Pixel 7 Pro evaluation: Still one of the best Android cellphone you should buy

The Pixel 7 may be Google’s first-ever flagship smartphone sequel.

That may appear to be a wierd factor to say about “model 7” of a smartphone, however prior to now, each flagship Pixel has switched producers or used an all-new design from yr to yr. This technique is the precise reverse of the one utilized by the bigger, extra critical {hardware} firms like Apple or Samsung, from which you’ll count on regular, iterative smartphone designs, with large redesigns coming each few years. When you are scrambling to construct a smartphone from scratch yearly, it is arduous to do a lot in the best way of error correction, enhancements, or adjusting to buyer suggestions.

The Pixel 6 Pro was already one of the best Android cellphone you may purchase, so Google did not must do an excessive amount of to show in a very good smartphone this yr. All the vital bits from the Pixel 6 are right here, just like the category-leading price ticket, nice digital camera, and speedy, clear software program. But even with that stable base, Google did a very good job of fixing a few of our minor complaints in regards to the Pixel 6. There’s no cause to improve you probably have a Pixel 6, however an precise “model 2” of Google’s flagship smartphone may entice extra folks to attempt the model.

Refining an already-great design

The greatest a part of the Pixel 6 design, the digital camera bar, returns within the Pixel 7. Google’s digital camera bar stays one of the best rear digital camera design within the trade because it accomplishes the objective of constructing house for a digital camera lens whereas additionally being useful. The bar is a raised, horizontal stripe throughout the again of the cellphone, permitting the system to sit down on a desk with out rocking backwards and forwards (an unlucky aspect impact of corner-mounted digital camera bumps). It’s a giant enchancment over the standard wobbly smartphone. The digital camera bar additionally helps with grip if you happen to stick an index finger below the ridge it makes throughout the again of a cellphone. It’s troublesome to assist a tool by a nook digital camera bump, however the large, tactile ridge offers you yet another level of contact.

The Pixel 6’s digital camera bar was a multitude of elements, although. The prime and backside edges had been aluminum, and a single strip of glass coated each lens. Google could not curve the glass across the left and proper sides, so the glass abruptly stopped and awkwardly switched to black plastic. The large glass sheet was additionally a magnet for glare in some lighting situations. Light might enter the strip of glass from many angles and bounce round to clean out your pictures.

The Pixel 7 digital camera bar simplifies issues. A single piece of aluminum now makes up the cellphone body, the perimeters, and the skin of the digital camera bar, with just one or two glass cutouts for the digital camera lenses. Glare points are lowered. The digital camera has not modified a lot, however a 5x telephoto lens (and 30x software program zoom) has been added.

Google made all of the mistaken selections in terms of differentiating the design of the Pixel 7 Pro and its little sibling, the Pixel 7, ensuing within the cheaper cellphone having a greater total design. The Pixel 7 Pro makes use of a mirror end on the aluminum sides and digital camera bar. The end picks up fingerprints and highlights scratches, and my barely one-week-old evaluation unit’s digital camera bar is already scuffed up. The base-model Pixel 7 has a brushed, matte aluminum end, which hides scratches higher. The brushed aluminum appears higher, because it does not get coated in fingerprints, and it feels higher, with the matte aluminum sides offering a bit extra grip than the slick end of the Pro.

The base-model Pixel 7 additionally has a very flat display screen, whereas the Pixel 7 Pro has a curved show. Curved shows distort content material on the edges of the show, seize glare, and make unintentional touches simpler. They’re a marketing-driven anti-feature that producers ought to cast off. The Pixel 7 Pro show is noticeably much less curved than the Pixel 6 Pro, however why not simply utterly unburden the consumer from this disagreeable design?

With a greater aluminum end and a flat display screen, the $600 Pixel 7 looks like a significant improve over the $900 Pixel 7 Pro, and it is what I’d select if I might get the bottom mannequin with a high-end, 120 Hz display screen. Google ought to toss the 7 Pro design and make two variations of the Pixel 7 as a result of not one of the “premium” design modifications it made are price it. Every day, I decide up the Pixel 7 and am tempted to modify from the Pro as a result of the skin design is a lot nicer.

Speaking of dangerous tendencies, let’s discuss mmWave. The worst a part of the Pixel 6 Pro design was a large plastic mmWave window on the highest fringe of the cellphone. On my white model, it is an enormous white strip on the highest of the cellphone, and it does not match the cream-colored again or the silver-colored aluminum band. The Pixel 7 Pro appears significantly better, lowering the cutout to a rounded, color-matched window that solely takes up about 40 % of the size of the highest. It’s a giant enchancment.