Read the in depth Review of Google Pixel 3 XL Mobile Phone. Know Google Pixel 3 XL build, design and performance quality along with pros and cons.
The Google Pixel 3 XL continues to deliver on the promise of jaw-dropping imaging performance. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 paired with Android 9.0 make the Pixel 3 XL a solid performer for any and every task, regardless of how demanding it may be. However, for a smartphone priced at Rs 83,000 for the 64GB variant, the Google Pixel 3 XL feels grossly overpriced, given that it doesn’t support expandable storage, doesn’t sport an HDR10 compliant display and still doesn’t have a secondary rear camera. The Pixel 3 XL asks a huge premium for the peace of mind that every time you take a photo, you’re going to have a winner on your hands.
Google’s third generation of smartphones were leaked endlessly prior to their launch and while the world had come to know what it would look like and what kind of hardware it would pack, what wasn’t known were its capabilities. Google is now positioning itself as an AI-first company, and as such, the true potential and capabilities of the Pixel 3 XL are expressed through the software, and not so much as the hardware. Given the significant depreciation in the value of the rupee in comparison to the dollar, the Pixel 3 XL might appear to be a rather pricey smartphone, but if you truly want to know if this is the smartphone worth your hard-earned money, read on.
The Google Pixel 3 XL continues to borrow heavily from its predecessors in terms of design. Google’s signature dual-tone finish is present on the Pixel 3 XL as well, but this time around, the Mountain View company has resorted to some clever tricks. The back of the smartphone is all glass, but the bottom 3/4 th of the back has a new textured finish, making the phone feels almost like silk. It’s a very unique feeling to the touch and one that is definitely nice. Our ‘Not Pink’ coloured variant is a beautiful soft shade of what is definitely pink. Think a pink Mentos, that’s what this phone looks like, and it’s a nice colour.
The back houses the singular camera lens along with a round fingerprint sensor. All the buttons you’d need are on the right side of the device. On top is a neon-orange power button, the bright colour being a nice touch to the otherwise muted colour tone. Below the power button sits the body-colour volume rocker. The buttons are placed on a metal frame that has a glossy finish, almost making it feel like glass. The top and left side of the frame sits completely empty, given that the SIM card slot has moved to the bottom of the phone, right next to the USB-C port. In case you’re wondering, the speaker has moved from the bottom of the phone to the bottom of the front panel. The earpiece doubles up as the second half of the stereo speaker setup, neatly nestled between two front-facing cameras. This entire assembly means that the front of the Google Pixel 3 XL is adorned with a notch, quite possibly the biggest in any smartphone yet.
The Google Pixel 3 XL offers just enough “newness” in terms of design to prevent feeling like a copy. It retains a very familiar design language which everyone, even non-Pixel users would be familiar with. The key highlights of the design are the IP68 rating, the new colour treatments and the really nice soft textured finish on the back. AS far as build and design go, the Pixel 3 XL has every making of a flagship smartphone.
The Pixel 3 XL boasts of a 6.3-inch P-OLED display with a resolution of 1440×2960, pegging the pixel density at 523ppi. Interestingly, the display on the Pixel 3 XL is made by Samsung this time around and hence, one of the biggest disappointments of the Pixel 2XL get addressed. Last year, the larger of the two Pixels suffered from a horrendous colour shift problem, an issue that seems to have been mitigated this time around. OLED displays still, in general, have a colour shift from yellow to blue when the viewing angles are extreme, but for regular use, this isn’t going to be hampering your experience.
The Pixel 3 XL’s display supports the DCI-P3 wide colour gamut and is compatible with YouTube HDR, but sadly, you don’t get HDR10 or Dolby Vision as the display is made of an 8-bit panel. Netflix and Amazon Prime Videos do not show the Pixel 3 XL as a device that supports HDR video playback, which is a bummer given that all flagships at this price point offer HDR10 compliance at the least. The LG G7+ which is half the price of the Pixel offers not just HDR10 compliance, but also Dolby Vision certification.
Despite the lack of HDR10 compatibility, the Google Pixel 3 XL’s display is a gorgeous slab to view content on. With improved viewing angles (and better-controlled colour shift) watching videos streamed via any of your favourite streaming services is bound to look pleasing. The display offers three viewing modes of Natural, Boosted and Vibrant, all of which offer excellent colour reproduction. Coupled with a maximum brightness of 650 nits, you’re not going to be faced with any disappointment while using this phone, regardless of whether it is outdoors in bright light or in your bedroom at night, in pitch dark.
The display on the Google Pixel 3 XL is definitely better than most smartphones in the market today, especially those claiming to take on flagships at a cheaper price. Sure it offers a higher resolution and higher pixel density, and a fairly colour accurate display. What is lacks, however, is HDR10 capabilities, something which the Samsung Galaxy S9, the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and even the much cheaper LG G7+ ThinQ offer. Given that Samsung made the P-OLED display in this smartphone, it is a little surprising that Google left HDR10 off the menu. When you’re selling a flagship device at Rs 83000, every bell and whistle that’s left out counts.
Google plays the spec-game only half way with the Pixel 3 XL. You get the latest and greatest Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, but only 4GB of LPDDRX RAM to go with it. Consumers who love the numbers game may seem disappointed at the lack of 6GB or 8GB of unnecessary RAM, but when you start looking at the benchmark numbers, you come to realize why Google didn’t pony up the extra cash for that extra RAM.
AnTuTu scores put the Pixel 3 XL ahead of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and even the OnePlus 6, but just a hair behind the Asus Zenfone 5z. Geekbench scores, however, peg the Pixel 3 XL square in between the flagships, trailing by a very small amount behind the OnePlus 6 and even the Note 9. You can see how the Pixel 3 XL compares with its competition in the graphs below.
Thankfully, benchmarks only tell a part of the story, and often they can be less than reliable. When it comes to real-world performance, I used the Pixel 3 XL for over a week as my main phone, including on a 4-day work trip that required heavy amounts of multi-media creation, editing and posting. Throughout my usage, the phone didn’t show any signs of slowing down, even when editing a batch of RAW files from a Sony A7 MarkII in Adobe Lightroom on the phone. Even gaming didn’t seem to stress the phone out, as were evidenced by my long bouts of playing Asphalt 9 and Injustice 2. The multi-tasking window on the Pixel 3 XL is smooth to scroll through and there wasn’t a single stutter.
We have reached a point in smartphone computing speeds where the difference in speed between various smartphones is not even noticeable. When you consider the Pixel 3 XL next to Samsung flagships and even the OnePlus 6, you do notice how fluid the UI on the Pixel is, but that’s a given. While Samsung smartphones have been noted to slow down after some time, the Pixel devices keep chugging on. In fact, our Pixel 2XL works just as fast as any modern-day smartphone, without any lag or stutters. While the Pixel 3 XL may not be the “benchmark destroyer,” it is a smartphone that will function reliably for years to come.
One of the most exciting things about using a Pixel smartphone is taking photos. Every year, Google has amazed the world with what it could achieve through the software on their smartphones. Google has maintained that they can achieve plenty using just a single camera on the back, as evidenced by the excellent Portrait Mode that was introduced last year. Without boring you with too much text, let’s just get right down to it.
Portrait Mode on the Google Pixel 3 XL is near perfect. The background blurring is natural and even and the segmentation of the foreground-background is done really well. Most times, there aren’t even any awkward blending mistakes. Google’s portrait mode isn’t limited by distance, unlike that on the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max or even the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and this alone makes the Pixel a winner. Portrait Mode allows you to shoot more than just portraits, with the end result looking really nice and will set your images apart on social media for sure.
Google also continues to improve its HDR algorithms which result in images that look incredibly stunning, but in limited conditions. Daytime shots obviously look brilliant, with plenty of dynamic range in the final JPG with a medley of colours. However, if you’re shooting in very strong lighting (like the mid-day sun) with the foreground in significant shadow, expect there to be noticeable halation around the edges of the subjects. Details are well preserved, which was nice to see. When the light begins to dwindle, that’s when things get interesting. Since Google is blending multiple shots together, the EXIF data on low light photos show very low ISO numbers. So imagine my surprise when I pull up a photo shot in the dead of the night, showing visible noise, with an ISO number of 264. All photos shot in low light showed unreasonably low ISO numbers, and there’s nothing we can do about it. However, what is visible in the photos, however, is great illumination. Typically, photos shot in low light tend to be underexposed, but on the Pixel 3 XL, that is not the case. Photos shot in low light are well exposed, however, they do suffer from aggressive noise reduction. The result is images that look good on a small screen, but look at them on a larger display and you start to notice the painting-line effect that runs across the image. What is definitely nice though is the fact that the Pixel 3 XL can shoot in portrait mode even in low light since it doesn’t rely on a telephoto lens with a small aperture.
