The Google Pixel 6 is the more affordable version Google’s flagship phone this year and
at first glance it seems like the better deal compared to the Pro because their specs
are so similar, but after spending a month using the Pixel 6 Pro and now the Pixel 6,
there's actually more of a difference between these two devices that I had originally thought.
So I'm gonna walk you through what those differences are, what makes the Pixel 6 a
great phone to get ,and when I think it's worth it to get the Pixel 6 over the 6 Pro or the 5a.
So what are you missing out on by choosing the six? As someone who just spent a month
using the 6 Pro and now another month using these 6, one thing that surprised me about
the 6 was it's not significantly smaller or lighter than the 6 Pro.
The Pro has a 6.7 inch display, and the 6 has 6.4 and weighs 207 g while the Pro weighs 210 g, so
they’re very close in size. One weird thing though that I’ve noticed when using both phones is the 6
actually feels more heavy or weighty than the Pro, even though we both know that as an actually true.
So why does it feel that way to me? Well, there are a couple of things
going on here. The first is because the 6 Pro is slightly larger than the 6,
I think that causes you to spread your fingers out a little bit more to be able to grip this phone.
And that, plus polished metal sides of the Pro make it more grippy to hold compared
to the Pixel 6’s brushed aluminum sides which slip more easily and
cause me grip this phone in a different way so it doesn't’ slide out of my hand.
Now other than the build materials, size and weight feel difference, the 6 and 6 Pro
are pretty similar in their exterior design, with the only other main difference being
the Pro has an additional camera in the camera bar on the back, a 4x telephoto,
and it comes in more muted colors than the Pixel 6, and has a 5mm wave cutout included
where not all versions of the 6 do, which gives the 6 a more uniform look with it’s design.
Now, the last major difference, I found between using the 6 Pro and the 6 are these phone’s
displays, and there's more to talk about here than you might realize. y going with
the 6 you loose out on a curved display, which isn’t likely a huge loss to anyone, but you do
loose out on a 120 hz LTPO display which can ramp down to 10 hz to save battery. Most people aren't
going to notice a difference between 90 hz or 120, but if you're asking, yes I can see the
difference between 90 hz and the 120 and given the choice, I'm going to choose 120 every single time,
But that's not actually the biggest difference between these two phones displays. The biggest
difference is actually in display quality, which you wouldn't necessarily know by just looking
at the tech specs of both of these phones. Just because both say OLED display on the spec sheet
doesn’t mean the displays are actually equivalent. In order to get the 6 to the great price of $599,
Google cut costs with the display they chose. And unfortunately, the 6’s display is just nowhere
near as good as the 6 Pro’s. The Pixel 6’s display suffers from color shift refractions when you just
slightly move the phone to a different angel, and you’ll see the display alternate between a green
and purple tint, which is typical of lower quality OLED displays and those we’ve seen in the Pixel
A series line of phones, but not in the recent flagship Pixels like the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4 XL.
So, if you’re coming from a Pixel 5 or 4 XL, iPhone, or flagship Samsung device and are
thinking about getting the 6 over the 6 Pro, I think twice about it and I'd steer you towards
getting the Pixel 6 Pro. Especially, if you're a stickler for display quality, You can get around
some of the display issues on the 6 by just using dark mode all the time, but…it's just not a great
display. So that's everything I found between the 6 and the 6 Pro and those differences. Now
in general, what do I like about the Pixel 6? Well first is the software experience. By going with a
Pixel 6 you get an incredible software experience straight from Google so you can experience
Android the way Google meant it to be experienced and for the first time this year, the Pixels have
Google-designed chips, pairing hardware and software together to create a truly unique
experience with features you can’t get on any other phone like the awesome new speech dictation
which is the fastest and most accurate speech dictation I’ve experienced on a phone It's so
good, I've actually used it for this video's captions. So if you turn on closed captions here
on YouTube, the captions you see have actually been generated by the recorder app on the Pixel 6,
using the new speech dictation feature with minimal capitalization and punctuation edits.
The Pixel 6 also brings updated and expanded translation capabilities as well, and its even
able to translate text conversations in real time, as well as signs in up to 55 languages without
an internet connection, it’s all processed on-device thanks to Google’s tensor chip.
With Tensor you also get much better video processing than
previous generation of pixels which makes the Pixel’s video
capabilities much more in line with iPhone and Samsung video quality.
Now for a full breakdown of this year's Pixel 6 and 6 Pro camera system,
you can actually see the full in-depth review we did of this camera system,
which is in our Pixel 6 Pro review and you can get to that review by pausing this video,
and clicking the card here or check out the link in the video description below.
Just keep in mind with the 6 you don’t get a telephoto camera and the selfie camera has
a slightly smaller resolution. The selfies I’ve gotten on the Pixel 6 look pretty good,
but they do lack a bit of detail when you compare them to the selfies you get on the Pixel 6 Pro.
Tensor also enables a brand new feature that's been a ton of fun to play with but also one that's
quite useful and that's Magic Eraser. This feature is a smart touch up feature that
allows you to erase objects and people from your photos, all using the on-device Tensor processor.
So for example, here’s a selfie I took over the weekend. You’ll notice though theres some hairfly
and powerlines in the shot that we can clean up. To get to magic eraser I’ll go to edit, tools, and
magic eraser. When you first enable Magic Eraser it’ll look at your image and try to determine
things that need to be taken out. So for here it’s identified part of the powerlines. You can
click erase all and all the suggested edits will be erased. Then I can go in by pinching to zoom
and start either circling or brushing in areas I want it to take out and it’s smart enough to
figure out what part of the background to bring in as a replacement of the part of the object I’m
trying to remove. This feature in my experience actually works pretty well as long as the image
or background you’re working with isn’t too complex and the best part is it works not
just with the photos you take on the Pixel 6 but any photo in your Google Photos library.
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Alright, now back to the Pixel 6. With this Pixel you of course get all of the great
past pixel features as well like call screen, hold for me, a new call visualization screen,
and great useability features like smart lock, the new Android 12 themes and icon customization,
side loading apps from the web like Fortnite, and important and useful
safety features like car crash detection, the personal safety app which you can set
to automatically text loved ones with your location if you don’t check in after a walk,
And this year Google made a huge update to the security area of the Pixel,
now called the security hub, which displays all of your security settings in one place.
Google made this design very easy to use, if everyone’s good it’ll show all green
checkmarks but if something needs your attention either on your phone or with
an account associated with your Google Account, it’ll show you that as well.
In terms of performance and battery life. I found the tensor chip in the Pixel 6 to
be a very capable processor. I can capture 4k 60 video for long
periods of time without overheating and it plays video games smoothly.
The battery life on the 6 has also been fine for me. It's lasted me well throughout the day
and do keep in mind though, I am an average to light phone user and I haven't traveled
with this phone yet, which is usually when I put the most stress on a phone's battery.
One thing I do like with Pixels is on the days I forget to charge it,
you can flip on extreme battery saver to get way more juice out of your phone
and it also has Fast USB-C and fast wireless charging included as well.
So those are all of the things that I like about the Pixel 6 and how it's compared to
using the Pixel 6 Pro. Now, let's talk downsides and recommendations. And the
only downside I found with the Pixel 6, and 6 Pro for that matter, is Wi-Fi setup.I should
have mentioned this in my Pixel 6 Pro review but I thought this was just some isolated bug
with my particular router set up but then when I had it happen on this Pixel 6 and another 6 Pro,
and saw others on reddit running into this issue, I realized there’s something going on
here. Basically, what happened to me during setup is when I would try to connect to a Wi-Fi network,
it would just fail to connect. Even though I typed in the correct Wi-Fi password.
I was able to get around this bug by skipping the wifi setup step when you first set up the phone.
Then I was able to either us the QR code scan feature from another Android device
to join the network successfully or I’d turn off the randomize mac address setting for the
specific wifi network I was trying to join and then was able to join the network successfully
Hopefully Google’s December Pixel drop update will help address this bug.
So now let's talk recommendations and when I think it's smart to go for the 6, over the 6 Pro or the
5a. The Pixel 5a is Google’s budget-friendly phone for 2021 and by going for the Pixel 6
over the Pixel 5a you’ll get the all-new Pixel 6 design with a better build quality and gorilla
glass victus, wireless charging, battery share, the new improved camera system including the
new sensor, lenses, magic eraser, laser auto focus system, new motion modes, face unblur,
and manual white balance. You also get a 90 hz display though both the 5a and 6 have that green
purple shift I talked about earlier. The Pixel 6 also gets you a high brightness mode, 256 GB
storage option and of course, the new Tensor chip. The only main benefit you might find with the 5a
is its back fingerprint sensor for those who don’t want the under display fingerprint sensor But
after using the 6 for a month and after an update Google made the fingerprint sensor software,
it's worked much better for me and has been much more reliable.And on the Pixel 6 you can use the
back tap feature to bring down the notification shade in a similar way to how it works on the 5a.
So that's what you get with the Pixel 6 over the Pixel 5a and given that the cost difference
between these two devices is $150 US dollars, I think getting the Pixel 6 is well worth it.
Now what about the pixel 6 Pro you may ask At first glance when you consider, there's a $300
price difference between the 6 and the 6 Pro? it doesn't seem like you get that much more,
but to me, you actually get quite a bit more. A 120 hz LTPO display with
much better quality than the 6’ display, more storage tier options, 12 GB of RAM,
a slightly larger sized display with more premium materials that are more grippy without a case,
a telephoto camera that’s quality is actually quite good and a better additional camera
than the ultrawide in my opinion, a larger selfie camera, and stronger haptics on with
the software keyboard. Both the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro to me have great haptics, but because they placed
the taptic engine closer to the keyboard in the 6 Pro, the haptics feel stronger.
To me, having much better screen quality, the 120 Hertz display, and that fantastic telephoto camera
that warrants the $300 price difference between these two devices and warrants going for the Pro
in my opinion. Then, of course, I am a stickler for screen quality, so that difference,
you might not be able to justify, depending on your tolerance for OLED screens.
Now if you’re upgrading from a Pixel 5 or Pixel 4XL,
the display quality you’re used to with those phones would make me recommend the 6 Pro over
the 6, since you’d likely find the 6’s display a bit of a downgrade.
The Pixel 6 retails for the great price of $599 US dollars and you can use the purchase links on
the side of this video or in the description. If you'd like to learn more about the Pixel 6
Pro or Pixel 5a, you can get to the reviews that we've done of both of those phones by clicking the
cards here in this video or by checking out the links to those reviews in the description below.
If you have any further questions about the Pixel 6, 6 Pro or 5a,
or want to share your experience with these pixel phones, leave a comment below.
Well, I hope you found this video helpful and useful, and if you did and liked it,
make sure you hit that thumbs up button below and subscribe to the channel for more Google product
review videos like this one. For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder, thanks for watching.