The Definitive Google Pixel 3 XL Review By Jonathan Morrison

(intense drum music) - Yo guys, Jonathan here, and this is my review of the Google Pixel 3. (techno music) So I think it's safe to say the Pixel 3 and more specifically, the Pixel 3 XL, and that notch, has been a pretty polarizing release. You pretty much have two reactions. The extremist, and the nothing is wrong, everything is okay. - What are you doing, Google? It's not that bad. This notch looks like Anthony Davis' unibrow.

It's not a notch, really, if you look at it. They just gave Google Assistant a face. This is the ugliest phone of all time. It's not a teardrop notch, just cause y'all got tears 'cause your camera isn't good. Eww! It looks like a Google Chrome tat! When does the OnePlus come out? Y'all are just hating.

Have you seen this notch? Why would they do that? (coughs) I'm getting sick, I'm getting sick from looking at the (coughs). - So definitely let me know what side of the fence you're on with a comment down below. My job, however, is to find some sort of middle ground, and present this as balanced as possible. Also, shout out to the awesome Scooter Magruder, not to be confused with Shooter McGavin. Say that 10 times fast.

(techno music) Now the Pixel 3 is by no means a perfect phone. There's bad, but there is also a lot of good, so when I see it, I want to point that out. Specifically, in an area where I kinda punched Tim Cook in the face for, sorry Tim. That's the fact that the iPhone Xs starts at $1000, doesn't include a headphone adapter, and doesn't include any kind of fast charger in the box, which is crazy. So, the Pixel 3 unboxing experience is actually kind of awesome.

(gentle techno music) (plastic crinkles) To begin with, the Pixel 3 starts at around $200 cheaper than the iPhone Xs, and you pile on the fact that they include pretty much every single dongle and adapter you could possibly need, best charger in the box, and even a pair USB-C headphones. - I am Groot. - Now, granted, the USB-C headphones, they're not amazing, but I gotta give Google credit for going all out on the unboxing experience. I don't think too many people are gonna rock that Google sticker on their car, but still. I'm sorry for what I did.

- What'd you do? (group off camera laughs) - I guess you haven't checked Twitter yet. - (laughs) You turd. (both laugh) - Sorry, man. - Well, what are you gonna do. I will be if you give me one.

- A Google Pixel family? - Yeah. - Okay. So alongside improved water resistance, the Pixel 3 now supports a glass back, which leads to wireless charging. They did not go the Apple Face ID route, but you do have a fingerprint reader on the back that works as advertised. Out of the three colors, I'm gonna say that not pink looks the best, subtle, but it's really nice.

Now, the concern about this thing scratching is definitely real, it is a little sensitive, so if you can, make sure to throw a case on, or, better yet, this beautiful dbrand skin, which fixed up Austin's broken Pixel 3 XL real nice, link down below. (techno music) Now this might upset some people, but I think the regular Pixel 3 is the better value. One, it's $100 cheaper, and with that kind of cash you can buy an external battery bank, you can buy some better headphones, you can buy 2/3 of a Google Home hub. Or, maybe you don't need that extra screen size, and you can be nice, and buy something for your boyfriend, for your girlfriend, for your wife, for your husband, for your kids, you don't really need that extra screen size, and two, there really aren't that many differences between the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL. Oh, and if you wanna see how this shot was done, make sure you guys check out the exclusive tld breakdown membership, which covers behind the scenes tricks, and a look into the production that goes into these videos.

Both the Pixel 3 and 3 XL feature a Snapdragon 845, and both of them feature 4 gigs of RAM. And yes, I realize that is less than your OnePlus insert any number here, but more importantly, both of these run Android 9 Pie. (gurgles) Now as far as the differences, we of course have one, the display. The Pixel 3 sizes in with a 5.5 inch FHD plus display, and then we have the bigger brother, the Pixel 3 XL, which has that larger monster 6.3 inch QHD plus display, and the notch. Now I realize you got people out there who love their Pixels, the PPI police.

But honestly, for the most part, I think 1080p is more than enough for the average person, and if you're gonna argue with me, most of those fancy flagship phones that come with 1440p display, are set by default at 1080p out of the box. Also, with that said, I think the Pixel 3 non-XL is the better form factor, it kinda just fits better in one hand, so for the everyday, kinda one handed task, I'm going to roll with that. Next from there we have battery capacity. The Pixel 3 comes in at just over 2900 milliamp hours, whereas the Pixel 3 XL is sittin' pretty, at a hair over 3400, so it's not a huge difference, but it's definitely there. With that said though, I think where maybe I would have liked to have seen some differences with the Pixel 3 XL is I kinda woulda separated itself a little further from it's little brother, maybe would have been a bigger battery capacity, somewhere north of maybe like 3800, maybe 4000 like the Note 9, or, how 'bout, you give us 6 gigabytes of RAM, make this more of a pro feeling phone.

Also maybe it woulda been nice to have a higher storage capacity on the Pixel 3 XL. Both of these cap out at 128, and I realize, yes, Google is giving you infinite Buzz Lightyear storage on Google Photos, but with no micro SD card expansion, I would have to liked to see one higher option at least on the Google Pixel 3 XL. So, it's time for that notch. Notch-zilla. Notch city.

Notch-o cheese. And finally, my favorite, buenas notches. (violin music) I'm sorry. For real though, that notch on the Pixel 3 XL is undeniably not good looking, and you pair that with the chin, and it's arguably one of the ugliest phones to ever exist. If you hate it, I get it, but the beautiful thing is, if you don't like it, you don't have to buy it.

In fact, there are a ton of other options out there, including the smaller, regular Pixel 3, which has no notch to be seen. My complaint is not so much that the notch is there, or how deep it is, because believe it or not, you do get used to it, and if you think about it, your field of view is usually pointing towards the middle or the bottom of the phone, but regardless, it's more so how Google uses that space. What drives me insane, and kind of makes me wanna punch myself in the face, is when the clock is sitting there by itself, in the top left hand corner, with no rhyme, no reason, and definitely no symmetry, so from a design standpoint, it kinda just makes you ask what the heck is going on. Yes, you can absolutely hide the notch, but doing so through the Google Developer option isn't the ideal way, because you are essentially pulling the plug on on a ton of pixels. It definitely looks more appealing, but all that useful information doesn't gravitate towards the top of the notch, rather it sits below, which kinda defeats the entire purpose.

There is actually a better option, through an app called Nacho Notch, love the name. What this does is allow you to quickly access and turn on or off that notch, but what's awesome is, it actually blacks everything out, and gives you that useful information towards the top. So, point is, if you want the bigger display, if you want that bigger battery, there are options, and more than anything, hopefully Google listens and implements this natively. So, notch-roversy aside, I swear I will stop these soon, the actual displays on the Pixel 3 and 3 XL are much better than last year's offerings. Yet, there's definitely still the slightest bit of blue shift with the Pixel 3 XL, but it is nowhere near compared to last year, it doesn't bother me, and you gotta think about it, you are definitely not gonna be using, or looking at your phone like this.

(techno music) Now, one area where I kinda want to point out some positive it's gotta be those front facing stereo speakers. I've kinda talked about it before, where, alongside those dual cameras, that's the big reason why that notch is as big as it is. Again, it doesn't excuse it, but let me tell you, it makes a huge difference, these things sound fantastic. It's not quite like Razer Phone 2 good, but if I'm being honest, I think I might prefer the Pixel 3 over the iPhone Xs, cue the incoming comments in three, two, one. The iPhone Xs is definitely louder, but I think overall, the Pixel 3 is better balanced.

If you have headphones though, grab 'em now, throw 'em on, here's a side by side comparison of the Pixel 3 XL, verus last year's Pixel 2 XL. ("One Time" by Marian Hill) From there more than likely the number one reason why you're interested in the Pixel 3 is gotta be the camera. So the camera in the Pixel 2 is arguably the best of all of last year, and the Pixel 3 does not disappoint. The colors, and the sharpness in the details are insane, and then when you hop over to portrait mode, you can get some amazing results. Portrait mode, fortunately, is not just limited to living human beings, if you're a skeleton looking to grab the Pixel 3, it works just as well.

For those curious about low light, here is a pretty fantastic example. This is purely street lights, and the Pixel 3 is doing it's thing. Now yeah, while the low light performance is awesome on the Pixel 3, I don't think the gap between it and the iPhone Xs is as big as Google made it seem during the keynote, like this is honestly a re-enactment of what they did, here is the Google Pixel 3, and they had to literally drag the exposure down on the iPhone Xs to make it that bad. So if you missed that joke on Twitter, I'm sorry. Personally, this is one of my favorite shots taken on the Pixel 3, from the background blur to the sharpness, everything is butter.

From there, hopping over to a human portrait shot, shout out to my guy Courtney, aka Mr. Fresh. The only thing sharper than this image, is that fade. Next from there hopping over to the front facing camera, and those portrait selfies. I'm gonna go out and say it, and this might upset some people, but I sometimes feel like the Pixel 3 selfies are a little over sharpened, like Google's like, hey, we're just gonna sharpen the hell out of these shots, which kinda gives the image of super fine detail, but in certain cases, it can be a little overbearing.

With that said though, yes, you can get some amazing results with the portrait selfie camera, and the addition of that wide angle lens is awesome, trying to get a group of people, or in this case, my guy Viper, who went back to the future, is amazing. So having that kind of quality, with that flexibility of that wide angle lens, is actually really handy. Now as far as the video goes, that is not nearly as impressive as the actual camera, it's not that it's bad, Google just kinda came up short in certain features. There's no 4K60, which I think is almost kind of a must on smartphones in 2018, most of them have that feature, what is awesome though, is there motion tracking. So in this case you can see locked onto a leaf, moving around, and then from there hopping back to Mr.

Fresh, it is locked, loaded, and not letting him out of its sights. Also, just in case you really wanted to stick a dog or a cat to the ground, or in this case a human, you can do that as well. Now, jumping from the camera, the other huge reason why you're more than likely interested in the Pixel 3, is gotta be the fact that it's running pure, unadulterated Android, in this case, Android 9 Pie. From my experience, the Pixel 3 has been snappy, it's been fluid, and I get there's a concern the Pixel 3 only has four gigs of RAM, yes, six would have been nice, but I also think Google did a really good job of optimizing things. More the bigger concern I would think is the fact that Snapdragon 845 inside the Pixel 3, is actually very close to being outdated, with new processors right around the corner.

Now, that is not Pixel 3 specific, the Note 9 faces that problem, even the upcoming OnePlus 6T also faces that problem, but again, it ultimately comes down to optimization, how that actually performs with the phone, and again I think Google did a really good job. Really though, only time will tell, but where I do really like Android 9 Pie, is the swipe based gestures, yeah, it's very similar to the iPhone Xs, but I got used to it that way, so to have it implemented over here is nice as well. What I think is absolutely genius though, is Google's Call Screen feature on the Pixel 3, which I think every phone should have. If you're an Android user, and you wanna brag to your iPhone friends, saying hey, can your phone do this, this is absolutely the feature to do that, because I guarantee you, their phone can't. All in all though, yeah, I get it, the Pixel 3 isn't the most attractive phone, I guarantee you there will be people out there not shaming, judging people, looking at notches, saying, what are you doing, bro? But the fact is, the Pixel 3 has a lot of really good to offer.

So, thank you guys very much for watching, hopefully you enjoyed this lengthy video. If you did, and you are feeling like being awesome, make sure you guys go Notcho Libre on that like button, last one, I swear. If you're feeling like double awesome, maybe you guys can subscribe, or, maybe if you just really, really, hate that notch, and are considering an iPhone Xs, check out my review here, this is Jonathan, and I'll notch you guys later. (laughs) I'm sorry.

Source : Jonathan Morrison