Gadgetory

so do you think Google is actually serious about this whole make hardware to compete directly with Apple thing what about the fact that they just hired 2,000 engineers from HTC to make phones and what about the fact that they're releasing two phones today and what about the fact that these phones have actually really bold design and they may already have incredibly good cameras and they feel more like Google phones than they do Android phones you see this is the pixel - and this is the pixel - Excel and looking at these two phones I'll tell you what Google is very serious about making hardware so as I already said there's two models the pixel two has a 5-inch screen it's got these squared off corners and these giant bezels on the top on the bottom while the pixel 2xl has a much larger 6-inch screen the corners of the screen are rounded and you know it still has some bezels on the top of the bottom of it now before we get too far into it I want to talk about the aesthetics of these phones Google decided to keep the glass shade and well you might not like it it's definitely an identifiable as a pixel and there are lots of little design touches here that are just kind of fun I mean look at these neon power buttons and the glass shade I mean this white one is black so it's got this whole stormtrooper vibe but look I'm just gonna say it these phones are not as flashy as the Galaxy s8 or even the iPhone - head for example the screens aren't truly edged edie they've got those big bezels that I mentioned but they're here for a reason it's cuz they're front-facing stereo speakers inside there overall I think it's fair to say that these phones are more utilitarian or pragmatic than other flagship smartphones if I had to pick a single word to describe the design I'd actually go with Scandinavian like a piece of IKEA furniture or a Playmobil toy or a Volvo or Lego it's more whimsical than it is glitzy and it's designed to work both phones are available for pre-order right away and they'll be shipping on October 19th the smaller pixel two comes in three colors blue black and white it starts at six hundred and forty nine dollars for 64 gigs of storage the pixel 2 XL comes in just black and white and it's 814 nine dollars you can get 128 gig versions of either one for 100 bucks more Google is partnering with Verizon again but you'll also be able to get them unlocked directly from Google the companies told me that it's gonna do its best to make enough of them and it has finally upgraded its online store so that you can pre-order even if the thing is out of stock to hold your place in line let's start cameras now it's way way too early for me to truly judge the quality these cameras but I have been using them for a little bit with pre-production software and I'm already impressed the color accuracy the detail and the texture all seem really good even on the selfie camera oh and I should point out that both cameras on both sides on both phones are identical you get the same camera whichever phone you choose on the back is a 12 megapixel sensor with just the barest of camera bumps it's got an F 1.8 lens and optical image stabilization it also has these things that are called dual pixels and they're actually the key to what Google has done to improve this camera basically dual pixels means that every pixel on the camera sensor is actually 2 pixels that helps with focus but it also means that there's just a lot more information for the camera processor to work with and google loves information the cameras are fast and they take really good photos but Google can use all that information to do some crazy new stuff so it can do portrait mode on both the front and the rear sensors using its algorithms to nicely cut around hair and blur in the background but those dual pixels also let it do portrait mode with any object instead of two lenses that are half an inch apart like you get on an iPhone it's using data from two pixels that are less than a micron apart the pixels also have some other camera tricks there's something that mimics Apple's live photos so you can record a tiny 3 second movie with every single shot you take but Google analyzes the clip and tries to match the beginning in the end to make a better loop and also to cut out blurry movement it's also going to build augmented reality stickers directly into the camera app so if you really want that selfie with a Demi Gorgon from stranger things you can go to town and so far the features here really do seem to work Google has made all these camera improvements by adding a ton of machine learning to the system and when you're recording a video it's algorithms view the standard electronic image stabilization but they've turned on the optical image stabilizer because it's able to track its motion in real time too and combine all that information together in real time it's a very smart camera now again this is not a final verdict we need to do the review but last year's pixel had the best camera if you get in a smartphone and this rich pixel I don't know I think it has a chance of keeping the crown let's talk about the rest of the specs on these things they both have qualcomm snapdragon 835 processors paired to 4 gigs of ram they use USB C for charging and no they don't have headphone jacks but a dongle comes in the box there are however front-facing speakers on both models that don't just get loud but do so without distorting the sound all to hell they have bluetooth 5.0 and support a bunch of new Bluetooth codecs and they also do auto pairing with certain headphones just like apples ear pods do the phones are made out of aluminum and Gorilla Glass 5 and unfortunately that means they don't support wireless charging but they do support fast charging google says their ip67 resistant which means that their splash proof but they're not really fully waterproof really the only notable difference between these two phones are the screens the pixel 2 has a 1920 by 1080 screen and the to excel is 28 80 by 1440 which is an 18 by 9 tall aspect ratio google says that it's using the sRGB color space if you care about that and it's also really proud of this 100,000 to 1 contrast ratio it has 4 super deep blacks we can't say if they're gonna actually be any better than what you'll get on a Samsung or an iPhone 10 but they do look pretty good to me and you know this is as good a place as any dimension that Google is also releasing a new version of its daydream view VR headset that works with these phones they have new lenses that are sharper and give a wider field of view they've been redesigned to let in less ambient light and there's a top strap too if you'd be wearing them for a long time there's even a new heatsink on the flap that draws heat away from the phone that's all I'm gonna say about them though because I have a family member that works for a competitor but expect a full review from addy Robertson very soon Google's also doing a lot of Google things on the - mainly in the south where it's added a new gimmick that lets you quickly launch the Google assistant by squeezing the phone it takes some getting used to the trick is to squeeze it really fast like you're hitting a button that grip it's super hard like you're trying to crush it I don't know I think it's fine the pixel - is also getting the first access to google lens it's a button inside the Photos app and inside the Google assistant that can identify real world objects with the camera and lets you search the web for them so to start Google is only promising that it's going to be able to identify a limited set of objects stuff like books and movie posters and landmarks it definitely worked in a book when I tried it but you can also point it at random stuff too if you want and it might have a shot at working I pointed it at my watch and it recognized that it was a watch but it couldn't tell what kind of watch it was and finally as it does with every single release Google is messing around with the home screen and adding some more custom features this time the button to search Google has been integrated at the bottom on the app dock and then up top there's a new at-a-glance widget that will show your next appointment there now better live wallpapers that are basically like little movie clips on your home screen and last but not least Google has updated the camera software it integrates a little bit better with Google photos now are these the world's most powerful phones that they don't have the world's most powerful processor and they definitely don't have the world's most amazing screen where Apple and Samsung can hit you in the face with hardware advances Google has to play a more subtle game like I said before where these other companies are flashing Google if being pragmatic but it is trying to take advantage of the strengths that Google does have the assistant the home screen the camera all the machine learning all of it is there so that Google's algorithms can figure stuff out for you automatically and that's always been Google's promise let the AI make things better not just the hardware we'll find out if Google is right about all that on October 19th when they go on sale