Google Pixel 2 XL Review

Google introduced its new line of phones after the Nexus series in 2016 with the Google Pixel and the larger version, the Google Pixel XL. The phone turned out to be a favorite for many people because of its clean Android experience and a great camera. For the year 2017, Google has released the second gen of Pixels, switching to the 18:9 aspect ratio for the display and a refined body. Even with a design which isn't much different from the first gen of Google Pixel phones and Google's DNA in it, does Google Pixel 2 XL a serious contender for the best phone of 2017? Let's find out.

The first thing which you'll notice looking at the Google Pixel 2 XL is that it is a big phone. For most parts, the design on the Google Pixel 2 XL looks similar to that of the older Google Pixel XL. Google has kept the split rear that was seen on the first gen of the phone, however, it's reduced this time with the glass panel being much smaller and covering up less than a quarter of the back of the phone. Below the glass panel is an aluminum body covered in a grippy plastic powder coating which feels very good to touch. The coating gives a very unique, subtle grainy feel to the phone and the grip is very satisfying. The coating however seems like it'll wear off with long use as it comes off with scratches to the back with hard materials. The phone comes in two colors, Just black and Panda black and white. The Panda black and white version of the phone surprisingly has a smoother feeling back which feels different but it's still the same plastic coating over a metal body. While, the metal back cannot support wireless charging which is the case with the Google Pixel 2 XL, it certainly provides a satisfying grip which is a much welcome change from the slippery glass backs found on the competitors.

The front is all glass with a curved design at the corners as the edges beautifully flow into the aluminum bodywork. The screen is big at 6 inches and the bezels are now much smaller as compared to the previous Google Pixel XL. You can't call it a bezel-less display though, as the bezels are still big as compared to the Samsung Galaxy S8 or the LG V30 but they serve an important purpose of holding the front firing dual speaker setup.

At the back, there's a single lens camera much like on the previous model with a finger print scanner placed in the middle which is pretty easy to reach with the index finger. It is one of the fastest fingerprint scanners I've used and is placed perfectly in the middle of the back where it should be. An interesting design change comes in the form of the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack. You read it right, just after a year of mocking Apple for removing the headphone jack, Google has followed Apple's footstep. Thankfully, there's a USB type-C on the phone so you can use the dongle or Bluetooth to cater your audio needs.

A disappointing design choice by Google is the IP67 dust and water-resistant rating which is not as impressive as the Samsung Galaxy S8's IP68 rating but it will get the job done in most cases as it can withstand water up to 1 meter for 30 minutes.

Overall, the Google Pixel 2 XL looks and feels like a big premium flagship phone with a clean modern look.

The display on the Google Pixel 2 XL is the reason the phone started trending early with the release, but for all the wrong reasons. The 6 inch Quad HD P-OLED panel has a resolution of 2880x1440p with a pixel density of 538 ppi. One would start to wonder what could go wrong with a display of such high specs. Google chose LG's P-OLED panels which are seen on the LG V30 as compared to Samsung's Super OLED displays and that initially back fired on them. OLED displays are vibrant with deep blacks, popping colors which appeal to the eyes of the user, however, this is not the case with the P-OLED display on the Google Pixel 2 XL. The display lacks vibrancy, sharpness and the whites on the screen appeared blueish. Viewing angles weren't great for an OLED panels and the colors were more to cooler side which would strain the eyes during long usage. Google addressed to this issue, stating that they want the phone to display more natural colors with the wider color gamut supported by the Android 8.0 Oreo, However, in that natural state, the display looks flat and lifeless.

Google released a fix for the display problem adding a new 'saturated' option and with that fix, the phone becomes enjoyable and more comparable to other flagship phones. How much you enjoy the phone's display depends on your personal preference but with the updated options to tune the display to one's likeness, the Google Pixel 2 XL's display certainly becomes one you would expect to see on a flagship device in 2017.

Bearing all that criticism about the Google Pixel 2 XL's display, the phone's display works really well in particular conditions. With a Quad HD+ resolution and a software attempt by Google to make the display HDR compliant, watching movies and Netflix on the Google Pixel 2 XL is a fairly good experience. There's less noise during low light scenes, the colors are accurate and the display overall performs better than on the LG V30. The phone features the Always On display feature which Samsung introduced with their Galaxy lineup while the display is protected by the Gorilla Glass 5 which makes it durable and less likely to scratch.

Having said a lot of negative things about the display, the hardware on the Google Pixel 2 XL is every bit as powerful and in some cases, more powerful than other flagships of 2017. The phone is powered by a Snapdragon 835 processor and Adreno 540 GPU coupled with 4 GB of RAM. For on-board storage, you get two options of 64 and 128 GB. There's no microSD card slot on the phone which limits the phone's storage but at 128 GB of on-board storage and unlimited Google Drive storage for photos and videos which comes free with the phone, running out of storage shouldn't be the case for most people.

The phone runs smooth as silk with the pure Android experience and during my test, the phone performed just as good and in some cases better than the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Note8 and the OnePlus 5T which both have 8 GB of RAM. Multitasking works like a charm on the phone and even during long tests and switching between graphic intensive applications and heavy games, the phone stayed cool and performed very impressively.

The biggest change in the hardware comes with the pressure sensitive squeezable sides, dubbed as 'Active Edge' which can now be found on the Google Pixel 2 XL. This feature was originally revealed by HTC in their phone HTC U11, and on the Google Pixel 2 XL this feature is programed to activate the Google assistant. You can remap it to some other functionality using a third-party application but personally, I found it the best to use the Google Assistant. It is the easiest and quickest way to trigger any AI assistant on a smartphone right now as just a squeeze from your hand brings up Google Assistant which is highly convenient.

WiFi performance is decent and the phone features USB type-C which support fast charging with no 3.5mm headphone jack. No phone of the year 2017 finds it easy competing with the fluidity of the Google Pixel 2 XL, with OnePlus 5T coming the closest to match the Android king from the creator of Android itself, Google.

The battery on the Google Pixel 2 XL is a huge 3520 mAh powerhouse with fast charging capability. It's a large battery which gives the phone a screen-on time of over 5 hours and with its 6 inch Quad HD+ display, that is quite impressive. With a full charge and moderate usage, the phone survived the entire day effortlessly which surely cannot be said about its rival the Apple iPhone 8 Plus.

During my charging test, the battery went from 0 to 35% in 30 minutes, 65% in 60 minutes, 88% in 90 minutes and then it took a long time to reach the full 100% in an overall time of 2 hours and 28 minutes. This is due to the fact that Google limits the power output from the charging brick to a maximum of 10.5 even though the initial power output is around 18 watts. This allows the battery to absorb power much slower and doing so, it saves the battery life in the long run. In the fast charging test, the OnePlus 5T still remains the champion.

Most of the heavy hitters on 2017 such as the Apple iPhone 8 Plus, OnePlus 5 and the Samsung Galaxy Note8 feature dual-camera setup and they have impressed users with their dual camera setup so one might wonder why would a major player in the market opt for a single lens camera setup on a flagship phone in 2017. Well, Google clearly doesn't need two cameras on the Google Pixel 2 XL as the phone has arguably the best camera on a smartphone in 2017.

Google has opted for a single 12.2 MP camera lens on the back with an f/1.8 aperture which is an improvement over last year's model helping to bring much more light into the sensor. On the front, there's an 8 MP selfie shooter with an f/2.4 aperture. The specs don't look really different from the previous gen of the Google Pixel, but don't let that mislead you in believing that it's the same camera. The pictures shot from the Google Pixel 2 XL turned out to be better than ever before especially in low light, thanks to the widened aperture, faster autofocus than we've ever seen and accurate colors and saturation.

Google has introduced a new featured in the photo gallery app called Motion. It's an answer to Apple's Live Photos feature which captures a tiny video with the photo. This feature provides more context to photos, however, it doesn't do much. Which brings us to the feature which matters the most on this phone, the Portrait mode. The portrait mode on the Google Pixel 2 XL is nothing less than brilliant. The focus on the subject in pictures is accurate and it gives a dramatic look and feel to it, almost cinematic. Google uses it's AI techniques to achieve this with a single lens camera and this is nothing less than a miracle as quite honestly, with a single lens camera, photos aren't supposed to look as good as they do with Google Pixel 2 XL's portrait mode. To really demonstrate the effect, the camera takes two pictures every time you snap a photo, one regular and one with the bokeh effect so that comparison is easy. The bokeh filter may have a little hit and miss with edges sometimes but most of the times the result is stunning with accurate edge detection even in low light settings.

The same bokeh effect can also be achieved with Google Pixel 2 XL's front facing camera and to be quite honest, the results are better than I've ever seen on any other device, even the previous selfie champion, the Apple iPhone X. The pictures taken from the front camera are much warmer than the ones taken from the rear camera, though.

Google achieves this feat in the camera department due to its excellent image processing software. The camera takes a picture quickly due to its fast auto focus and then processes the image before saving it the gallery. The Auto HDR+ is used to ensure that HDR looks nice and balanced with highs and lows realistically displayed giving you a truly stunning photo with real depth and natural looking colors. Majority of flagship phones can take amazing shots from their camera in sunny conditions but the Google Pixel 2 XL impresses even in low-light. The pictures taken in dimly lit environment are bright, have good exposure and still manage to maintain subtle colors and shadows.

Video recording is another area where the Google Pixel 2 XL's camera shine. The 12.2 MP camera powered by both OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) and EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) captures stable and fine quality video up to 4K at 30 fps, however, the OIS and EIS only works till Full HD 1080 at 60 fps . At 4K, the video isn't as smooth as it is on the Apple iPhone X's 4K at 60 fps but even at 30 fps, it's nothing less than amazing. Even with constantly moving hands, the videos are super quick to focus and are balanced in their color.

With the Google Pixel 2 XL, you get unlimited Google Drive storage with full resolution uploads till 2021. This feature is complimented with Google's Photo recognition AI, which recognizes the subjects in the image and makes it very easy to manage and sort the pictures in the gallery.

The Google Pixel 2 XL is most certainly the best performing single-lens camera in the market. It misses out on some novelties such as Samsung Galaxy Note8's zoom mode in videos and the creative options offered by the LG V30 but still have plenty to excite you, as it is arguably the best overall camera on a smartphone in 2017.

The Google Pixel 2 XL comes with a stock Android experience, running Android 8.0 Oreo straight out of the box with guaranteed updates up till at least Android Q. There's no bloatware so you won't see any application that Google didn't include in the Android 8.0 OS. There's a new Pixel launcher with a refreshed look anchoring Google's search bar to the bottom of the screen with time and calendar information embedded near the top. Google has focused a lot on AI features and the Google Assistant as the phone comes with a squeeze feature which activates Google Assistant and the overall branding of the phone is done on its capability to be powered by artificial intelligence and making the experience of users simpler than ever.

As mentioned earlier, there's an always on display which is a quite useful feature as it enables reading notifications without pressing the power button. If all you need are hard answers from Google Assistant, you can give the phone a squeeze to boot straight in. The Google Pixel 2 XL takes just 10 seconds to boot up from a powered down state which is ridiculously fast compared to any other Android phone.

There are improvements in the audio department with Google introducing high quality audio codec support for Android 8.0 Oreo and with Bluetooth 5.0, the lack of audio jack doesn't compromise with the audio quality, all thanks to Google's brilliant software. The phone features long music playback and has a new feature called 'Now Playing'. It actively listens to the user's surroundings and tries to detect and identify any music playing in the background. This is a very useful feature as a lot of times users hear a great song in a restaurant or on the radio wanting to know what it's called. Although there are apps that detect and identify music such as Shazam and SoundHound, the fact that you don't have to open an app yourself is very convenient and thanks to Google's amazing search engine, the music identified is pretty accurate.

There's no option to manually set the screen's aspect ratio as majority of Android apps are designed for 16:9 aspect ratio. Other Android phones with 18:9 aspect ratio fit the apps by stretching them on the screen but Google doesn't offer this, however, so that's a downer.

Overall, the software experience is very pleasing, with lots of fluidity and zero lag. It's because of this reason that many would find this phone better than the Samsung Galaxy phones or even the Apple iPhones.

Google Pixel 2 XL is available in the US for $849 for the 64 GB base model and $949 for the 128 GB version. Many people would argue that the price is a little steep, almost close to a thousand dollars and that might be a deal breaker as the phone doesn't have a headphone jack or wireless charging. But even with all those downsides, the Google Pixel 2 XL is a remarkable phone with a super smooth interface and an excellent camera.

The stock Android experience is a huge attraction for pure Android fans and the promise of timely updates together with unlimited Google Drive storage for photos make this phone a major go. You don't get the excitement of a zoom or wide-angle lens, which might put some people off at this price but at its heart though, it's a strong camera and the strengths in the camera department itself makes this phone highly desirable for many people.

For me personally, this is the best overall Android phone. With a solid camera, super smooth software and guaranteed updates, it hits my sweet spot and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a new Android phone.