It is hard to make a new smartphone that will feel new. Phones have matured so much in the last few years that the new phones launching are incrementally better than the previous ones.
Apple has made 15 generations of iPhones, but now you rarely feel that you are getting a justifiable upgrade on the prior one, spending hundreds of dollars.
Google’s new phones might not have a foldable display or a unique design. However, they are newer than a typical phone. Google thought about the new ways of what a smartphone should be capable of doing. These new phones have new cameras, new hardware, and new software and come packed in between bodies made of new materials.
A lot of these new changes might not be different from many other phones in the market. These new flagships from Google are a fresh start to add some dent in the smartphone industry, for which Google has slogged behind for a few generations of smartphones now. The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro might reset Google’s smartphone ambition.
$599 Pixel 6 and $899 Pixel 6 Pro may not be perfectly defined devices, but they sure are one of the best options you can currently buy in the android phone market.
Google Pixel 6
Pros
- Snappy Performance
- Excellent Camera
- Excellent Value
- Great Battery Life
- Smooth Screen
Cons
- Only comes in Big Screen Size
- Very Slippery
- Slow Fingerprint Scanner
Google Pixel 6 Pro
Pros
- Smooth Screen
- Snappy Performance
- Excellent Camera
- Great Battery Life
- Decent Value for Money
Cons
- Very Big and Unwieldy design
- The finish of the materials is not that great compared to other phones in this price range.
- Slow Fingerprint
- Very Slipper
Google Pixel 6 Series: Design
Google has tried to change its pace and follow other manufacturers of Android phones from the last few years. A few years back, the design language was textured backs and fun pop-up colors, but now all the flagship phones represent glass and metal slabs sandwiched inside an aluminum frame. This is making phones slippery. If you look closely at the Pixels, you will find that the finish on these phones is not as quiet as what you expect from a top-end flagship from a reputed company like google. The top-of-the-line phones from other companies such as Apple and Samsung have a much better finish than Pixels.
Both phones look similar to other flagships from the front side when compared to other flagships. In my opinion, they resemble Galaxy Note 10 or Note 20 from Samsung. If you look at the camera module, it will remind you of the phone made by TCL last year.
The Pixel 6 comes in 3 different colors, Black, Red, and Green. All these are dual tones. Pixel 6 Pro comes with an old-fashioned variation of Black, White, or Gold. The regular Pixel comes with chunky matte black sides, which looks OK, in my opinion. The Pro version comes with a thinner and polished aluminum side. Pixel 6 Pro doesn’t compare to other devices in its price tier list, but Pixel 6 looks more fun due to its lower price.
When you look at the back of both phones, you will notice that both come with massive camera bumps that go from one side to the other side of the phone. The bump doesn’t blend seamlessly into the phone. It’s BIG, but on the other end, it will make your phone stay on flat surfaces without any wobble like other phones having different types of camera bumps nowadays.
In reality, most people will put a good-looking case on their phone, so I think the camera module will not be relevant in the real practical scenario. These phones come with massive screens and full glass backs, and it makes sense to use a phone cover to protect the phone from getting shattered if you drop it due to its slipperiness. When I was testing, these phones slid off from my table, the chargers, lap, and other common places where you put your phone. One of our sample units slid off a table and broke its Gorilla Glass Victus glass panel covering its screen.
I recommend you stay away from the cases Google makes using recycled plastics as they are not comparable to other third-party cases.
For me, the main problem with Pixel phones is large screens. They are too big for my taste. If you try to use the phones with one hand, you will fail. Even the Pixel 6 comes with a display larger than six inches. They are easy to drop and don’t fit comfortably in the pockets of most of my pants.
I liked when Google offered a smaller version of the phone in the previous generations. This time you only get a BIG or BIGGER phone. You can’t even tell the size difference because it is so negligible that you only see it when comparing side by side. If you are a fan of oversized phones just like an iPhone Pro Max, but if you don’t want a big slab to carry around in your pocket, you are out of luck with this generation of Pixels.
Google Pixel 6 Series: Display
Because of their enormous size, these phones come with massive displays. Pixel 6 comes with a 6.4-inch display with a resolution of 1080p. On the other hand, Pixel 6 Pro comes with a 6.7-inch display with a resolution of 1440p. Both the displays are huge but very spacious and make things easier for multitasking.
Pixel 6 has a flat display, and Pixel 6 Pro comes with a curved display that flows to the side of the phone. I am not a fan of curved displays because of the errant touches, but I didn’t find any unwanted touches in the Pixel 6 Pro’s testing. Both the displays are sharp and vibrant. The Pixel 6 Pro is a bit more colorful and bright in direct sunlight. Old pixel phones had this problem of weird color reproductions and flickering at low brightness levels, but we haven’t found any of these types of glaring problems in the new phones.
If you look closely, you can find some issues in the display, like a slight color shift when you look at the display from different angles. When you use Pixel 6 Pro with a light background, you can notice a light shadow under the curved part of the display. These problems don’t occur in the flagships of other companies like Apple and Samsung.
The cheaper price tag of these phones justifies these slight caveats in the display. These displays look good but are not comparable to other display levels of different companies. Pixel 6 comes with a display having a refresh rate of 90hz. On the other hand, Pixel 6 Pro has a refresh rate of 120hz. Both these displays feel smoother when used and make scrolling through documents, websites, or different apps. Fast refresh rates are becoming one of the most looked at features on the phone nowadays, so it is good to see Google follow the suit of other brands. You can notice a slight difference between 90hz and 120hz, but both screens feel super smooth, which is more prominent if you are coming from a 60hz screen.
Google Pixel 6 Series: Security
Both the phones come with an In-Display Fingerprint Scanner. Now I will be really honest about the scanner here, and IT IS SLOW. When you compare it to other devices in the market that possess In-Display Fingerprint Scanner, you can make the difference that it is much slower than the competition. As this is an In-Display technology, the screen lights up when you unlock the phone, which can be a little annoying if you are using your phone in the dark.
Both the phones don’t have any type of facial recognition, so the In-Display Fingerprint Scanner is the only biometric authentication you can use, and it is not very good. The phones didn’t recognize my fingerprint so often that I had to touch the scanner multiple times in my testing. The location of the Fingerprint Scanner is good and comfortable. It’s present on the bottom quarter half of the screen, which is seen as the best place for a fingerprint scanner.
You can use the PIN and Password method to lock your device, but they are not considered very secure in today’s day and age.
Google Pixel 6 Series: Performance
Ok, now let’s talk about the most important thing in a phone, its performance. The new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro come with Google’s own manufactured Tensor Chips. Google followed the footsteps of Apple and designed its custom processor for their phones, leaving behind off-the-shelves Mediatek and Qualcomm processors.
The new Tensor processor has different AI-based enhancements which focus on camera processing, speech recognition, and gaming. Google said that the new processor is comparable to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888, and we can see that it’s true in our testing. All apps we tried opened without any hiccups, and you can change between them smoothly. The UI is free of any lag or stutters. We have seen some stutter on the Twitter app, but it can be a Twitter side thing.
The Tensor Chip might not be putting up scores like Apple’s latest custom chips, but it is far better than the older chips residing in previous generations of Pixel phones. It is right up there with the score of other premium Android phones in the market.
Pixel 6 comes with 8GB of RAM, while Pixel 6 Pro is equipped with 12GB RAM. There wasn’t any big difference between the performances of both the phones. Even the heavier streaming apps do not force close aggressively in the background, like in the older Pixel phones.
Google Pixel 6 Series: Battery Life
Both the phones come with comparable battery life, which can last a full day easily. There is not much difference between the battery life of both phones. I have gone to bed with 30 to 45 percent battery left after a full day with heavy camera use, and AlwaysOn Display turned on. Light users can pull out two days’ worth of battery without any effort. The main reason for this excellent battery life is that both phones are big, which helps Google provide bigger batteries, resulting in magnificent battery life.
Both phones support fast wired and wireless charging. As expected, Google does not provide any charge in the box. You can get a $25 30-watt charging brick which Google sells separately.
Google will be releasing a new $79 fast wireless charger in the future, which we will test when available.
The bigger batteries in these phones take time to charge. Google has gone for an aggressive algorithm to charge phones very slowly after it reaches 80%. This algorithm is suitable for preserving the health of the battery for a longer time. The batteries in these phones are pretty big, so you will not likely need to charge them more than once a day.
Google Pixel 6 Series: Camera
Google has finally upgraded the camera system of the latest Pixel series. The new phones are equipped with new lenses and new sensors, making them capable of new possibilities. Google updated the camera system in 2017, and this time it’s gone big. The new primary camera is much larger than the one used in older Pixel phones.
Pixel 6 Pro is the first Google phone to have three different cameras, primary, ultrawide and, telephoto.
The primary camera on both of these phones is the same 50-megapixel sensor. This sensor works behind an optically stabilized f/1.85 lens to produce 12.5-megapixel images, which are hard-coded. It means you can’t capture the full 50-megapixel photos. So the images produced by the 50-megapixel sensor are not that different from Pixel 5’s camera in detail or sharpness. Still, the photos are very much comparable to the best of the Apple cameras.
There is no clear winner between the competitors, which has been proving true for the high-end flagships for a few years now. It all depends on the user’s preference nowadays, as some people will like the Pixel one’s and others will like Apples’.
The Pixel retains its classy look to the photos with high contrast, extreme sharpness, slight overexposure, and cooler white balance. White balance can be easily adjusted through the on-screen sliders in the main camera app, but if you want to tweak the brightness, you will need a bit more post-processing.
Google’s portrait mode is largely unchanged as you can find the aggressive background blur still prominent. This makes the subject look like a cardboard cut-out pasted in front of blurred background.
One of the things Google should improve upon is the time taken for a Night Mode shot.
If you compare it to Apple’s Night Mode, it takes almost double the time to take the shot. This does not mean that the images taken are bad by any means. Google Pixel 6 series takes incredible detail in Night Mode shots. But sometimes, the person taking the photo or the Subject can lose patience to still for the time taken for the picture. This impatience causes photos taken to be blurred.
Often you can’t tell the difference between the photo taken by the latest Pixel and older models because the difference is not that tremendous. It is more prominent in daylight shots. The most significant caveat of the Pixel 6 is its ultrawide camera. It takes softer photos that are not as wide as the other phones, and you can tell a slight color shift in photos taken from the ultrawide compared to the photos taken from the primary camera. The ultrawide camera is also lacking any macro focusing abilities.
The Pixel 6 Pro’s Telephoto camera, on the other hand, is excellent. It can be the main reason to go for the Pixel 6 Pro instead of the Pixel 6. The 4x zoom is noticeably longer than the 3x zoom provided in the Apple iPhone 13. The 4x zoom on the Pixel makes much more sense than the 10x zoom in day-to-day use. The Telephoto camera of Pixel produces sharp photos with a good amount of natural background blur, which is better than software-based portrait modes.
In the video department, it still can’t beat the iPhone. There are artifacts and inconsistent image stabilization in the video recording. Google has not tried to match their video processing to the standard of their still image processing. Apple is still the best in this class. If you remember the highly saturated Samsung processing a few years back, you get the same feeling in Pixle’s videos.
The front camera of both phones differs in their resolution and quality. The Pixel 6 has an 8-megapixel camera, and the Pixel 6 Pro boasts an 11-megapixel camera. The Pixel 6 Pro has noticeable better quality than the Pixel 6, but the cameras are pretty decent in the selfie department.
Google Pixel 6 Series: Miscellaneous
One of the most overlooked features is the Haptic Feedback of the phone. Google has worked on the new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro’s Haptic motors to make them more responsive yet subtle. This motor might be the best Haptic Feedback I have tried on any other phone. Typing on the keyboard and interacting with the UI of the phones is very enjoyable because of the excellent responsiveness of the Haptic motor.
I was so happy to see that Google removed the under-display haptic speakers from the latest flagships. The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro now features proper dual-stereo speakers, which sound loud and clear. You can use these while watching Youtube, streaming music, or making video calls.
Google has advertised 5G connectivity for both Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. The details are not that straightforward, but the T-Mobile version of the Pixel 6 supports only sub-6 5G. The Verizon and AT&T versions of Pixel 6 support the mmWave (faster but limited millimeter-wave 5G). There is no confusion for the bigger Pixel 6 Pro, as it supports both types. AT&T models cost a bit extra compared to T-Mobile and Verizon versions.
When I tested the unlocked versions of Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro on Google Fi, performance was comparable to the other premium phones. I was getting around 300Mbps to 400Mbps, far more than you can get on an LTE Network in the same areas.
Google’s new Tensor chip helps the phones to perform better and increase the quality of photos and videos compared to their predecessors. The new phones are running the latest Android 12. It is now more customizable and looks fun and colorful. The new Tensor chip also helps in improving the voice-related features. The transcription can be done offline now, and the foreign languages are better translated in messages and media.
The most important question now left is, has Google done it? Can it be a viable choice now for the consumers? The simple answer is yes. The Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are now some of the best android devices available in the market, competing with the high-end flagships of the other brands. Google Pixel 6 is one of the most value for money phones now compared to the other phones available at the same price. It is a lot of phone for a ‘not so hefty price tag.
Source: Askrapidly.com
Comments
Post a Comment