the pixel 6 and 6 pro are google's
latest phones that i've been using for
over six months now and these are
without a doubt the best phones google
has ever made but what are the top
features that make them stand out should
you go for one now or wait for the 7 and
7 pro later this year is the pro really
worth the price over the regular 6 and
why would you go for a pixel over a
samsung phone i'm going to answer all of
those questions and more and first let's
talk about how google implemented
android 12 on these pixels because it
makes these phones feel very different
from any other phone i've used
previously google did a great job making
the pixel 6 and 6 pro software feel very
fun and differentiated from past android
devices and i love how easy it is to
match the system's colors to your
wallpaper with the new material you
theming and you can make it all match
with your phone's hardware color the
colors you choose run deep into the os
showing up in quick settings regular
settings and in other ui areas like
widgets and even app icons unfortunately
it seems like only google's own widgets
and maybe one or two from apps i have
have embraced the new material use
styling and the same goes for app icons
you'll only see the new app icon theming
feature really work with google's own
android apps so the widget experience
it's still a little bit inconsistent
compared to what you get on ios in terms
of visual consistency however i do like
that android actually gives widgets more
functionality like for example the
pocketcast widget i can just tap play to
resume the podcast i was listening to
whereas on ios if you tap the same
pocketcast widget on the home screen
it'll take you into the app and then you
can hit play now there are of course
pixel specific features that you can get
on the 6 and 6 pro that you cannot get
on any other android device and these
features help set the pixel apart from
its main competition from samsung some
of these features are small things like
the now playing feature that shows you
what music is playing in the background
others are bigger like hold for me which
i've used so much when calling customer
service numbers when you're waiting for
a person to pick up on the other end the
pixel will actually wait on hold for you
and will notify you on the phone when
somebody on the other end of the line
has picked up so you don't have to
listen to that awful hold music for 20
plus minutes and you can go and focus on
other things you also get call screening
as well with the pixel where the
assistant will screen incoming calls
from unknown numbers allowing you to see
the conversation the person had with the
google assistant making likely spam
calls pretty obvious next up also new to
the pixel with this version of android
is security hub which i think is a
really well designed upgrade that makes
it easy to check and see if any of your
accounts passwords device settings need
your attention so your security is
always up to date and protected android
12 also includes one of my personal
favorite features which is the work
profile which allows me to separate my
google workplace work apps from my
personal apps and it makes it easy to
schedule my work apps to turn off at a
specific time at night and also has a
nice button to allow you to turn them on
and off now if i missed out on your
favorite pixel or android feature let me
know in the comments what feature keeps
you coming back to android and or the
pixel and to see more content around
pixel related features and more videos
on google products make sure you
subscribe to the channel next let's talk
about performance and both the pixel 6
and the pixel 6 pro include google's
first ever custom design chip which is
called the google tensor chip and over
the past six months the performance on
both of these phones has just been
blazing fast especially when this chip
is paired with the 6 pro's 120 hertz
display the tensor chip also helps
enable some new features this year like
the pixel's improved video and still
image processing and yes like in past
years the camera quality on this year's
pixels is superb and even the video
quality now is pretty good which has not
always been the case with previous
pixels while i'll admit the difference
between phone cameras seems to have
gotten smaller among the flagship phones
from google apple and samsung the
pixel's camera still stands out to me in
a few ways one the pixel 6 pro has the
best telephoto lens i've used on the
phone thus far and captures some truly
excellent shots the second major benefit
of this camera system is facial color
and tone google did a lot of work with
this year's camera algorithms with real
tone to make sure they capture darker
skin complexions much better which
others have reported seems to be the
case i've actually even noticed that
this pixel camera system does better
than any other phone i've used
previously at capturing my own skin
tones especially in difficult lighting
situations like you've got hard sunlight
hitting your skin the color accuracy and
tone of my skin tone in these photos is
just better than any other camera system
i've used including the iphone 13 pros
overall the pixel 6 and 6 pro are very
comparable to the other main phone i use
my iphone 13 pro and i find i prefer the
pixel's look about half the time
compared to my iphone's photos it still
gets you those hallmark high contrast
and cool pixel shots which i really dig
new this year on the pixel is much
improved video processing which makes
the videos you take usable and makes the
videos i've taken on previous pixels
look pretty much like garbage especially
if they were in low light scenarios now
the video quality still isn't as good as
the iphones which just produces way less
noisy of an image and overall is just
solid but the pixel's video quality
isn't far behind anymore and something i
definitely use now one other new camera
feature that google added this year for
the pixel 6 and 6 pro is called magic
eraser which makes it very easy to go
into a photo you take and delete people
and objects out i've used this a lot
compared to some other new features like
face on blur and motion mode which are
also new on these pixels magic eraser
works pretty well as long as you know
its limitations i use it to take out
hair fly and other unwanted objects or
people and one piece of advice with this
feature you're going to get better
results if you use pinch to zoom and
then make your edits and the best part
is you can use this feature on not only
photos you take on your pixel but on
photos sent to you or in photos that you
previously took in your google photos
library now the next thing i've really
enjoyed with both of these phones is
google's speech dictation feature it's
one of the best new features on these
phones thanks to google's tensor chip
these pixels have a brand new speech
recognition model that will
automatically add the right punctuation
and for the first time it's phonetically
based instead of being keystroke based
and in my experience this makes smart
suggestions much better and more useful
in fact google's speech recognition
model is so good i've been using it to
generate all of the closed captions you
see on my videos on the channel for the
past 6 months with very few light edits
the pixel 6 and 6 pro also feature a
completely new and somewhat polarizing
external design and after six months for
the pro specifically google just created
a great phone to comfortably hold in
your hand the metal rails and rounded
edges make it more grippy than you'd
expect and given the phone's larger size
it actually weighs about 20 grams less
than the samsung s22 ultra the six is
comfortable to hold but i found its
brushed aluminum sides make it slightly
more slick and because it's about the
same weight as the pro but in a smaller
form factor it feels a bit more weighty
next let's talk battery life both of
these phones have about average battery
life for me easily lasting me all day
with light to moderate phone use i use
the pro more than the 6 and the pro
typically will get down to around 40
battery after a full day of use by the
time i want to charge it at night the
last hardware feature i've really
enjoyed with these phones are haptics
and specifically for the pro because the
haptic engine is actually located a
little bit farther down the phone's body
you really feel the haptics when you're
typing on the keyboard and they feel
great these are definitely the best
haptics i've ever felt on a pixel and
the regular sixes are good too the last
thing i've enjoyed with these phones are
the android ecosystem benefits you can
download apps outside of the play store
like fortnite and really tinker and
customize with the device to make it the
way you want it versus something like
ios which is more locked down however
now this leads me to my first downside
that i found with these pixels and
that's their overall accessory ecosystem
samsung and apple are the two dominant
players in the smartphone market today
and they have a ton of accessories and
other devices you can buy that'll work
seamlessly with their phones google just
doesn't have that yet though recent
links suggest they're close to launching
a new smart watch which we'll of course
review on the channel so make sure
you're subscribed to see that video and
i do think that having a smartwatch made
by google will make the pixel's
accessory ecosystem a bit more
competitive compared to samsung and
apple's and related to accessories i
think google needs to make better cases
for the pixel this year's were a bit of
a disappointment they're okay not great
and make me miss the great fabric cases
google made for previous pixels the
fingerprint sensor which is a bit slower
than other phones i've used but has
worked fine over the past six months but
it still makes me miss having face
unlock in a pixel face id and face
unlock are the fastest ways to unlock a
phone in my experience and something i'd
like to see google bring back now the
biggest downside i found with both of
these devices over the past six months
has been auto brightness
it just isn't good it's not nearly as
accurate as my galaxy s21 ultra and
iphone 13 pro it's too quick to get to
different brightness levels versus other
phones that do a better job of fading in
and out brightness so you notice the
adjustments less and sometimes the
adjustments it makes are just so wrong
especially in low light situations i
just turned the feature off entirely the
last downside i found with these devices
is only for the pixel 6 and that's its
screen for six hundred dollars i just
expect a better screen at this point
while it is an oled screen the viewing
angle shifts which have a green and
purple color to them with this display
just make it look cheap and not great
compared to other phones and devices in
this price range it's a screen i'd
expect to see on a pixel a series line
of phone but not for the pixel 6. now
one other thing i do want to mention a
lot has been made about the google
software updates over the past six
months and introducing new bugs and
issues with the pixel 6 and 6 pro i have
not personally seen that which is why i
did not put the software updates in my
downsides part of this video the only
nasty bug i ran into was the wi-fi bug
where no matter what you did the phones
would not connect to wi-fi but that was
fixed in a later software update so
those are the downsides i found with
these devices now let's talk which pixel
i think you should get which one to go
for and if i recommend both of these
devices and while i do think the screen
is subpar on the pixel 6 for the 600
price the 300 price difference between
the pixel 6 and the 6 pro
i do think that is a bit steep however
if you want a much better screen a
telephoto camera a better selfie camera
and more premium build materials like i
do then the pro is really your only
option and it's the phone i typically
recommend to people when they ask me
which pixel they should buy based on my
experience i recommend the pixel 6 pro
because of its better screen quality now
because these phones are over six months
old now naturally the question is should
you wait for the pixel 7 and 7 pro to
come out in the fall or get one of these
phones now it's unlikely google is going
to do a fundamental redesign with the 7
and 7 pro given the pixel 6 and 6 pro
were such a huge jump from previous
generations of pixels my advice would be
if you can find a good deal on the 6 pro
i'd go for it but if you're looking at
the pixel 6 i'd actually wait at this
point i'd wait to see what google does
with the pixel 7 and if they put a
better screen in that phone now if you
don't care about screen quality of
course yeah you're good to go with the
pixel 6 now the google pixel 6 pro
retails for 8.99 us dollars and the
pixel 6 retails for 599 us dollars you
can use the purchase links here in this
video and in the description below if
you'd like to purchase them or learn
more and if you have any further
questions about either the pixel 6 or
the 6 pro let me know in the comments
below and i'll try to address them there
hit that thumbs up button if you like
this video and subscribe to the channel
to see more long-term reviews like this
one and if you're looking for what to
watch next check out some of our other
google reviews like the review i did of
the nest battery doorbell the nest audio
and the nest hub second generation with
sleep tracking so go check those out for
six months later i'm josh teder thanks
for watching