The world of Android appears completely different than after I began focusing on this platform over ten years in the past. Gone are the times of Google specializing in its developer-centric gadgets, permitting different producers to compete for the highest spot. In case you look across the U.S. market, Android appears to have developed a homogeny akin to that of Apple’s iPhone. In case you’re selecting a flagship Android smartphone, it’s now between Google and Samsung—perhaps OnePlus if you happen to’re sick of the established order and know another exists.
The Google Pixel exists as a selected taste of Android, simply the way in which Samsung’s rolled with all of it this time. You’re not getting a inventory model of the working system anymore: you’re getting a model of Android made in Google’s picture, full with Materials You stylings and unique function drops. The concept is that if you happen to select this path, you will have perks. Pixels now embrace robotic assist with customer support by way of Direct My Name and AI magic for unblurring outdated photographs. Additionally they embrace probably the most up-to-date software program updates instantly from the steward of the working system itself.
This is a superb technique for Google to persuade consumers that it’s the correct path. However I can’t assist feeling prefer it’s a devolution, as a result of it’s launched a brand new kind of fragmentation to an already disparate platform. The Pixel smartphone collection exists to showcase Google’s prowess in AI processing, so it’s tuned with a batch of specially-made options. However that leaves different Android customers within the mud, since these talents are solely usin a position with the {hardware} inside Pixel telephones.
Let’s make this clear: if you happen to’re trying on the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Professional as your subsequent smartphone, it’s since you need the digital camera capabilities—not the unique software program options. I’ve been on a non-Pixel gadget for the final two years, and the factor I missed most was not the power to have Google reply my cellphone calls—a function nonetheless restricted to Pixel gadgets—however its digital camera algorithms. The Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Professional are nonetheless the most effective smartphone cameras for underneath $1000.
Is the Pixel 7 your form of vibe?
To be trustworthy—and this isn’t a slight on the designers of the Pixel smartphone, who I’m positive gave their coronary heart and soul to reconfiguring the Pixel’s total design—I’m not a fan of the Pixel’s stylings of late. The digital camera bar is a greater resolution than the awkwardness of a side-camera array, which leaves the cellphone crooked when it’s mendacity down, however the remainder of what’s occurring simply isn’t vibing with me.
That stated, I’m having fun with the Pixel 7’s colour choices greater than final 12 months’s Pixel 6/6 Professional, making the remainder of the design extra palatable. The Lemongrass colorway on the Pixel 7 is a beautiful lime in particular person, whereas the Pixel 7 Professional is available in Hazel, which appears like a grown-up inexperienced. The digital camera bar has additionally eschewed the blackout search for brushed aluminum, and the digital camera sensors are extra pronounced as modules throughout the bar. Just like the iPhone 14 Professional’s rear digital camera sq., the thought is to right away draw your consideration to the digital camera capabilities of the gadget.
Annoyingly, the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Professional are nonetheless as slippery as ever. I needed to catch each the Pixel 7 Professional and Pixel 6 Professional from sliding off my desk as soon as I began scripting this part, indicating not a lot has modified. In case you purchase this cellphone, get a case instantly—one thing with extra grip than the bare cellphone provides.
From the entrance aspect, the Pixel 7 and Pixel 6 look nearly similar. The 6.3-inch show on the Pixel 7 and the 6.7-inch show on the Pixel 7 Professional take up a lot of the chassis, with skinny bezels across the body. It’s well-paired with Materials You, and you may see Google’s design language shine by means of the bundle. The aspect energy and quantity buttons protrude and are straightforward to press, even with a case.
By way of measurement, the Pixel 7 might be a greater wield for smaller arms. However the Pixel 7 Professional isn’t untenable. I used to be shocked at my capability to safe the Professional with out the help of a pop socket.
There are variations between the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Professional’s shows in addition to the dimensions. The Pixel 7 has a most refresh charge of 90 Hz, whereas the Professional maxes out at 120 Hz. Each telephones are tuned for barely completely different audiences, although the remainder of the {hardware} on the within is analogous. The Pixel 7 Professional additionally helps you to change between 1080p decision and 1440p decision relying in your wants, however do not forget that the upper it goes, the more durable it’s in your battery.
The Pixel 7 and seven Professional have an Adaptive brightness function that you could toggle on from the Show part of the settings panel, which makes use of AI to be taught your show wants. Each telephones even have dynamic refresh charges that get dialed down primarily based on what you’re doing to assist save on battery, and you may change between a “natural” trying colour mode or an “adaptive” one. I desire the latter for its vibrancy over the pure look. In any other case, the Pixel 7’s colours seem boring in comparison with the saturated show panel on Samsung’s newest gadgets.
Relating to sturdiness, the Pixel 7 and seven Professional are IP68-rated for mud and water resistance. Google additionally says there’s a fingerprint-resistant coating on show, which is an admirable try however doesn’t stay as much as the truth of residing with my greasy fingers. It’s what it’s!
A brand new, outdated strategy to unlock
I’m completely satisfied to report that the Pixel 7 and seven Professional have face unlock added again to their repertoire, becoming a member of the in-display fingerprint scanner and the opposite three unlocking mechanisms Android provides by default. Face unlock is a function that has been lacking from Pixel smartphones for the reason that Pixel 4 debuted, which used Soli radars to acknowledge your face.
The draw back to getting the face unlocking function again is that it’s not as strong as Apple’s Face ID. You’ll be able to’t use it to approve Google Play Retailer purchases, as an illustration, or unlock your checking account by means of one other app. You’ll nonetheless have to make use of fingerprint unlock for these cases—even for Google Pay.
I haven’t had a lot time to multitask with the Pixel 7 and seven Professional to see how Face Unlocking works when issues are hectic. That tends to be the true check of this expertise. As an example, I’ve sung the praises of Apple’s Face ID earlier than for its relative quickness, however I confronted its limitations this previous weekend whereas touring throughout the nation, sporting a masks and sun shades. For probably the most half, the Pixel 7’s face-unlocking mechanism exists to make sure that it’s able to go within the arms of its proprietor. On the very least, the interface reveals a halo-like animation on the display screen to substantiate that the gadget has registered your face.
Don’t count on record-breaking efficiency
I’ve had lower than per week to expertise the true capabilities of the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Professional. Issues are easy thus far, however I’ve had a few hiccups. As soon as, the digital camera app went clean on me and required a restart. The Pixel Stand 2’s software-specific options that pop up when it acknowledges a Pixel additionally crashed on the Pixel 7 and seven Professional.
I deliver this up as a result of I’m having a tough time forgetting that the Pixel 6 and 6 Professional appeared stricken by consumer complaints within the months after my preliminary assessment. For this reason it’s vital to revisit these gadgets after the launch hype! Nevertheless, I’m not suggesting that the Pixel 7 might be wrought with the identical points. Right here’s to hoping the hiccups I encountered had been all simply pre-release software program jitters.
Google has outfitted the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Professional with its second-generation Tensor CPU. The Tensor G2 has a 2.85 GHz Twin Cortex X1 because the “large CPU” cores, a 2.35 GHz Twin Cortex A78 for the “medium CPU cores,” and a 1.8 GHz Quad Cortex A55 for its “small CPU” cores. The GPU on this configuration is an ARM Mali G710 MP07, and the TPU—or Tensor Processing Unit—inside is Google’s custom-made chip. Google additionally infused its Titan M2 safety chip into the bundle for on-device encryption. As an apart, the Tensor G2 is a 5nm chip, not a 4nm, as rumors speculated.
One factor to notice about this chip: it’s laborious to match it on to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8/8+ Gen 1 as a result of it’s not an apples-to-apples comparability. Google’s Tensor chip is extra centered on neural processing, which is the way it facilitates all the Pixel’s AI smarts—and why Google says some Android gadgets aren’t appropriate with the options. In consequence, the standard artificial benchmark suites don’t fairly pan out so properly for Google’s Pixel.
For instance, in our Geekbench exams, which I needed to sideload as a result of the Play Retailer stated the app wasn’t appropriate with the brand new Pixel gadgets, the Pixel 7’s outcomes had been comparable to the budget-priced Pixel 6a’s for the single-core rating, and solely about 600 factors higher within the multi-core rating. The OnePlus 10T scored higher total than the Pixel 7 household, whereas the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, which has the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 as its chipset, outpaced it by about 250 factors within the single-core rating. In case you had been to have a look at our scores for the iPhone 14 Professional with its A16 Bionic chip, the Pixel 7’s Tensor G2 numbers are much more dismal.
The excellent news is that the Pixel 7 and seven Professional don’t carry out within the hand as their numbers point out they’d. They’re each zippy and quick, and I had no downside switching between the digital camera shortcut and Pokemon Go’s AR mode in fast succession. However once more, I’ve had these gadgets for lower than per week. Let me get again to you in a few months, and I’ll let you understand how it’s going.
One last item to notice when deciding between the Pixel 7 and seven Professional: they’ve completely different reminiscence configurations. The Pixel 7 has 8GB of RAM, whereas the 7 Professional comes with 12GB of RAM. In case you’re into critical cell gaming, particularly AR-heavy titles, extra reminiscence may pan out higher in the long run. No matter which mannequin you select, remember to get the storage configuration that fits your wants. The Pixel 7 has 128 and 256GB of storage, whereas the 7 Professional tops out at 512GB. And no, of us, there aren’t any SD slots right here. They’ve turn into much less widespread on Android gadgets in recent times.
The Pixel battery’s lofty promise
The Pixel 7 and seven Professional even have different-sized batteries. The Pixel 7’s is a 4,355 mAh battery pack, whereas the Pixel 7 Professional is a 5,000 mAh battery, the identical as this 12 months’s Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely and the OnePlus 10 Professional. Google guarantees “past 24-hour battery life” on each gadgets, regardless of the variations in measurement, or “as much as 72-hour battery life” on Excessive Battery Saver mode, which you’ll be able to toggle on from the gadget settings.
Sadly for you, pricey reader, I’m nonetheless testing the efficacy of those claims. I hope to have an replace as optimistic as I did on the iPhone 14 Professional’s battery capability, which additionally took me a while to check. The iPhone 14 Professional fashions lasted over 22 hours in our battery rundown check. The Pixel 7 and seven Professional must beat these numbers to be the most effective.
Nonetheless the most effective digital camera
It wasn’t straightforward to curate the photographs I needed to share on this assessment. General, the most effective photos the Pixel 7 Professional took had been of my daughter out on a vivid and sunny day. However that’s too many photographs to try to blur her face out of, so let’s take a look at footage of a day romp round San Francisco as a substitute. Word that the photographs have been compressed, so what you’re seeing right here shouldn’t be the full-resolution expertise.
I primarily centered my testing on the 7 Professional, due to its additional digital camera sensor. The Pixel 7 and seven Professional have comparable digital camera techniques, together with a 50-MP sensor and a 12-megapixel ultrawide digital camera, although the Pixel 7 has a 114-degree discipline of view whereas the 7 Professional has a barely bigger 125.8-degree discipline of view. The 7 Professional additionally has a 3rd 48-MP sensor to facilitate its Tremendous Res Zoom, which allows the 30x digital zoom on the Pixel 7 Professional. It’s as much as 8x on the Pixel 7, although the first digital camera sensor permits that. Each gadgets have the identical 10.8-MP front-facing digital camera with a set lens and a 92.8-degree discipline of view.
We’ve already established the Pixel 7/7 Professional takes implausible daytime photographs, so let’s speak about this Tremendous Res Zoom. It’s presupposed to be the simplest on the Pixel 7 Professional as a result of it has the glass and the AI smarts to handle taking pictures at a protracted distance. The function will instantly kick in between the two.5x and 5x zooms and after 10x zoom on the Professional’s devoted telephoto lens. The Professional additionally boasts Zoom Stabilization, which didn’t at all times work for my shakey arms. Whereas I managed to take clear photographs of the windmills exterior my yard, that are miles and miles away, I had issue positioning the cellphone to get a pointy shot. It’s not straightforward attaining that form of stability with no tripod in tow. It was even more durable to attempt to shoot one thing at night time.
The telephoto lens on the 7 Professional is most helpful when trying to border a cropped picture. I discovered it particularly useful on a stroll round my neighborhood, the place I snapped footage of the Halloween decor that neighbors had put up. The telephoto lens made it in order that I didn’t must cross the road to get a more in-depth look, and I may crop in to realize extra element. Due to its lack of a devoted zoom lens, you don’t have this type of malleability with the Pixel 7. In case you’re a frequent concertgoer, or perhaps you’re continually taking pictures photographs for archiving functions, you’ll need to take into account paying for that third telephoto.
Night time Sight on the Pixel 7 and seven Professional stays unparalleled, even when Apple’s algorithm has improved. Google shortened the time that the shutter has to remain open to seize gentle knowledge—anyplace from three to 6 seconds. After all, the Pixel remains to be far more aggressive at lighting up a scene than the iPhone 14 Professional. Nonetheless, I discovered the Pixel 7 Professional and iPhone 14 Professional Max’s night time photographs almost indistinguishable aside from firming.
Lastly, I need to point out Pixel 7’s new Cinematic Blur video mode—that’s all it’s. It’s a bokeh type blurring impact for the video that engages when you faucet your give attention to the display screen. Thus far, it looks like a video model of the Pixel’s Portrait Mode impact and never a direct competitors in opposition to the iPhone’s similarly-themed Cinematic mode. I’m nonetheless determining the best way to make the most effective use of it.
Now that the Pixel 7 has been launched, I can lastly plan a while to do a significant smartphone pictures shootout. Keep tuned for extra comparisons between the Pixel 7/7 Professional and iPhone 14/14 Professional, which I do know is what you’re all right here for.
Unique Android smarts
A part of Google’s ploy to get you to decide on the Pixel smartphone over its quite a few OEM companions is what Google deems its “Pixel drops.” The corporate releases software program updates only for Pixel gadgets, and so they’re sometimes AI-enabled options which might be solely appropriate with what’s inside Pixel {hardware}.
The Pixel 7 is the debut of a number of new digital camera options, together with Photograph Unblur. There’s additionally a singular capability within the Pixel’s dialer app known as Direct My Name, which helps you skip by means of the menu if you’re on the road with customer support, facilitated by Google’s Duplex expertise. And if you happen to use the Android Messages app to ship voice memos, Google will mechanically transcribe them. The Pixel 7 can also be the primary to get the Assistant’s Fast Phrases, which makes it simpler to ship instructions with out the opening line of “Hey Google.” I want Google introduced this to my good audio system first—those I’ve already lined my complete home with.
A few of these talents will make it to older Pixel smartphones, although it’s not at all times clear which of them will get them. For now, the one manner to make use of these talents is to purchase a brand new Google Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Professional.
It’s value noting that these software program options aren’t required to have a powerful Android expertise. They’re merely perks that Google is providing to distinguish itself from, properly, Samsung, which additionally has its record of unique options solely out there to customers of its gadgets and peripherals. As I stated: Android remains to be very fragmented. It simply appears somewhat completely different than it used to.
Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Professional?
After I initially sought to assessment the Pixel 7 and seven Professional, I selfishly made it about myself and my subsequent cellphone buy. I’ve been away from the Pixel household for a number of years as I refamiliarized myself with different Android manufacturers. This 12 months, I need to come again, primarily as a result of the digital camera expertise stays unparalleled by the opposite gamers on this platform.
Nonetheless, I’m somewhat disheartened by the very fact that there’s a distinction between Google’s Android and everybody else’s, particularly concerning these AI-infused options. I suppose Google has to prop itself up in a roundabout way. However if you happen to’re contemplating a Pixel gadget, don’t do it due to the software program talents. The digital camera is the Pixel’s strongest function, even with out all of the methods you may unblur a photograph and take away somebody from the background.
In case you’d wish to know which Pixel I’m adopting, it’s the Pixel 7. First, that Lemongrass colour is lovely in particular person—footage can’t do it justice. I additionally realized I needed a smaller gadget that didn’t really feel like I needed to drive a small purse to shut over it. The 8GB of RAM and 90Hz refresh charge additionally aren’t a drastic drop down from the Professional’s 12GB and 120Hz refresh charge, and it’s an entire $300 cheaper.
