Google Pixel 2 vs 2 XL: Long Term Review By DetroitBORG

What's up guys Mike here, the Detroit Borg, with my overdue look at the pixel two and the pixel two XL, which came out about six months ago. Now, when these launched there was quite a few issues with them specifically related to the pixel to XL display. But a number of changes have happened since then, which I think make these devices much better than they were at launch, so I'm glad I waited because I'm much more positive about these devices than I was when they came out, but we're going to take a look at both of these phones aside by side, because they are quite different, even though they have some similar specs in terms of the unboxing experience is pretty much identical for both phones. Even the boxes are the same size. Despite these size, differences of the phone, the pixel is available in multiple colors, but those colors also come with different finishes. Specifically the just black color, as I here have more of a texture to it.

So it feels a bit more drippy or more slippery, depending on how you look at it. But generally speaking, I like the texture on the black one compared to the smoother texture of the other colors I also picked up the black and white pixel 2xl, which has that contrasting black glass on the back and the white shell, but it also gets you an orange power button. The only thing to consider here is that the orange power button is plastic compared to the metal power button on the black model in terms of the accessories. We get quite a few things in here. So of course, we get some paperwork which highlights its major features and functions, which also includes a sim ejection tool, but we also get a USB a2 USB adapter, which is nice to have, but, more importantly, we also get a headphone adapter so because this does not have a built-in 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, like a lot of other smartphones lately, this does have a USB adapter to work with your existing headphones, but headphones are not included with a phone. Also included is a USB cable and a power adapter, which does work with fast charging.

Now, in many ways, there's quite a few differences between the pixel two and the pixel two XL, not just in terms of their size, there's also a big difference in terms of the display, quality and I think that's the biggest differentiator. There are some design differences as well. So, for example, the pixel 2 XL is more rounded at the edges, while these smaller pixel two is a little box here, we have a flatter glass front panel, with a champ furred edge instead of the rounded corners, so the design of the pixel 2 is pretty iconic. Now we have a glass trim piece along the back, but this time it's a bit smaller for the pixel 2. The fingerprint sensor is still along the back, but this time it's surrounded by metal instead of glass.

Now the body itself is all metal, but it's also coated in a layer of a polymer or a paint which doesn't quite feel like metal, but it doesn't feel like classic either. It has the rigidity and heft of metal, but doesn't have the cool touch of metal, even though the finish resembles anodized aluminum in terms of the buttons they're all on the right side. So we have a Vaughn control just below the sleep/wake power button and the power button is kind of a reach on the pixel to excel and the primary reason they did. This is to give you enough room for the edge sensors. So this is one of those phones that you can squeeze specifically to activate the Google Assistant, so there's actually pressure sensors in the edge of the phone, so they had to leave you enough room to grip the phone to squeeze it without hitting the controls.

Although I still do that quite often, the only thing we'll find on the left side is a NATO SIM tray which is water-resistant, so you'll see a gasket surrounding the tray. So this is one of the first Google made phones that is water-resistant, so we finally get that like a lot of other smartphones today. This is also one of the first smartphones to get an e SIM or an embedded electronics in this only works with Google's project fire service, but hopefully other cures will eventually use it. Only thing we'll find on the bottom is a USB connector, but there's a difference in terms of the microphone arrangement. So you will see a microphone on the bottom of the pixel ?, but not the pixel ? Excel.

Instead, that's on the top in terms of speaker quality, they sound pretty good, nothing amazing, they're, not as Lyell as I expected, but there's quite a difference in terms of the quality between these two I think the pixel to excel sounds a bit deeper, but it's also a little more muffled than the pixel ?, but the pixel ? does exhibit some distortion at higher volume. So it's kind of hard to tell you which one sounds best, but they definitely have a distinct sound. This is Apple's first smart, speaker and there's really here to take on things like the Amazon Echo and the Google home. Although we have the same cameras, the hardware on the back is arranged a bit differently and the camera on the pixel 2 XL sticks out a bit more because it's sitting behind the display, which isn't the case on the smaller phone. Now, besides, pricing, there are two main differentiators between these devices' battery size, as well as display size, not just display size but display quality, but both of these are Ola displays the XL supplied by LG.

So it's called APO La tour polymer OLED, while the one supplied by Samsung on the smaller phone is an AMOLED display. So the smaller display is pretty conventional, its 1080 by 1920 good for 441 pixels per inch, but the pixel to Excel is extra tall and of course we have more pixels as well. So we have a resolution of 1440 by 2880. That's an 18 by 9 display good for 530 pixels per inch. Now, besides, the obvious real estate.

Difference, there's also a difference in terms of the color tone, so the smaller pixel 2 can only cover 95% of the DCI p3 range, while the pixel 2 XL can cover up to 100%. So that means the pixel 2 XL display looks a bit more vibrant. It also looks no Silly brighter than the pixel 2, so White's are much more vivid and the high pixel density means things look extremely sharp. Now there has been some controversy with the pixel 2 XL, but that stems from earlier software and that's because the displays were tuned for a more natural or accurate color instead of vibrancy or saturation. But some new color settings allow you to apply a much more saturated, color profile to the phone, so they look much more like other modern OLED displays they're, definitely much more pleasant to look at and more consistent with other displays that you might be using pixel to XL does have a few issues with the display worth pointing out.

I think the biggest and most obvious one is the blue shift. So when you tilt the phone any degree, off-axis you'll see the screen sort of shift toward the blue side. So this is a pretty common distortion from the polarizer on top of an OLED display. Now this is typical of older OLED displays, and it's much more noticeable when the display is dim or if you're, looking at a white screen. Now.

The good news here is that looks like they might have corrected. Some of this with later builds of the pixel 2xl so to test this out, I actually bought the white and black pixel too in January of this year, and if you compare them side-by-side, there's a noticeable reduction in that blue shift, so it definitely looks quite a bit better. One of the other issues with the pixel to XL display is image retention. That's especially noticeable with the Android navigation keys, which are on screen and to minimize this effect with a new software update, they dimmed down the navigation keys when you're not using them. So for me this seems to have largely corrected the issue.

When it comes to batteries, the pixel 2 has a 2700 are barely while the pixel to Excel has a fairly massive thirty-five hundred and twenty William hour battery, that's quite a bit bigger than the 3300. In the note, eight and in terms of berry life, the pixel to Excel has been one of the best performers, I've, seen I'm able to get about two days of use out of this phone, but that has declined in the past six months with some software updates, which seem to have affected it, but it's still one of the best performers out there and that's thanks to the large battery and the highly optimized software in terms of performance. Both phones are identical. They get the Snapdragon 835 four gigs of ram across the board. We also get two storage options, 64 or 128 gigs, and we do not have expandable storage in this case.

But it's a welcome improvement over the previous generation, especially on the multi-core score in terms of camera hardware. They keep it pretty simple. We have a single 12 megapixel sensor with an F 1.8 aperture. We do get optical image stabilization and laser assisted, focusing along with a dual LED flash. So really, what makes this camera stand out? Isn't the hardware which is pretty standard? It's the image, processing power of Google software, which produces some of the best results, I've seen out of any smartphone camera today now, despite the lack of a secondary camera, the pixel 2 still has depth perception for the portrait effect within the camera app, and it's actually one of the best portrait effects I've ever tested.

It's able to clearly define the subject and blur out the background even for challenging situations such as hair, if you had hair as well as glasses. Now this works extremely well on both the front-facing camera and the rear-facing camera. The camera app also has an AR demo, which works surprisingly. Well, so you can add: 3d animated objects within your cameras field of view, and you can record that, and it works surprisingly. Well, especially, if you throw a lot of assets on the screen, it's surprising what it can keep up with, so you can place an item in the environment, walk around in and keeps track of its location.

So really what makes this camera perform so well is not only the hardware, but it's also the processing power within this phone and Google's software. So without a doubt, this is one of my favorite cameras in terms of still photography. It does a fantastic job with color in all lighting conditions, excellent detail with great dynamic range. It doesn't over sharpen images and, generally speaking, it's one of the best cameras in terms of just pointing and clicking and getting instantly great results. This camera really excels in low-light, not only it doesn't bring up a lot of detail, but it does it without over saturating the image, so it doesn't look yellow.

It also brings up detail without over sharpening or introducing a lot of color noise from bringing up the exposure too much so again. A lot of that is the processing power, not just the hardware, just like the still photographs. The videos also have excellent exposure and color, so video looks extremely vibrant and with optical image, stabilization and software stabilization, hand-held video looks extremely smooth and natural, so testing out this front facing camera, it's recording at 1080p. It is stabilized electronically. So it's holding pretty smoothly here.

It's got a nice wide angle lens, so you can see quite a bit in the background. You don't have to hold the phone too far away from me for it to work perfect. Looking camera overall definitely gets the job done better than most so checking out the interface we have the always-on display, showing us ordained time and notifications Doubleday to waken up. We have quick shortcuts to our voice assistant and the camera app. We can also double press the power key to launch quickly into the camera app, which is very handy in terms of unlocking the device very quick just lightly tap.

The fingerprint sensor takes you right to the home screen, so the home screen has some significant design tweaks for the pixel to launcher. So we have this dock area, which includes the Google Assistant box. So this takes you right to search, but we also have our app row up here, which you can rearrange, so you just drag and drop whatever app you want here, but basically we can swipe across on the home screen and all of this stays down here, which is very handy. You can also swipe up to get to the app drawer. You have your recently accessed apps or suggested apps toward the top, and you can scroll through them down below.

Of course, we also have Universal search, so you can search the device or just search the web. Google Assistant is everywhere on this device, so swipe to the right to get to the Google Assistant, with all of your notification cards down below. We have quick shortcuts to things like our weather, food, entertainment and much more in the upper corner. As always, we can long press on the home key to get to the Google Assistant. We can use our voice to wake it up or just squeeze the phone it takes.

You right to it starts listening right away, so it doesn't give you a time to think you have to be ready for it. What's the weather like tomorrow, this also works from the lock screen. What's the weather like tomorrow, into Into I do have to authenticate, so you get the idea works in most situations, including when you're within apps, so IP now for the notification, shade you'll see your notifications down below and our quick setting toggles up top, which you can expand out again, so the first toggles are the first six. If you want to rearrange these to keep your favorite toggles in the first row, I have to do is go to the editor and drag and drop them around like so in terms of the toggles, we have a nightlight, so this will warm up the display and strip away some blue light, but you can also schedule this. Just have him hold to get to the control panel for that, so you can schedule this for sunset and sunrise, so that will use your location to determine that, or you can customize the schedule.

Of course, we have an LED flashlight, and we have a battery saver mode. So you click on battery saver. You'll see the status bar and navigation bar turn red to make sure you know it's on another nice detail here is the animated wallpaper. So not only does it move around with the phone, but you can see it is animated, like a live. Video and I can modify this, so we can go to wallpapers and pick a few different ones.

I'm actually called living universe. Now some of them have a little more impact than others, but, for example, we have flying over Monument, Valley and you'll see some balloons floating overhead. You can see it's moving just very slightly. So if you want this, you can set this as the main wallpaper, or you can check out some other ones here, such as walking in the clouds in Hawaii. You can actually see the car is moving around on the road down below so six months later, after that rocky launch, I have to say the pixel to Excel is still one of my favorite smartphones out there.

Now the pixel 2 is nice. If you want something smaller, but I personally prefer the larger display and the bigger battery of the pixel 2x. So even though both phones are mostly the same overall, although neither phone has outstanding displays or outstanding designs, and it certainly would be nice if they had wireless charging. I think this still has the best camera system on the front and back of any smartphone. We also have that fantastic battery life on the pixel 2 XL and because it remains stock Android.

It also remains up to date, which isn't the case with all the Android phones. So for that reason the pixel 2 XL is still my go-to Android phone, but of course I will be reviewing the galaxy s 9 so make sure you stay tuned for that in my next video hope. You guys enjoyed this one. Sorry, it's late and if you guys enjoy this, please let me know with a like, and I'll see you again in my next video.

Source : DetroitBORG