As rumours of the Google Pixel 3 rumble on, teaser images of the OnePlus 6 hit Twitter, and the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL keep getting the odd price cut, it was only a matter of time until we had to face the demise of the original Pixel handsets.
READ NEXT: Google Pixel 3 rumours
Alas, that time is now. Ars Technica is reporting that the tech giant has ceased production of all new Pixel and Pixel XL handsets, and, as chance would have it, neither 2016 phone is available directly from Google anymore.
The Google Pixel handsets were the bees’ knees when they were released in 2016, but more than 18 months since their first release, their specs are lacking and cheap contracts have all but died out.
If you’ve been wanting to buy one of the old handsets, or you want one for posterity, you can still pick up a Pixel and Pixel XL from Amazon from £469, although at the time of writing there were only three in stock. The news comes on the same day the OnePlus 5T sold out, ahead of the imminent release of the OnePlus 6.
You can read Jon’s review of the original Google Pixels below.
Google Pixel and Pixel XL review: In full
The Google Pixel represents an important moment in the smartphone industry. Why? Because the new Google Pixel phone and its supersized cousin, the Google Pixel XL, represent a paradigm shift. The Pixel phone is Google, finally, going out on a limb and stamping its own mark on a smartphone, and it’s going directly after the big boys. The clue is in the pricing, which let’s face it, is going to be a huge disappointment to fans (and I count myself among them) of the now-defunct Nexus brand.
The Nexus name always stood for reasonable prices, great specifications and a chance to keep up with the freshest, most up-to-date version of Android. The Pixel brand retains only two of those key strengths, ditching low prices in favour of iPhone-matching, wallet-shrinking starting prices of £599 for the Pixel and £719 for the Pixel XL.
So do the new Google phones deliver, and are they a match for the iPhone 7 or the Samsung Galaxy S7? Are they as good as the prices suggest they should be or has Google slipped up? The answer is, as it so frequently is to such rhetorical questions, a bit of both.
Google Pixel and Pixel XL: Key specs
| Google Pixel | Google Pixel XL | |
| Screen | 5in, 1,080 x 1,920 | 5.5in, 1,440 x 2,560 |
| Processor | 2.1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 | 2.1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 |
| RAM | 4GB | 4GB |
| Size (WDH) | 70 x 8.6 x 144 mm | 76 x 8.6 x 155mm |
| Weight | 143g | 168g |
| Software | Android 7.1 Nougat | Android 7.1 Nougat |
| Rear camera | 12MP, OIS | 12MP, OIS |
| Front camera | 8MP | 8MP |
| Battery capacity | 2,770mAh | 3,450mAh |
| UK price | £599 inc VAT, 32GB; £699, 128GB | £719 inc VAT, 32GB; £819, 128GB |
READ NEXT: The best smartphones – our favourite handsets
Google Pixel and Pixel XL review: Design
First up, the Pixel phones both look great. From a design perspective, I prefer them to Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. I was sent the larger of the two to review and was immediately struck by how much impact a little cut in weight and height makes. The Google Pixel XL simply feels more comfortable to hold and slip into the pocket than the iPhone 7 Plus, the standard Pixel even more so, and I’m a fan of the way it looks too.
[gallery:1]Essentially, it’s a progression of the design seen on last year’s Nexus 6P, just a little more polished. It could even be described as a touch outlandish, with its inset glass camera surround spanning the top third of the rear panel, encompassing the camera and circular, centre-mounted fingerprint reader. I like it; you may not, but at least you couldn’t call the design bland.
What I’m not so keen on, and more than a little disappointed by, is the relative ease with which that glass rear seemed to scratch and scuff. Not three days after first easing the Pixel XL from its box, and being very careful about how and where I put it down in the interim, I found several short, light scratches marring the surface. I dread to think what it will look like in a year or so’s time after I’ve grown tired of being ultra-careful with it.
[gallery:6]Something else I don’t like is the phone’s lack of dust and water resistance. Although it has become apparent since the launch of the two phones that there is a modicum of protection, the two phones are only rated at IP53. That second number is the one that refers to water resistance, and a figure of three, according to Wikipedia, denotes protection from “water falling as a spray at any angle up to 60° from the vertical shall have no harmful effect, utilizing either: a) an oscillating fixture, or b) A spray nozzle with a counterbalanced shield”. So, it’ll probably be okay if you’re caught in a rain shower, but it may not survive you dropping it in the bath.
The iPhones and Samsung phones are IP67 and IP68 rated, affording protection against complete immersion at a depth of at least a metre, and for up to 30 minutes, so they’re far more robust when it comes to the wet stuff.
So, there’s some good news and some bad news. Everything else about the Pixel is firmly middle of the road, right down to the good old-fashioned 3.5mm headphone jack on the top edge and the white/silver and black/charcoal colours it’s available in. It’s good to see at least one manufacturer rejecting the idea of offering a lurid rose-gold finish.
Google Pixel review and Pixel XL review: Hardware and performance
Although the price may have risen, one thing that hasn’t changed is that 2016’s Google Pixel and Pixel XL are right at the cutting edge when it comes to the core performance components.
This is the first time we’ve seen the Snapdragon 821 in a smartphone, but there isn’t much new here. It seems that the key difference between it and the 820 is its higher maximum clock speed of 2.4GHz, but that’s not something Google is exploiting.
Both the Google Pixel and the Google Pixel XL run at 2.15GHz, which is precisely the same speed as the Snapdragon 820 found in the OnePlus 3. And this is reflected in the benchmark results, with Geekbench 4 numbers that roughly match the OnePlus 3’s, and GFXBench GL offscreen results that sit at a similar level.
As you can see from the table above, both phones are identical in most of the important areas. Each has a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor and 4GB of RAM. The phones come in two variants, one with 32GB storage, the other 128GB, echoing the new iPhones, and there’s no microSD storage expansion.
The only result that doesn’t match the OnePlus’ is the native resolution, onscreen GFXBench frame rate for the Pixeln XL, and that’s purely down to its more pixel-dense display. The OnePlus 3 has a 1080p, just like the standard Pixel phone.
The Pixel and Pixel XL’s result in our video-rundown battery-life tests tell a similar story. Both perform slightly better than average for an Android smartphone, the Pixel XL lasting 15hrs 55mins before running flat and the Pixel phone going for 16hrs 23mins. Neither is as good as the OnePlus 3, though, which lasted 16hrs 56mins – and they’re a long way behind the superlative Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, which kept going for a staggering 18hrs 42mins and the Lenovo Motorola Moto Z Play — our champion with 23hrs 45mins.
What that translates to is solid, day-long use with moderate use. It’s no worse or better than most smartphones in other words, and this means that if you work the Pixels hard, or play games a lot, you will need to connect it to the charger before you go to bed, or give it a top up before you leave the office to make it through the day.
I’ve been running GSam Battery Monitor Pro on Pixel XL since 21 October, and it’s reporting an average battery life of 18h20 per complete charge. That puts it behind the OnePlus 3, which I saw achieving a better time on average, at around 19 to 20 hours per charge over the course of a couple of months.
In my experience, the iPhone 7 Plus delivers longer battery life, too, although the flipside is that Apple’s phablet doesn’t charge up nearly as quickly as the Google Pixel XL.
[gallery:3]Google Pixel review and Pixel XL review: Display and camera quality
The screen is where things start to come good. The Google Pixel has a 5in display and the Pixel XL has a larger 5.5in AMOLED panel and it’s a very good one at that. Colours are well balanced; there’s full coverage of the sRGB colour gamut; peak brightness is decent, if not eye-searing, at 412cd/m2 for the Pixel and 411cd/m2 for the Pixel XL; and it has perfect contrast, as do all AMOLED screens.
While the resolution of the Pixel phone is a relatively standard 1080p, the Pixel XL has a resolution of 1,440 x 2,560, and as a results this is the phone I’d recommend if you plan on purchasing a Daydream View VR headset. Don’t expect to be able to tell the difference with the naked eye, though.
[gallery:21]The rear camera is the same across both phones, and it’s even better than the screen. It’s a 12.3-megapixel unit, paired with a bright f/2-aperture lens, the same as last year’s Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X phones. This time, though, there are a couple of key improvements. First, optical image stabilisation, which should sharpen up your low-light shots; second, phase-detection autofocus, in addition to the 6P’s laser autofocus, which should speed up focusing in all light conditions.
Before the original launch of the phone, Google sent a Pixel to the sensor and lens testing experts at DxOMark, who awarded it a rating of 89, one mark better than the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, and three better than the iPhone 7. I have to agree with that conclusion: the Pixel phone’s camera produces the best image quality I’ve come across in any smartphone.
It captures more detail in low light and good, its new auto HDR mode works effectively to eradicate blown-out highlights and boost contrast, and its colour capture is a notch above any phone I’ve seen.
But don’t just take my word for it; have a look for yourself. In the photographs immediately below, the tiles on the roofs of the buildings are captured crisply and cleanly in the Pixel XL image (left), but look far softer in the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge shot on the right.
[gallery:7]In our indoor, low-light test below, the Google Pixel XL’s extraordinary ability to capture detail is clear once again, with near-perfect white balance, while the S7 Edge’s image to the right is slightly softer and a little pink-tinged.
[gallery:8]Image quality is superlative, then, and video quality almost as good. Side by side with the iPhone 7 Plus, 4K footage from the Google Pixel XL looks sharper, more richly coloured and more smoothly stabilised.
The only slight criticism is that, rather than apply heavy noise reduction in low light, Google has chosen to retain as much detail as possible. The result is that, in some circumstances, the footage looks a little grainy.
It’s also good to see Google continue to make improvements to its camera software, which not only feels more responsive and snappier in use, but also has a few neat new features. It’s possible to now launch the camera app directly with a double-click of the power button, for example, and you can switch between forward and rear cameras with a quick double-twist of the wrist.
Elsewhere, SmartBurst takes a stream of photographs and builds them into an animated GIF for you, at the same time picking out the sharpest full-resolution images automatically. And I love Google’s new implementation of exposure compensation: tap anywhere on the screen and a slider appears to the right of the frame, allowing quick brightness adjustments with the swipe of a finger.
The other nice thing about owning one of the new Google Pixel phones is that Google will now back up all of your images and videos (even those captured in 4K) at original quality, with absolutely no limits, so there’s no need any longer to make that decision over whether to eat into your Drive storage allocation or accept a little extra compression. Indeed, that option has disappeared entirely from the Photos app settings menu.
[gallery:5]Then there’s the Pixel’s “Smart Storage” feature. This, much vaunted at the Pixel phone launch, will automatically free up space for you by removing old videos and photos that have been backed up to the cloud.
In practice, Smart Storage is little more than a timeout switch. It will remove photos and videos older than 90 days, 60 days or 30 days, depending on your preference. It can be activated manually if you prefer, or switched off entirely, and it works for both photos and videos and files in your downloads folder. The last thing you could call it is “smart”, though.
Google Pixel and Pixel XL review: Google Assistant and extra software features
All of which brings me to Google’s new software. Naturally, the Google Pixel and Pixel XL run Android 7 Nougat, but with the Pixel phones it looks and handles very slightly differently to stock.
First off, the Pixels are the first phones to run Nougat 7.1 and they’re also the first to feature Google’s revamped voice recognition system, now called Google Assistant. This, along with a few other bits and bobs, such as the nav bar at the bottom of the screen, is currently a Pixel exclusive and Google has said nothing about the. Activated with a long press of the onscreen home button, or the annoyingly difficult-to-say “OK Google” key phrase (Google really ought to provide alternatives), Assistant is essentially a conversational, context-aware extension to Google Now. Google Now still exists, off to the left of the Nougat homepage, as does Now on Tap via an upwards swipe once you’re in the Assistant interface.
Is it any good? My opinion is mixed. I love the way you can now unlock the phone with your voice. However, I found recognition to be pretty patchy, and I found, like talking to an ageing relative, I found I had to speak loudly and slowly to get it to work reliably. On the plus side, it seems to be pretty secure, refusing to unlock with anyone else’s voice, and once you’re in, voice recognition works as well as it always has with Google Now.
In particular, I like the conversational and contextual nature of Assistant’s responses. Ask it about the weather today, and you can then tap the microphone icon and ask: “what about tomorrow?” and it will furnish you with the long-term forecast. And Assistant’s reach extends further than simply the pop-up panel – it also works within Google Maps.
Say “OK Google” while you’re driving a route, and you’ll be able to ask Assistant to find you somewhere to eat along your route, or a petrol station so you can get refueled.
[gallery:4]Generally, it’s brilliant, and it signals the direction Google is going with its voice recognition technology. I can see a day when it’s integrated into every nook and cranny of the Android UI. It’s still early days, though, and Assistant can be a pit picky about exactly what it responds to. Ask “how about the rest of the week?” instead of “what abou the weekend?”, and Assistant will simply repeat the previous answer. There’s clearly some work to do.
Other nice new features include automatic software updates, circular icons for the core Google apps, a different way to access the app drawer (you pull up from the bottom of the screen instead of tapping an icon), and pop-up homescreen options for certain core apps.
And, of course, the phone is “VR ready”. Simply drop the handset into Google’s new Daydream View headset, strap it to your face and you have access to a variety of new VR content, the whole of YouTube and Google Play Movies, plus games, a bunch of educational stuff and more. I’ll be updating this review with more details as and when Google sends us one of its headsets. Watch this space.
Google Pixel and Pixel XL review: Verdict and comparison
Google’s two Pixel phones mark a major move, not only for the company itself but also for the technology industry as a whole. Both are brilliant smartphones that entirely justify their place at the industry’s top table. They have a great screens, good battery life and the best camera around, and they’re both pretty darned quick.
On balance, though, can they match the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge? For me, the answer is no, not quite. The Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge remains the best, money-no-object smartphones on the market, simply because they’re better in more areas. They’re more attractive, have better battery life and superior displays. They’re faster, dust- and water-resistant, and right now the price is lower as well.
[gallery:10]The Pixel phones’ strengths lie in their superlative camera and clean Android install, which, as ever, is unfettered by third-party extras. Whether you choose one or the other, you’ll be getting a brilliant smartphone, but the S7 Edge just noses in front.
What I find disappointing here is that Google had it well within its power to do all of this AND undercut the competition on price. It didn’t have to do it by much, but even setting the price at £500 instead of £600 would have sealed its place as the best pound-for-pound smartphone around.
As it stands, though, by choosing to match the price of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, it’s effectively throwing its lot in with Apple and Samsung, deserting the middle ground and leaving the OnePlus 3 out on its own to mop up the win. And so, while I like the Google Pixel phones, I can’t quite bring myself to love them.
| Google Pixel XL specifications | |
| Processor | Quad-core 2.15GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 |
| RAM | 4GB |
| Screen size | 5.5in |
| Screen resolution | 1,440 x 2,560 |
| Screen type | AMOLED |
| Front camera | 8MP |
| Rear camera | 12MP |
| Flash | LED |
| GPS | Yes |
| Compass | Yes |
| Storage (free) | 32GB (24GB) / 128GB |
| Memory card slot (supplied) | No |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11ac |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 4.2 |
| NFC | Yes |
| Wireless data | 3G, 4G |
| Dimensions | 155 x 76 x 8.5mm |
| Weight | 168g |
| Operating system | Android 7.1 |
| Battery size | 3,450mAh |
| Warranty | One year RTB |
| Price SIM-free (inc VAT) | £719 |
| Price on contract (inc VAT) | £100 on £51-per-month contract |
| Prepay price (inc VAT) | N/A |
| SIM-free supplier | https://madeby.google.com/phone/ |
| Contract/prepay supplier | www.ee.co.uk |
| Details | https://madeby.google.com/phone/ |
| Part code | Pixel XL |
Related Posts
How to Use Circle to Search on Samsung Galaxy S24 and Google
Samsung Galaxy S7 Review: A Great Phone in its Day, but Don’t Buy One
How to Rotate a Laptop or PC Screen: Flip Your Display on Its Side
Google Photos Backup: How to Back Up Photos Using Google Photos
How to Install Custom Google Fonts for Google Docs
How to Show Speed Limit on Google Maps
Google Meet Camera Failed – Here are the Best Fixes
How to Fix “No Camera Found” on Google Meet
How to Delete Search History in Google Photos
Disclaimer: Some pages on this site may include an affiliate link. This does not effect our editorial in any way.
