Google Pixel 4 Review: Easier To Buy, Harder To Recommend By MrMobile [Michael Fisher]

- Sponsored by tech21. (upbeat electronic music) I've said it in so many reviews, it's a cliche. This is a very excellent concept marred by poor execution. Well, Google's Pixel family of smart phones has always been a little unconventional. So maybe it's no surprise that the Pixel 4 changes things up. See, the Pixel 4 is a very able execution of some very confusing concepts.

(upbeat electronic music) Now before you jump down my throat, Pixel fans, for the past three years, no matter what phone has been in my front pocket, my back one has always carried a Pixel. Two reasons for that. One, because it's the only phone I could count on to take the best damn photos with almost no effort, and two, because it's one of the only phones that shows us how Google thinks Android should look and feel. The Pixel 4 does do both of those, but the camera suffers from a critical omission, and Android feels somehow less streamlined than it has in a while. Now if you're a prior Pixel possessor, you'll notice one big loss the first time you pick up the Pixel 4.

Your finger reaches out to feel for that fast and reliable fingerprint reader, and it's not there. The face unlock that takes its place is very fast, but just like I've been complaining about on the iPhone, it's not as fast or convenient for every situation. You know, I would've loved at least the option of a fingerprint backup. And unlike the iPhone, the Pixel will unlock whether your eyes are opened or not. So if you don't like that, you'll need to set a PIN anyway.

Early adopters, take note. Don't expect to use your face to sign in to your banks for a while because developers need to update their apps to support this. And the fact that you lose the useful notification shade shortcut too is just the icing on a very questionable cake. Now the Pixel 4's other buzz worthy feature is called Motion Sense. This is part of why the forehead on this phone is so big.

There's actually a radar system up there and broadcasts at 60 hertz, and it can detect your hand at a distance. So you can use your phone without touching it. In theory, this is incredibly cool. Look at some of these crazy concepts from when Google first announced it was working on this four years ago. It's called Project Soli.

But as it's deployed on Pixel 4, you just get this. Wave to silence your alarms. Wave to skip tracks in your music player. We saw LG tries this last year, and it was terrible. We saw Samsung try it in 2013, and it was okay, but no one cared.

When even Samsung abandons a feature, you know it's not really worth the effort. Nah, I don't mean to be glib. I hope this matures into something great, but when it comes to its consumer products, Google doesn't have the best reputation for follow through. Even where the Pixel 4 delivers, there's a price to pay. Check out this new display, it's gorgeous.

And it refreshes 90 times every second, instead of the usual 60. It's fast, it's smooth, it's great. - Smooth as an android's bottom, hey, Data? - I beg your pardon, Sir? - But that refresh rate imposes a power penalty. My Pixel 3 from last year routinely died before dinner. It's one of the only things I hated about it.

Well, the Pixel 4's battery is even smaller. Folks said, well, maybe the new, more efficient processor and Android 10 will make a difference. No, this phone has not once in six days lasted me to the end of a 16 hour day. And my friends at Android Central and my studio buddies from four other publications all report similarly disappointing endurance, even in some cases on the bigger Pixel 4 XL. Now, if you turn off things like the 90 hertz display and Motion Sense, it helps a bit, but, folks, you shouldn't have to turn off brand new features just to get acceptable battery life.

Maybe we'll see some improvements via software updates, but, again, you have to look at Google's track record. And it doesn't have a good one in Pixel battery life. Maybe you're sick of hearing about this other thing I was hoping for, but a wide angle camera is one of those things that people want, even if they don't know they want it. This shot was made possible with the wide angel camera on the iPhone, bringing in all that fun, dramatic background that would otherwise get cropped out. Same with this one.

And on some phones, the ultra wide lens can do double duty as a macro camera for extreme closeups. It's an incredibly useful tool. And if you don't believe me, fine. The fact that almost every other manufacturer included a wide angle camera this year speaks for itself. Instead of that, the Pixel 4 includes the same telephoto style lens we first started seeing about five years ago.

Yes, it has more special sauce now, and, yes, it does a great job of making higher quality zoom shots possible. But it's still only a 2X lens. Seems to me that if you're gonna go telephoto, you should do something really amazing, like for example Huawei did. I think back to my time with a P30 Pro in Paris, and I still get blown away by those zoom shots. The Pixel can't do this.

Now all of that aside, the Pixel has never needed more than one back camera to absolutely dominate phone photography, and this Pixel is no different. I took it out for side-by-side shots with the iPhone 11, and the Pixel 4 did a better job at rendering detail and brightening subjects. Here, Google has resisted the urge to follow Apple. Unlike on the iPhone, you can manually select night mode, even if it's not night time. And separating the highlights and shadows into separate sliders in the viewfinder was a stroke of genius.

Google also took some of us on an after dark tour of a waste water treatment plant in Brooklyn, you know, to see what we could do in these dramatic environs. I'll let the results do the talking for me. (chill electronic music) By the end of that first evening with the Pixel 4, two things happened. One, I had to charge it off of the back of my Galaxy Fold because my battery was almost dead. And two, I remembered why I'd fallen for the Pixel in the first place.

For still shots, Google's camera still reigns supreme. Segway alert: Supreme is the sound that pours out of the speakers too. (pop dance music) ♪ I've been crying ♪ ♪ Ooh-Ooh ♪ - Yeah, whether it's Diana Ross on speaker phone or a phone call on the ear piece, the sound is spacious and loud, and I love it. And callers said I sounded great over VoIP calls as well. Wireless charging is here, which is always appreciated.

The new voice recorder with its wizard magic of instant transcription, prime Google right there. And reminder, it's doing this locally right on the device. The haptics are good. The added RAM keeps apps in memory longer. And as long as you don't get the glossy black one, the thing is basically impervious to fingerprints.

It's hard to believe it's even made of glass. But, but, but it is glass. So to protect it, check out the new cases from my sponsor tech21. They're new because they feature anti-microbial protection built into the material itself. So it's 99.99% microbe free. They're also more sustainable now, created from plant-based materials.

And of course tech21 cases are still grown to be thrown with the best drop protection you can ask for. Keep your Pixel 4 safe, and save 10%. Click the link in the description below, and use code MrMobile10. Folks, if you do wanna buy a Pixel 4, well, it's easier than ever to find in the U. S.

as the first Pixel to be sold by all the major carriers. But that asking price, if you ask me, is a problem. For 799, you only get 64 gigs of storage, which I filled up almost half of just by restoring my apps and taking a day's worth of photo and video. The free original quality backups that Pixel owners used to enjoy, they're as gone as the free earbuds that used to come in the box. And I didn't wanna ruin the camera honeymoon before, but it has to be said.

The iPhone made such a leap in low light over the past year that some of its night photos I preferred to the Pixel 4's because often they're not as noisy. The iPhone 11 also far better video performance and far more video options than the Pixel 4. And while Google still wins on the selfie camera thanks to the wide angle lens, it's not as wide as the one we had on the Pixel 3 last year, and we've also sacrificed the auto focus too for some reason. You see what I mean about a confusing set of decisions? I like the Pixel 4, but I don't understand it. And more importantly, I don't understand who should buy it.

This phone's 799. The iPhone 11 starts at 699. The excellent OnePlus 7T is at 599. And the game-changing Pixel 3a is a stunning 399. The Pixel 4 is a great phone if what you care about most of all is photography or guaranteed updates straight from Google for three years, but unless you get a great price from your carrier, or you snag one for a big discount, it's a tough phone to recommend with such excellent alternatives out there at such competitive prices.

This review was made possible by a Pixel 4 review sample provided by Google. The company also provided travel and lodging costs for select media to attend the Pixel 4 launch event including Mr Mobile, as well as the aforementioned photo excursion to various Brooklyn locations. As always, I don't accept compensation for reviews. My lone sponsor is tech21. And Google was also given no copy approval rights, which means they're seeing this for the first time right along side you.

Please subscribe if you'd like to see more videos from Mr Mobile, and check out Android Central for a deeper dive on all things Pixel 4. Until next time, thanks for watching. And stay mobile, my friends. (upbeat electronic music).

Source : MrMobile [Michael Fisher]