The Pixel 4 XL is a very good phone.
I’ve been using the one that Google sent me for over the past month now as my
personal device and overall I’ve really enjoyed my experience with it and I
think that a lot of people out there just overreacted to certain aspects of
this phone. So in this video I’m going to go over why I think some people
overreacted to this phone and what specific parts of the phone they
overreacted to. I’m going to go over my favorite things about the Google Pixel 4XL some things I don’t like about the phone and then ultimately whether or
not you should consider getting one especially if you’re a fan of the Google
Assistant and taking great photos. Let’s dive in. Now I’ve been watching a lot of
other YouTubers go to absolutely negative on this phone and it’s left me
a bit perplexed like did we get the same phone to review because my experience
with a pixel excel just does not match the amount of critique negativity that
has been launched at this phone. Now there are legitimate concerns and
downsides to this phone especially when it comes to battery life and the video
recording options but especially for people who do video like youtubers do,
that that’s actually a pretty important feature on a phone I would say the ultra
wide camera missing on the pixel 4 that doesn’t bother me as much, but oh my
gosh, like the amount of negativity towards this phone just, I don’t know, at
least coming from my perspective, it does not match the experience of the phone. I
mean some YouTubers are calling this thing a disaster, it’s not, and I think
that they should avoid just writing clickbait titles like that to try to
get a reaction out of people. Dieter over at the verge I think comes
closest to summing up this phone correctly and I put his review in the
video description below. Dieter’s point was basically that the
pixel has never just been about the hardware specs but about the software
combined with the hardware . When people are simply comparing the hardware specs
of the pixel 4XL to other Android phones, they’re not telling the entire
story of the pixel experience and that’s because not all Android
software is the same amongst all Android devices. Google has put a ton of work
into the software making the best use of the hardware in this phone and it shows,
especially with the camera, face unlock Google Assistant, and screen attention,
which is one of my new favorite features where the phone won’t turn off the
screen when it notices that you’re still looking at the screen, which is handy for
reading long articles at night. With the 90 Hertz display, Android 10 feels
incredibly snappy. The 6.3 inch OLED display makes it look great
it has accurate colors, and bases it’s white balance on your ambient lighting
environment thanks to a new ambient eq feature, and face unlock feels
ridiculously fast. By default it’ll bypass the lock screen which helps
contribute to its speed and the soli radar helps turn on the face unlock
feature when it senses your hand reaching for the phone which also causes
it to unlock faster. The phone’s construction feels premium, look similar
to the iPhone, and has improved its atheistic on the front as well bucking the
notch trend by not having the face unlock sensors intrude on the displays
area, which is a real pet peeve of mine and why I like the design of the pixel
4 and pixel 4xl better than the iPhone 11. The camera is fantastic on this phone,
you’re going to be blown away by the pictures that this thing can take.
While it doesn’t have a wide-angle lens, the super zoom feature, and the shadows
and exposure controls with the live hdr+ view, are much more useful in creating
better shots. Plus the phone’s hdr+ has been enhanced to help identify the
correct white balance for your photos automatically and where this really
showed up in my experiences when I was out in the forest taking photos of all
the brilliant fall colors. Now unfortunately where the pixel 4XL’s
camera falls short for me is with video. I’m not as concerned with it not
being able to do 4k at 60 frames per second I mean sure that’s a nice to have
but I typically just shoot 4k at 30 frames per second, but the biggest
downside to me has actually in with the video quality compared to
the video quality on my old iPhone. The pixel 4’s video quality just seems
slightly off, it doesn’t look as good with the colors it captures as my iPhone
does and I just haven’t been as impressed with the footage quality I get
thus far. Moving on, let’s talk about Google Photos. The Google Photos
integration throughout the entire OS is really nice. On iOS I always found it
frustrating when I was in Instagram or Snapchat and I wanted to use a photo
that was in my Google Photos account on iOS there’s no way to link those apps to
your Google Photos account where with the Pixel and Android you can do that
throughout the entire OS and almost any app so that’s definitely an advantage of
the pixel over iOS. Now speaking of Google Photos, one thing to keep in mind
with the pixel 4 is that that Google no longer offers unlimited
storage of your photos and videos in their original quality on Google photos,
so just keep that in mind. The Google Assistant on this phone is wicked fast
for a lot of tasks like navigating on the phone though you’ll need to make
sure that you have continued conversation turned on in order to do
that. I find that the assistant is faster at opening apps turning on different
things like the phone’s flashlight and all-around is a great improvement over
the assistant experience on my Google pixel 3 a one of the newest pieces of
tech in this phone is a tiny little radar chip that gives us the feature of
motion sense now it seems like most people haven’t found motion sense that
useful but when I’m listening to music through my phone and it’s screen is off
and it’s on my desk I actually find the swipe music gestures
to work really well and actually be pretty useful I can skip a song without
having to look down at my phone or touch it motion sense will also quiet alarms
and phone calls when it senses your hand coming towards the phone which is
another nice touch now let’s talk about some of the downsides with this phone
and first let’s talk about battery life the pixel for excels battery life is
fine like it gets me through the entire day and that’s probably what you want
out of a phone but where the caveat comes here is its battery life is worse
than my iPhone eight pluses battery life like when I used my iPhone 8 plus I was
used to seeing about 35 30 percent battery left over by the time I put it
on my nightstand to charge with the pixel for Excel I’m typically seen
anywhere from 20 to 15 percent battery left over by the time it’s charging on
my nightstand so that is definitely worse than the experience I was coming
from but at the end of the day for most days the pixel for excels battery life
for me and I think for a lot of people out there who are just regular phone
users who aren’t heavy users like the pixel for excels battery is going to get
you through the day okay it may be kind of closer than what you’re used to
especially if you’re an iPhone user but it’ll definitely be okay I do really
like the Android at least gives you an estimated time of when the battery will
run out so at least it’s trying to quell some of that battery anxiety but still
no way to cut it Google needs to do a better job optimizing their software and
hardware for battery life especially when you compare it to what Apple’s been
able to achieve another downside i’ve run into is when streaming media over
the Bluetooth in my car with the pixel for Excel I’ve noticed more blips in the
Bluetooth audio and actually all my pixel buds as well now this did not
start off when I first got the phone so I’m hoping this is just a glitch that
cropped up and that Google will hopefully solve but it has happened
somewhat consistently over the past couple of weeks now so I did want to
mention it the last downside I want to point out is not specifically about the
4xl itself but the entire pixel ecosystem Google has been getting better
with their hardware over the years and aside from the battery life issues the
pixel for Excel is probably the best thing that they produced so far but
while Google is great at software services and its software services
ecosystem it just does have a complete hardware ecosystem yet
for mobile devices and what do I mean by that well there’s no pixel watch that
can compete with the Apple watch and there’s no real competitor yet to
Apple’s air pots it’s obvious that Google is trying to get to that
completed hardware ecosystem like Apple has now that it’s announced that it’s
acquiring Fitbit and it’s releasing new wireless pixel buds in the spring but
until they successfully complete this ecosystem apple’s walled garden is going
to continue to entice people to switch and jump over that wall and it’s going
to entice people to stay put inside the Walt garden and this brings me to my
closing thoughts on the pixel for excel and the state of the pixel line in
general the question that’s been in my mind a lot over the past month is who
exactly are these phones really for they’re not trying to cater to the spec
nerds and it’s unclear how committed Google actually is in getting people to
switch from an iPhone to a pixel especially when you consider that
Google’s own hardware ecosystem is still missing a pretty key product so the best
answer I have to the question of who should buy a pixel are fans of Google
products consumers who want the latest Android software updates and the
cleanest version of Android you can get users who want the absolute best camera
you can get on an Android phone or adventurous iPhone users who don’t care
about Apple’s Hardware ecosystem and want to try something new if you’re in
one of those groups I think you’re gonna be really happy with the pixel for Excel
Google is just done a fantastic job overall with this phone and I’ve just
had a blast using it as my personal device for over the past month I mean
the camera is amazing and they’ve done some really smart things with the face
unlock technology and the Google assistant it’s just such a shame that
the battery life of this phone isn’t as competitive with the other flagship
phones of 2019 well that’s it for our 1-month leader
review of the Google pixel for Excel if you liked this video make sure to hit
that thumbs up button below and subscribe to the channel to see more
pics and Google related videos like this one.
For 6 Months Later, I’m Josh Teder, thanks for watching.
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