Google Pixel 4 initial review: Shooting for the stars

With Android being so dominant in smartphones, it's sometimes a surprise to recall that Google has only been in the smartphone game itself for 4 years. The new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL are a true expression of what Google wants from a phone, presented here for 2019.

Some will decry this and say it's not true: there was the Nexus programme before that saw pure Android phones coming from Google - but the message around Pixel is that Google takes the design lead and makes all the important decisions. 

We got the chance to get some hands-on time with the new phone prior to launch.

Shifting design lines

• 147 x 68.9 x 8.2mm
• Clearly White, Just Black, Oh So Orange colours 
• IP68 dust/water resistant
• 162 g

The past few years have served up a dual texture finish to the Google Pixel, with a glossy section at the top of the phone. That's now gone and it makes sense, with the biggest shift in design dominated by the enlarged camera housing on the rear. 

If you thought the iPhone 11 Pro looked a bit silly with its expanded square camera unit, then it's only fair to say the same of Google. It's a big black square that sits in the corner of the rear of the phone, housing two cameras.

The back remains glass and there's still a metal core to the phone, but it's now coated and textured on those edges, giving it greater tactility - it's less slippery than most phones on the market, and that's a welcomed move.

Google is also bringing some comedy colours with these new phones. There's the Clearly White and Just Black that you'd expect, along with Oh So Orange. We have no idea if there's a huge calling for orange phones, but Google is going there. There are also contrasting power buttons on the side of the phone, as an interesting piece of detail. 

Flip to the front and you'll notice that there's no notch - but there is quite a big forehead. That's the section above the display which others have been aggressively minimising recently. Google has retained it, justifying that decision by packing in the Motion Sense technology into the top of the phone. 

It's not the most radical phone design out there; it doesn't have the glittering colours of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 or the Huawei P30, but there's a nice feel to it - and this smaller size is designed to suit all.

Introducing Motion Sense

• Soli radar chip
• IR-based face unlock
• Gesture controls

Packed into the top of the handset is Google's Soli chip. This is the radar system that Google has been working on for a number of years, which Google says is in the phone to support presence, reach and gestures in the new device.

That means that the phone can detect that your hand is approaching the display and start to react. On this phone there's no fingerprint scanner, it uses face unlocking - like the iPhone - but thanks to being able to detect presence, the face unlock hardware can go to sleep when you're not using it, waking up when it senses your hand approaching the phone. It also has a 180-degree field of vision, so it should have no problem seeing you.

The face unlock system uses an infrared based system, with a dot projector and IR cameras to make sure you are who you look like. With the introduction of the face unlocking system as the only biometrics supported, that's also going to force a shift in how you access your apps - while many offer fingerprint as a method to unlock right now, it will be interesting to see how long it takes developers to support the new system.

Beyond that, there's support for swipe gestures in front of the phone. Google aren't the first to do this - LG offered something similar on the LG G8 ThinQ - meaning that you don't have to touch the phone to carry out some basic interactions. You'll be able to swipe to cancel timers or to skip tracks - with the suggestion that you'll be able to do so when you're cooking, for example. 

There's another bit of fun on these phones and that's interactive wallpapers. In our first demo of the phone the Pikachu wallpaper responded to gestures, so there's a level of interactivity that you don't get elsewhere.

Of course, these sorts of radical moves aren't always the most practical. It's nice that these features exist, but like squeeze and to some extent voice, you'll probably end up using a mixture based on what you're doing. Certainly, having remote gesture recognition when you're driving could be really useful. 

Display and hardware 

• 5.7-inch, Full HD+ OLED display
• HDR + 90Hz 
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, 6GB RAM
• 64/128GB storage
• 2,800mAh battery
• Wireless charging

The Pixel 4 comes with a 5.7-inch OLED display with a Full HD+ resolution. That's a similar approach to the previous handset, the Pixel 3, but now expands the display size, pushing back the chin a little.

It's a display that supports HDR, and our first impressions are that it's nice and vibrant - but we've not had the chance to spend too much time with it to make a full assessment of its performance. It also has 90Hz refresh rate, similar to the OnePlus 7T and 7T Pro. 

There's plenty of power in this handset, however. Sitting on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, some might be irritated to find it's not the more enhanced Snapdragon 855+ that boasts slightly better graphics performance. But many will be pleased to hear that the Pixel 4 comes with 6GB of RAM. 

Whether that will solve the background app closing problem that plagued the Pixel 3 XL, remains to be seen.

There will be options for 64 or 128GB storage, but no microSD.

Double the cameras 

• 12MP f/1.7 primary camera
• 16MP f/2.4 telephoto camera
• 4K at 30fps
• 8MP selfie cam

Google has added a second camera to the Pixel after 3 years of sticking to the one-lens-is-best approach. The Pixel has won many fans for its performance, proving to many that it's not about the hardware alone - it's about what you can do with the software. 

The addition of the new camera on the rear of the Pixel 4 seems like a slightly reluctant move. It's a telephoto lens, designed to give greater performance when you zoom in, but you can't switch between the cameras. There's no button to move to "zoom mode", you simply have to pinch zoom and it will take a hybrid approach, switching lenses when you're zoomed in a little more. 

It seems like a seamless event from the tests we've performed, but we need to spend more time with the camera to assess the full performance. 

That's not all that Google is bringing to the new camera, however. There will be improvements to Night Sight and a move to offer a new astrophotography mode. This will let you take photos of the stars, using multiple 15-second exposures. 

To do so, the phone needs to be stable, either supported or on a tripod, but the results we've seen so far look great. If you're handholding the shot it can use 6-second exposures, although the results won't be as drastic. 

Looking to boost the performance of HDR - something that Google has aggressively pushed over the past few years - there's now a clever option to control the background and foreground levels separately, called dual exposure. This will mean you can, for example, brighten a silhouetted subject against a sunset. 

It's a powerful tool, very clever and no one else is offering this sort of control right now, and all you have to do is move a slider in the viewfinder. We need to test it fully, but it's another feature that's likely to bring a lot of attention to the Pixel camera. 

Android software - with some Pixel extras 

• Android 10
• Auto transcribing voice recorder
• New personal safety app 

The Pixel 4 launched on Android 10 as you'd expect, with all the new features that Android 10 brings - system-wide dark mode, better privacy controls and more. But there are also some Pixel exclusive features appearing in the phone. 

One of these is the recording app. This will let you record a conversation and it will transcribe that conversation, as well as let you search the content. While that has immediate appeal for journalists or anyone who has to take notes - like students - it's also impressive that it's all done on the device, with no connection needed. 

There are also enhancements to Google Assistant, allowing more contextual conversations and greater abilities to search within apps on your phone. You can, for example, ask Google Assistant to open a particular person's page on Instagram and then ask for the YouTube channel, as part of an ongoing conversation.

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