Google just officially announced the widely leaked pixel 4, we've got one
before its release date and I want to tell you all about it.
Now first right off the bat, this video is not a full review or even a review of
the phone but I want to go ahead and just give you my first impressions of
the device and answer some questions that those of you out there had about
the phone. Now first let's talk about what exactly is new here with the pixel
4, well at least the the pixel 4 XL in my case. Google was kind enough to send me
the larger version of the phone since I typically like larger phones in general.
The only difference between the 4 XL and the 4 is the battery and overall size of
the phone and their screens. The pixel 4 has a snapdragon 855 processor a
standard and telephoto lens on the back it has new camera controls shows a
preview of the photo you're going to take an HDR plus and can take
astrophotography shots. The phone itself sports a new industrial design with no
notch on the XL version a nice matte finish unless you get the black model
which has a glossy back. It has 6 GB of RAM, a 90 Hertz screen that makes
animations and scrolling see more fluid, it has radar built into it that handles
things like skipping songs, helps warm up the sensors for face unlock, which oh
yeah, now that's a thing, and it's actually pretty snappy. There's no more
fingerprint sensor on the back of the Pixel 4, there's a new sensor for ambient
light color temperature like you have with Nest Hub products, a new recorder
app which automatically transcribes your audio and it works offline, plus the
Google Assistant got a lot faster as well. Like the Pixel 3, you still get
active edge, 64 or 128 GB storage options, I've got the 128 gig storage
option on mine, wireless charging, stereo speakers, Google
Assistant call screening, waterproofing, and of course fast charging capabilities.
The new Google assistant is more tightly integrated into the phone's OS, for
example you can search for photos you took at a specific place and then tell
the assistant to share them with a friend all by using your voice, plus a
lot of the actions work without an internet
connection right now though this is only available to the US English version of
the assistant. Now so far my first impressions of it are it's pretty fast,
especially with some of the new capabilities the Google Assistant is
able to do without talking to the cloud. Now for other things where the Google
Assistant needs to talk to something in the cloud I haven't noticed a speed
increase at all, though I don't know if we're really expecting one here since
the main differentiation with the pixel 4 is those on device capabilities with
the Google Assistant. Now I have run into a few issues with the Google Assistant,
the the main one right now in the pixel 4 is playing music on my car's speakers
over Bluetooth. what happens is the pixel 4 will say ok
playing music and then it'll start playing that music on google play music
and it'll play it for about 5 to 7 seconds before I hear any sound over the
car speakers. Now this isn't an issue I ran into with my pixel 3a which makes me
think that this is specifically an issue with the new Google Assistant on the
pixel 4. Also, sometimes I've noticed the assistant card gets stuck on the screen
instead of automatically dismissing itself. These are likely just a few bugs
I've encountered with the new assistant and are likely to be ironed out within
the next few weeks or so all right now let's move on to setup overall the setup
process was pretty straightforward though it's a long process when you're
transferring from an iPhone my process took around 45 minutes or so most of
which was just waiting on the phone's transfer to complete I transferred over
my messages contacts and some application data and all of it showed up
on the pixel without any issue the pixel even pulled the wallpaper I had on my
iPhone I was transferring from one thing about the setup process that I thought
Google has done a very good job with are the guidance that they built in to help
you get familiar with gesture navigation how to trigger the Google assistant
setting up face unlock and of course how to use motion sense which is the new
radar feature built into the pixel they even have a dedicated app now called
pixel tips, which you can use to learn about new features and then actually try
some of them yourself, which in my opinion at least is
just a very well-designed experience. The radar technology in this phone is super
impressive from a technological standpoint but I do think it is too
early to tell how useful motion sense will actually be on pixel devices going
forward. That being said, one area where it is really useful already is for
unlocking the phone. Face unlock feels snappy and natural and there have
actually been times where I forgot the phone was even locked, it's that fast.
Now that doesn't happen all of the time but the fact that Google has been able
to create such a speedy experience I think says a lot about how well the face
unlock feature works on the phone. Alright, next up let's talk about the
camera and overall my first impressions of the camera of the pixel 4 have been
very positive. I have a pixel 3a and have compared the photos it takes with the 4
and I'd say the 4 is definitely improved in the colors it pulls, in portrait mode,
zoom, and the camera controls. One of the biggest things that sets the pixel 4
apart is that it lets you adjust exposure and shadows before the photo is
taken as well as shows you a preview of HDR plus. So why is this important you
may ask? The pixel line of phones as well as the new version of the iPhone this
year use what's called computational photography and what that is, is instead
of the camera just taking a single image when you click the shutter button what
it's actually doing is taking multiple images around 9 to 10 different exposure
levels changing some of the settings of each and then compositing all of those
photos together to give you a better image. But there is an issue with
computational photography and that is the amount of data you get in that image
after it's already been composited is much less than say if you were shooting
a raw image on a DSLR and that means that you can't do as many adjustments
and get the photos to look a certain way as you would with the raw image or
before you actually take the photo and that's why Google's decision here to
allow you to adjust the exposure as well as the shadows in the camera app
give you that live hdr+ preview, that is just going to make your photos look
better because of the controls you get. The super zoom feature on the pixel for
is also impressive the detail it is able to capture at eight times zoom is
impressive, considering it came from a phone sensor to me these software
improvements with the camera app on the pixel 4 are some of the reasons why I
think the pixel 4 just takes way better photos then my pixel 3a does. All
right, next up, let's talk display. The pixel 4's display is just another
thing that sets it apart compared with other Android devices and iPhones for
that matter, because it has a 90 Hertz display. It makes scrolling, navigating,
and pretty much everything on the phone feels super smooth very similar to how
I've always felt about Apple's animations in iOS. Another question a lot of people
seem to have is around the brightness of the pixel 4's display. In my limited
testing at least, I can say yes, it is is bright enough in direct sunlight for me
to be able to see the screen and take photos. This worked actually pretty well
when we are out on Pilot Mountain shooting in photos with the new phone
and let me just put it this way, I have not noticed a difference between the
brightness of the pixel 4xl that I have versus the iPhone 8 plus that I was
using and the iPhone 8 plus is not an OLED display, it is a super Retina LCD
display. Now, a lot of people have been asking about motion sense and if it
works. In my experience, yes the feature works as advertised for swiping to skip
tracks and I haven't run into any issues with it personally. Now another thing a
lot of people seem to be asking about whit the camera on the pixel 4 is
whether or not the standard camera is wide enough since Google did not put a
wide-angle lens in this phone. Now I'm going to address my feelings on the not
having a wide angle lens or just sticking with zoom in the full review of
the phone, but what I can say now is the photos I've been taking with the pixel
4 so far, seem wide enough to me where I'm able to compose my shot fine then
again it is early days here and this will definitely be a point will dive
deeper into, in our full review of the phone. Well,
that's it for our first impressions of the pixel for now. We're going to have much
more on this phone in the coming weeks when we do a full in-depth review of it
so make sure you're subscribed to the channel to see more pixel videos like
that one and if you like this video make sure you hit that thumbs up button below.
for 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder, thanks for watching