Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Google Pixel 3 Impressions!”.
All right so uh, the leaks were true. The rumors were real. Two weeks ago, google invited me out to mountain view, california, to their headquarters, to see what they’ve been working on. I could bring my camera and i agreed to go and they the condition was that i couldn’t share what i saw until today. That day is now october 9th, so i can share. So this is your exclusive first looking hands-on at google pixel 3 and pixel 3 xl their flagships for 2018.. Now, of course, a lot of what’s leaked was the hardware, and that was pretty much all right well, except for the conspiracies.
But i’m gon na go through everything, just as if you haven’t seen it all, because it’s actually still a lot of pretty exciting stuff and hey. Maybe you haven’t seen it all yet, so you can start at the back of the phone and see it’s pretty similar in design to last year’s pixel 2, but with improved build quality and a lot of ways. It’S a small design update, but it’s clearly still a pixel, but it’s now all glass from top to bottom, in between aluminum rails, so typical 2018 fashion. But you still see this two-toned finish and that’s because the bottom half of the glass is a sort of textured or frosted in a way that gives it this.
This soft touch matte finish it’s subtle and it really only shows up from certain angles, but i like this, a lot it feels nice and before i forget the three new colors this year are just black, clearly white and not pink, and yes, those are the actual Color names and they’re keeping the colored power button train going too. So the white has this mint colored power button interesting and the not pink. Has this bold orange power button and then the black on black one has a black power button. Also fun fact they painted the inside of the usb c port black, which is a nice touch, completing the truly matte black everything pixel 3.. Well done on this one, google.
Aside from that, it does just feel a little bit heavier thanks to more glass, but overall, it feels good. The buttons are really clicky and they feel premium in my hand. You still have the squeeze for assistant and you do get wireless charging now thanks to the glass and it’s also now ip68 water resistant, finally and you’ll notice, since they moved the sim card tray to the bottom and all the buttons are on the right.
Now. The left side of the phone is completely blank just devoid of anything. It’S totally smooth, which is also interesting. I’D, say the worst part about this build is actually the fact that it’s kind of slippery. Despite the soft touch back. Okay, then, around the front, probably the most buzzed about part of all the leaks, the screens and that notch that notch the notch is on the pixel 3 xl it’s tall as hell alongside a much larger than normal chin.
Also, but there’s a lot going on here, too, the regular size, pixel 3 does not have this notch, so the xl display is a 6.3 inch, 2960×1440 flexible, oled display that goes right up to the edges, as you can see, just as close to the edge as The oneplus 6 or iphone 10s or any other flagship and the smaller pixel 3, with no notch of shame, has a 5.5 inch 2160 by 1080 display also flexible oled, and i’m calling it now that’s going to be a sneaky candidate for small phone of the year. That’S just the state of phones we’re in right now. Small phones are getting big, there’s no headphone jack and no expandable storage, just like last year’s pixels. But we know there will be a 64 gig or 128 gig version, there’s snapdragon 845 and four gigs of ram inside which it’s kind of weird to say, but that’s actually less ram that i’d expected we’ll have to keep an eye on that and it does keep The fingerprint reader on the back in the same spot, where it belongs at least as long as they’re, not doing it below the glass yet and also still one camera which we’ll talk about in a second but you’re, definitely wondering at this point. What’S the deal with the notch right, we’ve seen phones with notches all year round and we get it it’s necessary. We want to get the screen as close to the edges as possible, but this notch is a lot taller specifically than any other notch.
We’Ve seen in any phone and there’s still a chin, what gives so up at the top of both phones? Actually there’s not one but two front-facing cameras and a large front-facing speaker, that’s part of a stereo pair. That’S it! No facial recognition, no ir dot, projector. Nothing! Really crazy, like that, just two cameras and a really big front-facing speaker.
So is it worth that? Well, as far as the speakers, i’ve heard them and they are really impressively loud and clear. I’M a fan of what i’ve heard from them. I’D say: they’re on par with the razer phone, just for my first impression, although i didn’t get to do any side by sides yet so, if you’re the type of person to put your phone like in a corner of a room and fill it up with music, You can do that with this phone, like a mini boombox and, of course, gaming and watching videos and personal audio will all sound really good and the two front-facing cameras are again a good idea.
I liked it when i saw it with the lg v40 and i actually think these will be much better, because not only are they google’s cameras and they’re significantly better in quality on the pixel, but the difference between the standard and wide-angle selfie camera is bigger. It goes from a 75 degree field of view in the standard to a 97 degree field of view. Much wider now is that enough of a justification for this huge notch, um hard to say at this point i mean i guess, speakers that are that big have to have that much room, but then again the the grill is not that big. I don’t know we’ll have to test it out for the full review and we’ll see if i end up getting used to it, just like i got used to notches and all these other phones, but as of right now, that’s like the defining characteristic people.
Think of when they think of the xl, so let me know what you guys think of that trade-off either way. That’S about all! That’S major and new with the hardware again the smaller pixel 3 is a much better looking phone for most people, but i’m willing to give the xl a chance, because i am still a big phone person and then the camera that we all love so deeply on. The pixel, it is in fact upgraded again, which has me very excited: new 12 megapixel sensor at f, 1.8 with ois and, of course same camera in the xl on the small one, and you already know, pixel’s visual core is still here. That’S so important to why pixel has been, i guess, the undisputed smartphone camera champ for the past year.
Actually that ties neatly into software, because google just always does so much with software and machine learning and ai, and that’s a big reason why they have one camera on the back instead of two or three. So a lot of the features i’m about to go over with you, while they’re technically new to pixel 3, are also just software ready, there’s top shot so once you’ve taken a photo. It analyzes other frames that were also captured and uses ai to decide. If it can suggest a better one, maybe someone was blinking or their hair is in their face. You don’t even have to take another photo. It’S just waiting for you.
There’S a new night mode in the camera. That’S actually called night sight. It’S supposed to be significantly improved, but i got ta test that, to be sure, there’s some other great night modes and other smartphone cameras. There’S something called super res zoom, which this is super is so google.
It uses literally the shaking or rotation of your hands as you’re, taking a picture where, if you digital zoom, it will use that to compute a higher resolution. Image from that zoomed photo so it’ll help you take better digital zoomed photos. It’S not necessarily going to be as good as optical zoom, but that’s still pretty damn cool the google lens functionality is now built into the viewfinder, so without even snapping a photo. You can just point the camera at a business card or a restaurant menu and it’ll pull info like an email address or a phone number for you to one touch, call or compose shush mode is a new feature that literally just sets your phone to silent or Do not disturb mode when you put it face down on a table nice and there’s. Also now a call screening feature powered by google duplex coming later and rolling out to a couple cities at a time. But basically, when you get a call, you can accept, reject or send to call screen where that person calling you will interact with your google assistant and you’ll, see a live transcription of that interaction.
While it happens and you can decide to cut them off or pick up unreal and then according to google, because i asked uh everything except for shush mode – that i just talked about – will be exclusive to pixel 3 uh not coming to pixel 1 or pixel 2.. So, even though it’s just software, it’s technically still a pixel 3 feature, but that’s really all there is to know now that pixel, 3 and 3xl are official. You got it all in one place and, like i said, i still think that smaller one is probably going to be the one. A lot of people are more attracted to small ones, starting at 7.99 and pixel 3 xl starts at 8.99. I guess i’m just happy that phones this year, when they have a small version and a big version – they’re, not handicapping the smaller version like it always used to be the smaller one, would have one less gig of ram or they take the second camera out or Something something weird like that: now: the iphone 10s and 10s max same features except for display and battery pixel 3 pixel, 3 xl same features except for display and battery. Now, aside from the phones, google also had a couple other hardware announcements today. First of all, the pixel in the box comes with an 18 watt, fast charger and a pair of usb-c headphones in the box. They wanted everyone to know that they’re the same style as the pixel buds and have a lot of the functionality too, but an optional accessory, they’re building is called the pixel stand and it’s a wireless charger that also triggers a docked google assistant mode. So it’s like turning your phone into a google home for 79 bucks and clearly the speakers are meant to be loud enough. So that’s an interesting proposition for a nightstand there’s also now a 150 google home hub with a display and a couple new colors, obviously having a seven inch.
Touchscreen makes for a much more user-friendly and interactive google assistant experience. So i thought that was pretty cool and there’s also now this new pixel slate, which i’m gon na be honest. It’S a cool looking tablet, but when i used it two weeks ago it looked like a laggy stuttering mess, but that was just you know, still late prototype phase. So i’m going to reserve judgment on that one until i handle a final version, so there it all is but uh yeah. What do you think of pixel 3? Obviously it was leaked and there was a lot of preconceived notions and now that it’s all official, you probably have your thoughts either confirmed or totally changed. Who knows? I’M excited to get hands on the camera and definitely follow on twitter, for when i do get hands on the phone again and get to start sharing sample photos.
But let me know what you want to see in the full review i’ll be working on that shortly again, thanks for watching talk to you guys in the next one, peace .