Google's Pixel Wins a Place in the Sun

Google's Pixel smartphone, which made its debut last month, has gathered some high praise from reviewers. "The Google Pixel is now the best Android smartphone you can buy," wrote Joanna Stern in The Wall Street Journal. "The other leading contender was disqualified due to spontaneous combustion," she added, referring to Samsung's doomed Galaxy Note7, which was recalled for safety reasons. Stern was impressed with Pixel's display; its high pixel count made the blacks in photos appear deeper, colors more vibrant, and everything sharper. "The AMOLED display makes photos look better -- even ones taken on an iPhone," she wrote. Keep Your Pixels Dry Pixel "offers the look and competence of an iPhone with a truly great camera and loads of innovative software and services," David Pierce noted in a review for Wired. "It changes my answer to the question I hear most often: 'What phone should you get?' You should get a Pixel," he wrote. "The immediate joke everyone, including me, made on Twitter after the Pixel launch was that Google made an iPhone," Pierce added. "Well, that's true. As it turns out, an iPhone running Android is exactly what I've been waiting for."

Pixel is a standout compared to other heavyweights in the market, according to Lisa Eadicicco, who reviewed it for Time.

"All told, the Pixel is Google's first smartphone that can go toe-to-toe with Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy flagship," she wrote. "It's on equal footing with those phones in most of the areas that really matter, although its lack of water resistance is a setback. Still, Android fans who pick up the Pixel should be pleased, so long as they keep it dry."

Smooth Performance

Google hit a home run with its first branded smartphone, said Cnet reviewer Lynn La.

"With Pixel, Google stepped up to bat, called its shot and knocked it out of the park," she wrote.

It's a departure from Google's earlier Nexus smartphones, because you don't have to be an Android enthusiast to appreciate what Google has accomplished with the Pixel.

"The only thing you'll have to be enthusiastic about is owning a phone that's beautiful, takes awesome photos, and has smooth performance," La wrote. "If you are, the Pixel's for you."

The Pixel's performance was won kudos from Jason Cross, writing for PC World.

"Android fans often complain about phones (especially Samsung's) that lead benchmark charts, but still somehow seem to stutter, chop, and sputter when you use them," he explained.

"The Pixel XL does none of that," he wrote. "At every turn it is smooth, fast, and most of all, responsive."

"Indeed, this may be the smoothest and most responsive Android phone I've ever used," he added.

Rain on Pixel's Parade

Some reviewers were unimpressed by Google's smartphone offering.

"The absence of a major competing Android device works out especially well for Google because the Pixel is, relatively speaking, mediocre," Brian X. Chen wrote for The New York Times.

"It is slower than Apple's iPhone 7 and the Galaxy S7, Samsung's smaller flagship phone," he noted.

"Photos shot with Pixel's camera don't look as good as the iPhone's," Chen continued. "And Google's built-in artificially intelligent virtual assistant, called Assistant, is still fairly dumb."

READ  Google Introduces Pixel and Pixel XL | iPhone, Samsung Killer

Pricing may be an issue with the Pixel models, noted David McQueen, research director for consumer devices and strategic technology atABI Research.

The Pixel is priced at US$650 and the larger Pixel XL is selling for $770.

"This is quite expensive for what you're getting, and the build quality isn't as good as other flagship phones in the market," McQueen told TechNewsWorld. "It's going to be a bit problematic for Google to create differentiation for the hardware at that price point."

Google's Hardware Future

However, baking Google Assistant into Pixel's hardware could do that, McQueen continued.

"Since it's the first device to carry Google Assistant, that will be a differentiator in an Android market where it's very difficult to make any sort of differentiation on the hardware," he said.

Indeed, Google Assistant may not only be Pixel's prime asset, but also a key component of Google's hardware future.

"The Pixel's greatest strength is really not anything in the hardware side," said Mark Hung, a research vice president at Gartner.

It's Google Assistant, which is only available on Pixel, he pointed out.

"It's the future of not only Pixel, but of the Google hardware ecosystem," Hung told TechNewsWorld. "Google is looking to make artificial intelligence the next platform after mobile and social."

Gunning for Apple

Reviewers taking the measure of Pixel never failed to mention the iPhone. There's a simple reason for that.

"They're going after iPhone customers and other high-end phone buyers," said Ross Rubin, principal analyst at Reticle Research.

It may be difficult for Pixel to make headway in that target market, though.

READ  Google Introduces Pixel and Pixel XL | iPhone, Samsung Killer

"In developed markets, we're seeing a lot of saturation," Rubin noted. "It's a pretty late time to be a newcomer to the space, even if you have all the advantages that Google has."

iPhone users were Pixel's target market, but the product also will benefit from the recall of the Samsung Note7, pbserved Kevin Krewell, a principal analyst at Tirias Research.

"The Pixel will be the major alternative to the Note7," he told TechNewsWorld, "even though it lacks the Samsung product's stylus and wider carrier distribution."

SourceTechnewsworld

Samsung smartphone owners thinking to buy iPhone, Pixel on their next purchase

While samsung is searching for the root of Note 7 smartphones overheat and catch fire. Other smartphone makers like Google, Apple and others are planning to favor this incident toward their side.

It has escalated into this point that 40 percent of people who currently own a Samsung device say they won't buy another phone from the Korean electronics giant found on a new survey from an e-commerce firm branding firm.

Rest of the 62 percent fan's could be planning to own another Android smartphone on their next purchase. While 30 percent are planning to switch to iPhone and 8 percent Pixel (Google) respectively.

photo courtesy:DeboTech

The company has received 92 reports of the batteries overheating in the US, including 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. Samsung has since remained quiet on the progress of its efforts to determine the cause. 

It's pretty sure that this incident has left quite a scar on Samsung fame. And the real challenge will be recovering from current circumstance. Well, only time will tell !

What do you think ? Tell us in comments...

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Google Introduces Pixel and Pixel XL | iPhone, Samsung Killer

AS WE'VE TOLD YOU guys before about Google's new Pixel phones. Well at that time there was no physical photo available. But now, this tech giant has unveiled its latest weapon to counter iPhone smartphone.

Yes, with phone new features. It's likely to be have a big impact on this and next year smartphone market. And you should be asking why is that ?

Lets begin explaining, shall we ?

DISPLAY:

The Pixel is a device with a 5-inch display, and the Pixel XL has a 5.5-inch screen, but both actually feel (and are) slightly smaller than the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus in terms of footprint (though slightly thicker, too), thanks to a lack of any hardware buttons on the face, resulting in a device that feels smaller in the pocket and in the hand.

CAMERA:

The Pixel and Pixel XL rear camera scores an 89 in DxOMark, the highest rating ever with iPhone 7 having score 83. 

That benchmark isn't the most consistent measure of good performance, but at least it's an indicator of the sensor's potential in the new Pixel phones. It has a 12.3-megapixel resolution with large 1.55-micron pixels and an f/2.0 aperture. Google claims that its new camera has "the shortest capture time on any mobile camera ever." There's also very intricate, gyroscope-based video stabilization on board, however there's no optical image stabilization for stills. Google isn't shy in presenting this as the best smartphone ever.

Well the most excellent feature i loved about Pixel phone its Video Stabilization Feature, that reads gyro data 200 times a second for smoother panning and shake-free handheld recording. The camera can record 4K video, and in stills mode Google's excellent HDR+ mode is on by default, using an image stacking approach to reduce noise and capture better detail. In addition Pixel owners can store unlimited full-size images in Google's cloud service.

BATTERY & CHARGING:

With Non-removable 2,770mAh/3450mAh Pixel/PixelXL surely gonna be a hit. But the best part is,

" When you need a quick charge the reversible USB type - C charger gets you up to 7-hours of battery life in just 15 minutes. And when aren't using your phone. Doze automatically puts it into a sleep state to extend your battery life, so that you can move at your speed."

STORAGE:

The Pixel phones come with either 32GB or 128GB of storage, but there’s no microSD card support. So if you’re running out of room at any point, the devices will automatically clear out photos and videos that have already been backed up to the cloud via Google Photos. Remember that those shots and recordings are stored at full quality, so you’ve got nothing to lose by removing them from local storage.

24/7 SUPPORT VOICE/CHAT:

If you run into a problem with your Pixel phone, from the settings menu and you can  immediately launch a voice call or chat session with Google’s customer support team. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

From there, you can also choose to allow screen sharing so that the Google employee can control your device and show you firsthand how to fix whatever's not working right.

EASY SWITCHING:

A bundled USB-C adapter will let users easily transfer contacts, messages, photos, and other content from their existing Android device or iPhone over to the Pixel.

So, What is it you now thinking ? Well, It's not bad idea to switch on to PIXEL, is it ? Tell us in comments...