Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Google Pixel Review: Pretty Magical


If you want something done right, do it yourself. I can almost imagine a motivational poster with that phrase being in the same room when the Pixel devices were conceived.


By Pixel devices, I don't mean just the Pixel and Pixel XL phones. The Pixel moniker has been around for a couple of years. The first Pixel device was the Chromebook Pixel sold in 2014, and 2015 saw two Pixel devices: the Chromebook Pixel (2015) and the Pixel C Android tablet. These are what I imagined to be Google showing the world their vision of the platform. They may not always have sold in large numbers, but they often represent the best the platform has to offer. 

Alan Kay once said, “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware”. This has worked magic for Apple, and in a time where even Microsoft is making their own hardware, the duo of Pixel smartphones are inevitable.

The question is, does it live up to the Pixel name?

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The thing about Android smartphones is this. typically, the software and hardware teams do not collaborate together. You have different manufacturers each trying to push their own vision of Android. Some would call it fragmented, Google wants you to think it’s diversified.

The matter of fact is, you are always getting some sort of compromise even on flagship Android devices. It may be an ugly skin, unwanted bloatware, slow updates, or sluggish performance, but it's definitely there. The Nexus line was perhaps closest to Google's vision for Android, but even that had a bit of compromises here and there.


Pixel is Google taking charge of both the software and hardware, and focusing on what they feel like would be the future of Android smartphones.

The Pixel comes in two flavours. The 5-inch Pixel, and the 5.5-inch Pixel XL. Storage options starts from 32GB, with the next step up being 128GB. The only differences between them are just the screen size, resolution, battery size, and importantly price. Talking about the price would probably give some Nexus fans sticker shock (like the Nexus 6 did). It starts at US$649 for a 32GB Pixel which is already significantly higher than last year’s Nexus 6P at US$499. For the Singapore market, the price goes higher than that since you would have to import them, adding tax and shipping into the cost.

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Phone By Google. These are the words that are etched on the back of the familiar looking metal body. While HTC is the manufacturer for the Pixel, you will find no branding that suggest so. Google says they designed the entire phone, but it’s hard not to see the influence HTC had on the design. Some may say that it’s a dead-ringer for the iPhone, but it looks more like an HTC phone to me.


For the most part, the design has grown on me. The glass and metal back gives it a unique look, and probably helps with radio reception. There is no unsightly camera bump on the Pixel due to the wedged shape design on the phone. Meaning the phone still feels thin because the slimmer bottom is where you will be holding the phone most of the time. I was a little concerned about the weight distribution, but the smaller Pixel still feels pretty comfortable in the hand.

The 5-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) screen on the Pixel is of the AMOLED variety, which means great colours, contrasts, and deep blacks. A little too saturated for my liking, but sRGB mode in the developer settings fixes that in a jiffy. It is a great quality display as one would expect from a flagship device. Samsung still has the upper hand here with higher resolution, and outdoor visibility on their S7, but in day to day use it is more than sufficient.


One of the thing I love about AMOLED screens would be its inky blacks. Which is why I am not a huge fan of the colour of the front bezel. The “Quite Black” colour is not quite black enough, and is in fact more like a grey. If the bezels were completely black and blends into the display, the bezel would probably look less prominent than it does now with a black wallpaper. A peculiar decision considering most Nexus devices in the past had completely black bezels.

That chin is huge, I know. Empty too. Unlike the HTC 10 which has a fingerprint sensor at the bottom, or the Nexus 6P which has a front facing speaker there, it is completely barren on the Pixel. On the bright side, it means I don’t have to reach too far down to use the navigational buttons, and it gives me a place to hold the phone in landscape comfortably. But, a speaker there would still be nice. Just saying.


Instead, the single firing speaker is at the bottom of the phone alongside the USB Type C charging port. This is undeniably a downgrade from the Nexus 6P’s solid stereo speakers, but for the occasional YouTube video, it sounds pretty pleasing with good volume and clarity. If that’s not sufficient, there is always the 3.5mm headphone jack on the top of the phone.


Like the Nexus 5X and 6P, the fingerprint sensor is at the back of the phone. I really have little preference about the location of the fingerprint sensor, no matter front or back facing. It's just a matter of getting used to it. The important thing is that it is fast and accurate, and the Pixel is both. It’s not the fastest fingerprint sensor I have used, but it’s consistent. For the Pixel, the fingerprint sensor works as a trackpad to pull the notification shade down, and saves your thumb a stretch.


The great build quality of the phone should come as no surprise considering HTC is the ODM (original design manufacturer) for the Pixel. The phone feels extremely solid, and even the buttons feels fantastic. The only minor gripe I have would probably be the lack of any significant water resistance. These days, it is possible to implement such features with no compromises (flimsy flaps) to its design. For a phone priced to compete with the best Android and iOS has to offer, it falls a little bit short in this aspect.

(It's interesting how the first Nexus and Pixel smartphone were both built by HTC, 
just the the latter lacks any HTC branding)


The Pixel is the smoothest Android phone I have used thus far, and for a Google branded phone it has to be. With little to no dropped frames in the user interface animations, and a snappy touch response, the Pixel is now the yardstick for how an Android smartphone should perform.


The Pixel is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821, 4GB of RAM, and UFS 2.0 storage. The top of the line specifications are kind of a requisite considering its price tag. Despite Google’s best effort, gaming performance on the Pixel still plays second fiddle to Apple’s latest offerings. It’s perfectly acceptable, but utterly unremarkable. But overall in day to day use, the Pixel is a silky bundle of joy.


The key to the Pixel is “optimisation”. Both software and hardware. The touch response, and the consistency of the excellent performance of the phone are testament to it. It shows in the battery life too. The Pixel I had with its 2,770mAh battery capacity lasted a day of use with absolute ease. It matches or outpaces comparable Android devices with larger batteries.

I have used every single Nexus smartphone. Nexus One, Nexus 6P, and everything in between. Despite being the “vanilla” Android experience, it has never felt well-optimised to me. The software may be smooth, but they weren’t always consistent. Battery life were never as good as the battery size suggests as well. Some were better than others, but nothing comes close to the Pixel. Google finally decided to pull in the reins, and for their first smartphone, the results are pretty magical.


With a 12.3 megapixel camera with an f/2.0 aperture, a 1.55-microns pixel size, two ways to focus; phase detection and laser auto focus, two tone LED flash, and a lack of optical image stabilisation, the camera hardware is pretty “meh” on paper. Google product VP Brian Rakowski calls this "the best smartphone camera anyone has ever made.", and backs it up with the highest score for a phone yet on DXOmark. Once bitten twice shy, so forgive my skepticism here.

After taking a ton of shots with it, I am happy to say the camera is largely pretty great, and sits at the top end of the spectrum alongside the Galaxy S7 and iPhone 7. Best is subjective though. In my opinion, the Pixel is just as good, but not quite above the rest. Which one you prefer would be just down to personal preference.

The same magic word “optimisation” can probably be used for the Pixel’s camera. Google achieved this with some clever software magic called HDR+. The lead of the computational photography team at Google Research, Marc Levoy explains it best, "The moment you press the shutter it's not actually taking a shot — it already took the shot. It took lots of shots! What happens when you press the shutter button is it just marks the time when you pressed it, uses the images it's already captured, and combines them together."










The results are pretty incredible in some instances. In daylight with Auto HDR+, the dynamic range in the photos are pretty phenomenal, and details are very well-preserved. The colours veer towards the vibrant side of things much like Samsung, but in general images look pretty pleasing to me. This may not be everyone’s cup of tea though. While the images looks pleasing, the iPhone still produces a more natural looking image which some may prefer.


The shot above was taken at ISO 4519 with a shutter speed of 1/15s. HDR+ does a great job controlling noise and grain while preserving details. It is interesting to note as well that the phone defaults to a faster shutter speed to prevent camera shake in low light. Google is relying pretty heavily on processing since the phone lacks optical image stabilisation, and the results are pretty good actually.

For a camera smartphone, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Hardware, software, and user experience all plays a part. On the Pixel, it’s three for three. Like the rest of the phone, the camera app launches and starts taking photos with no hesitation. The viewfinder refresh rate is smooth even in low light, and even HDR+ processing is much quicker than it was on the Nexus 6P. The camera defaults to auto HDR+, and takes a couple of seconds to process the image in the background while you can continue taking images. You can even manually turn HDR+ on to force the camera to take higher quality HDR+ images, but that might slow things down a bit. Focusing speeds doesn’t quite match Samsung’s Dual Pixel sensor in dimmer lighting conditions, but for the most part goes head to head with the Galaxy S7 in daylight.

For all of its high end specifications, the lack of optical image stabilisation is a curious omission for the Pixel. Much like for images, the solution is again software. The Pixel has video stabilisation software that ties the camera sensor to the gyroscope (which reads the gyro data 200 times a second). This isn’t exactly anything new or groundbreaking though. Remember Instagram’s Hyperlapse app that came out on iOS 2 years back?


From footage I have captured and seen, the videos taken are indeed stable, but with its limitations. The software is perhaps just trying a little too hard to stabilise the footage, resulting in it being slightly shifty at times. Panning can be a little bit jerky too with the software trying to predict whether I actually wanted to pan, or was it just a shake that it should correct. In short, the iPhone 7 still does a better job with the combinations of software and optical stabilisation. I believe though, with further updates, the Pixel could achieve better results.

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Could Google have done the same type of optimisations on a flagship level device, call it a Nexus, and sell it at flagship pricing? Absolutely. But remember what I said in the beginning about the Pixel lineup offering the best that the platform has to offer? In this case, it's not just Android. Think Google Assistant.


It all starts with a long press of the home button, and then just talking to it. You can use the phrase “Ok Google” too, but it doesn’t work too reliably for me. The interface of the Google Assistant is almost like a conversation, with you asking something, and Google answering it. My main use for the assistant is simply asking it to do some simple tasks like settings alarms, reminders, memos, and searching for something quick. For the most part it works well enough, but pronunciation can be a bit of a challenge at times.


There is a lot hanging on the Google Assistant. From the announcement of the Pixel, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, believes that this is the next frontier. To create a personal Google for each person. In some capacity, it’s a valiant effort, but just not quite there yet. It does the basics well, and offers some great features like being able to search for my photos in Google Photos, add a new note in Google Keep, or just helping me remember something on the fly. However, it doesn’t seem to be able to talk to too many third party apps just yet, and struggles with more complex commands. I would love to be able to tell Google Assistant to “start a new 30 minutes workout on Endomondo, and play some music”.

The measure of how good a voice assistant to me, is how I can talk to it. If I can talk to it normally like I would a person, I think I will be more willing to use it. For now I still have to change how I talk to it so that it understands what to do.

While Google Assistant isn’t quite the next frontier just yet, the platform built to showcase it is another story though. Being a Google phone, this is a great chance for Google to show the world Android as they intended it to be. Android has taken a lot of flak for being jankier than its iOS counterpart, or third party apps simply aren’t as well optimised. Even nearing a decade old, some of those claims still holds some merit. That changes with the Pixel though. Mostly.

(Android Nougat finally brings native spilt screen multitasking)

The Pixel runs Android Nougat 7.1, a newer version of Nougat with a small handful of Pixel specific features. The thing you’ll notice first would be its launcher, which is using rounder icons as well as a new swipe up gesture to get to the app drawer, freeing up another spot for a shortcut. You also get chat and phone support built into the settings app, along with screen sharing features. Sadly it doesn't work if you’re using the phone in Singapore though. The best feature that we do get to enjoy would be the free, unlimited full resolution upload to Google Photos for every photo or video you take with the Pixel. This means that you almost never have to worry about running out of storage.


There is a new storage management option that can help you to clear away photos and videos that are already backed up to Google Photos. This takes the hassle and inconvenience out of having manually manage your storage especially if you have got the 32GB Pixel. The best part is, this might not be a Pixel exclusive feature as the same option is found on the 7.1.1 developer preview on my Nexus 5X.

The same goes for the 3D Touch-like shortcuts you get when you long press on an app icon. I think Google’s implementation is actually easier to use compared to Apple’s. You can even pin the shortcuts as an icon on the home screen if it’s something you use frequently. This comes in really handy because like 3D Touch, I always forget this functionality exists.


The Pixel has a few extras too which aren’t necessarily exclusive, but just limited to the Pixel for now because Nougat is so new. Like the support for Google’s VR platform Daydream VR, and the seamless update feature which allows updates to be installed in the background on a different partition. The phone simply and seamlessly switches over when the update is ready when you restart the phone. Goodbye to the “Installing Updates” screen rendering the phone useless for minutes on end. This feature can also serve as a backup of sorts should something go awry when installing an update.

The Pixel gets its software right. It focuses on the basics, and polished it to a shine. It just works, and really well I might add. If this is Google taking a more “opinionated” approach on their software, sign me up for more.

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In the end, I think this is a Pixel device through and through. It showcases the best that Android can offer now, and in part the best that Google Assistant has to offer. Calling the Pixel a remarkably good phone might be a bit of an understatement considering I think it might be the best Android phone I have used this year. In a few metrics it might not be at the top of its game, like the speaker, optical image stabilisation, display quality, lack of water resistance, or the design. But the whole is a lot greater than the sum of its parts. It is how the entire phone was put together that tells you that most aspects of the phone have been carefully considered and choreographed to work in synergy with one another. Plus the free unlimited full resolution backup to Google Photos is pretty neat too.

This is how Android should be experienced. For someone who is invested in Google services, and wants them to be integrated tightly into various aspects of their phone, the Pixel is a pretty magical smartphone. Google Assistant may not be quite the game-changer just yet, but you can be sure Google is hard at work right now.


So should you buy one? Probably not.

The biggest hurdle would be its price. The Pixel is not a cheap phone. In Singapore, the prices of the Pixel are higher than even the equivalent iPhone 7 variant. Since the phones are not sold in Singapore officially, you can only get it through importers or import one yourself. All the extra costs for a phone with no local warranty. The Pixel is good, but not THAT good. No phone is. 

Google's first attempt at their own smartphone is pretty solid, despite a few shortcomings. For a smartphone today, it's one of the best Android phone you can buy. Just be prepared to pay a premium for it. But I already can't wait to see what the next Pixel will offer. Hopefully by then they will consider selling it in more countries. The flagship category of Android devices just got a whole lot more interesting.

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