Gadgetory

here we go it's the pixel three and the pixel three Excel these might be the most leaked phones in history but nothing can replace actually using the things for a week which I have and I can tell you right up front that they're great and they resolve a lot of the small complaints that people have had about the pixel - there's a lot to talk about here there's two sizes a camera that has to live up to last year's pixel - there's a big notch on the pixel three either screens there's where I was charging and there's price what feels like a pretty small update compared to last year there's a surprising amount of stuff to get into so let's get into it first I want to talk about what might be the most important improvement on the pixel three the one that's gonna have the biggest impact on your daily experience with it and that is the screen the screen on both the pixel 3 and the pixel 3 XL are massive improvements over last year's phones we're still looking at oh let's hear but they're bigger on both phones and simply the biggest most important change is the color quality and the brightness especially on the pixel 3xl last year's pixel 2xl felt like you were looking at colors through like parchment paper but that problem is 100% gone now the screen is brighter the Reds are redder and everything just pops more it's not Samsung levels of color saturation or iPhone tennis levels of brightness and contrast but it's finally where it should be for a phone that can cost as much as $1000 the smaller pixel 3 it also has a great screen but it's not as dramatic and improvement since the smaller pixel - it wasn't so bad then there's the notch on the pixel 3xl yes it's big like super big and because it's so tall it makes the whole screen look sort of doofy do fear that it looks on the iPhone 10 and it also it looks like a face okay I'm sorry I'm not really gonna make you have this thing on the video but I will tell you that it does sort of go away when you use the phone and it does look much less annoying in person than it does in photos but anyway the game the whole game here is just this did Google justify the notch with the features that you get for it so let's just go through what you get first you get more screen but that doesn't necessarily mean that you get more information in fact if you look at the status bar you'll see that you have to turn off the battery percentage in order to see all the status icons and with the time on the other side you can only see two notification icons second front-facing speakers Google really really believes in stereo front-facing speakers two speakers means that this phone also has a pretty big chin and it's generally not very symmetrical which I don't like now google claims that its speakers are 40% louder this year and I don't know that they're 40% louder but I will say that they're 40% better there's much less distortion at high volume third you get a wide-angle selfie camera yes look don't worry we're gonna talk a lot more about cameras later but my basic attitude about that wide-angle camera is kind of shrug so did Google justify the knotch sorta face ID to me seems like a much better justification but after using the pixel 3xl for just a little bit I didn't notice the notch too much and I really don't think it's a reason to not get the big phone if you want the big phone because once again the screen on these phones are great this year the build quality and just overall feel of the pixel is just really top-notch I mean okay it's really good switching the back to glass gives you wireless charging sure but it also just makes the whole thing feel more refined the seams around the aluminum rail are minimal and the rear glass has its etched matte finish that just feels awesome although the glass does make it feel a tad heavier I've set a lot of nice things about this matte glass but there is one very serious problem stick this thing in your pocket with keys and it's gonna get discussed if not scratched right away it happened to two of our phones we weren't rubbing the keys or anything it just happened you are absolutely going to need a case with this thing there are a ton of other just really nice subtle touches like the haptics they're way better now it's not quite as good as the iPhone but the vibration is a lot subtler instead of feeling like you've got a hand buzzer or something now in terms of overall hardware quality the pixel three the small one is a bigger change it's finally really great now instead of feeling like the cheap little stepbrother to the larger pixel neither model is quite is nice to say a galaxy s 9 but at least Google's in the ballpark now and yes there is no headphone jack and even though that's the way things go now I still think it's a pain but the good news is Google's finally including USB headphones in the box heck they even work with the USB ports on my Mac wouldn't it be nice if everything was USB see ok you know we can't go there that's a whole other video let's move on because I know what you've really been waiting for you've been waiting to hear about the camera let's do it the first thing to know is that when it comes to hardware specs Google didn't significantly change the equation on the rear camera it's still a 12 point two megapixel sensor and there's still just one of them honestly it's pretty much the same as last year but that doesn't mean that the pictures are the same Google's made a bunch of software updates to improve how the photos come out Google still doing its hdr+ thing or it takes a bunch of photos and then computationally combined them into a single better image but over the past year the company's just gotten better at it and better at using the dedicated pixel visual core image processing chip and it's using all those images to create a whole bunch of new camera features here's the thing we've seen lots of companies announced lots of weird camera features for smartphones and almost all of them end up being gimmicks that you just try once and then you ignore forever after so the big question for the pixel is whether these new features are just gimmicks or if there'll be something you'll actually use top shot it uses machine learning to detect blinks and bad photos and will suggest better ones from your bursts or you can choose one later if you want to it works pretty well in my testing and even though we've seen this feature on other cameras before I think Google does a better job of recognizing good shots motion autofocus it works super well and both photo and video attracts your subject and keeps the focus on them we didn't shoot a ton of video but I will say as far as video goes I do think the new stereo mics are better now than that awful mic that was on the pixel 2 next is super resume from a technical perspective it's wild Google uses your handshake to grab extra data when you're zoomed in they claim you don't even need a telephoto lens and I don't think it's quite as good as a proper telephoto lens it's better than the digital zoom in the pixel - for sure but it will get you something usable where before it was garbage and usable doesn't mean great another feature is called night sight and it seems technically impressive creating photos in the dark that you'd never get otherwise but we can't test it until it comes out later this year though there's all the stuff that I think is kind of in that gimmick zone photo booth is basically a party game you turn the mode on and then you and your friends watch a progress bar expand and depending on whether you're smiling it will take a picture playground is just more er stickers and then there's google lens it is super cool to copy text directly out of an image but I do not plan on doing my shopping by pointing my camera things and then lastly the one everyone's excited about is a group selfie feature well it does let you get more people into a selfie when you zoom out but you also have with a bunch of weird distortion from the wide-angle lens and that's unavoidable but for me I think this is just another for fun feature some of these features you're gonna use and some you won't but a lot of them are just built in and set up being in special modes so I think most of these count as improvements that really will matter to you but the real question the obvious question are the photos better than they were on the pixel - which had already beaten the iPhone 10s my answer is yes but that they also have a different style what do I mean well it's easiest to look at some photos so here's three photos all lined up what do we see here first we see the pixel three is doing a better job than the pixel two of getting detail out of the shadows but you can also see that the colors are a little bit warmer now compared to the iPhone 10s it does feel to me a little bit more true to life where the iPhone is just doing everything that I can to light everything evenly in a way that feels kind of overdone here's another comparison from the selfie cam the pixel 3 again has much more detail and the iPhone 10s really does look a little bit over smooth and the pixel - it's right smack in the middle lasts here's portrait mode and I think all three look pretty good but you can see that the pixel 3 is more willing to brighten up the shadows and soften the highlights in the pixel - but not nearly as much as the iPhone I prefer the pixel 3 again because the iPhone I think it makes my face a little bit too soft but I will say that the iPhone 10 asks does a better job in tricky portrait situations because it has that second lens the pixel 3 just straight up duffed it on this photo bottom line for most shots the pixel 3 is consistent it screws up less often than the pixel 2 or the iPhone 10s on any given photo you might prefer one or the other but on the whole I think the pixel 3 has more restrained HDR and better looking photos than the iPhone 10s most of all I trust the pixel 3 more the pixel 2 was the best camera for all of last year and it seems like the pixel 3 is going to be the best camera for all of this year all right specs the pixel 3 is pretty standard for high-end Android phones it's got a snapdragon 845 4 gigs of ram and 64 or 128 gigs of storage all the usual stuff but the reason pixel phones are generally better isn't about the specs it's about the software and I think Google's done a good job of optimizing here so far as I can tell everything feels fast and smooth and I haven't detected any real lag to speak of battery life though it's pretty middle-of-the-road you'll get through a day with either phone but the big one should last a little bit longer there's really no major improvements here in other words but you do get wireless charging now and I I love that it's a little thing but for me it's so much more convenient than plugging in the pixel 3 also ships with the digital well being software which helps you track your smartphone usage and it has helped me cut down on Twitter a little bit but mostly I just like that you can get a quick setting right in your settings to turn the whole screen grayscale whenever you want which is kind of weirdly soothing but the coolest new software thing is this new call screening feature it has a duplex robot answer your calls for you and speak for you and then you can read a live transcription of what's being said on your phone so that you can see if it's a spam call and really I am totally impressed with how well it works hi the person you're calling is using a screening service from Google and will get a copy of this conversation go ahead and say why you're calling hey dieter it's new I I'm calling because I want to talk to you do you need to get a hold of them urgently yes just so it's clear go ahead and say more about why you're calling it's because I'm you I your your friend and your colleague and I'd like to talk to you they can't talk right now but they'll give you a call later Thanks thanks robot and goodbye if you're worried about privacy you should know that all this happens locally on the phone and none of the transcripts are stored or sent to Google at any point just you know what don't use it on people you actually know because that's actually kind of a jerk move here's what I think Google did with the pixel 3 it made a list of everything that people are unhappy with on both the pixel 2 and the pixel 2 XL and then it tried to fix them the cameras less crunchy the screens are way better the bezels are smaller and yes there is a notch but still the hardware overall is dramatically better that's why I think this year's pixels are kind of like the iPhone s your upgrades they seem like small on exciting improvements but they make for a way better phone than anybody will give them credit for these are simply great phones if I have one major complaint about the pixel 3 it's the price it starts at $7.99 for the base pixel 3 and the top tier top storage pixel 3 XL is a thousand bucks are they worth that much well yes their top tier phones with great cameras and specs and build quality but you can get a lot of what these phones offer for way less in the Android world now should you upgrade well that depends on what you have now if you have a pixel - a lot of these features will come to you via software update and if you have an iphone well take a long look at your blue bubbles and your iCloud photo groups and have a think about how important they are here but if you want the best Android experience and the best camera you can get on a phone today the pixel 3 is in thank you so much for watching really appreciate it I had a lot of things to say about the pixel 3 let me know in the comments are you thinking about getting a pixel 3 and what's gonna make your decision for you and also Google announced a few other things and we have a really great hands-on with the chrome OS pixel slate tablet so you should check that out too