Today we're reviewing the google pixel 5 and that's coming up right after this.
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the description. So after plenty of uncertainty throughout the year we now have the google pixel 5
here to review for you guys and after a week of use it's time to tell you guys the good and the
bad before we get started though please like the video if you're a fan of google
let me know in the comments what device you're watching this video on but the pixel 5 is here
and to be honest it's everything we expected it to be it's been a very different strategy for
google this year and i think it's actually all for the best they're now using the pixel to try
and cater for the whole of the smartphone budget range from the pixel 4a at the bottom end the 485g
in the middle another pixel 5 up at the top but it's still much lower than some other flagships
thanks to their recent changes though it's now easier than ever to pick the right pixel for you
and i'll be showing you how in this video so for those interested in the pixel 4a 5g
we're reviewing that one tomorrow and today's focus is only going to be on the pixel 5 but
we will of course compare specs between the two if we start off with the unboxing it's the same
packaging as usual and no different to any other recent pixel if we open it up we first get the
pixel 5 and i have to say it's by far their best looking flagship yet next we've got the manual
along with the sim tool followed by the power plug usb cable and a usba to usbc adapter the usb cable
makes life incredibly easy as you can connect your new pixel to your old android phone and
it will transfer over all of your apps your data and your passwords all you need to do on the new
phone is simply put in your google password if we take a look at the design of the pixel 5 first you
can see we've got a full screen display with the punch hole selfie camera in the top left corner
the thing i like here is just how thin and symmetrical these bezels are well
it has the same look as the 4a and the 4a5g it's definitely the most premium looking of the three
we get a 6 inch oled display with a full hd plus resolution of 1080 by 2340 and an aspect ratio
of 19 and a half by nine giving us 432 pixels per inch it's a 90 hertz always on display with
hdr support and one million to one contrast ratio and is protected by gorilla glass 6.
it's a full 24-bit color depth with 16 million colors so it provides a bright vibrant display
and an experience that we've pretty much all grown very accustomed to the punch hole in the
top left is for an 8 megapixel selfie camera it's a fixed focus camera and a 1.12 micrometer sensor
it's got an aperture of f 2.0 and an 83 degree field of view it's the same selfie
camera on the 4a and the 4a5g and actually the whole of the pixel range this year do share
many of the specs on the back and the most notable change is of course at the return of the physical
fingerprint scanner and i'm incredibly happy to see this return it just makes unlocking the phone
so much easier and while 3d face unlock and the solid radar chip in the pixel 4 were a good idea
in theory in practice it just didn't work no apps really adopted the technology so what it actually
did for us users was remove biometric unlocks from many of our favorite apps the fingerprint
scanner is indented to find it easily and it works very quickly and it works every time it's actually
a much refreshing change from face unlock for me but i'm not sure if everyone's going to feel the
same you'll also notice that we're back to a dual camera setup along with an led flash on the pixel
5. now the main sensor is a 12.2 megapixel and 1.4 micrometer sensor it's got dual pixel and phase
detect autofocus we get optical and electronic stabilization an aperture of f 1.7 and a 77
degree field of view now i could easily praise this camera before i'd even used it is it's the
same camera we had in the pixel 4 the pixel 4 xl and the pixel 4a and also the pixel 4a well many
may complain that they want something new there's really no need if we compare the pixel phones to
another camera phone on the market you can see they do a great job they're constantly praised for
their good photography so there's really no need to change it's something that works and works very
well but great news for me is that we do get a new secondary camera on the pixel 5. the secondary
camera is a 16 megapixel one micrometer ultra wide angle camera it's got a 107 degree field of view
and an aperture of f 2.2 the pixel 4a of course only had one camera but the 4xl had a telephoto
well a telephoto is great for those who want to zoom personally i find more often than not
i actually want more in the frame so the extra field of view from the ultra wide is very welcomed
the camera allows 4k videos at 30 or 60 frames a second and we get 1080p at 3060 120 or 240. now
for those who care about dimensions the dimensions of the pixel 5 is 144.7 by 70.4 by 8 millimeters
thick and it weighs 151 grams we get 8 gigabytes of ram with 128 gig storage which while it doesn't
seem like much google also gives you unlimited photos and video storage as long as you're using
the high quality setting in google photos and this is of course free for all pixel users it's powered
by the snapdragon 765g which did shock many given that it is a flagship there were many that wanted
the latest 800 series chipset but google wanted to keep the cost down the 765g is a fully capable
chipset and it's plenty powerful enough for the general use in the photography aspect of the pixel
and for all those casual gamers it's still able to play all the latest 3d games it just wouldn't
perform as well as something like the 865 it's also a bit faster than the pixel 4a chipset but
to be honest there isn't actually that much in it apart from of course that the chipset
of the pixel 5 has the advantage of 5g onto the 5g aspects it supports the sub 6 gigahertz band
but not millimeter wave and it of course does support the lte bands and lower and what i would
have loved to have done a 5g test here to show you guys unfortunately my network doesn't yet support
5g so i'm going to have to give that a miss battery capacity is 4080 milliamp hours and it
supports 18 watt fast charging wireless charging and reverse wireless charging personally i was
hoping for a little bump in the fast charging but it is the same as the predecessor although
the reverse wireless charging is new and it does work very well on the google pixel 5 the reverse
wireless charging is called battery share and it can be enabled from your quick launch bar at
the top it's incredibly useful these days when we all have wireless earbuds like the pixel buds we
can simply place them on the back of the phone and then charge them using the phone's battery
we also have an extreme battery saver on the pixel 5 so we can use normal battery save but if we're
really stuck in a position where we can't waste any battery then we have extreme battery save
extreme battery save will pause most apps and it will actually slow down the processor to
conserve on battery life this can deliver up to 48 hours of extra battery life so it's great when
you really can't get access to power we've got stereo speakers thanks to a cool speaker along
with the bottom firing speakers this is one area where i actually prefer the pixel 4a 5g
if i listen to them both side by side they are actually very similar but the pixel 4a 5g actually
sounds slightly better than the pixel 5. now there's not actually that much in it and i think
what it is is because the pixel 4 a5g has a larger body is producing a slightly better sound but it
will be interesting to see if others share the same opinion it is very close though and both i
would say are just average speakers i mean they're not bad speakers they're just not anything special
now the pixel 5 does actually have three microphones for video recording and for calls
additional microphones help to get better audio and also help with the noise suppression
so the pixel 5 is going to be better than the 4a5g in this aspect as the 4a5g only has two
we of course have bluetooth 5 dual band wifi in the pixel 5 it comes with android 11 and it's
ip68 water resistant now when it comes to general use it's great it's the stock android experience
we're all used to in a much improved body it's fast and responsive with a 90 hertz display
and we don't have all of the bloatware that some other manufacturers stick on their firmware
for general use in even gaming it's going to work very well and because it's google we're
guaranteed at least three years of software updates most of you watching the video have
probably already used stock android before so you know the good experience it brings
and probably the most important aspect to people here is going to be the pixel 5 cameras and as
you might have expected it's incredible it's the beautiful pixel photography that we've all grown
to expect and that's no surprise that given it's using the same primary camera as its predecessor
of course software updates always continue to improve the performance the only thing i found
strange here in my reviews that the google pixel 5 and the 4a 5g actually have slightly
different camera apps the pixel 5 allows me to choose at 0.6 times using the ultra wide
a standard one times or a two time zoom whereas the pixel 4 a5g has a slide bar and i can go
from 0.6 to 7 times zoom on further inspection i found with the pixel 5 if i actually pinch to zoom
it actually changes my options and then gives me this 0.6 to 7 times zoom i'm just not sure why the
apps aren't the same as both of these phones are on the latest firmware and also well there's many
phones out there these days that are offering us three four or five different cameras i think the
pixel 5 has the right idea give us two cameras but make them decent now i've only had this phone for
a week but straight away you can see the great quality of the photos we've got great dynamic
range more natural color tones and incredible sharpness in detail i've taken many photos out and
about in daylight and you can see the high level of detail and colors that are more true to form
when using the camera it does offer two times all the way to seven times zoom but personally i stay
away from this as it only adds unwanted noise and ruins the quality if you do want to zoom then i
suggest doing it in post as with all digital zooms it's pretty much the same whichever way you do it
on the rear camera i've been taking a variety of different shots and to be honest all of them have
come out brilliantly on the pixel 5 we've got the live hdr plus with the exposure controls so this
means that what we see in our viewfinder while we're taking it is actually what the image will
look like i've even tried some close-up shots for those who may miss the presence of a macro lens
and as you can see it's done a great job although there is a bit of focus loss around the edges
when it comes to the portrait bokeh shots it's also done an incredible job here and found the
edge of the subject very well we've got all of her in focus we've got a nice clean cut onto the blur
background and the great thing about pixels is that it offers us both images we get the
standard image without the blurring as well as the bokeh image i've always been impressed with
the portrait shots from the google pixels and to be honest it's something that just keeps improving
next we move on to the nighttime photography and google has a nighttime mode which really
brightens up the image and gives us a much better quality photo at night the downside
is it takes a little bit longer to shoot that photo but it is definitely worth it the night
mode really does make it look like you've taken the picture with a huge flash or light
and it actually retains much more detail than even your eyes can see this video shows the area i was
in and the light level i had to test this night sight in you can see it's very dull in the video
but if we move on to the photos you can see i've given you with night sight and without and when
the night sight photos i've taken there's a huge difference and it brings so much light in detail
the best thing about this i find is that the detail comes with the brightness but there's also
no noise or quality loss that you do find in other night modes when it comes to video it also has
great performance and offers us incredible detail natural looking videos and great stabilization
best of all with the pixel 5 now if we get 4k video at 60 frames a second
whereas on the previous models we only had 30. everything in the video is nice and in focus and
there's no camera shake even while i'm walking we again only get a choice of 0.6 to 2 times zoom but
if i pinch the video while i'm recording it then brings up this other bar and lets me go from 0.6
all of the way to 7. i mean we can test the zoom on this as well but as always when you zoom in
you get lots of camera shake loose detail and it almost looks like a painting this is why i
really don't suggest we use digital zooms but the video quality is great with both the standard and
the ultra wide camera and the stabilization is as impressive as ever if i'm honest it's
really not any different to the previous phones but that was always to be expected recording
now when it comes to the 765g chipset many seem to think that means that you can't do any gaming
but they're of course wrong phones have become so powerful these days and while you won't see the
same high scores in synthetic benchmarks as you do on the latest flagships with the highest chipsets
in real world use it's great even for gaming i first tested this with pubg mobile i went straight
into the settings and turned the graphics settings to hd and the frame rate to high as that's all the
game supports at the moment there were no need to make any changes from the highest settings as when
opening up the game plays perfectly as you can see it runs perfectly smooth and looks great next
i installed call of duty mobile and again put it on the max detail settings there again was no need
to change for this as the game looks great and it's buttery smooth i like the punch hole camera
being in the top left of the display as it's not even noticeable as my hands covering it up anyway
finally we head over to asphalt 9 where again it works perfectly in full detail but i have to
say on this occasion the same as its predecessor i did notice at medium settings it ran a lot better
when i had it on full settings it runs fine and it's enjoyable but as you can see here it's just
dropping frames slightly and wasn't the smooth experience i got on the medium overall though
this is still an adequate contender for the mobile gamers with its 90hz display it makes a smooth
experience for gameplay now for those who do care about synthetic benchmarks i ran it through
geekbench 5 where we've got a single core score of 585 and a multi-core score of 1563. to put
that into perspective the 485g scores 598 single core and 1623 multi the pixel 4a scores five five
one single and one six five one multi and finally the pixel 4 xl scores 706 single in 2 354 multi
of course the pixel 4 xl tops the list because of the snapdragon 855
and some of you may be wondering why the 4a 5g scores higher than the 5 well they both run at the
same resolution and they both use the same chipset but the pixel 5 is running a 90 hertz display
whereas the 4a 5g is only 60. so i'm assuming that powering the extra frames is where the pixel 5
lost some score battery life for this phone is also decent some worry about smaller batteries
but this easily lasted me the day with general use with an 18 watt quick charge it doesn't take long
to charge back up when i go walking i actually have two separate apps that are both using my
gps and then along with that i take plenty of photos i haven't needed to use any battery save
or even touch the extreme battery save on this but of course i'm still glad to have them there
overall it's an incredible device and while i love the pixel 5 i just wish it was the bigger model
i'm a fan of larger displays and found it a little bit strange that the 4a 5g is actually larger than
the pixel 5 but i'm assuming it was down to them sourcing their displays and other supply
chain issues it's a much more sleek looking phone now though without the huge bezels or big notch
and actually they've changed the accent button here to a silver instead of the usual bold colors
we're now at a stage where there are so many pixels and they are all quite similar so it
may get confusing to choose but i'm going to break it down quickly if we look at the pixel 4a
the 4a 5g and the pixel 5 you can sort of look at it as bottom middle and top they all have the same
primary sensor so they're all going to take very similar photos and the only difference is the 4a
has a single camera whereas the 485g and the pixel 5 have dual cameras the 4a is the bottom pricing
at 350 pounds or 350 dollars and it is incredible value for those who want a cheap phone that still
takes great photos we then have the pixel 4a 5g at 499 pounds or 499 and then finally we've got the
pixel 5 and this is 599 pounds or 699 now between the 4a 5g and the 5 there are a few differences
and while i've heard a few other creators dismiss the 5 i actually like it the 485 g has a 6.2 inch
display over the pixel 5 6 inch display but as far as improvements for the 4a5g that's where it ends
with the pixel 5 you get a 90 hertz display you get gorilla glass 6 instead of the 485 gs gorilla
glass 3 you get wireless charging and reverse wireless charging on the pixel 5 and it's also
ip68 water resistant whereas the 4a5g isn't on top of all that the bezels on the pixel 5
are thinner and they're actually symmetrical the whole way around the pixel 5. now personally i
think that warrants its price different but the great thing is if you don't or the extra features
of the pixel 5 are not appealing to you then you can just get the 4a or the 4a5g so that's pretty
much it for today's video but as always links to purchase this are down in the description below
and as always i'd like to know your thoughts in the comments who out there is going to order a
pixel and if not then what phone are you waiting for but thanks for watching the video if you liked
it smash a thumbs up if you didn't hit the thumbs down twice and i'll see you guys in the next one
you