Google Pixel 4XL Review - 6 Months Later - Digitaldevicereview-Free best device reviews in depth english

Google Pixel 4XL Review - 6 Months Later

Its been six months since we got our Google Pixel 4 XL, so you know that means, were going to do our in-depth, six months later review of the device.

Now in this review, I'm going to go over the main features of the device, paying special attention to the features that did and did not have a significant impact on my

I'm also going to go over how well the device has held up over the past six months, answer some questions, and then ultimately give you my recommendations

when it comes to the Google Pixel 4 and 4 XL.

I've been waiting patiently to do a long term review of the Google 4 XL that Google gave us in October.

So much was said about this phone at its launch and people kind of went nuts over it and not necessarily in a good way.

I've been using it as my personal main phone every single day for the past six months and overall I really like using Google Pixel 4 XL as my main phone.

Now while Google did give us this device for free, they did not pay for us to produce this video, so all the thoughts and reactions you're going to hear for

towards the Pixel 4 and 4 XL are completely my own.

Alright, with that disclaimer out of the way, let's go ahead and dive into the main features that had a significant impact on my day to day use with this device.

When you first pick up the phone and use it there are two features that immediately stand out as an improvement over the previous pixel devices that I've used.

One is the 90Hertz display which makes everything feel silky smooth on this phone like gestures and navigating the UI.

The second thing that immediately stands out as an improvement is to face unlock.

It's blazing fast and for me much more convenient than unlocking my phone with a fingerprint sensor in almost every scenario.

It even works when you're wearing glasses and sunglasses which you know, is pretty cool.

Now the only scenario where this feature doesn't work that well for me is when I'm lying in bed at night and I have my face stuffed into a pillow.

Speaking of trying to unlock your phone while you're in bed, one part of this feature that people really freaked out about was you could actually, at the launch at least, unlock

Now as of this recording, that part of the feature has been fixed with a software update.

Now as I started to use the phone more some other features immediately stood out as useful.

First, the camera is really good for still photos and videos its pretty good as well.

I still think Apples video quality is better than the pixels but by no means is Googles terrible or anything like that. Now the night mode for still photos is quite

good and having a zoom lens has also been nice.

I'm also a fan of the selfie camera which presents great-looking detailed images.

In general, the photos you take with this pixel capture a lot of detail and two things that make it much more useful than other smartphone cameras I've used are the

manual exposure and shadow control that the pixel gives you as well as the live HDR preview.

You can make the image look exactly how you want before you take the photo which is better than trying to edit the image especially an HDR image after you've already

Now thankfully the pixel can shoot in RAW which is, of course, the file format you want to use if you're going to edit photos in any way.

Another big feature of this phone that I thought was more of a gimmick at first but I've actually grown to really like is the Google Pixel feature drops.

Just like my Tesla, my google Pixel, 4 XL will get periodic software updates that contain some major features.

Over the past six months, we've got several new features like dark themes scheduling, which allows you to schedule your phone to transition to the dark theme at a specific time, a

shortcut to your credit and debit cards and passes in Google Wallet by long-pressing the power button, and my absolute favorite feature call screen, which is a feature that separates the

Call screen utilizes the onboard GoogleAssistant which well talk about in a second, to pick up an incoming call that the assistant doesn't recognize and screen the call on the device.

to decide if you want to pick up the call or not.

This feature has basically eliminated all spam calls from ringing my phone.

Yes I know, it is paradise, it is great, you, you could get there too if you have a pixel and the reason for that

isIve set this feature so that anyone in my Google contacts can actually call me directly, but if you're trying to ring my phone and you're not in my Google contacts, you

are going to get screened by the Google Assistant and my phone is not going to ring right away.

The Google Assistant on Pixel 4 is unique because it lives on the device itself.

For certain requests like for opening up an app or turning on the flashlight, it doesn't need to be connected to the internet to perform those tasks meaning those tasks are

wicked fast to perform. Also, I love the squeeze to trigger the assistant functionality on the phone and that's something I actually use quite often.

One other thing that surprised me about this phone is how good Google's keyboard is on it.

Now you can get Gboard on other phones even your iPhone, but the way it works on the pixel seems more seamless I find that it's autocorrect and Swift typing

is way more accurate and less frustrating than apple default keyboard and each time you hit a key on the keyboard, on the pixel you get this little haptic click which I absolutely

I also love that you can search for specific emojis or gif images right from within the keyboard and overall it's just a simple design and its why I prefer using

Googles keyboard on the pixel versus any other keyboard I've used on any other phone.

Moving on, screen attention is another feature that I found so useful these past six months.

Now I read a lot of news articles and one thing that has always frustrated me with previous phones is that I would have to keep tapping on the screen to

make sure that the screen wouldn't turn off while I was still reading an article.

Screenattention allows the phone's camera to look and see if you're still looking at the screen and if you are, it won't turn off the screen.

Its been one of those features that once you get used to it, you don't want to use a phone thatdoesnt have it.

Now the last feature of this phone that has made a big impact on my day to day life is actually Android 10, specifically Googles version of android 10 that you

Now I'm dabbled with android phones before in the past and as an iOS user and somebody who owned every single Apple product like on the planet, they always felt incredibly

They didn't feel snappy, they just, I don't know, I didntlike the experience.

This version of Android, however, feels very close to the current version of iOS and it gets so many little details right.

I actually found that I prefer it over the current version of iOS.

Now, of course, there are some things I still miss about my iPhone like AirDrop, I can't believe there are nota comparable built-in feature into Android like AirDrop.

I also miss getting phone calls and text messages on my Apple Watch.

I also just miss getting customized notification vibrations so like two vibrations for text message versus one vibration for a tweet.

Overall though I Contactually miss my iPhone as much as I thought I would, which kind of shocked me. The Pixels version of Android is just a joy to use. I

love Googles overall Android layout, its gesture navigations, nice design, better notification management, simple interface, and it just gets so many of the little details right, for example, if you open a

private browser tab when you scroll down your notifications a reminder notification automatically appears for you to close your private browsing tabs, or swipe down on a notification to view more information about

it, or the favorite apps drawer which uses machine learning to guess which app you want to open at a particular time, or smart lock, which keeps your phone unlocked when connected

to certain Bluetooth devices like your car or your headphones, or if your phone is in a specific location like at your house.

Alright well that what I've liked about the phone and in the six months I've had it, I'm happy to report that I haven't noticed any slowdowns in this phone's performance.

In fact, thanks to those feature drops, all I can say is that the experience has actually gotten better over time not worse.

Alright, now lets dive into some of the downsides.

day but keep in mind almost days when I'm at my desk there's a charger there for the phone and when I'm in my car the phone also has a charger so

I'm not really running down the battery a lot during most days.

Normal day to day use compared to my iPhone though with my iPhone 8 Plus, at the end of the day when I put it on the wireless charger its battery

With the Google Pixel 4 XL, its battery percentage at the end of the day when I put it on the charger its somewhere in the 20% range.

Now the phone is usually gonna last you the entire day, it's just maybe gonna cut ita little closer than you may want and the quick charge feature helps in

the case you need some extra juice fast since Google does include an 18-watt fast charger with every pixel.

Another downside to the phone is clicking on notifications.

I run into this issue on occasion where Ill click on a notification and it'll either never actually bring me into the app that sent the notification or it'll just take

a long time to actually load the app, which has been kind of frustrating.

Another frustration we've had with this phone has been trying to find a solution to wirelessly get files off of the phone to my Mac.

Now there are some apps out there that can do this but they're much more clunky than the airdrop functionality I'm used to coming over from iOS.

Another slight disappointment with this phone has been with the video recording capability.

You cant do 4k at 60 frames per second I've also found that the colors don't look quite as good as what I'm used to with Apples 4k video recording capabilities,

however, the stabilization for the video though is quite good.

Alright so those were some of the things that I don't like about the phone, now let's move into some of the things that I think were really overblown with this

phone when it first came out and first let's talk about build quality.

The build quality is fine for a phone of this price and in my opinion, most people are gonna look at the build quality right when they open the phone and

then after of minutes, they're gonna put a case on it anyways.

Another part of the build quality people overreacted to is the top chin, it's fine and you're not going to notice it any more than you'd notice an ugly notch protruding

As you can tell, I dislike notches. Now there's a reason for the chin, its there to house the face unlock sensors as well as the soli radar chip, which assists

Now the last overreaction that will lead to some of my recommendations about this device has to do with pricing.

People freaked out over the pricing of this phone especially when they were doing spec by spec comparisons between the pixel and other flagship phones out there and I think it's important

to remember not all Android phones and not all flagships are created equal.

The experience of the pixel is heavily reliant on software and that just isn't reflected in the spec sheet comparison between flagships so you have to take that into consideration when

However in a world where Googles successful Pixel 3a phone and upcoming Pixel 4a tells people that they don't need to spend $1000 on a phone and can get a $400

a phone that meets most of their needs, it does beg the question of why have a pixel flagship at all?

That's a valid argument, however, I'd argue that well yes the magic of the pixel is with its software, they're just some things that you want to do in software that

require cutting-edge hardware, like the soli radar chip for face, unlock or a specific processor that enables the Google Assistant to run locally on the machine.

So I think there is definitely room for a flagship Pixel phone that serves as the cutting edge vision for what Google thinks a phone should be, showcasing new features and allowing

Google to test things out that'll eventually make it down to phones that don't cost as much.

So in wrapping up this review, my recommendation would be if you want the latest tech in a Pixel phone go with the Pixel 4 XL, you'll get better battery life

than the Pixel 4 compared to a mid-range Pixel you'll get face to unlock, the new Google Assistant, abetter screen, faster performance, wireless charging, and a waterproof enclosure.

Now if you don't care as much about those cutting-edge features and you just want a good phone with a good camera at a reasonable price, then my advice would be

to wait for the Google Pixel 4a to drop, which should have a similar camera setup to the Pixel 4.

Alright, well that will do it for our6 Months Later review of the Google Pixel 4 and 4 XL.