So, I'm gonna preface this video by saying the Pixel 4 is a good smartphone but it's
not a great smartphone and that's because every flagship smartphone that I reviewed
in 2019 has been a good smartphone.
What makes a great smartphone is the key small differences.
The differences is that companies create and change based on user feedback.
Apple has done a fantastic job of listening to its users this year, same with Samsung
and same with OnePlus.
The Pixel 4 does some amazing new things but it also takes a few steps backwards.
One area is the design.
This is subjective you either love it or hate it.
I think it looks very minimalistic but the one area that it does excel in is the way
it feels in your hand.
These black brushed aluminum edges have a nice rough texture to it.
The fact that it's using a flat display instead of an edged display is a bonus in my books,
it just feels a lot more comfortable to type on and it just feels like a phone that don't
want to put a case on.
Now, this is a clearly white model but I put a dbrand skin on it to protect the back from
getting scratched.
The big feature about this device happens to be the radar sensor that's embedded inside
of it, they're calling it the soli sensor and it does little things like it integrates
with face ID making this a very secure device to unlock your phone.
I personally prefer it over Touch ID or some sort of fingerprint scanner because it's really
fast on the Pixel.
It's probably faster than the iPhone 11 Pro but I love the fact that takes you directly
to where you were last left off.
With the iPhone 11 Pro, you unlock the phone and you have to swipe the screen up.
Now, I know you can unlock it while you're sleeping which is kind of unfortunate.
This is gonna get fixed in the next update.
Besides that the soli sensor does a lot of gimmicky stuff like you can swipe to change
the music, you can pause the alarm which is all cool but it's finicky.
It works sometimes and other times it just doesn't work at all.
What I'm hoping for at least crossing my fingers is that down the road they're gonna implement
some more beneficial features like the ability to track your heart rate while you scan your
hand over the device or some other sort of technology that other phones are not doing.
The display has gotten an update as well, not only getting a beautiful AMOLED panel.
It's a lot more consistent than previous years.
Do you remember the Pixel 2 with its blue screens and the Pixel 3 having hardware issues?
Well this one, seems to be flawless and on top of that you're also getting a high refresh
rate 90 Hertz which is fantastic.
It makes scrolling through things a wonderful experience very similar to the OnePlus device.
This one happens to be dynamic so it's not always 90 Hertz and it does this to save battery
life.
Now hands down my favorite thing about this smartphone is the Google Experience, Android
10 on the Pixel is better than any other Android phone.
I used to say it was the OnePlus device but this has just taken the crown.
What Google has done was polished the OS, use one of their chips inside of the device
to bring Google Assistant embedded into the phone.
SoTalking to it is a lot quicker and the response is a lot faster.
Plus, they totally stole the gestures from the iPhone and they did a good job of implementing
it into the Pixel 10, but the one area that this phone completely suffers from and I think
it's inexcusable is the battery life.
The Pixel 4's battery life is atrocious.
Literally four hours sometimes four and a half hours of use of screen on time before
this phone dies.
The Pixel 4 XL is a little better.
I can get five to five and a half hours of use before the battery dying but overall for
2019 standards it's way below.The competition.
Then there's the camera.
This year Google went with two lenses instead of three, which is pretty much the standard
for most flagship smartphones.
They went with the telephoto because they feel it provides a lot more information.
And technically, yes, it does when you're doing things like measuring depth or doing
portrait mode.
But why couldn't they just stick a third lens inside of here?
They feel the ultra wide is not important, but I disagree.The experience, It's a different
type of emotion when you're taking a picture.
With a big square bump like this it should have been inside of it.
Now is it the best camera on a smartphone?
It's tough to say it traded a lot of blows with the iPhone 11 Pro.
If you want to see a full comparison of the iPhone versus the Pixel 4 XL, I'll place a
link in the description down below.
But one of my favorite features about this device is the recording app.
And I know a lot of phones can do it.
They have these apps built into them, but this one is special because it does all the
processing on the phone itself.It's real time even if I was to put it on airplane mode it
would continue to translate exactly what I'm saying.
Like I'm talking right now it's getting everything I'm saying it makes the odd mistake here or
there but this is such a key feature for journalists, maybe your student at school you want to record
a lecture just having this on your phone being able to search for those specific words later
is really nice.
So here are my closing thoughts.
The Pixel 4 has a lot of good things going for it like a buttery smooth display, that
looks awesome.
The best Android experience period, Google Assistant is on crack, you have a wonderful
wonderful App experience that is very flawless and you have a good camera for stills but
and I mean, but the battery life is a major major turn off.
This device especially the smaller Pixel 4 unless you're using it very lightly you're
gonna have a tough time getting through the entire day.
Imagine two years down the road.
When the battery degrades.
It’s not going to last half a day.
The other area is the pricing $800 for 64 gigabytes with a battery that doesn't last
and Google took away free uploads of high quality photos, it becomes a harder sell,
especially when you have the iPhone 11 for 600 bucks and the OnePlus 7T for 500 bucks.The
iPhone 11 Pro is only offering 64 gigabytes as well but the iPhone 11 Pro is selling a
lot of smartphones.
The pixel devices never have and I think if Google wants to make a big dent on the market,
they got to start offering more for less and got to retain the premium quality but keep
some of those features that they had in previous years on their devices.
I will say this though if you're looking for the best Android experience this is it but
the battery is a big turn off.
Anyways, this wraps up this review.
I hope you guys enjoyed the video if you did feel free to like it, subscribe if you haven't
already and I'll see you guys in the next video.