The Google Pixel 5: a mini-review



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It’s been a few months now since Google announced the Pixel 5 – unfortunately, we didn’t quite do a quick review of the device due to another significant industry coverage. Today I wanted to review the phone in a brief format review, revisiting some important aspects of the phone such as performance, battery life, and adding some comments on the capabilities of the camera.

The Pixel 5 is a change in tactics for Google, with the company going with a lower-cost ‘premium’ or high-end component setup, rather than setting up the Pixel 5 as a flagship all-rounder. Considering the rate of release of the company’s products over the years, always releasing new phones towards the end of the year, just around the corner from next-gen spring releases. That timeline has always been a disadvantage for Pixel flagships, so maybe Google’s shift in strategy here for the mid-range is a more reasonable approach.

Google Pixels 2020
Pixel 4a Pixel 4a (5G) Pixel 5
SoC Snapdragon 730G

2x CA76 at 2.2 GHz
6x CA55 at 1.8 GHz

Adreno 618

Snapdragon 765G

1x CA76 at 2.4 GHz
1x CA76 at 2.2 GHz
6x CA55 at 1.8 GHz

Adreno 620

DRACHMA 6 GB LPDDR4X 8 GB of LPDDR4X
Storage room 128 GB UFS 2.1 128 GB 128 GB
Pin up 5.81 “OLED
2340 x 1080 (19.5: 9)

6.2 “OLED
2340 x 1080 (19.5: 9)

6.0 “OLED
2340 x 1080 (19.5: 9)

90 Hz

Cut size 144.0 mm 153.9 mm 144.7 mm
Width 69.4 mm 74.0 mm 70.4 mm
Depth 8.2 mm 8.2 mm 8.0 mm
Weight 143 grams 168g (sub-6)
171g (mm waves)
151 g
Battery capacity 3140mAh (typical)

18W fast charge

3885mAh (typical)

18W fast charge

4080mAh (typical)

18W fast charge

Wireless charging Yes
Rear cameras
Main Dual pixel 12.2 MP 1.4 µm PDAF
F / 1.7 77 ° lens with OIS
Telephoto
Large 16MP 1.0 µm

f / 2.2 107 °
Ultra wide angle

Additional
Front camera 8 MP 1.12 µm
84 ° f / 2.0 lens; fixed focus
I / O Usb-c
3.5mm headphone jack
Usb-c
Wireless (local) 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 5.0 LE + NFC
Cellular Snapdragon LTE
X15 integrated

(LTE Category 12/5)
DL = 600 Mbps
UL = 150 Mbps

Snapdragon 5G
X52 integrated

(LTE Category 18/13)
DL = 1200 Mbps
UL = 150 Mbps

(5G NR Sub-6 + mmWave *)
DL = 3700 Mbps
UL = 1600 Mbps

* excludes non-mmWave model of 4a (5G)
* excludes mmWave in non-US markets

Other characteristics Two loudspeakers Two loudspeakers Two loudspeakers
IP68 rating
Dual SIM 1x nanoSIM + eSIM
Introductory price $ 349 / £ 349 / € 349 $ 499 / £ 499 / € 499
$ 599 * (mmWave)
$ 699 * / £ 599 / € 629

Starting with the SoC, as we’ve been discussing over the past few months, the big difference for the new Pixel 5 is that it ships with a Snapdragon 765 chipset from Qualcomm’s ‘premium’ line, rather than using the contemporary flagship Snapdragon 865 SoC. This is undoubtedly a cost-cutting measure for Google to be able to reach this new price of $ 699 / € 629.

The SoC should still offer plenty of performance for everyday use thanks to the two large Cortex-A76 cores, one of them clocking up to 2.4 GHz and the other at 2.2 GHz, but it will be still a noticeable degradation compared to flagship SoCs which both use newer processor cores and sync them higher. The SoC’s Adreno 620 GPU will also be a key factor in the overall performance of the Pixel 5, making big compromises on gaming performance which we’ll cover in more detail in the GPU section.

Google dresses the Pixel 5 with 8GB of LPDDR4X memory and a single 128GB storage option, without any expandable storage.

The front-facing design of the Pixel 5 adopts the similar uniform bezel design introduced with the lower-cost Pixel 4a and stands out from the chin and forehead styling of previous generations, also avoiding the use of weird camera notches. Instead, we have an on-screen camera cutout in the top left corner, which works great. It’s definitely a much more modern design than we’ve seen in previous generation Pixel phones.

The actual display is a 2340 x 1080 OLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate. This year I haven’t seen any issues with the display panel as it is of very high quality even though the specs are not exactly up to the competition 1440p 120Hz.

With a diagonal of 6.0 inches and a phone width of just 70.4mm, 1080p resolution is not a problem as the pixel density is very viable.

Setting up the camera on the Pixel 5 is pretty straightforward, but Google has made some significant changes in the secondary module compared to the last generation, replacing the dedicated telephoto module with an ultra-wide camera. It is still possible to pinch to zoom to get closer to your subject (albeit with a drop in quality), but it is not possible to pinch to get a wider field of view if you don’t have the camera equipment. camera for that. This was a big review of the previous generation Pixel phones, as they were the only relevant devices on the market that didn’t actually use a UWA module. The camera here is a 16MP 1.0 µm unit with an f / 2.2 aperture and 107 ° FoV – not the widest on the market, but still very competitive and very usable.

The main camera module continues to be a 12.2MP 1.4µm sensor module with f / 1.7 optics and OIS – this is the same module we saw in the Pixel 4 and an overall camera formula that we haven’t seen changed in many generations of the Pixel Phone (s. Google announced improvements in HDR algorithms this year – though you can’t say the overall camera experience is as revolutionary as it is. was a few years ago.

The one aspect where the Pixel 5 really sets itself apart from almost every other contemporary phone on the market is its build materials and build quality. Unlike the usual glass sandwiches of recent years, the Pixel 5 uses an aluminum unibody. It’s not bare aluminum because it’s covered with a special plastic coating, which gives it a sticky feel, but it’s also not exactly the same as a full-size phone. plastic.

The special thing about the aluminum body is that Google has always managed to use wireless charging via a cutout in the frame, which of course is invisible to the user due to the plastic coating on the top.

In general, I found the Pixel 5’s design to be pretty good and to have excellent ergonomics. Good little phones are very rare these days, and at just 70.4mm in width and 151g in weight, the Pixel 5 does well enough to cater for this part of the market. Google has chosen not to release the Pixel 5 XL this year, so you don’t really have a choice if you prefer a larger variant of the phone – you’ll have to go for the Pixel 4a XL or some other competing device.

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