Google has never been the best smartphone maker, even though they own Android. They were always an enthusiast brand and provided features that tech nerds would love. Most Pixel phones in the past always had some issue, whether is the horrible RAM management and brightness on the Pixel 3 or the poor battery life and high cost for the Pixel 4 or just the poor chip resulting in mediocre performance on the Pixel 5 series.
Google did pivot to making extraordinary budget phones when they launched the ‘a’ series phones. However, they were obviously not the best in the market and were not a phone for enthusiasts like me. So when Google decided to launch the Pixel 6 series with their own SoC (System on a chip), I almost made up my mind that I was going to buy it even before the launch. I was willing to let go of the first generation compromises, but there are hardly any compromises in most situations.
The Pixel 6 Pro is easily one of my favourite slab phones that I’ve used ever. This includes the beloved Galaxy Note 10 +, Galaxy S21 Ultra, iPhone 12 mini and the iPhone 13 Pro. The only phones I like better than the Pixel 6 Pro are the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and the Galaxy Z Flip 3, which fold in half.
The Pixel 6 Pro is the best phone Google has ever made, including every feature you’d want in a flagship 2021 device. The Pixel 6 Pro showcases strong performance, some great software additions, a unique design and an exceptional camera system, especially for photos. Google managed to do all this while undercutting the competition. The 6.7-inch base 128GB model costs $899 (£849, AU$1,299), whereas the 6.1-inch iPhone 13 Pro starts at $999 and the larger 13 Pro max starts at $1099.
Design: Uniquely Google
Google decided to make a strikingly different phone this year with the massive horizontal visor that houses all the cameras. Personally, I love it. I think it is something different in this boring slab phone market, and it definitely helps Google establish its design in the market. This also means you won’t have a wobbly phone when you place it on a flat surface with a case.
The phone is large, though, and I wish Google made a smaller version of this pro variant without the compromises that the Pixel 6 has. It’s also IP68 water and dust resistant, so it should be able to survive the odd dip in water easily.
I genuinely dislike the phone’s slippery, glossy back, which makes it almost impossible to use without a case or a grip. I am not kidding when I say this; the phone actually slides down when I place it on a couch. I had to apply a Dbrand Skin to mitigate the slippery feeling. I really wish Google just used matte back glass like the S21 Ultra or the iPhone 13 Pro series.
The colour options for the Pixel 6 Pro are Sorta Sunny (yellow and gold), Cloudy White (white and grey) and Stormy Black (black and grey), although while you’ll be able to buy the 128GB variant in all three colours, the 256GB / 512GB versions are limited to certain colours (only black in Australia).
Performance
One of the reasons I bought the Pixel 6 Pro is because of the brand new; Google made Tensor chip that was meant to bring a ton of new AI features to the Pixel. The point of the Tensor is not to have the best benchmarks but to use Google’s AI to do most of the work that a traditional chip can’t. The Tensor chip works flawlessly in day-to-day tasks. I had almost no issues with the performance that was directly related to Tensor. Any issue I had was more to do with bugs on Android 12. That being said, the phone randomly turned off twice, and two more times got stuck on the lock screen. I had to turn off the phone and turn it on to start using it again.
More than the regular tasks, I have seen massive strides in Speech-to-Text, Magic Eraser, and Camera. The Pixel 6 series is definitely the smartest smartphone of 2021. Half of this review is completely through Speech-To-Text. I use this feature so much that it made my life so much easier and faster. I reply to messages a lot more quickly, talk to Google Assistant more often, and don’t have to use one hand to respond to messages. Speech-To-Text on the Pixel 6 Pro is more intelligent; it understands context. For instance, if I say: “I want a burger, burger emoji, Send”, Google will type this: “I want a burger 🍔” and send the message.
As for 5G, the Pixel 6 Pro uses an older Samsung 5123 modem. This piece of hardware is more equivalent to the Qualcomm X55 modem from 2020 that we saw in the Galaxy S20 and iPhone 12 models. This can be a major reason for a few people complaining about the battery life. However, I don’t use 5g, and I don’t think it affected my battery life.
I’ve also been using the Niagara launcher (images below) and I absolutely love it. I didn’t realise how much fun Niagara is and I’m glad I am using it along with the stock Pixel launcher. The Niagara launcher is a simple and minimalistic launcher that only shows the essentials. I combined it with the Reev Pro icon pack to make it look even sleeker in my opinion.
Camera: Better And Worse At The Same Time
Google’s Pixel 2 series revolutionised smartphone photography forever. The inclusion of computational photography to the level that Google actually implemented was unheard of before the Pixel 2. There was no other phone that could take better photos than the Pixel 2 or Pixel 3, however, companies like Apple, Samsung, Huawei and Vivo started to catch up and even surpass Google with their computational photography providing excellent photos.
Google used the same hardware found on the Pixel 2 for 4 years and relied on their photo processing magic to compensate for weaker hardware. Companies like Samsung started using massive sensors and, along with computational photography, clearly provided a better photo in most scenarios.
This year, for the first time, Google upgraded the camera sensors with a 50-megapixel sensor on the main camera that is hard-coded to produce 12.5-megapixel images behind an optically stabilised f/1.85 lens. In addition, the 12MP ultrawide camera has a 114-degree field of view, and the 48MP telephoto sports a 4x optical zoom thanks to its folded optics. Overall, the Pixel 6 Pro can go up to a 20x digital zoom, with the AI-powered Super Res Zoom to help clean up the final images.
I definitely enjoyed the cameras a lot, especially from the main and telephoto lens. The pictures provide excellent Pixel contrast and can in most instances, beat out of the competition. However, I can’t say the same thing about the ultrawide, which is not really an ultrawide camera with a much narrow field of view compared to S21 Ultra or the iPhone 13 Pro. The selfie camera provides amazing results in most situations but definitely fails in harsher conditions. This was a surprise to me, but I wouldn’t say it is a lousy camera.
One thing I wish Google did was adjust the computational photography implementation on this new hardware. In my opinion, Google is still using a very similar computational performance on the Pixel 6 Pro that it used on the previous pixels. Google had to depend heavily on AI before because the hardware wasn’t advanced enough. However, the Pixel 6 Pro has more than capable hardware that needs more tuned computational photography for the photos to not look over-processed.
With the help of the Tensor chip, Google released a bunch of AI tricks on the Pixel 6 Pro. The Magic Eraser is one of the most impressive and arguably the most talked-about features. Magic Eraser is an incredible feat of engineering, letting you effectively remove unwanted items from the background of your photos. It’s obviously not perfect, but the Pixel 6 Pro will automatically suggest removing unwanted things. I am not a photoshop aficionado by any means, and I was genuinely impressed with how easy it is to remove objects. Everyone that saw the Magic eraser feature in action was genuinely wowed, even the iPhone fanboys.
Google also released a beta version of motion photos. It includes Action Pan and Long Exposure. As the name suggests, Action Pan focuses on a moving subject and blurs the background, while Long Exposure adds blur to moving objects within the scene. Both take a lot of effort and skill with a camera but are made very easy with Google’s computational photography magic. It is not perfect by any means but it is definitely a cool party trick.
Google also improved the video on the Pixel 6 series. However, it is not as good as the iPhone 13 Pro. It might be as good as the S21 Ultra in some scenarios, but it is not the best in the market. However, I am glad Google is putting in the effort to improve video on Pixels.
Display: Better Than Any Pixel
The Pixel 6 pro’s display holds well against other flagship phones in 2021 for colour accuracy and saturation but definitely falls behind brightness when compared to the likes of iPhone 13 Pro or the S21 Ultra. According to Google, the Pixel 6 Pro has an adaptive LTPO 120Hz panel that can go all the way down to 10Hz to save battery. However, in my testing, I could only see the display going down to 60Hz.
Battery Life and Charging: Not Enough
The Pixel 6 Pro houses the largest battery ever in a Pixel, with a 5,000 mAh cell inside. That’s the same size as the Galaxy S21 Ultra and 500 mAh bigger than the OnePlus 9 Pro. I don’t know the exact size of the iPhone 13 Pro Max’s battery in mAh, but you can’t draw direct comparisons between Android and iPhone batteries anyway.
Overall, the iPhone 13 Pro Max is definitely the king in terms of battery life in 2021. The S21 Ultra also beats the Pixel 6 Pro. In my experience (with no 5G), the Pixel 6 Pro’s battery has been good but not great. I get 6-7 hours of screen on time which is plenty for me.
The Pixel 6 Pro was expected to get a charging upgrade over previous Pixels when it comes to charging. Before, Google limited things to 18W, which was just way too slow. While it was suggested that the Pixel 6 Pro would offer 30W speeds, afforded by a new charging brick, it was later discovered this isn’t the case.
Google has admitted that the Pixel 6 Pro has a maximum power draw of 23W, only a minor upgrade over the Pixel 5. It’s also the same speeds you’d get from the new Pixel Stand. However, it’s significantly more than the 12W speeds you can get from a standard Qi charger.
The Pixel 6 Pro can also charge wirelessly. I own the Pixel Stand Gen 2 which offers up to 23W of power along with a ton of smart features. The phone because a Google display when placed on the Pixel stand and can display your favourite albums from Google photos. It also lets you control your smart home and music/podcasts.
Software and Special Features: Google At Its Best
The Pixel 6 Pro launched with the much-awaited Android 12 with Material You design language that can also be seen in older pixels. I personally love Android 12 as it provides a breath of fresh air in the stagnated OS market in the world. It is much better than iOS 15 and One UI 4, in my opinion.
With the inclusion of Google’s custom silicon (Google Tensor), we expected Google to provide a lot more software updates than the promised 3 years of OS updates and 5 years of security patches. Considering that the company now owns the silicon powering the Pixel 6 Pro, I find this extremely poor from Google. I expected platform updates rivalling that of Apple.
That being said, with the help of the new Tensor chip, Google Assistant is much more intelligent than before. This is saying a lot as it was already the best virtual assistant in the world before. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, voice typing feels a lot more natural on the Pixel 6 Pro. Ability to tell ‘send’ to send the message ‘clear’ to delete the last line are all really cool ways to interact with the phone.
Pixel 6 Pro Final Verdict: Best Pixel Yet
The Pixel 6 Pro is easily my favourite non-folding phone that I’ve used. The main reason I bought this phone and sold my Flip 3 is because of the new Google Tensor chip and the camera hardware. The Tensor chip definitely did not disappoint; it provides excellent performance, decent battery life and handy AI-enabled features.
The camera is also very impressive, with excellent dynamic range, contrast and classic Pixel photos. I genuinely love the true tone feature on the Pixel 6 Pro as it very accurately represents my skin tone, way more than any other smartphone on the market.
There are definitely a few things for Google to improve in the Pixel 7 pro, most notably, the battery life. Google needs to make the phone a lot more optimised and efficient with the next generation of Tensor chips. Video is another area that Google improved a lot this year, but niche cases like nighttime video need to be improved.
Overall, I love the phone and would recommend it to anyone, iOS or Android users. It is clean, simple to use with optional customisation, great design and a fantastic camera. Google definitely nailed the fundamentals, and people should be glad they are back in the flagship game.
TechAware 