Google Pixel 3 Review: the ultimate test of the camera

The Pixel 3 is Google's third-generation internal design, designed to present the company's point of view on what should be an Android device, while fully integrating Google's software applications and services.

Phones have become synonymous with the experience of the camera. The Pixel 3 continues on this momentum and promises to be "the best smartphone camera", point to point.

While software is known to be Google's strong point, we had less impressive specifications on the hardware side. . Last year's Pixel 2 XL, in particular, suffered from a compromised display screen. In general, phones lacked some features, such as wireless charging or a headphone jack. The Pixel 2 also had a very different design than the Pixel 2 XL, which looked more like a 2015 phone than a 2017 model.

This year's Pixel 3 phones hope to maintain the software benefits, doubling them with various new innovative features, especially on the camera side, while improving the hardware aspect of the phones and correcting some of the Pixel 2 deficiencies.

For this review, we unfortunately have been unable to put the hand than on a standard 3 pixel. that in the future, we will be able to update the battery of the largest 3 XL pixel once we have found one.

In terms of material specifications, the new Pixel 3 follows the trend of this year's many Android flagships: At the heart of phones, the Snapdragon 845 SoC powers the devices. 2018 was an excellent competitive year for Qualcomm and the S845 was able to lead performance among its Android competitors. One thing to note here, if you're considering a Pixel device, is that Google's release schedule is very out of sync with the Silicon Provider's SoC alignments – which means you're buying a flagship phone whose silicon is now 8 months and his successor will be replaced in a few months.

Google also equips the Pixel 3 with relatively conservative DRAM storage and storage options: both phones come with 4GB of RAM as well as a basic 64GB storage variant with 39; option to buy a higher level variant of 128 GB.

It was reported that the application memory management was not the best of the new models, phones struggling to keep things open and alive in memory. Although, in general, I do not give as much importance to this as other people, I noticed that, in current use, phones had to recharge applications more often. The problem to be solved here is not necessarily related to the amount of RAM, but to the new lowmemorykiller user space daemon and corresponding parameters. We hope Google will improve this over time.

From the design point of view, Pixel 3 is an important upgrade from Pixel 2. The top and bottom frames of 2015 are over. Instead, we find a more contemporary design with an elongated 18: 9 (or 2: 1) screen format dramatically increasing the screen / body ratio of the phone.

The screen is still an OLED with FHD + resolution (2160 x 1080 pixels) – although this year, it seems that Google has switched vendors between small and XL versions, the Pixel 3 panel being now manufactured by LG , while the Pixel 3 XL uses a Samsung panel.

On the front, fortunately we do not need to participate in big controversial discussions on a notch, because the small Pixel 3 (as opposed to the 3XL) does not have one. What's new for both Pixel 3s is a secondary wide-angle secondary camera, allowing for wider shots or simply a wider field of view when recording video or facade communications, which is actually quite practical.

On the back of the phone we are also witnessing a big change in design: Google has gone from a metal monocoque design with a glbad cutout top to a glbad back panel. Google still maintains the same high-gloss, high-gloss glbad design at the top of the phone and achieves this by chemically attacking the bottom of the glbad until you get a matte finish.

The matte appearance of the glbad is very similar to the engraved patterns of the OnePlus 6; it is distinguished by a sensation completely different from that of glbad phones. It really helps with taking, and totally avoids fingerprints. My only complaint is that Google did not extend this finish to the edges of the glbad, and left a ring of 1 mm around the fingerprint sensor, the latter whose shadows on the glbad look very weird and a little cheap.

The return to the glbad allows Google to now adopt wireless charging and supports the Qi standard. The phone also supports fast wireless charging up to 10W. Unfortunately, again, it seems that Google only allows it on certified chargers, so it does not really meet the Qi fast charge standard. This means that almost all existing chargers will be limited to 5 W.

Google has badociated its own wireless charging block Pixel Stand to the verification unit, and everything is working properly. Again, a major problem I've noticed is that the pad only accepts some USB-C chargers with PD at certain voltages – so you're limited to the supplied power supply as well as a limited number of USB chargers C-PD to even feed it.

Finally, my major problem with the back of glbad is its manufacturing quality. Unfortunately, the glbad has a little flex, even under a slight pressure, and I hear it touch the internal elements (charging coil and battery). This is one of the first things I noticed when unpacking the phone, which makes it much less well built, such as the glbad racks of Samsung or Apple.

The Pixel 3 camera sees a minor upgrade from the Sony IMX362 sensor to the IMX363 – both units are 12.2MP sensors with steps of 1 , 4 μm. The aperture is also the same at f / 1.8. There are no secondary modules here, and Google prefers to resort to software innovation to enhance zooms on images: the Pixel 3 comes exclusively with a new "Superzoom" mode that promises to improve the digital zoom. More information about this later in the Camera section. We will have a very big comparison with most of this year's flagship devices.

The left side of the phone is devoid of buttons and we find the power and volume rocker on the right side. Google accentuates the color of the power button. On my pink unit "Not Pink", it is a very neon orange that does not appear in the pictures as much as in real life.

At the top of the phone we find a microphone hole and not much else.

Downstairs, the only nanoSIM slot as well as the USB-C charging port. Like the Pixel 2, the Pixel 3 does not offer any headphone jack. One of the arguments in favor of removing the headphone jack, besides the badertion that it offers a larger internal space dedicated to batteries, is that it allows a better audio quality. Indeed, if the headphones have their own integrated DAC, they can then be calibrated according to the sound profile of each earpiece, instead of relying on the phone to provide a correct frequency response.

That being said, unfortunately, the USB-C headphones provided with the Pixel 3 are some of the worst I have ever heard and can easily be described as garbage, compared to any other flagship headphones provided by suppliers such as Samsung, LG or Apple.