Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Google Pixel 6 Months!”.
Thanks to karma for sponsoring this video, it’s always been interesting to me when a company ventures out of their lane, when a software company makes hardware but google’s been one, that’s been really interesting in that field. You know they’re a company that likes to innovate quickly and then just try to fix it later with software and no other product line from google lives by that mantra like the pixel does, but the pixel 5. That strategy looks like it might finally be over the company that thinks software can solve. Any shortcoming might have finally hit a roadblock. Let me explain, i don’t know about you, but i feel like i’ve been living in a time warp.
I don’t know if it’s been weeks or months have gone by, but the pixel 5 has been out as of this filming for almost exactly six months and in that time the classic pixel tropes still really hold true the good and the bad. The external hardware is really top-notch, the camera is obviously absolutely baller, and software experience is still pretty close to unmatched on android. These are some of the most important traits that make the pixel a pixel, but with the five it’s the first time that google took a really different approach with the top of the pixel lineup, there’s no longer a thousand dollar flagship. Instead, they’re opting for a 700 mid-range phone and but keeping all of those great pixel hallmarks in place, but even with the lower price in the six months, i’ve been using this phone.
I spent a lot of time with it. Those amazing qualities that made the pixel stand out and why a lot of reviewers, myself included, put on a pedestal are starting to fade, and that is not to be interpreted as this being a bad phone because it is most definitely not. But what has changed is the lore of the pixel line has changed and i think it’s in need of a refresh, and i think google has an incredible opportunity on their hands. So nowhere is like the pixelness more clear than like the camera right. That’S what the pixel is known for. Pixel 5 has two of them on the back the main wide angle and the second ultrawide, and there’s no denying anybody even the most staunch iphone fanboys would look at pixel photos and be like yeah. I get it bro like those are good cameras and they are – and i have said it a million times, but it bears repeating again.
Google has leaps and bounds ahead of the competition with the camera software developed years ago, and that is still showing to this day. They were so far ahead, then, that the rest of the industry is now just finally starting to catch up five generations in and that’s to say that any photo that you want to take is going to be some version of really good uh bright day. Low light portrait mode night shot even taking pictures of the stars.
This camera can handle it. It’S not like me, you take pictures of kids moving and i use these photos to send to my parents sent to grandparents who i can’t see all the time. I want a really good camera to capture those memories, and i know whenever i pick up my pixel 5, the photo is just going to be awesome, but on the other hand, i don’t think it has the charm that the pixel used to.
I know that’s subjective. I think the reason is pretty simple: it’s basically the same camera we’ve had since the pixel 3.. I actually made an entire video going all the way back to the pixel 2 and the camera quality between each generation is surprisingly identical. We’Ll link that video down below that just again shows how far ahead the pixel was. But now software can only get them so far. They’Ve hit up against a hardware ceiling, and i know i’m in the minority but, like i miss having telephoto i zoom in on stuff, whether it’s family or i got bad eyesight, i like to zoom in it, was something that was there on the pixel 4, but Replaced with the wide angle on pixel 5., but now in like early-ish 2021, there is no reason to not have both with all the phones released in the last six months. It’S pixel 5.
It is a glaring emission from the pixel line, their phones that cost 400. Even if they are cheap, sensors still give you the wide ultra wide and telephoto, but i imagine google’s processing what it could be capable of. If there was a sensor there to just gather more light, it seems like google’s answer to that question. Is software is good enough and we’ll just throw more software at it, but i don’t think it’s cutting it anymore, not because what we have now is bad, because i know the camera could be so much better and so much more useful if the hardware matched the Amazing software during the past, like 12 months, i did a lot more online shopping than perhaps i have ever done before, and chances are. I am not alone and that adds up and, more importantly, it gets expensive. So any way that you can save bucks while buying your stuff online, in my mind, is a good thing. Uh and the sponsor of this video is karma. It’S an app and a chrome extension you may have heard of them with their previous name used to be called shop tagger.
They change the name to reflect the good karma putting out in the world by helping you save money online, and it is a really easy thing to use. First, it’s totally free. You can go to the chrome store and just download it. You can also go to karma’s homepage and download it from there as well, so once you’ve got that done really you’re all set go to wherever you want to buy some stuff click the button or the slider. When you see an item that you want to save some money on, you can also move the button to up and down. If it’s easier for you and that’s it, you can see if you can save some money uh, you can also make a list of all the products you want.
You can organize them into wishlist, so you can sort of make your shopping a little bit easier and more mindful and then get notified whenever you get a discount on those things. So, what’s happening in the background is karma’s essentially scanning the web, using some pretty cool tech for coupon codes. You can use this on chrome, so your desktop or laptop and automatically we’ll test each one and then apply the best one for you when you check out.
So you don’t have to like google best codes for x things, it’s just gon na. Do it all for you, you can also earn cash via paypal. If you will shop from select retail partners and they’ve got a pretty long list there as well.
So if you want to get like max value, you can do that and you can actually make money for shopping buying things for the studio for my house. For my parents, i’ve seen discounts that go as high as 60 and literally for just clicking a button um. It’S a great way to save money. Cost you nothing! It is really easy and simple to use. So if you want to check karma out and save as much money as possible and again totally free, we’ll put a link down below to download it for your browser or your phone there’s. One reason that i haven’t picked up the pixel 5 as much as i would have before.
It’S video for a company that is seriously flexing their software prowess with every single photo i take it seems like video, is not just an afterthought. It’S uh after after thought. The video here still looks compressed. It looks over saturated, sometimes overexposed it just doesn’t look good at all and again, phones are less expensive, do a much better job at video and i don’t want to keep bringing a company like oneplus up here or even talk about samsung with their fv edition phones. The competition is taking video seriously and it’s becoming more and more apparent that google just isn’t and for folks who want to shoot video. It is really important to at least be good enough and the pixel video is just not good enough, and if some of this is coming across as negative as i hear the words coming out, i know it can be tripped that way, but it’s coming like uh From a position of love like i’m, trying to encourage my kids to be better because i know what they’re capable of i know what google can do, we’ve seen it with the original pixel and the pixel 2, when they have good hardware and good software.
The photo quality can be amazing, and i want to see that again with stills with video make that a priority, and i think google could easily retake the throne of best camera and best video in the market. Alright. So some of that stuff was a little bit negative, but there is still a lot of positive with the pixel 5 and things that i personally still really like. So the build is an area where maybe google’s taking a bit of flack, but this is still not a flashy phone.
It’S utilitarian. It’S pixely it’s pixel-ish through and through, but six months in, i’ve come to appreciate the design more now than i did when it came out nelson. I know that i’m not paying top dollar for flashing materials, not getting ceramic or crazy glass, i’m not expecting revolutionary design and it’s still a lot of money spent for a phone and i’m getting one. That feels really good in the hand and is built really well and very solid. I am definitely missing an xl version. I would have hopped on that in a hot second was available.
I like big phones, and i cannot lie the five felt small in my hands. Hadn’T been an xl version. I’Ve been a happy fellow, so i am glad that google went back traditional fingerprint sensor and for the price of a phone. It’S a good sacrifice, not have face, unlock or under screen fingerprint reader, especially in the era of wearing masks and having it on the back. Works doesn’t get in the way and it works incredibly fast, and the good stuff continues on the front of the phone.
The 6.8 inch 1080p panel is bright and vibrant, and i love it. You guys have heard me say it a million times. It’S got a high refresh rate 90 hertz. I think that is a great compromise between the 60 and 120. I just i love a higher refresh rate. 120. Obviously, would have been better, but in real life. I don’t notice that much of a difference between 90 and 120, so you get the smooth display while keeping the price down with that 1080p resolution. It is a perfect compromise of a display, so the main reason that google got the price down is in processor, it’s running the 765 g processor, but for a lot of people, that’s been a reason to not want to get the phone for those that have used Phone 765g.
They know the secret that it is still a really capable processor and when this phone came out in 2020 and now in 2021, pretty much every phone performs great. Maybe it’s a spoiler alert, whether it’s an iphone samsung snapdragon processor, in there, whatever it might be, but again heart getting back to the camera side. Google’S mantra with the pixel has been good software, good song for good software and those that are worried that the mid-range processor is going to get in the way of good software it doesn’t at all now. None of this is to say there can’t be improvements and in fact, in the april software update google fixed some issues with the gpu performance and according to tests in 3dmark, can lead up to 50 improvements in speed, which is insane and crazy. But the real issue was original optimization of the chip from the beginning uh. How can they find 50 improvement six months later, that maybe should have been there from the get-go uh? Google is now just fixing those issues.
So while it’s good to see google’s continued update and support to those phones, i would have liked to have had that at launch. But, like i said for anything, you are trying to do. This phone still works great, and i want to commend google for realizing. There’S improvements to be made and making them even if they did come later than perhaps consumers would have liked, and that same theory applies to battery last year. I mean i don’t know what to say: google failed miserably with battery life, but now with the five. That’S no longer the problem.
You can easily go through a day with one charge, probably not quite two, but the very least battery is not something you have to worry about anymore, using the phone, and for that i’m just that’s claps for google as much as i loved the pixel 4, i Could not use that phone because it barely lasted me three quarters of a day. The 5 is easily a day phone and, like i said before, i don’t have to think about battery, and that is welcome to the pixel line, to boil it down and perhaps most importantly like now, six months in none of the compromises that google made to get To that lower price point get in the way, i understand them in a lot of ways. I can appreciate them and i can respect what was left in and then appreciate what was taken out so in a vacuum uh. The pixel 5 is a near perfect phone. It doesn’t break the bank, it sports. The must-have features like a high refresh rate, at least for me, um a great display and really really amazing cameras, but when you pull it out of that vacuum and you compare it to the other phones that exist in the world, you start to see the little Holes become exposed, and i think that’s because of google’s philosophy. They can’t seem to settle on a direction they’re using software as a crutch for a lot of things and because they’ve been so good at software, they’ve been able to get away with it and don’t think that i don’t appreciate google trying new things, but eventually, you’ve Got to settle on one thing and kind of lean into it for a few years. Software can do some amazing things and clearly google’s proven that, but now it’s time for the next step, it’s time for google to use what they’ve learned with software over the years of experimentation and bring it to a true flagship.
And i imagine to myself what that would look like google’s got the chance to be king here, but for now they’re just trying to keep up and again. If you want to check out karma, we’ll put a link down below to download it for your browser or your phone .