Review: Google Pixel 4
Price: £669 (inc VAT) from fave.co/2oJQo2O
The Pixel range – the closest thing to a ‘pure’ Android experience out there – has become known more than anything else for its phenomenal cameras. But in a year that’s seen ballooning megapixel counts, extreme telephoto zooms, and Pixel-rivalling night modes from almost every phone manufacturer out there, what can Google do to stay a step ahead?
The answer apparently is to do the one thing Google said it never needed to do: throw in a second lens. That’s the first of several major hardware changes to the device, which also throws in radar-based motion controls, a whole new face unlock, a 90Hz display, and an upgraded on-device Google Assistant.
All of which sounds great, and should be a recipe for a phenomenal flagship. But none of those five big changes is quite as good as it should be – and once you throw in the frankly abysmal battery performance the regular Pixel 4 becomes a very difficult phone to recommend anyone actually buy.
Design
Google has chosen not to reinvent the wheel with the Pixel 4, and it’s immediately identifiable as a Pixel phone – even as a surprising number of smaller touches have changed along the way.
There are the cutesy colour names – Clearly White and Just Black, joined this year by Oh So Orange, a vibrant finish that sits somewhere between a peachy pink and the neon orange that the name implies. The black model has a glossy rear, while the orange and white models use frosted glass for a slightly more matte effect.
As before, the power button offers a flash of contrasting colour, but this time it sits against a matte black aluminium border that runs round the edge of the device and helps the colourful touches pop that little bit more. The border is hard to notice on the black model, but on the others it gives the whole phone a chunky, almost toy-like aesthetic – but in a way that works, and
