Well the day is finally here: the day Google brought to light its newest Pixel phones. While none of what was announced today was particularly surprising, it’s at least officially official. The real question here is, of course, should you buy a new Pixel phone?
What’s New in the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL?
With the first Pixel phone, Google tapped HTC to handle both models (the “regular” one and the XL). This year, HTC is again manufacturing the smaller model, but Google turned to long-time Nexus partner LG to build up the larger Pixel 2 XL. This is a questionable, though not uncommon, change but the differences in each model may suggest why Google chose each manufacturer to handle it the way they did. With Google’s recent purchase of HTC’s mobile division, however, I’m not sure we’ll see this sort of behavior again.
While the smaller Pixel has gone largely unchanged in terms of form factor and size, the larger of the pair has been bumped to an objectively enormous six-inch display. Fortunately, the smaller bezels seem to more or less make up the difference in overall size, so its footprint is essentially the same as the previous XL.
And that’s really the biggest change we’re seeing here: a much more refined, elegant look has been applied to both models, though the larger of the two definitely has more of a modern edge.
Speaking of edge, both Pixels have an interesting “squeeze” feature called “Active Edge” that allows you to invoke the Google Assistant by squeezing the sides of the phone.
This was clearly a page taken from HTC’s U11 smartphone that was, like most HTC phones in recent years, kind of a flop. Hopefully this will do more for Google’s phones than it did HTCs.On the inside, the phones are much more similar to one another. Each one is packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB of RAM, and either 64GB or 128GB of storage. The XL model packs a Quad HD display, while the smaller five-inch model sticks with a more humble 1080p panel. Both phones have improved cameras, improving on the already great experience from last year’s Pixel phones.
Otherwise, the overall design—especially on the back of each handset—is very similar to last year’s Pixel. Aluminum backing with a fingerprint scanner, Gorilla Glass on the front, and USB-C are all along for the ride.
But you’ll also notice one huge omission: no headphone jack. Google seems to have followed in Apple’s footsteps here by removing the headphone jack (though the company is including a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter with the phone),…
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