Google Pixel 3 XL review: The love story of software and hardware
The Pixel 3 XL is the only smartphone that's built for Android to offer a supreme Google user experience.
Google makes Android and therefore, offers a unique take on the free-to-use operating system on its Pixel smartphones. Last year’s Pixel 2 may not have been known to offer cutting-edge hardware, but it offered a user experience so rich that several of 2018’s flagships struggled to beat in some area or the other, particularly the camera. With the Pixel 3, Google is hoping to carry on the legacy of its past year’s models while also bringing up the game on the hardware front. The Pixel 3 promises a major improvement in terms of build while offering an Android experience so unique that it’s hard to look at anything else on sale today. Starting at Rs 71,000 for the standard 64GB Pixel 3 and Rs 83,000 for the 64GB Pixel 3 XL, it comes across as a pricey proposition, especially when you consider the extremely capable Samsung Note 9 and Apple’s iPhone XR. Therefore, does the Pixel 3’s software prowess shadow the superb hardware advancements of its rivals? Read on.
Design, Build
If we are discussing the Pixel 3 XL, you must be very well expecting where the conversation begins from. No, not the one you guessed — it’s the luxurious new all-glass build (the display notch is one of the least bothering concerns once you experience it first hand). Last year’s Pixel 2 took a playful approach with its build with a metal-glass combo rear and a choice of high contrast colours. However, the phones didn’t fare well over the course of time and consumers called out to Google for a fix with the next generation. Well, Google took the design of the Pixel 3 in its hands to make sure they nail the overall experience this time. And boy are we impressed with the efforts the geniuses at Mountain View have exercised on the Pixel 3 XL!
The smartphone still wears the familiar dual-tone funky getup, but on a more desirable, all-glass rear panel. Google has relied on a Gorilla Glass 5 protected rear to lend the Pixel 3 XL a touch of premium-ness that its rivals possess. There are curves all around that make for smoother flowing surfaces. Google still retains the capacitive fingerprint sensor at the rear for its Pixel Imprint services — a feature that’s giving way to facial recognition systems or in-display systems. The laser-etched matte finish on the glass helps them retain the understated yet playful signature Pixel identity and enhance overall grip in the palms. Glass being glass, you still have to be careful with you handling or else you might end up with heart-breaking scratches and cracks.
The metal chassis now gets a glossy finish to continue the ‘glass effect’ all around. On the frame, you will find a host of noise cancelling microphones, the volume rockers as well as the power button and a USB-C port. The squeezable Active Edge also marks a return from the Pixel 2, sitting in the bottom half of the device for initiating the Google Assistant in a jiffy.
The front is where it gets polarising. This being the XL means you get that modern edge-to-edge display with a huge display cutout sitting above. There’s also a noticeably thick chin — thicker than the one on the more symmetrical Samsung Galaxy Note 9. The notch houses a dual camera setup, a microphone and all the essential sensors whereas the chin flaunts a large loudspeaker. Google believes this is the best way they could afford to offer more screen without missing out on the essential features that a Pixel is known for — performance-oriented front cameras and a more meaningful stereo speaker setup.
At first glance then, the Pixel 3 XL seems like one of the least desirable flagship smartphones, especially when you look at the style-conscious offerings from Samsung and Apple in the same category. However, once you have spent enough time with Pixel 3 XL, the notch slowly veers out of your consciousness and stops bothering on a daily basis. In fact, the notch gives the Pixel 3 XL a unique identity of its own — no other smartphone in the market can boldly flaunt a notch like the Pixel 3 XL. Only Google has the guts to prefer function over form for something as important as the Pixel 3 XL and we adore the Mountain View geniuses for that.
Display
‘Visually indistinguishable from perfect’ — That’s how Display Mate described the Pixel 3 XL’s display performance. The Pixel 2 XL was known for a very dull display and had a lot of quality issues on the earlier units. Google kicks away all the haunts from the Pixel 2 XL’s mishap by offering one of the best smartphone displays we have ever seen. The 18.5:9 6.3-inch OLED panel from Samsung produces pretty accurate colours and real-life-like contrasts, which makes this one of the best mediums to consume content on. Viewing angles are reasonably wide, with the display losing colour accuracy only on extreme angles. Sunlight legibility is also impressive for an OLED display. Even when the display goes into the ‘black and white’ mode during Wind Down or develops the yellowing tint for ‘Night Light’, it never becomes remotely uncomfortable for the eyes to read text or view images.
Of course, a display with a notch doesn’t have perfect dimensions and the Pixel 3 XL suffers from the same, losing a substantial part of the content to irregular bezels. In the 16:9 mode for videos, you get to see everything, but lose out on a lot of usable screen real estate. When you opt for the 18.5:9 mode, the display clips the edges of the content and the notch hides a substantial amount of it. Over the time, you might get used to it and if it really pinches you, then you will be better off with the standard 18:9 Pixel 3.
Another issue that came across as annoying is the accidental palm detection on the edges. The screen edges easily registers even the lightest of accidental taps as touch inputs and often does something you don't desire. Therefore, we often ended up opening undesired tweets or sharing ads unnecessarily on Facebook or even pausing music even when the phone is locked.
Performance
Every manufacturer talks a lot about what goes inside their smartphones to make it as powerful as they claim. With Google, things are different — they follow a software-first approach, unlike the industry’s hardware-first approach. During the launch event, Google stressed on a delivering the ‘best Google smartphone experience’ instead of what the Pixel 3 is built around. Therefore, the focus here is high on delivering a great user experience instead of making just everything faster. The Pixel 3 XL runs on the latest version of Android 9 Pie with Pixel launcher on top. As seen on last year’s Pixel 2, the Pixel launcher offers a very ‘Google-ised’ approach to Android, with several smart features and all of Google’s apps as well as services forming the core of the smartphone.
The Google Assistant is of prime importance to the Pixel 3 XL, holding together the value that Google’s 2018 flagship possess over its rivals. Access to the Assistant is pretty easy — you can either summon it by calling out ‘Hey Google’ or squeezing the edges. Assistant has deeper integrations on the Pixel than on any other smartphone, which is why we never minded asking her to do certain basic tasks such as set an alarm or play a song. The Screen Call feature hasn’t made it to the Indian shores until now, but it promises a lot of conveniences once it gets activated on the Indian units of the Pixel 3. The bundled Pixel USB-C earbuds also make it easy for the user to access Assistant by long-pressing the play/pause key. Assistant can read out your notifications so that you don’t have to take out your phone while you are busy or on the move.
However, the hardware is what drives the software and Google has happily stuffed in Qualcomm’s most powerful Snapdragon 845 SoC with 4GB of RAM as standard to ensure the Pixel 3 XL works as intended. Apart from this, Google has also built in the Pixel Visual Core chip for catering to all the photography needs and the Titan M Security module for looking after all the security authentication requirements. All of this seems very promising and in the real world, it is!
On a day-to-day basis, the Pixel 3 XL is creamy smooth. Everything happens on this phone with a dash of flair that makes even the simplest of operations very satisfying. Right from the animations and transitions to the new gesture navigation on Android Pie, the Pixel 3 XL makes it a joy to use it. If the ‘4GB of RAM’ part is giving birth to suspicions, then you will be surprised to know that the Pixel 3 XL can handle heavy multitasking with ease. The phone freezes most apps in the background and revives them from that point where you left them — that’s a very iOS-like approach to handling apps in Android. Throw in some resource-intensive apps and games, and the Pixel 3 XL will juggle them with ease — it’s hard to push it struggling for breath. However, the lack of any sort of cooling system means this new Pixel warms up noticeably when it's pushed to its limits, especially when you're playing with the camera.
However, when you need the Pixel 3 XL to be an efficient smartphone while on the run, it keeps on delivering without bothering you with its own set of ‘smartphone issues.’ On a daily basis, we never found it lagging or stuttering, especially when we required it to perform. Google’s machine algorithms keep learning your usage pattern over time and make it easier to use. Your most recently used apps show up on the Recents window while quick shortcuts (slices) to your frequently used app activities show up on the app drawer — no other smartphone offers this much convenience. The Digital Wellbeing app was initially flagged as a gimmick, but in our time with it on the Pixel 3 XL, it turned out to be a feature that changes the way we use smartphones. The app draws a pie chart of the amount of time one uses an app for and offers several ways to wind down the addiction to it. We found the ‘Wind Down’ feature to be of great benefit to the health — it helped us get off the phone early while on the bed and tune down our addiction to Instagram and Reddit by a few notches (Get it? The pun? Never mind).
On the whole, the Pixel 3 XL in its own small ways got us addicted to its sublime user experience. Hats-off, Google.
Camera
Google is very proud of its computational photography for the Pixel series and the third generation phones show how good has their system become over the past two years. While every other OEM is busy slamming up to three or four sensors, Google is relying solely on a single 12.2MP single OIS + EIS enabled sensor with an aperture of f/1.8 and lots of clever computing. The Visual Core chip mentioned earlier has a lot on its shoulders to break the records on DxOMark’s charts, giving the platform for Google’s clever algorithms to do their wonders and churn out brilliant looking photos.
In daylight, the Pixel 3 XL’s rear camera pulls up mind-boggling photos. You pick up the phone, point it at what you want to shoot and just tap the shutter button. The camera focuses almost instantly — thanks to the ultrafast autofocussing system, and takes the photo. Once you take it and want to view what you have captured, the phone takes a few seconds to process and present the final result. While it sounds very obvious, you will be surprised to know that there’s a lot of computational processing going in the background, figuring out what fares best as the end result. The quality of details that this camera captures is on par with some DSLR shooters in the market. Very few smartphone cameras capture the skin pores and minor detailing, and the Pixel 3 XL is right on the top of that list.
The dynamic range is pretty close to what the human eye sees and brightness levels are adequate. Portrait mode photos look great as well — thanks to the algorithms’ impeccable capability of distinguishing the foreground and background using just the single lens. As the light levels drop, the camera maintains the details and the dynamic range while using the algorithms to keep noise out of the frame. When the light absolutely drops, the camera does struggle a little with the details, but tries to compensate for it with an impressive noise cancellation while maintaining the colours. We were more than happy to flaunt our night shots from the Pixel 3 XL — the results are staggering.
With HDR off, purist photographers will be relieved to get the ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get’ quality. In the HDR+ mode, Google’s algorithms do their magic to liven up the shot, using machine learning to give out what it thinks will be preferred by the user while retaining most of the natural elements. The HDR Enhanced mode is pretty akin to the beauty modes you get to see on other Android smartphones, i.e. it will bump the ISO and add some effects to make the subject look better (in this case, more colourful and cheery). Most of the time, we kept the HDR+ mode switched on and the Pixel 3 XL kept us impressing with its clever approach to photography. The Super Res Zoom makes digital zooming slightly better than before, but still isn't as good as the real optical zoom on a dedicated telephoto lens.
Switch over to the front camera and Google has left no stone unturned this time to offer a complete package in terms of smartphone photography. An 8MP + 8MP dual sensor setup is there to cater to all the selfie needs that a Pixel user will expect over the phone’s lifetime. However, the dual sensor setup serves a more meaningful purpose than simply snapping portraits. One of the 8MP sensors has a wide angle lens meant to capture group shots.
Wide angle group selfie
The front camera also benefits from the gains of computational photography that the rear camera bases its impressive performance on. The Visual Core chip is hard at work here as well, maintaining natural colours and oodles of details in the selfies — we could actually see the sweat on the skin, which no other phone throws up. The bokeh effects are rendered very impressive, with the distinction between the subject and the background looking close to what you achieve from a DSLR camera. The wide-angle lens is extremely beneficial for accommodating a large group of people. However, the fisheye effect may be disturbing to some. Additionally, the bokeh mode also throws up a cooler colour tint on the image, which is easily noticeable. However, our unit was running on a preview build of the OS and could, therefore, be showing up the blue tint.
As for the video department, the footages are very stable due to the stability programs and 4K video @30 fps is what the optics can manage at best. We wished Google had gone ahead with 4K@60fps, which we expect Google to add to the features list later with a software update.
Google has also built in a couple of smart camera features, most of which seem to be eye-candy. The widely advertised ‘Top Shot’ requires motion photos to enabled and recommends the best shot from the subsequent frames if it thinks the primary shot hasn’t turned out as intended. The Playground feature brings in Google’s AR cartoon characters in the frame, wherein one can interact with the characters while sharing a frame.
Overall, the Pixel 3 XL’s camera is superb and it’s safe to say that this is the best smartphone camera we have seen this year, toppling the benchmarks set by the Pixel 2 XL.
Battery
The last generation Pixel 2 XL managed to extract an entire day’s of usage if the user were cautious a little. At 3430mAh, the Pixel 3 XL doesn’t get a bigger battery when compared to the Pixel 2 XL, but an efficient Snapdragon 845 coupled with under-the-hood tweaks can make the new kid stretch into the next day, if the user to were to be cautious. We went all-out with our Pixel 3 XL, incessantly texting while streaming audio in the background, occasionally playing resource-intensive titles and catching up on the latest updates on our social media feeds and half-an-hour of photography, all while keeping the Google Assistant woken up for listening to audio in the ambience. In our case, the Pixel 3 XL ended an entire day with just around 25-30 per cent juice left. With Qualcomm’s Quick Charge enabled, our Pixel 3 XL managed to get a top-up to 100 per cent around an hour. The availability of 10W Qi standard wireless charging also means that you can fill it up quickly throughout the day if you happen to have a wireless charging pad on your desk.
Conclusion
After putting the Pixel 3 XL under scrutiny, it’s easy to see how Google has formulated a winner on its hands for 2018. Google’s core focus with the new Pixels is the user experience and we are happy to see how Google has succeeded in delivering what it aimed to. If you experience the new Pixel 3 XL even for a few moments, you are going to want it — the user experience is magnetic and flawless. Couple that to the benchmarking optical performance and it starts to come across as the ‘one-amongst-the top-two’ flagship smartphones we have seen this year. Like every other smartphone though, it has its own share of drawbacks — the aesthetics may not appeal to everyone and a fragile build means you can’t go all careless like you could with the previous Pixel smartphones. The major focus on the software experience has taken away a lot from hardware design and refinement that Apple's iPhones boast of.
However, these comparatively small niggles are easily overshadowed by the positives that this smartphone offers. A great smartphone has to have these foundations in place — a strong user experience, glamourous build and reliable performance. Google’s Pixel 3 XL achieves all of these with flying colours and is easily one of the best Android smartphones along with Samsung’s Note 9 you can buy. It's the only smartphone other than the iPhone where the hardware is meant to complement the software all throughout its life. The Pixel 3 XL is one of the most unique flagship smartphones with a superb user experience and a solid camera. If you have the means, go ahead and pocket one of these.