First look at Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL – A Pragmatic Design and a Promising Camera

For the past 10 years, mobile phones have been conventional, mobile producers have been photocopying each other’s product and designs. It’s not easy to distinguish when all you really know a little about screens, camera, different ports or maybe a little something Battery. It’s only now that we’ve been able to grasp out some authentic design thoughts, and legitimately competing philosophies of phone design are only beginning to come into sight.

This is the reason why the designs of the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are extraordinary: since it’s only been two years of making phone hardware, Google has a reputation isn’t just reliable, but is divergent from what both Apple and Samsung are providing. Google hardware is all about expediency and accessibility. The future isn’t in the combination of hardware and software, but it’s the merger of hardware and machine learning for Google. The astonishing new Pixels also seem like pretty good phones itself.

Specifications of Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL 

Hardware:

Now just let the basics away from the way. Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are releasing out on 19th of this October. The model which is less expensive is the 5-inch Pixel 2 with 64GB of storage, and is available at a price of $649 while the Pixel 2 XL will be available at a price of $849. And you can get either model to get 128GB of storage by spending $100 more.

Both Pixel phones are indistinguishable except for a few key things: the dimensions and nature of the screen, the size of the battery, and some fundamental hardware design. Otherwise, they have the same cameras, processors, dual-speakers.

Rumors are that the Pixel 2 is actually manufactured by HTC and Pixel 2 XL is manufactured by LG, well that’s true, but Google is again saying forcefully that it made these phones, and that it isn’t just tuning like it did with the old Nexus. Google is fairly proud of the screens on these smartphones, both of them consist of OLED (though they’re produced by different manufacturers). Google claims that they have a contrast ratio of 100,000:1, which is comparable to 1,400:1 of iPhone 8. When someone asked Google’s chief of hardware Rick Osterloh about them, he was certain. “Screens have so many magnitudes: vividness, color range, class, contrast ratio,” he said. He also said that the screens can be set to always-on, showing different notification icons and time on a black background. Speakers on both phones Pixel 2 and Pixel 2XL got plenty of sound without too much distortion. The general audio story of Pixel 2 is a big deal: it does that with the headphone jack, but it also supports a bunch of new audio systems over Bluetooth. It is also said that the Pixel 2 is a thousand times better at recognizing when I say “OK Google” than last year’s phone.

There is definitely a lot more about these phones that is not very astonishing: the standard Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor which comes with 4GB of RAM and OLED screens and in addition to that it has a 12-megapixel rear camera and 8-megapixel front camera.

Software:

Google as it does every year, is playing around with how everyone Google on their Google phone. The prime change — and the prime attention-grabber — is that you can compress the sides of the Pixel 2 to launch the Google Assistant. VP of product management -Mario Queiroz of Google’s hardware division, says, “We tried to do with the Active Edge thing not to make it a publicity stunt, [but as an alternative ask] how could it perform other useful functions.” One of those edges functions includes silencing the phone when it starts to ring. Squeeze works properly, but you have to get used to it a bit. It almost took me a minute to figure out that squeeze mechanism is better than a death grip.

Google Pixel 2 home screen is new. Google has put a huge Google search button at the bottom of the screen, which is integrated into the dock. It also incorporated the search box you see with the app drawer with that squeeze button. There’s now one less way to Google now. In addition, it will also pay attention to the color and brightness of your wallpaper: if it’s gloomy, the app launcher and notification shadow will automatically switch to a dark mode to match the color.

 Pixel 2 will also be Google’s phone to fully support Google Lens; this new system will help in recognizing objects in photos. In order to start, it will only work on a few categories like books, movie posters, cards (business), and different landmarks. Actually, the lens isn’t built directly into the camera, it’s a direct button on either the Google Photos app or inside the Google Assistant. In order to try a demo, we identified a book and it worked pretty well. Pixel’s camera can also identify a watch, but it was too much to ask that it identify the specific model. Google says that more categories in the camera section will get added over time.

Pixel 2 has also given one more deception by Google: intrinsically identifying music. Similarly, just like the microphones of the mobile phones are always on and listening for you to say “OK Google,” now they will also listen to your music. The feature of always-on lock screen will wordlessly show what music is playing in your background.

Design:

Even if you hold a Samsung Galaxy phone or the iPhone X, you’re hit with the flashiness in the face: Curved screens, notches for face-detecting cameras, the chrome and the glitz, Google’s actually not going for all that. We can’t say these phones aren’t homely, but they’re also not that much flashy. These smartphones have glass “shades” on the back of their panel for the antennas to work, and they have bezels to house the speakers. You think you might get people at a bar screaming and appreciating over the design, but you will definitely get the practical benefits of a simpler design.

Both the Google pixels screen doesn’t have a curve around the sides like the Samsung S8, but simply you don’t have to worry about rough touches. There’s no specific nick on the screen enabling truly the edge design, but there’s also… nick on the screen. Also, there’s no shiny glass, but the touch of the aluminum makes it easier for your grip.

You cannot say that there aren’t any impressive design elements to point out. In pixel 2XL there are no visible antenna lines anywhere and it has an aluminum unibody. The 6-inch screen on the XL might not technically count as edge-to-edge, but it still fits a much larger screen in a body that’s just little bigger than last year’s Google pixel XL, which then had a 5.5-inch screen. On both, old and new pixels you’ll see that there is no camera bash beyond a slightly raised edge around the lens.

Out of all, one of the most promising things about holding the phones is that finish of the aluminum. Due to their aluminum body, they almost feel more like plastic than metal, after holding it you will literally double-check it by holding the phone to your wrist like a baby bottle to see if it was cool like metal should be. That astonishing finish plus the bezels make the phone more viable to hold; while on the pixel 2XL, it hides the antenna lines. The unibody made of aluminum does mean that there’s no wireless charging. Also, there are many of the color choices (specifically three on the Pixel 2, two on the XL) have a power button that stands them out in their league. Pixel 2XL which has a white color, in particular, has a shiny black glass shade on its back, a white body, and neon colored power button. It is similar to a Stormtrooper who furtively wears crazy underpants.

I like practicality, but I still think the bezels on the smaller Pixel 2 are too big, and I wish the XL was a little smaller.

Camera:

Nowadays, if there’s anything that makes a great smartphone great, it’s the camera. Around last year, Pixel had the best camera anyone could get on a phone for almost a year, so according to that the Pixel 2 has a lot to live up to. And everyone should know that if there’s any place where Google is going out on a limb with the Pixel 2, it’s because of the choices it made on the camera.

Google, rather than going with dual lenses camera and a camera bash like Apple, is sticking to a single lens on the back and combining it to a pile of innovations that — like the Pixel and Pixel 2XL themselves — seem recursive when taken individually. But after taking them together and putting through the filter of Google’s machine knowledge, we think they have a chance to be something actually special. We are here are discussing some of the hardware changes Google is cramming into its camera stack:

• It’s a power of switching to a dual-pixel sensor on its back, which by the way means that every single pixel is made of two smaller ones.

• Pixel’s camera is coming in addition to optical image stabilization for different photos and videos, furthermore electronic image stabilization.

• Sensors are slightly smaller than last year’s Pixel: 1.4μm vs. 1.55μm this is the feature of dual-pixel setup in Pixel.

• The aperture on the lens is opening up to let in more light: f/1.8 compared to last year’s f/2.0 in order to compensate for the smaller pixels.

• Even though it has more advanced phase detection for focus with the dual pixels, Pixel’s camera is also keeping laser autofocus, too.

• Google is actually calibrating each phone individually in the factory in order to account for the tiny distortions that are predictable on every camera lens.

We have only seen a few dozen photos with these phones, and it was using pre-production software, so it is way too early for anyone to deliver any kind of judgment. Until so far pixel’s camera had impressed with the results we’ve seen so far.

It is obliviously unsafe to judge based on so few shots, but if Google can constantly produce similar results to what everybody had already seen, it has made a big bound over last year’s Pixel camera, and definitely stands a strong chance of competing with the dual-lens or camera bump system on the iPhone 8 or Samsung.

And in the last, big question is whether Google can keep these phones in the stockpile, a very common problem with last year’s Pixel. Right now, nobody at the company is giving any guarantee of that, but we are getting the sense that they’re confident it’ll be better than last year. The least Google is doing that their store is getting new and improved so that you’ll receive an email when the phone comes back in stock.

Simply Google had found clever ways to apply machine learning and AI to problems that other companies can just force with nicer hardware. Areas of the battlefield will be the camera, but it will play out in all the other usual arenas, too like battery life, performance, and, of course, in assisting the phone personally.

From all the above theory we can conclude that this isn’t going to be the year when the Pixel takes on the iPhone and the Galaxy in terms of production and sales numbers, but this time Google is very serious about taking them on in terms of quality and functionality.

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