the publicity around the pixel 6 and the
pixel 6 pro has been crazy and i'll be
honest i fully bought into the hype and
i've been more excited about this device
than any other device in recent memory
now that i've been using this phone for
a month let's see if it really lived up
to my high expectation and dig into some
features that i've never been more
excited about but also some that were
truly disappointing
let's talk about the build quality and
the screen i love the 6.71 inch screen
and 120 hertz refresh rate it is buttery
smooth and very responsive and it's just
been overall a pleasure to use the
screen gets bright it is not the
brightest amongst flagship phones but i
do wish that sometimes in direct
sunlight it was a bit brighter on the
flip side the extra dim feature that's
built into the pixels
has been great because i've been able to
read in bed
and not wake up my wife and it's been
easier on my eyes and now about the
infamous camera bump so it's been talked
about quite a bit
and i'm glad google went with this look
i personally love it and it is unique
and it is very different from what every
other company has been doing with most
of the camera bumps being pushed to one
side one of the convenience factors is
when you have the phone down on a
surface
there will be zero wobble when you're
using it now let's talk about the build
quality of this phone it does feel
premium and it has a curved screen which
i wish they'd gone with a flat screen
but when you use a phone case on this
phone it does get rid of some of the
curve so you're not accidentally
touching the edges or hitting the back
button when you didn't want to one of
the bigger issues i've had with this
phone build
is how slippery the back is but if
you're prone to dropping your phone a
lot i would highly recommend you get a
case for this because it is much too
slick to be carrying around without a
case so another thing that google change
on their phone is they move their volume
buttons onto the same side as the power
button and it's nitpicky but it's really
been annoying taking screenshots because
now i have to use two hands to do it and
to make it easier luckily google does
have a quick tap feature so what i've
done is i've enabled the quick tap on
the back to take a screenshot
the haptics on the pixel 6 are some of
the best i've ever used on an android
phone and they really add to the premium
feel that google is going for
so one of the issues for us android
using social media addicts has been that
the quality on snapchat and instagram
have just been terrible so previously
when you're uploading stories on
snapchat or instagram they actually
haven't used the camera itself they've
used the screen grab or screen record to
upload the videos and pictures seriously
seriously
and to get around this issue i used to
use the native camera app
and then upload it into snapchat or
instagram to get that full quality but
now google has opened up their camera
api for instagram and snapchat google
has announced that there's going to be
an update coming soon where quick snap
to chat
quick tap to snap
good tap quick tap to snap with a double
tap on the phone the snapchat camera app
opens before you've unlocked your phone
so you can immediately upload content
directly to snapchat i'm just glad that
google has opened up their camera api
so you don't have to work through other
workarounds to upload high quality
photos and video onto social media
so over the course of the last 30 days
i've loved using the camera on this
phone
i've loved the videos it's put out i've
loved the telephoto lens
and generally it's been very consistent
except the first day we had a few
hiccups and if you want to see what
those hiccups are about check out our
video on the blind camera test but since
that blind camera test i've had
completely consistent video and photos
so i'm not really sure what that was
about maybe some early bugs because of
the new tensor chip who knows one thing
on the camera that i've used more often
than i thought i would use is the
telephoto lens so i have used it quite a
bit for photos and for video and i've
especially loved the skin tone accuracy
it's been some of the best skin tone
accuracy i've seen on a phone yet so
this isn't going to be a thorough camera
review there's plenty of videos out
there and i'm not a photographer but
what i can say is that some of the ai
features on this camera
make me feel like i'm a part of the
photography crowd
the ai camera features i'll be talking
about next are some of the most exciting
on the pixel that really make
photography and editing fun for a simple
user like me let's begin with the magic
eraser here you'll see that the software
does a great job of detecting everyone
behind my friend and some people on top
of the bridge
and erases every one of them this is our
newly adopted dog momo and here you can
see that i'm trying to erase the leg and
the boots that are behind him and since
the magic eraser didn't detect it
automatically i'm manually selecting the
leg in the boot to get rid of it and you
can see that it does a pretty good job
and it's ready to be uploaded on
instagram
you can actually use the magic eraser on
any old photo here's a picture from my
trip back home to nepal a few years ago
and the magic eraser detects every
person in this photo but leaves behind
all the shadows which can be manually
erased
let's talk about the long exposure mode
in the pixel 6 pro
this is one of the easiest camera
features to use and it only takes
seconds to produce this photo
i love how google has made long exposure
photography so easy for someone like me
that never plays around with manual
camera functions next is the action
pattern feature where you have to simply
center a moving object to create a
motion blur effect i'm moving quite slow
on the bike but google's made it look
like i'm moving at mach speed and
finally the astrophotography feature is
automatically detected when you point
the phone up at the night sky in night
mode this was a cloudy day yet it still
produced some really fun results here
while we're on the topic of ai let's
dive into the other ai features that
makes this phone a true game changer in
the smartphone industry the live
translate feature is surprising on how
well it works and doesn't require the
internet
i've tested this feature out in
portuguese hindi mandarin and cantonese
and they all work flawlessly
in some cases even when the accent
wasn't the best for the language
i can't wait to try this feature out
when traveling again once we're able to
do so
the dictation on this phone is almost
flawless and can dictate accents as well
it also very accurately inserts
punctuation instead of a giant wall of
text
google's voice assistant is the best in
the game
and i've been using it primarily for
text and emails to test it out would you
use this function
the call screen option is useful when
you can't or don't want to answer your
phone but you want to know what the call
is about assistant speaks to the caller
for you and the replies are live
transcribed as well
first of all this is really weird but
second i want to see your new dog
do you need to get a hold of them
urgently
[Music]
i mean i really want to see the dog so
yes
and finally the hold for me feature has
been very handy instead of staying on
hold for a while
this has been especially useful lately
as every company seems to have longer
than usual wait times
[Music]
now that we're at the top of this
mountain on this brutally cold and windy
day i think it's probably a good time to
talk about the battery life so to truly
test out the battery life during this
last 30 days i've turned on all the
notifications on every app i've had i've
had this phone connected to my garmin
watch
with all smartphone functions turned on
i also have connected to my pc so i get
phone calls text notifications
so for 30 days it's been fully connected
to all of my devices i've also turned on
the now playing feature
which basically the phone listens in the
background and records all of the songs
that are playing so if you're the
grocery store it keeps a list of songs
that i've been playing i also used it
more so than i would have regularly to
really test the battery so during the
last 30 days i manually tracked my
battery usage using the pixels digital
wellness app so on average i had 25 of
battery left at the end of the day and
on average i also used 5 hours and 44
minutes of screen on time accubattery's
latest estimates are at 9 hours and 35
minutes of screen on time and gsam
battery monitor estimates it at eight
hours and four minutes max on a full
charge and because i'm ending every day
with about 25 battery life left i don't
always have to remember to charge it
overnight which brings me to today and
it is
4 15 and i have 81 battery life left so
today it's been used pretty extensively
i've been taking photos videos all day
i've been using the apps in here and we
climbed a mountain in a really cold day
and it has held up really well so i did
charge the battery overnight using the
adaptive battery charging option which
basically means it extends the life of
your battery as it slowly charges it up
and fully charges depending on when you
set your morning alarm the adaptive
battery feature on the pixel also learns
your usage and optimizes the battery and
i have noticed lately in the past few
weeks that my battery life has gotten
better
[Music]
now let's talk about the os
where google's made some good choices
but also some really frustrating ones
that
you'll want to hear about
with google's announcement of the pixel
6 and the pixel 6 pro of course came an
update to their os and that is android
12 and material u the change was quite
drastic but it did grow on me quite
quickly i love how material u colors the
theme of buttons notifications and
sliders to match a shade of your
wallpaper it is seamless and beautiful
and it really feels like the whole user
experience is about you and your choice
i still dislike that it takes two swipes
down to see the brightness adjustment
and to see more than four options
and i've gotten to the point where i'm
in the habit of swiping down twice but
that was a really unnecessary change for
the worse i also don't love the
permanent search bar at the bottom of
course with any new os update you'd
expect a few bugs in the beginning
and most of the bugs i noticed were
related to apps and in recent days i've
noticed that these apps don't crash
anymore so we're at least heading in the
right direction the adaptive brightness
on this phone is quite terrible and
needs a major software update it
increases and decreases abruptly
and sometimes when it gets to a minimum
darkness setting it's really slow to
adjust back up
i'm sure this can be updated and fixed
easily with a software update but in the
meantime i've actually disabled adaptive
brightness as for one of the main gripes
people have had about this phone it's
the fingerprint scanner i personally
haven't had a lot of issues with it i'm
able to unlock on my first try in most
cases and it might have helped that i
did scan the same finger multiple times
but even then it's not the fastest
scanner having said that it has been
raining a lot lately and i've found that
the fingerprint scanner doesn't work as
well when my hands are wet that it
hasn't been ideal that google didn't
include other biometric options such as
iris scan or facial recognition this is
especially annoying living in the
canadian rockies where i have to take
off my gloves every time i want to
unlock my phone or
we're in a pandemic wearing masks
everywhere and having iris scan would be
really useful right now this phone has
been great as my daily driver for this
past month
and it's really been a pleasure to use
given that this is the first all google
phone with the tensor chip it was
expected that there would be software
bugs but it's a bit baffling that they
had their major oversight on biometric
options so for 300 less the pixel 6 is
actually the better option for most
especially if you prefer the flat screen
and are okay with losing the telephoto
lens and the rest of the spec
differences aren't going to be
noticeable for most so those are my
thoughts on the pixel 6 pro please let
me know what you think in the comments
below and if you haven't already
subscribed do so because we have a lot
of videos coming bye