Pixel 3 XL: Google’s ‘ love- it- or- hate- it’ flagship has an edge

The Pixel 3 XL is the only smartphone that’s built for Android to offer a supreme Google user experience

The Pixel 3 XL has been one of the most- hyped smartphones this year and the final product that was shown at the New York launch event did not differ from the leaks. Google’s Pixel 3 XL has that ‘ love- itorhate- it’ look and a sturdy chin. However, the rest of the package is pretty compelling, especially when you consider what the similarly priced iPhones offer. The XL model starts at ` 83,000 for the base 64GB variant and goes up to ` 92,000 for the 128GB variant.

Out- of- the- box, the Pixel 3 XL feels premium in every way — thanks to anglass body, despite retaining the signature Pixel design for the rear, still coming with a capacitive fingerprint sensor and getting wireless charging. There’s also a single rear camera like its predecessor, which is indicative of Google’s confidence in its computational photography. The front isn’t the prettiest you will see this year, but it’s a bold design and certainly makes the Pixel 3 XL iconic.

Google has worked extensively on the 6.3- inch 1440 x 2960 pixels resolution OLED panel this year. The panel maintains natural colour tones and deep contrasts while maintaining wide viewing angles. However, that big notch does eat up screen real estate considerably while watching videos.

However, where the Pixel really shines is in the user experience. With Google’s own take on Android, the Pixel 3 XL is one of the smartest smartphones we have seen this year. Android Pie is at its best here, throwing up all the features that Google showcased earlier this year. With a Snapdragon 845 SoC aided by 4GB of RAM, the Pixel 3 XL is buttery smooth in handling everyday tasks. Whether you are catching up with your social media feeds or flexing your thumbs in resource- intensive shooters, this phone will stay cool, until you fire up the camera. The 3430mAh battery makes it last for almost an entire day if you are a power user, i. e. lost of calls, texts, photography, streaming videos and more.

With a 12.2MP rear camera, Google is putting the entire load on its algorithms that reside on the Visual Core chip. The result? This is by far one of the best, if not the best at times, smartphone camera. The camera takes oodles of details and maintains closer- to- natural colours in daylight. It does tend to saturate colours a little in low light, but is very effective in dampening the grains. Portrait mode works wonderfully too, although the edge detection has scope for improvement, which will happen with Google’s Machine Learning onboard. The 12MP+ 12MP front camera almost matches the rear unit in terms of yield quality. With the new wide- angle lens though, group selfies are now possible without the need for a selfie stick. Video recording is sadly restricted to 4K@ 30fps, but the quality is at its best in comparison to best phones out there.

The Pixel 3 XL is among the unique flag ship smartphones with a good user experience and a solid camera. It’s the only smartphone other than the iPhone where the hardware is meant to complement the software all through.