The Definitive Google Pixel 3 XL Review

Yo guys, Ripon here, and this is my review of the Google Pixel 3. So I think it's safe to say the Pixel 3and 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. Its not a teardrop notch, just cause yall got tears to cause your camera isnt good. Eww!

'm getting sick, I'm getting sick from looking at the.- 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.

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. 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 the 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.

off-camera - I guess you haven't checked Twitter yet.- You turd. Sorry, man.- Well, what are you gonna do? I will be if you give me

- Yeah.- Okay. So alongside improved water resistance, 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 brand skin, which fixed up Austins broken Pixel

3 real nice, link down below. 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

the 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 tldbreakdown 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 OnePlusinsert any number here, but more importantly, both of these run Android 9 Pie. Now as far as the differences, we of course

Display Size:

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 HD plus display, and the notch. Now I realize you got people out there who love their Pixels, the PPI policy. 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-XLis the better form factor, it kinda just fits better in one hand, so for the everyday, kinda one-handed

the 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 sitting 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 I kinda woulda separated itself a little further from its little brother, maybe would have been 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 higher storage capacity on the Pixel

3 XL. Both of this 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, its time for that notch.Notch-Zilla.Notch city.Notch-o cheese. And finally, my favorite, Buenas notches. I'm sorry. For real though,

that notch on the Pixel 3 is undeniably not good looking, and you pair that with the chin, and its 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, its 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 Google, the Developer option isn't the ideal way because you are essentially pulling the plug 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, the 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-poverty aside, I swear I will stop these

soon, the actual displays on Pixel 3 and 3 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. Now, one

the area where I kinda want to point out some positives 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. Its not quite like Razer Phone

2 good, but if I'm being honest, I think I might prefer Pixel 3 over the iPhone Xs, cue the incoming comments in three, two, one. The iPhone Xs is definitely louder, but I

think overall, 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, versus last years

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 its thing. Now yeah, while the low light performance is

awesome 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 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 sorry. Personally, this is one of my favorite shots taken on 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 3selfies are a little over-sharpened, like Googles 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 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, its

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 muston 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

In this case humans, 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 its gotta be the fact

that its running pure, unadulterated Android, in this case, Android 9 Pie. From my experience, the Pixel 3 has been snappy, its 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

thatSnapdragon 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, Note 9 faces that problem, even

the upcoming one plus 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, its 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 Googles 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, there

phone cant. All in all though, yeah, I get it, the Pixel 3isnt the most attractive phone, I guarantee you there will be people out there not shaming, judging people, looking at notches, saying,

But the fact is the Pixel 3 hasa lot of really good to offer. So, thank you guys very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this lengthy article.

The Definitive Google Pixel 3 XL Review