The first ever Google Phone was the "Google Nexus One" which was manufactured by HTC in the year 2010, which came with the Qualcomm Scorpion processor and bare minimum specifications. Since then up to the year 2016 Google had been working with Samsung, LG and Huawei in delivering the Nexus Family of devices namely the Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 5( My Favourite Nexus Phone of all time ) , Nexus 6 (Motorola Nexus 6), Nexus 5X and the 6P.
Through all the above series of Nexus Devices, came significant design changes and changes in the hardware of each and every device that keep making it better and better every single year. The best part about Nexus phones were that they were always the best at being a Budget friendly phone with good enough specs as compared to its competitors. As per news, the Motorola Nexus 6 was the failure of the series, we will not get into the details of that for now.
Then came 2016, the year where Google was to announce its newest Nexus Device and all Nexus users were absolutely excited to get their hands on one of these. The reason being, Google had been heavily marketing the new Nexus Phones and as per the rumours of design and manufacturer, it came to light finally that the new Nexus Phones would now be called as the "PIXEL"! After a gap of 6 years there was once again an HTC manufactured product but with complete branding of Google. I just saw that HTC Corporation's mention on the Packaging Label.
So what do you get in the package?
So just to let you readers know that I got my Google Pixel through Finomena. Finomena is a company that lets you buy stuff online by just pasting product URL's from your shopping site. They even have a cool calculator so that you can adjust your downpayment and finance options. I got my loan approved in less than 10 hours! Yes and it was hassle free. Just make sure you have documents like ID proof, address proof, Income Tax Return, Bank statement etc. as everything has to be submitted online including making the downpayment.
Coming back to the Pixel, I got it from Flipkart, the 128 GB Very Silver variant , it took almost 7 days to arrive. I would not consider it a fault of Flipkart but the seller who dispatched it late. Considering the overbooking for the Phone maybe the stocks movement was slow.
You get the phone in the packaging, along with that you get a USB Type-C compatible adapter, and a reversible USB type- C to USB type-C cable with Fast Charging, a USB to USB Type-C cable, headphones, OTG cable for data transfer, and some paperwork. The packaging was neat and I was particularly impressed with the packaging. However I feel it could have been more compact like how One Plus and Apple iPhones are packaged.
Design
The design of the Pixel is undoubtedly , yeah I hate to say this buy similar to the iPhone! Yes except for the unique dual tone back design with a Glass Back Panel. The Glass Back panel supposedly helps improve network reception and yes I have experienced that it does. The device on first look has a big chin which kind of looks different and sports an AMOLED screen which comes in 5" and 5.5" inch variants. It has a super fast fingerprint scanner which in my opinion is a great one, since I love the finger print scanner on the iPhone. I think its a smart way to unlock your device, especially if you keep your phone alot in the pocket. You also have the rear facing camera which is a 12.3MP shooter and the one on the front is a 8MP shooter. On the front you also have the earpiece, which gives good call quality and also has LED Indicators.
The left hand side of the phone has a SIM card tray that supports Nano SIM and 4G/LTE Connectivity. The right side of the phone has the Power button first and the Volume rockers. Umm, I kind of didn't like it because usually power button is below the Volume rockers and also so that you can easily reach the power button which is not the case here.
The bottom of the phone has the speakers , USB Type-C port which supports fast charging, and the microphone. The top part of the phone has the headphone jack!! LOL yeah I am excited at least this one has it, because my iPhone 7 Plus sadly had it RIP'd . But a new change is always a welcome in my opinion. So thats it about the design of the phone. It is not the best design phone, but has more of an Industrial Design look to it.
Specifications: Must Read
The Pixel is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 SoC with Adreno 530 GPU, clocked at 2.15ghz + 16.ghz Quad Core chip, that provides firstly quick charging and has a tremendous and exceptional battery life. I have used this phone like for a lot of calling and camera work and it easily lasts me 2 days and some battery till the next day to spare! The charging is really fast, it charges from 0 to 100 in about 1 hour and 10-15 mins , which comparatively, my iPhone 7 Plus takes about 2 hours to charge. Considering that the battery is just 2770 MaH , the battery life is phenomenal. If you are planning gaming on this device, it could last you at least 1 and half day and still to spare.
It comes with the latest Android Nougat 7.1 and already an update for 7.1.1 is available. The display of the phone is AMOLED, 441ppi for the Pixel and 534ppi for the XL, and gives full HD video of 1080P and also supports video recording in UHD 4K resolution. It also has support for Corning Gorilla Glass 4 and finger print and smudge proof.
Coming to the Cameras on the phone, it comes with a 12.3 MP rear facing camera with an aperture of F 2.0 and good for low light photography with Phase Detection Auto Focus and Laser Detection AutoFocus. Let me tell you I am a photo blogger, and shoot a lot of macros, but if macro is your choice then this phone is not good enough as it struggles to focus objects at close distances. I do not have this kind of an issue with my iPhone 7 Plus. The video camera is capable of shooting 4K videos at 30FPS and supports full HD slow motion videos at 120 and 240 FPS. The rear facing camera performs exceptionally well and captures detail for far off shots and some close distance in low light conditions but again not crisp macros. The front facing camera is a 8MP shooter with an aperture of F 2.4 and I think is capable of superb selfies.
It comes with 4GB of RAM , and storage sizes of 32 and 128GB without any expansion for SD card slots. This is a let down as most devices come with this. There is bottom firing speakers, but when playing very high notes or usage with call recorder, you will find lot of distortion. Google is investigating into this issue and says a software update will be rolled out to fix this.
The Pixel comes with 2700 MaH battery and the Pixel XL comes with a 3450 MaH battery. As I said my Pixel last about 2 days so the XL would easily last me at least 4 days thats crazy.
It has a fast finger-print sensor, accelerometer/gyroscope, hall sensor, magnetometer, android sensor hub and a barometer.
Some sample shots clicked on the Pixel:
Indoor Shots
Low Light Photography
Macro Shots
Close Range Shots
Outdoor Photography
Panorama
Final Verdict: Why best?
So coming to the reason why I call this phone as the best Software Phone , is because the Software Experience is Phenomenal. Its nothing like the older versions of the Nexus. You could probably download a couple of plugins for any android device and try your best to make it look like the Pixel but it will never perform as good as this Phone. The phone is overpriced for its Hardware Specifications no doubt, and its not the best Camera, but one thing is for sure, nothing can beat this in terms of Software Experience.
Moreover, as you already are aware that Google Pixel will be continuously getting the latest Android updates at-least till about 4 - 5 years until Google decides to do away with the Pixel series just like it did to the Nexus. But its a long time till then. You really have to use the phone to experience why it is so good. Its really snappy and even the split screen mode is pretty cool, the animations, transitions that makes it nearly as good as the iPhone.
Somethings you really need to understand that no doubt this phone has issues that have been reported by users, but it does not make the phone something to curse about, definitely not, I can vouch for Google on this. It comes in two variants 32 GB and 128GB variant. Starts at about 55,000/- INR for the Pixel and goes upto 70,000/- INR for the Pixel XL. If you need me to cover a particular section of this phone please feel free to leave your comments in below. You can purchase this phone from either Flipkart or Amazon.
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