A Different Kind of Pixel 4 Video
Okay so the pixel four and the pixel four Excel are not so regular smartphones because the company that makes them Google is not a regular phone company they're not even a hardware company they're a software company that just happens to make hardware to flex how good their software really is now if you look at the older pixel phones like the first the second and third generation of pixel phones these are phones that have a clear focus on software particularly like Google Assistant and how they integrate all the apps and features of the Google ecosystem into their voice controlled
Stuff and also their camera system like not the hardware like the actual camera lens and the sensor in their pixel phones isn't particularly special but it's what they do in software that really makes their computational photography shine so clearly pixel phones are software based devices but this year with the pixel 4 during the presentation they drew a lot of attention to two Hardware features the 90 Hertz screen and how smooth and fluid it was as well as their new radar based motion sensing tech and in doing so I think they inadvertently shifted
People's attention away from the traditional stuff that pixel is known for their amazing software onto hardware which is really not what Google's pixel phones are all about and that's where there's a bit of a problem because the optics are like the public perception of these phones the pixel for and the pixel for excel is a little bit skewed because of that marketing so first I want to talk about this new radar sensing tech the truth is this technology is freaking awesome and what we're seeing the implementation that we see on the pixel for in the pixel for excel right now
Isn't its full potential because when you look at Google's original video of this technology from 2015 they had a team of these really passionate engineers developing this radar tech and the capability has looked amazing like you had this fine fingertip control not just your fingers but actually just rotating and tweaking your fingertips could give you this precise control of a variety of interfaces like that example they had of that map where you could move the map around and zoom in and zoom out with just your fingertips like that looked incredibly useful like we've all
Been there we've manipulated maps on our phones and it's like your face obscuring what you're looking at that map control looks amazing but that's not what we have in this first generation or first iteration of this hardware we don't have fingertip control we don't even have fingers roll it's full hand movement which is honestly not nearly as useful but you can't fault them like you can't fault Google for putting this radar tech into this phone cuz a lot of people like that's so stupid it's a gimmick I would never use my phone like
That that's not the point they put this sensor in here as step one so that people can get used the idea of gestured based controls for their phones but where I think they messed up was in marketing it the way they did like when you put this much effort and time into talking about this feature when its current capabilities are so limited it just opens them up to criticism and I think for some people they'll be disappointed like if you purchase this phone thinking that that tech has a more substantial functionality than it actually does
You'd be disappointed so what I think they should have done is still include the radar tech but not talk about it so much as it was some kind of headlining feature and just worked on the software over time until it became really awesome now another feature that's kind of controversial but this phone is its price if price can be considered a feature this thing starts at 800 bucks for the small one 900 bucks for the big one maybe it's from tariffs or a particular profit margin they have to hit but these phones are very expensive on paper but the thing that sucks is
That they're often way cheaper than their launch price like pixel phones usually go on sale on Black Friday by like 150 200 bucks so it's I don't know it's just weird to me that they still launch these phones at such a high price but then over the course of 12 months they just consistently drop this price on the phone companies like oneplus and Apple like they don't drop the prices on their phones these guys go and sell all the time I don't know it's obviously a business strategy they do it on purpose but I feel like if they just launched this phone at a more appropriate price
People wouldn't criticize him for these high prices from the get-go now if I look at this phone with this different perspective where the pixel four is now is 650 or $700 phone and I temper my expectations of what this radar technology is supposed to do this phone is great I love the screen the 90 Hertz refresh rate is fantastic the face unlock is super fast like literally the fastest face unlock that have used the speaker's sound great not much from the pixel 3 offered last year but still excellent speakers and the battery
Life this is some that a lot of people were concerned about myself included a 2800 milliamp hour battery in the small pixel 4 with a 90 Hertz refresh rate and battery life is not great I was honestly disappointed now I think whatever software they're using to down clock that refresh rate from 90 down to 60 is quite aggressive and it's like a six hour maybe six and a half hour screen in time if you use your phone a lot you might run out of juice before the end of the day but if you're lighter user I don't think that's an issue camera so this is a topic that I think is gonna be
More subjective this year both the pixel 4 and the iPhone 11 Pro or iPhone 11 are going to have the best cameras in the market right now they're so close to each other they're different and how the images look but it's it's hard for me to say which one is better or worse if I had to pick a winner it would actually be the iPhone 11 like this is just a personal thing I find the iPhone 11 zap easier to use because there's no selection of nitesite specifically it just happens automatically and for the average person I think that should be the way the default camera app should
Handle it but I do find that the pixel for handles low-light a little better on faces it just looks a little cleaner to me but one thing for sure both of these cameras have better image quality than the oneplus 70 and I think that's a comparison a lot of people make because this is also rocking a 19 but it's 200 bucks cheaper and it has double the storage so if you're deciding between the two like it should be relatively simple if you care a lot about picture quality and you want to have the best possible camera on your smartphone pixel 4 is the option I mean
That's what this thing offers it's a relatively unique experience to have 90 Hertz screen with the best possible camera pixel for okay hope you guys enjoyed this video thumbs we liked it subs we loved it see you guys next time