The Pixel 4 XL is a very good phone. I've been using the one that Google sent
me for over the past month now as my personal device and overall I've really
enjoyed my experience with it and I think that a lot of people out there
just overreacted to certain aspects of this phone. So in this video I'm going to
go over why I think some people overreacted to this phone and what
specific parts of the phone they overreacted to. I'm going to go over my
favorite things about the Google Pixel 4XL some things I don't like about
the phone and then ultimately whether or not you should consider getting one
especially if you're a fan of the Google Assistant and taking great photos. Let's
dive in. Now I've been watching a lot of other YouTubers go to absolutely
negative on this phone and it's left me a bit perplexed like did we get the same
phone to review because my experience with a pixel excel just does not match
the amount of critique negativity that has been launched at this phone. Now
there are legitimate concerns and downsides to this phone especially when
it comes to battery life and the video recording options but especially for
people who do video like youtubers do, that that's actually a pretty important
feature on a phone I would say the ultra wide camera missing on the pixel 4
that doesn't bother me as much, but oh my gosh, like the amount of negativity
towards this phone just, I don't know, at least coming from my perspective, it does
not match the experience of the phone. I mean some YouTubers are calling this
thing a disaster, it's not, and I think that they should avoid just writing
clickbait titles like that to try to get a reaction out of people.
Dieter over at the verge I think comes closest to summing up this phone
correctly and I put his review in the video description below.
Dieter's point was basically that the pixel has never just been about the
hardware specs but about the software combined with the hardware . When people
are simply comparing the hardware specs of the pixel 4XL to other Android
phones, they're not telling the entire story of the pixel experience
and that's because not all Android software is the same amongst all Android
devices. Google has put a ton of work into the software making the best use of
the hardware in this phone and it shows, especially with the camera, face unlock
Google Assistant, and screen attention, which is one of my new favorite features
where the phone won't turn off the screen when it notices that you're still
looking at the screen, which is handy for reading long articles at night. With the
90 Hertz display, Android 10 feels incredibly snappy. The 6.3 inch OLED
display makes it look great it has accurate colors, and bases it's
white balance on your ambient lighting environment thanks to a new ambient eq
feature, and face unlock feels ridiculously fast. By default it'll
bypass the lock screen which helps contribute to its speed and the soli
radar helps turn on the face unlock feature when it senses your hand
reaching for the phone which also causes it to unlock faster. The phone's
construction feels premium, look similar to the iPhone, and has improved its
atheistic on the front as well bucking the notch trend by not having the face
unlock sensors intrude on the displays area, which is a real pet peeve of mine
and why I like the design of the pixel 4 and pixel 4xl better than the iPhone
11. The camera is fantastic on this phone, you're going to be blown away by
the pictures that this thing can take. While it doesn't have a wide-angle lens,
the super zoom feature, and the shadows and exposure controls with the live hdr+
view, are much more useful in creating better shots. Plus the phone's hdr+ has
been enhanced to help identify the correct white balance for your photos
automatically and where this really showed up in my experiences when I was
out in the forest taking photos of all the brilliant fall colors. Now
unfortunately where the pixel 4XL's camera falls short for me is with video.
I'm not as concerned with it not being able to do 4k at 60 frames per
second I mean sure that's a nice to have but I typically just shoot 4k at 30
frames per second, but the biggest downside to me has actually
in with the video quality compared to the video quality on my old iPhone. The
pixel 4's video quality just seems slightly off, it doesn't look as good
with the colors it captures as my iPhone does and I just haven't been as
impressed with the footage quality I get thus far. Moving on, let's talk about
Google Photos. The Google Photos integration throughout the entire OS is
really nice. On iOS I always found it frustrating when I was in Instagram or
Snapchat and I wanted to use a photo that was in my Google Photos account on
iOS there's no way to link those apps to your Google Photos account where with
the Pixel and Android you can do that throughout the entire OS and almost any
app so that's definitely an advantage of the pixel over iOS. Now speaking of
Google Photos, one thing to keep in mind with the pixel 4 is that
that Google no longer offers unlimited storage of your photos and videos in
their original quality on Google photos, so just keep that in mind. The Google
Assistant on this phone is wicked fast for a lot of tasks like navigating on
the phone though you'll need to make sure that you have continued
conversation turned on in order to do that. I find that the assistant is faster
at opening apps turning on different things like the phone's flashlight and
all-around is a great improvement over the assistant experience on my Google
pixel 3 a one of the newest pieces of tech in this phone is a tiny little
radar chip that gives us the feature of motion sense now it seems like most
people haven't found motion sense that useful but when I'm listening to music
through my phone and it's screen is off and it's on my desk
I actually find the swipe music gestures to work really well and actually be
pretty useful I can skip a song without having to look down at my phone or touch
it motion sense will also quiet alarms and phone calls when it senses your hand
coming towards the phone which is another nice touch now let's talk about
some of the downsides with this phone and first let's talk about battery life
the pixel for excels battery life is fine like it gets me through the entire
day and that's probably what you want out of a phone but where the caveat
comes here is its battery life is worse than my iPhone eight pluses battery life
like when I used my iPhone 8 plus I was used to seeing about 35 30 percent
battery left over by the time I put it on my nightstand to charge with the
pixel for Excel I'm typically seen anywhere from 20 to 15 percent battery
left over by the time it's charging on my nightstand so that is definitely
worse than the experience I was coming from but at the end of the day for most
days the pixel for excels battery life for me and I think for a lot of people
out there who are just regular phone users who aren't heavy users like the
pixel for excels battery is going to get you through the day okay it may be kind
of closer than what you're used to especially if you're an iPhone user but
it'll definitely be okay I do really like the Android at least gives you an
estimated time of when the battery will run out so at least it's trying to quell
some of that battery anxiety but still no way to cut it Google needs to do a
better job optimizing their software and hardware for battery life especially
when you compare it to what Apple's been able to achieve another downside i've
run into is when streaming media over the Bluetooth in my car with the pixel
for Excel I've noticed more blips in the Bluetooth audio and actually all my
pixel buds as well now this did not start off when I first got the phone so
I'm hoping this is just a glitch that cropped up and that Google will
hopefully solve but it has happened somewhat consistently over the past
couple of weeks now so I did want to mention it the last downside I want to
point out is not specifically about the 4xl itself but the entire pixel
ecosystem Google has been getting better with their hardware over the years and
aside from the battery life issues the pixel for Excel is probably the best
thing that they produced so far but while Google is great at software
services and its software services ecosystem it just does
have a complete hardware ecosystem yet for mobile devices and what do I mean by
that well there's no pixel watch that can compete with the Apple watch and
there's no real competitor yet to Apple's air pots it's obvious that
Google is trying to get to that completed hardware ecosystem like Apple
has now that it's announced that it's acquiring Fitbit and it's releasing new
wireless pixel buds in the spring but until they successfully complete this
ecosystem apple's walled garden is going to continue to entice people to switch
and jump over that wall and it's going to entice people to stay put inside the
Walt garden and this brings me to my closing thoughts on the pixel for excel
and the state of the pixel line in general the question that's been in my
mind a lot over the past month is who exactly are these phones really for
they're not trying to cater to the spec nerds and it's unclear how committed
Google actually is in getting people to switch from an iPhone to a pixel
especially when you consider that Google's own hardware ecosystem is still
missing a pretty key product so the best answer I have to the question of who
should buy a pixel are fans of Google products consumers who want the latest
Android software updates and the cleanest version of Android you can get
users who want the absolute best camera you can get on an Android phone or
adventurous iPhone users who don't care about Apple's Hardware ecosystem and
want to try something new if you're in one of those groups I think you're gonna
be really happy with the pixel for Excel Google is just done a fantastic job
overall with this phone and I've just had a blast using it as my personal
device for over the past month I mean the camera is amazing and they've done
some really smart things with the face unlock technology and the Google
assistant it's just such a shame that the battery life of this phone isn't as
competitive with the other flagship phones of 2019
well that's it for our 1-month leader review of the Google pixel for Excel if
you liked this video make sure to hit that thumbs up button below and
subscribe to the channel to see more pics
and Google related videos like this one. For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder,
thanks for watching.