Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Google Pixel 8 Review”.
This is the Google pixel 8 and I’m not even going to bother with a proper intro, because I want to show you something: okay, bring up the title graphic and let’s get into my review. So on the pixel 8 there’s a feature called best take which I keep referring to as face swap. Essentially I take a few photos in a row of a person, a couple or a group, and I could pull up a face and head editor again. That’S that’s my term not Google’s and swap a person’s head with their head from another image.
That’S in the same series to get their best head for a given photo. The result is, I have a photo where everyone’s eyes are open and everyone’s smiling. Now, philosophically this photo doesn’t actually exist because it never happened, and yet here it is at first I was creeped out by best take, but it’s absolutely incredible. I mean it works remarkably well, I can’t see the lines where people’s heads were swapped and it only works on people, but I can almost hear Rick ostero say at the pixel 9 or pixel 10 launch. We heard you and we’re going to offer best, take for pets, Applause and cheers after 4 days spent testing the pixel 8 on loan from Google. I still can’t get my head around the possibilities that best take opens up. Our photography can be even more curated and seemingly deal before we even share a photo with friends or on social media thanks to AI, which yay – and there are more of these AI features for the camera, which I’m definitely going to get into. But let’s step away from the possible personality, altering ramifications of best take and knock out some actual tangible pixel 8 upgrades in terms of the hardware. The pixel 8 is a spelt version of the pixel 7.
It’S shorter, less wide, but actually a sco thicker. The pixel8 weighs 10 G less than the seven and when you combine all of that, along with the fact that nearly every Edge on the phone is rounded over, the pixel 8 is incredibly comfortable to hold with or without a case. The review unit, I’ve been testing is rose, color, which in most lighting looks nearly Peach.
The screen is smaller, but so are the bezels around it. Uh. The pixel8 6.2 in display now has a 60 to 120 HZ variable refresh rate, and it looks so good, especially watching films playing games or even just looking at mundane Android 14 animations.
The screen has a higher Max brightness and is easy to see under bright sunlight, especially compared to the pixel 7 and 7A, where that really wasn’t the case overall, the pixel8 looks Dapper and well almost Chic. It’S still defined by that body. Withd camera bar on the back, which I really like that camera bar houses, the the same 12 megapix ultrawide camera as previous pixel models.
But it’s also home to a 50 megapix main camera. With a new sensor that Google touts as being able to collect 21 %. More light, the front-facing camera is also new, but on the 8 still has a fixed Focus.
The cameraa has a bit of a redesign, in fact on. The bottom is a toggle for two cat, atories uh, one for Stills photos and one for video. If I tap the camera icon, I get all my regular camera modes like portrait mode, long exposure. If I tap the video camera icon, I get all my modes for videos. I really like this. It did take about a day to get used to the new system, but I think it’s a clever way of housing, a bunch of different camera features and still what is considerably a very simple camera app.
Also, the pixel8 has a new macro Focus mode that kicks in when you’re close to the subject on screen an icon pops up, letting you know. What’S up, I really like this addition and it’s great for food and coffee snaps, where I want to get close enough to the cup to fill the frame, but I also still want it in Focus now. Let’S take a look at some of my favorite photos and videos. I took with the pixel 8, so does the pixel 8 take better photos than the pixel 7? Yes, but not dramatically different, now check out these photos of the Manhattan Bridge that I took both. Look great, but if we punch in on where the main upright intersects the deck of the bridge, you can see that the pixel 8 image has more detail and is sharper notice.
The individual rivets on the metal uprights compared to the pixel 7’s photo where most of them are gone again. This isn’t dramatically different, but it’s better nonetheless, and here’s another example. This time it’s two photos taken in low light of a New York cat sleeping in the window. It was dark, but there was enough light that I didn’t need to use night sight on either phone again. Both photos look similar at first glance, but if we zoom in on the cat notice the detail and texture in the cat’s fur in the pixel 8 image and how defined and crisp the hair is compared to the pixel 7 photo where the cat’s fur looks muddy And then there are all of the AI features like best take, which I mentioned at the beginning, oh by the way best take not only works on photos taken with the pixel 8, but on any photos in your Google photos Library.
So last month I reviewed the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max and I’m able to take photos that I shot with those phones like this one of CET, ABR, alhi and swap out her face with ones from other images. In that same series also remember Magic Eraser that lets you remove a distraction in your photo, like maybe someone in the background that you didn’t want well now, there’s a magic editor that lets you do even more. For example, here’s a photo. I took of CET terara Brown and Theo lians jumping off a rock. I used Magic Eraser, which debuted on the pixel 6 to remove the Rock and it did okay, but here’s the same photo using the new magic editor and – and it’s not absolutely perfect, but there’s definitely improvement over just the Magic Eraser version. Magic editor can do a lot like you can move your subject. You can remove someone from the background. Basically, if you see a photo of someone jumping that was taken on a pixel phone beware, magic editor may have been used to exaggerate things.
The tool is a lot of fun, but does bring up a number of ethical questions when it comes to what is real and what is manipulated in photos, especially if these photos are going to go online. Fortunately, magic editor isn’t perfect and I can usually tell a photo that I used it on versus one that I didn’t since the way the AI creates. The fill on the background is still just okay, and sometimes it does take a few seconds for this effect or this tool to kick in. Maybe that will improve and there’s one more magical tool. I want to talk about what is this an apple review? I kid I kid: it’s called audio Magic Eraser, which I can use to clean up audio in videos. I record for better Clarity, all right, I’m shooting this selfie video in the hotel lobby here at the Clancy hotel, and I thought this would be a great way to test out the new audio Magic Eraser. So here it is without the Magic Eraser applied, and here it is with the magic Racer app. Do I sound batter, can you hear me hear all the click, clinks and other things going on in the background taken in total, the pixel 8 has an outstanding camera system with a lot of features, all of which are powered by Google’s new tensor G3 chip Google’s Tensor chip has never been about Pure Performance horsepower; instead, it targets optimizing specific task and powering all those AI goodies. Now I’ve been using the pixel 8 for 4 days and I never ran into any performance issues.
Now, when I was downloading games and setting those up, the phone did get warm, but that was the only time. The G3 chip, along with Android 14, makes the pixel 8 a delight to use, there’s Face Unlock, which is once again secure enough to actually use for contactless payments yay. There are strange non- camera AI features like AI wallpaper that lets you create an original wallpaper for your home screen based on a Mad Lib style.
Prompt. The pixel 8 also has a slightly bigger battery than last year’s pixel 7. In the 4 days. I’Ve had it. The pixel 8 had no problem lasting on a single charge over the course of a day. Now, I’m still working on running CET, arsenal of battery test and performance benchmark test, so make sure to check out my full written review with all my results.
Perhaps the two biggest changes to the pixel8 have nothing to do with the actual phone. The first is the price, the pixel8 cost $ 699 and that’s $ 100, more than the pixel 6 and pixel 7. I actually think the updates you get like the refined body design, the new display, the main camera improvements are worth the price and that the increased price on this pixel 8 is more reflective of just how ridiculously affordable Google priced the pixel, 6 and 7. The other big feature is that the pixel 8 will receive 7 years of os support, which is longer than most Android phones, but not the longest. That would be the fairphone 5, which offers eight years of support. Now.
Will the pixel 8 survive until 2030? Maybe I don’t know, and with all that I recommend the pixel8 for anyone coming from a pixel, 6A or older or well any phone, Android or iOS, that’s 3 years old or more, if you’re, trying to pick between the pixel, 7A and 8 just know that the Pixel 8 is better in nearly every way, but it does cost $ 200 more and in terms of the pixel, 8 and 8 Pro you get like a solid 85 % of the pixel 8 Pro experience on the regular 8. At the end of the day, the Google pixel 8 is an ideal phone for most people, and now I want to hear from you what pixel8 feature stands out most to you thr your thoughts in the comments, and if you enjoyed this video, please give it a Thumbs up and make sure to check out my full in-depth written review on CNET. Thank you for watching .