what's good world welcome to the channel today I'm gonna be giving you my review
of the Google pixel 2 XL now to provide context I bounce back and forth
between Android and iOS so I'm not really biased in any way I don't have
any brand loyalty so you're not gonna get some brain watched review from a guy
that only likes pixels or only likes iPhones to give you my history with
Android I've been using Android phones for years now my first Android phone was
the first Android phone was the HTC g1 from my t-mobile that was the first
Google phone ever and I've loved Android ever since I've owned several different
Galaxy devices out on the first generation pixel which you can find my
review on the channel I would throw a card up so when the opportunity arises
for me to get this phone I sold the si+ paid it off and they kept my attention
for quite a while I'll go ahead and give you guys in my thoughts
I'm gonna run down a list of the pros the cons and give you my overall opinion
at all keep it short and sweet to the point so me wouldn't start off with the
cons and then in all positive so first off of my list of things that I do not
like about this device is the display so with this display got a bad rap early on
people were really angry about the fact that the color shifting with the screen
the blue shift was really really bad I'm also the color temperature for the
screen itself was pretty muted but they went ahead and fixed that issue by
adding a saturated mode which boosted the colors tremendously I almost
exaggerated them a bit but it gives you something that's more similar to like a
samsung galaxy phone something that's reminiscent of a OLED display something
with punchy colors high contrast ratio now that looks really really good
another thing that I really don't like about this device is the design of it
all I feel like they could have shrunken this device down making it a little bit
more ergonomic also at times it feels like the screen it's kind of sunken in
because it's surrounded by bezels on all sides it just doesn't feel very
2017-2018 in my opinion also given the fact that this phone
doesn't go from edge to edge and it doesn't have a really slim bezel they
really didn't have to curve it on all sides to be honest I mean it's kind of
an exaggerated curve at 2.5 D curve would have been perfect something that's
like a subtle curve so that way you can use the Android user interface and slide
from side menus fluidly without having to you know have a dramatic curve like
this this pretty much ruins the ability for you to add any type of tempered
glass screen protector because really honestly curved screen protectors are
trash and they only put adhesive on the borders of the screen and it's really
just no bueno and even if you get a sack tempered
glass screen protector that's like that self-healing super thick weird-looking
screen protector eventually ends up peeling up if you put the wrong case
with it and it just makes things look kind of muddy and warped and the last
thing I'm a list of the things that I don't like about this device is no
wireless charging now I understand that they want to have a mostly aluminum body
to kind of follow the design trademark that they made with the first pixel with
the window at the top of the glass but they really need to figure out how to
have wireless charging on this device if not even just add maybe some pin
connectors within the Google logo can I have wireless charging when the
iPhone 10 has it is kind of ridiculous I mean typically Apple is always behind
when it comes to these things and they're just now I didn't wireless
charging but the Google pixel hasn't had it for two generations and it means it
because everyone's becoming accustomed to it especially now that all users have
the ability to have wireless charging on the devices from iOS to a wide range of
Android phones the Google flagship device and the representative of Android
needs wireless charging now that we've gotten that out of the way and we've
even the playing field and showing that you guys that I'm not biased in any way
that this phone doesn't have its flaws let's cover some of the pros of this
device and tell you what separates it from the crowd so first and foremost
this phones claim to fame is it's camera the camera is phenomenal it is magical
portrait mode is something that is it's it's unreal portrait mode is unreal on
this device when it comes to front-facing selfies they've perfected
the machine learning and the software to detect edges like no other I oftentimes
take photos with this phone over my iPhone 10 there's no other camera out
there that is better than this on a mobile device hands-down in my
opinion my humble opinion one of the things I really enjoy about the portrait
mode on this device is the fact that you don't have to worry about the move
further back or get closer Burbage BS that's on
the iPhone so you'd have to worry about being too close to the subject or too
far away it's gonna use that machine learning and the software built-in to
detect the edges and separate the foreground from the background to give
you the perfect blur effect it's butter high dynamic range on this camera is
phenomenal if you're able to still preserve details within the shadows
while not blowing out highlights the background is perfectly lit while
leaving the foreground lit as well I mean everything the colors are punchy
everything about the HDR mode on this is bar none it is amazing and moving on to
the video I'm gonna be honest with you guys now if anything is worth taking a
video of I'm not gonna be using my phone to take a video of it say for instance
I'm filming an event that you know I want to preserve a memory that I want to
highlight I'm not gonna be taking a video with my camera phone because I
feel like cameras on phones haven't gotten video right just yet some are
better than others none of them are better than a DSLR or sit on the camera
in my opinion it does pictures way better than a dust video I'll say that
the video wasn't bad though by any means I just personally don't take too many
videos on phones so a lot of times when I tell people and they're on the fence
about getting this device versus another one is the fact that there aren't as
many cooks in the kitchen when it comes to this device so when they're pushing
out a software update to their phones you don't have to worry about it being
married with TouchWiz or LG's weird user interface or Motorola's semi stocked
user interface it is fluid and stock straight from the beginning and it's
made to pair with this hardware perfectly so this is the perfect
marriage of software and hardware on the Android side of the fence and they do it
perfectly honestly there's a very fluid experience very consistent you don't
worry about random glitches or lags this just works so whenever people talk about
the iPhone they say it just works this is androids iPhone this just works
the last pro for this I'll say is something that's kind of underrated for
the most part because a lot of people don't use it all the time
it's your stereo front-facing speakers because when you're watching a youtube
video normally you're in an environment that you can't really blast your phone
speakers like that maybe you're on a lunch break at work you have people
around you maybe you're on a subway or train or somewhere where you could
disturb others but if you are in a situation where you're maybe showing
to a friend on Facebook or YouTube and you want to play your your phone audio
but you have to worry about it being super low and foo-foo you have to worry
about it not being loud enough you have to worry about you know not providing
some level of immersion this is your best bet
honestly the front-facing speakers on this are great it's kind of a tacked on
feature that I feel like they really added just to justify the bigger
forehead and chin on this phone but in my eyes definitely doesn't justify it
because there are other phones out there that manage to be a little more
innovative with how they conduct sound through the frame of the device maybe a
vibrating a certain way or really just making that speaker grille super slim
because if even if you look at this the speaker grille on this device is very
slim didn't need the extra half an inch on either side of it for the bezel to be
honest so to give you guys my final thoughts on this device this is
definitely the best Android phone that you can get maybe not the the least
expensive maybe not the you know the prettiest but it is the best
well-rounded package it gives you the things that most people care about when
they get a phone battery life this has very good battery life
I mean being the fact that it's optimized perfectly with the hardware it
doesn't have a decent sized battery in it you don't worry about not being able
to go through a full day but overall I'd say that this is definitely the total
package when it comes to Android it blows many other Android phones out of
the water in my opinion because I prioritize software over many things I'm
not a huge fan of you know amazing hardware but very crappy software
because it doesn't matter how many cores are in your processor how much RAM your
phone has if it can't load up the gallery without glitching or lagging or
if it can't scroll through certain screens without lagging that is a
deal-breaker for me in any situation but if you guys like this tech review I want
to see more be sure to hit that subscribe button and also the little
bell so that where you notify the next time I do upload a video it's been a
pleasure as usual follow me everywhere and stay tuned for the next video until
next time peace