all right so uh the leaks were true the
rumors were real
two weeks ago google invited me out to
mountain view california to their
headquarters to see what they've been
working on i could bring my camera
and i agreed to go and they the
condition was that i couldn't share what
i saw until today that day is now
october 9th
so i can share so this is your exclusive
first looking hands-on at google pixel 3
and pixel 3 xl their flagships for 2018.
[Music]
now of course a lot of what's leaked was
the hardware and that was pretty much
all right well except for the
conspiracies but i'm gonna go through
everything just as if you haven't seen
it all because it's actually still a lot
of pretty exciting stuff and hey maybe
you haven't seen it all yet so you can
start at the back of the phone and see
it's pretty similar in design to last
year's pixel 2 but with improved build
quality and a lot of ways it's a small
design update but it's clearly still a
pixel but it's now all glass from top to
bottom in between aluminum rails so
typical 2018 fashion but you still see
this two-toned finish and that's because
the bottom half of the glass is a sort
of textured or frosted in a way that
gives it this this soft touch matte
finish it's subtle and it really only
shows up from certain angles but i like
this a lot it feels nice and before i
forget the three new colors this year
are just black
clearly white
and not pink and yes those are the
actual color names and they're keeping
the colored power button train going too
so the white has this mint colored power
button interesting and the not pink has
this bold orange power button and then
the black on black one has a black power
button also fun fact they painted the
inside of the usb c port black which is
a nice touch completing the truly matte
black everything pixel 3. well done on
this one google aside from that it does
just feel a little bit heavier thanks to
more glass but overall it feels good the
buttons are really clicky and they feel
premium in my hand you still have the
squeeze for assistant and you do get
wireless charging now thanks to the
glass and it's also now ip68 water
resistant finally and you'll notice
since they moved the sim card tray to
the bottom and all the buttons are on
the right now the left side of the phone
is completely blank just devoid of
anything it's totally smooth which is
also interesting i'd say the worst part
about this build is actually the fact
that it's kind of slippery despite the
soft touch back okay then around the
front probably the most buzzed about
part of all the leaks the screens
and that notch
that
notch the notch is on the pixel 3 xl
it's tall as hell alongside a much
larger than normal chin also but there's
a lot going on here too the regular size
pixel 3 does not have this notch so the
xl display is a 6.3 inch 2960x1440
flexible oled display that goes right up
to the edges as you can see just as
close to the edge as the oneplus 6 or
iphone 10s or any other flagship and the
smaller pixel 3 with no notch of shame
has a 5.5 inch 2160 by 1080 display also
flexible oled and i'm calling it now
that's going to be a sneaky candidate
for small phone of the year that's just
the state of phones we're in right now
small phones are getting big
there's no headphone jack and no
expandable storage just like last year's
pixels but we know there will be a 64
gig or 128 gig version there's
snapdragon 845 and four gigs of ram
inside which it's kind of weird to say
but that's actually less ram that i'd
expected we'll have to keep an eye on
that and it does keep the fingerprint
reader on the back in the same spot
where it belongs at least as long as
they're not doing it below the glass yet
and also still one camera which we'll
talk about in a second but you're
definitely wondering at this point
what's the deal with the notch right
we've seen phones with notches all year
round and we get it it's necessary we
want to get the screen as close to the
edges as possible but this notch is
a lot taller specifically than any other
notch we've seen in any phone and
there's still a chin
what gives so up at the top of both
phones actually there's not one but two
front-facing cameras and a large
front-facing speaker that's part of a
stereo pair
that's it no facial recognition no ir
dot projector nothing really crazy like
that just two cameras and a really big
front-facing speaker so is it worth that
well as far as the speakers i've heard
them and they are really impressively
loud and clear i'm a fan of what i've
heard from them i'd say they're on par
with the razer phone just for my first
impression although i didn't get to do
any side by sides yet
so if you're the type of person to put
your phone like in a corner of a room
and fill it up with music you can do
that with this phone like a mini boombox
and of course gaming and watching videos
and personal audio will all sound really
good and the two front-facing cameras
are again a good idea i liked it when i
saw it with the lg v40 and i actually
think these will be much better because
not only are they google's cameras and
they're significantly better in quality
on the pixel but the difference between
the standard and wide-angle selfie
camera is bigger it goes from a 75
degree field of view in the standard to
a 97 degree field of view much wider now
is that enough of a justification for
this huge notch
um
hard to say at this point i mean i guess
speakers that are that big have to have
that much room but then again the the
grill is not that big i don't know we'll
have to test it out for the full review
and we'll see if i end up getting used
to it just like i got used to notches
and all these other phones but as of
right now that's like the defining
characteristic people think of when they
think of the xl so let me know what you
guys think of that trade-off either way
that's about all that's major and new
with the hardware again the smaller
pixel 3 is a much better looking phone
for most people but i'm willing to give
the xl a chance because i am still a big
phone person and then the camera that we
all love so deeply on the pixel it is in
fact upgraded again which has me very
excited new 12 megapixel sensor at f 1.8
with ois and of course same camera in
the xl on the small one and you already
know pixel's visual core is still here
that's so important to why pixel has
been i guess the undisputed smartphone
camera champ for the past year actually
that ties neatly into software because
google just always does so much with
software and machine learning and ai and
that's a big reason why they have one
camera on the back instead of two or
three so a lot of the features i'm about
to go over with you while they're
technically new to pixel 3 are also
just software
ready there's top shot so once you've
taken a photo it analyzes other frames
that were also captured and uses ai to
decide if it can suggest a better one
maybe someone was blinking or their hair
is in their face you don't even have to
take another photo it's just waiting for
you there's a new night mode in the
camera that's actually called night
sight it's supposed to be significantly
improved but i gotta test that to be
sure there's some other great night
modes and other smartphone cameras
there's something called super res zoom
which this is super is so google it uses
literally the shaking or rotation of
your hands as you're taking a picture
where if you digital zoom it will use
that to compute a higher resolution
image from that zoomed photo so it'll
help you take better digital zoomed
photos it's not necessarily going to be
as good as optical zoom but that's still
pretty damn cool the google lens
functionality is now built into the
viewfinder so without even snapping a
photo you can just point the camera at a
business card or a restaurant menu and
it'll pull info like an email address or
a phone number for you to one touch call
or compose
shush mode is a new feature that
literally just sets your phone to silent
or do not disturb mode when you put it
face down on a table nice
and there's also now a call screening
feature powered by google duplex coming
later and rolling out to a couple cities
at a time but basically when you get a
call you can accept reject
or send to call screen where that person
calling you will interact with your
google assistant and you'll see a live
transcription of that interaction
while it happens and you can decide to
cut them off or pick up unreal and then
according to google because i asked uh
everything except for shush mode that i
just talked about will be exclusive to
pixel 3 uh not coming to pixel 1 or
pixel 2. so even though it's just
software it's technically still a pixel
3 feature but that's really all there is
to know now that pixel 3 and 3xl are
official you got it all in one place and
like i said i still think that smaller
one is probably going to be the one a
lot of people are more attracted to
small ones starting at 7.99 and pixel 3
xl starts at 8.99 i guess i'm just happy
that phones this year when they have a
small version and a big version they're
not handicapping the smaller version
like it always used to be the smaller
one would have one less gig of ram or
they take the second camera out or
something something weird like that now
the iphone 10s and 10s max same features
except for display and battery pixel 3
pixel 3 xl same features except for
display and battery now aside from the
phones google also had a couple other
hardware announcements today first of
all the pixel in the box comes with an
18 watt fast charger and a pair of usb-c
headphones in the box they wanted
everyone to know that they're the same
style as the pixel buds and have a lot
of the functionality too but an optional
accessory they're building is called the
pixel stand and it's a wireless charger
that also triggers a docked google
assistant mode so it's like turning your
phone into a google home for 79 bucks
and clearly the speakers are meant to be
loud enough so that's an interesting
proposition for a nightstand there's
also now a 150
google home hub with a display and a
couple new colors obviously having a
seven inch touchscreen makes for a much
more user-friendly and interactive
google assistant experience so i thought
that was pretty cool and there's also
now this new pixel slate which i'm gonna
be honest it's a cool looking tablet but
when i used it two weeks ago it looked
like a laggy stuttering mess but that
was just you know still late prototype
phase so i'm going to reserve judgment
on that one until i handle a final
version so there it all is but uh yeah
what do you think of pixel 3 obviously
it was leaked and there was a lot of
preconceived notions and now that it's
all official you probably have your
thoughts either confirmed or totally
changed who knows i'm excited to get
hands on the camera and definitely
follow on twitter for when i do get
hands on the phone again and get to
start sharing sample photos
but let me know what you want to see in
the full review i'll be working on that
shortly again thanks for watching
talk to you guys in the next one
peace