Pixel 3 XL review: Google software deserves better than this hardware

Pixel 3 has been one of the wildest product launches of recent memory. The leaks arrived early and continuously, starting with the leakage of the screen protector until May. This not only gave us the outline of the phone, but also extremely useful information. accurate renderings, also, taking a look at the Internet almost five months before Google sends it. The initial response to the design was brutal, but it was too late: the Pixel 3 was already in the final stages of production. From there, the leaks continued and the launch was felt like a slow car accident. Redoubt that. Run from there. The design of Pixel 3 happens all the same.

This is now the third year of Google 's material initiative and some product categories are clearly better than others. The most striking example of what Google Hardware should be is probably the Google Home brand. Google has developed a full range of unique, beautiful and powerful hardware, which it has combined with advanced software, all at a price range that makes the ecosystem easy to explore.

I wish the smartphone section of Google Hardware was good too, but it's not good yet. In smartphones, Google still has an excellent software package (and often the industry leader!), Impressive performance and optimization and an incredible camera, but it is associated with a hardware design that is firmly behind the rest of its competitors. 2018. The lower half of this equation hurts the excellent work done in the rest of the phone.

So this review is not about the pixel we'd like to have, but the pixel we're stuck with: it's a well-mixed set of hardware and software at opposite ends of the spectrum of quality. In 2018, to what extent can quality software offset a set of lower-quality decisions?

Contents

Quality design and construction

As usual, Google launches two different phone sizes, the smallest Pixel 3 and the largest Pixel 3 XL. In addition to the usual differences in screen and battery size, both devices are distinguished by the design of the top panel. The Pixel 3 XL has a notched design, while the Pixel 3 has a traditional straight bezel. Apart from that, both phones are identical. So, even if I only have one Pixel 3 XL to look at, everything except the notch, the screen size and the battery should also apply to Pixel 3.

One of the biggest cuts ever installed on a smartphone

Now let's talk about this hack. Like all other non-Samsung phones marketed in 2018, the Pixel 3 XL screen mounts completely in the top corner of the device, then a large piece is cut out in the upper central part of the screen for adapt to various components. In addition to the notch, there is also an important lower bezel featuring one of the two front stereo speakers.

SPECS AT A GLANCE
	Pixel 3	Pixel 3 XL
SCREEN	2160 × 1080 5.5 "(440 ppi) OLED, image format 18: 9	2960 × 1440 6.3 "(523ppi) OLED, format 18.5: 9
BONE	Android 9.0 Pie
CPU	Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 eight-core (four cores in Kryo 385 gold at 2.7 GHz and four silver cores at Kryo 385 at 1.8 GHz)
RAM	4GB
GPU	Adreno 630
STORAGE ROOM	64 GB or 128 GB
NETWORKING	802.11b / g / n / ac, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, NFC, eSIM
Bands	GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 CDMA: BC0, BC1, BC10 FDD-LTE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 32, 66, 71 TD-LTE: 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 46
PORTS	USB 3.1 Type-C
CAMERA	12MP rear camera, 8MP front camera
CUT	145.6 × 68.2 × 7.9 mm (5.73 × 2.69 × 0.31 inches)	158 × 76.7 × 7.9 mm (6.22 × 3.02 × 0.31 inches)
WEIGHT	148g (5.22 oz)	184g (6.49 oz)
DRUMS	2915mAh	3430mAh
STARTING PRICE	$ 799	$ 899
OTHER ADVANTAGES	Fast charge USB-PD, fingerprint sensor, IP68 water and dust resistance, Active Edge, Visual Core pixel, Titan M security module

The Pixel 3 XL is not just a notch model, it has one of the largest notches ever installed on a smartphone. Almost all other smartphone manufacturers have kept a screen cut as high as a normal bar, but Google's notch is twice as big as normal, which makes it twice as large as normal. This means less usable space for apps and a clumsy look on the entire top of the phone. Google's notch is equipped with two front cameras – a wide-angle, a normal – and a headphone / speaker.

Modern smartphone designs are not very varied, but it's hard not to call the Pixel 3 XL one of the worst smartphone designs of the year. If we set design power ranking for smartphones checked, how many phones would you place under the Pixel 3 XL? I think every phone that fits the height of a standard sized bar does better than Google: it's all variants of the iPhone X, the OnePlus 6, the LG V40, Axon 9 Pro from ZTE and, like a hundred phones Xiaomi, Huawei and Oppo. Some of these companies use second generation hack designs, producing really minimal hackle designs such as the Oppo R17 and OnePlus 6T. Even something like Essential Phone – which has the same double height status bar as the Pixel 3 XL – is not as wide as the 3 XL slot, so you can see more status icons .

I do not think there's a single smartphone design flagship of 2018 or 2017 that you can say that Google beat with this version. In fact, you do not even need to stick with the flagship products to offer anything competitive to Google's design here. Is the Nokia 7.1 design at $ 349 better than Google's $ 900 smartphone? They look almost identical, but the Nokia 7.1 does not have a dual-height status bar. The fact that we can even make this comparison is embarrassing for Google.

And so far, Google does not seem to boast of the design of Pixel 3 and 3 XL. Looking at the Pixel 3 ad, it even seemed odd to see how hard it was to see the edges or notch well. During the presentation, Google mainly showed the back of the phone and, every time the phone turned, the camera zoomed in on the screen and cut the edges. If you get a clear look on the front, it has a dark image, which makes it a decent job to hide the frames.

The design of the notch is not only embarrassing, it also harms the usability of the phone. The status bar is maybe twice as high as normal, but horizontally, it does not have enough space to work. On the left side you will usually be able to see a huge two or three notification icons. If you have exactly three icons, you can see three notification icons. But in general, the third location is occupied by the "plus" icon, so you only actually see two icons.

On the right side, you see the battery icon, LTE and Wi-Fi connectivity, then about three status icons for vibration / silence, alarm, no-disturb, hotspot, and Bluetooth. I like having the battery percentage enabled on my phone, so I can see the battery and connectivity information … but then, I run out of space. On the Pixel 3 XL, I have to choose between seeing the percentage of the battery at a glance or knowing if the phone is in silent mode or if an alarm is activated. In other phone reviews, I've deliberately tried to overload the checked status bars to see how they work, but I do not have to try with the Pixel 3 XL: it does not can not handle the normal loading of my status bars. To be fair, that's also a problem on iPhone X-style iPhones. It is assumed that Google and Apple are designing their hardware and software together, but neither has really addressed the problem of lack of space in the status bar.

Google should have done something about the limit of the status bar icon. What is the point of owning the hardware and software if you do not make both work well? Smaller icons would have helped, or maybe Google could have come up with something that uses the extra vertical space on the status bar. Or, the icons could have been more compact and more respectful of horizontal space, horizontal space being limited. In Android 9 Pie, Google has moved the time to the left of the screen to try to balance the status bar on each side of the notch, but this is not enough not in practice.

As a user, you can try to somewhat mitigate the limitation of icons by setting the display size to "small", which will reduce the entire content of the phone and give you an extra slot for the icons on each side of the notch. This is certainly not an elegant solution to this, however, and some people will not like the smaller text. In terms of aesthetics, many Android smartphones have the ability to hide the notch by hiding the area of ​​the notch and displaying only the icons. Google has no option yet allowing the consumer to do this but he said he will add one. In the meantime, there is an application called "Nacho Notch" that can hide the notch on the pixel 3. The only drawback is that it must generate a permanent notification to work.

With Android Pie, you can also access development options and set the display cutout emulation to "None". This will completely disable the notch area and give you a full and normal status bar just below the notch. The result is essentially an improvement of the telescope compared to the previous year compared to the Pixel 2 XL, but it is an option.

The justification for the huge notch on the Pixel 3 XL and the imposing top cover on the Pixel 3 is the earphone / speaker located at the front and the dual camera configuration. We will be dealing with camera features in the camera section, but with respect to device design, Google seems to be behind the pack here. Many other vendors are able to integrate this feature into a normal-height slot. Although it is practically the only device with two front cameras, a second camera should simply occupy more horizontal space, not more vertical. Apple has managed to pack the iPhone's X notch with a ton of components for Face ID, and keeps everything in a normal height-up bar.