to software and functioning, yous're getting pretty much the aforementioned experience here that you do on the Pixel 2 XL for $200 more than—and it's a cute, Google-centric experience.

That starts with Android 8.0 Oreo, and assures you of timely updates for at least the adjacent few years. It continues with a lack of redundant OEM apps and carrier bloatware, as long as yous don't purchase the telephone from Verizon. Google's calendar and messaging apps expect amend than other manufacturers', and dissimilar on Samsung phones, you won't end upward juggling ii different browsers or two different calendar apps. Pixel phones are but cleaner.

See How We Test Phones

Google has put a few sectional twists on Android hither. I like the new feature that listens to ambient music and tells yous what's playing automatically, right on your lock screen. Just when I tried information technology with x songs, information technology simply worked on four of them. Google says information technology's primed with the most pop tracks, and information technology'll be updated equally time goes on. Fair plenty.

Google Lens has some promise; it'south a feature that automatically recognizes text in photos or lets you look up books, albums, artwork, and locations in Google Photos. It worked easily on books I tried, but it's not a huge differentiator, and I kept forgetting it was there.

But the star of the show, clearly, is Google Assistant, Google's voice interface that's more than conversational, flexible, and knowledgeable than Siri or Bixby. You can activate the Assistant in a bunch of dissimilar ways. You tin plough on an choice to have it recognize your vocalism fifty-fifty when the telephone'due south screen is off, for example. I concluded upwards using the squeeze sensor a lot. Introduced originally on HTC's U11, the sensor lets yous squeeze the phone slightly below its midriff to launch the Assistant (merely no other app). It even works when the phone is in a instance.

You could argue that performance is smoother on the Pixel two than on the XL, considering the aforementioned 2.46GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor with 4GB of RAM is pushing fewer screen pixels. In our benchmarks, that showed upwards as higher gaming frame rates for the smaller phone. Simply in actual exercise, nosotros didn't come across any difference in the UI or in-game performance.

College frame rates would hateful good things for VR, but if y'all're interested in VR, the Pixel 2 isn't the phone to become. I tried the Pixel two with Google'due south new $99 Fantasize View headset. The new headset is comfortable and costs less than Samsung'southward $129 Gear VR. Simply the Pixel 2's 440ppi screen isn't dense enough for a comfortable VR experience. Individual pixels in VR apps are much also visible, and text, peculiarly, would pulse and shift as I moved my head effectually. For VR headset use, yous should go a phone with a college-density screen, like the Pixel two 40, LG V30, or Samsung Galaxy Note viii.

Too, similar on the iPhone viii, Google absolutely insists that its augmented reality arrangement works just fine with i camera. It showed off a few AR demos at a media effect—the usual piece of furniture-placement app, a game, and an app that adds 3D fictional characters to your photos—simply it all the same feels like Google'southward ARCore is well behind Apple'southward ARKit in terms of developer support so far.

As mentioned earlier, the Pixel 2's forepart-facing speakers are loud, but they sound tinny compared with the richer audio coming out of the Pixel 2 Twoscore. The lack of a headphone jack will hurt a bit, especially because Google doesn't even include headphones here, but a dongle.

Google clearly wants to push you toward Bluetooth, and it'due south pushing a new "fast pairing" technique that's supposed to get in easier to pair your Bluetooth headset. Correct at present, though, information technology only works with a scattering of headsets: the Libratone QAdapt Over Ear, Google's own Pixel Buds, the Plantronics V8200, the Bose QuietComfort 35 II, and some headphones made by a company named AiAiAi. That said, I didn't have any trouble pairing the telephone to my Plantronics Voyager UC headset.

The Pixel 2'south 12.2-megapixel, f/ane.eight camera is among the best of its kind. We've seen, testing smartphone cameras recently, that 12 or 13 megapixels is about the top limit of depression-light quality on a smartphone sensor; anything more, like the 16 megapixels on LG's V30, is wasted in low light.

Google'southward Pixel camera software is very simple, without RAW support, manual mode, or many scene settings; Google encourages y'all to strike out and go that stuff through third-party camera apps. Currently, the flagship software feature is Motion Photos, which, like Apple'southward Alive Photos, capture a snippet of video with each picture. The phone also has a software bokeh mode that works on both the front and rear cameras.

Upgrades are coming, showing that this camera app isn't a fixed point. Google says that an upgrade "in the coming weeks" for the phone's HDR capabilities will enhance paradigm quality in mixed lighting.

We tested the Pixel 2 confronting the Pixel 2 Xl and the Samsung Milky way Notation eight/S8. They're all terrific in expert lite. In low light, we were surprised to see some differences between the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 Forty models, given that they supposedly have the same camera. Only we saw them: Every once in a while, the Pixel didn't judge colors in low lite quite also as its bigger counterpart. Maybe that was because of shifting low-cal when we were taking our test photos, only information technology was enough to cement our decision in favor of the Pixel 2 40.

Both Pixels are able to maintain slightly faster shutter speeds in low light than the Milky way S8 does, which gives you more of a fighting gamble against mistiness, and they don't practice the hideous overprocessing that the LG V30 does. That makes them the best smartphone cameras out there right at present.

In that location'south only ane main camera, but that's less apropos on a $649, 5-inch phone than it is on the bigger Pixel 2 XL. Competing phones at this size and toll range don't generally have dual cameras.

Comparisons and Conclusions

There's a polish fix of stair steps up the Android flagship cost ladder. The OnePlus 5 costs $479. The Pixel ii is $649. The Galaxy S8 clocks in around $720, the Pixel 2 XL is $849, and the Galaxy Note 8 is in the $900 zone.

This becomes a question of sweetness spots, and I just don't call up the Pixel 2 is it. If you're merely looking for a good, affordable Android phone, the OnePlus 5 is pretty great. If y'all're looking for the Pixel experience, the XL is superior. And I still beloved the body pattern of the Samsung Milky way S8, the most elegantly built phone on the market.

This isn't to say that the Pixel 2 is a bad phone. Information technology'due south suffering from the aforementioned problem that the iPhone 8 is, which is existence the lower-centre child in a crowded field of adept choices. As it is, it's our fourth (or so) pick for a higher-end Android phone, which is more of a statement about the strength of the Android field than the weakness of the Pixel 2. If you're agonized for a Pixel this year, become big.

And if you lot purchase one, buy it from Google. Verizon is selling the Pixel as well, merely it'll be laden with bloatware and harder to hack. As Google has a 24-month financing program (bringing the phone'southward price to $27.04 per month), getting the unlocked model directly from the source is your all-time bet.

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/old-cell-phones/17726/google-pixel-2-review

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