Google Pixel Review

Introduction

One of the trickiest considerations for a company making smartphones is just how many options it should give shoppers. How many mid-rangers do you launch each year? How many flagships? What screen sizes do you hit, which phones get the best cameras – there's no shortage of questions these companies need to answer when putting together their lineups.

As shoppers, we might say that we want a whole lot of different phones to choose between, so we can come away with the one handset that meets all of our needs, but is that really what ends up happening? Or do too many options overwhelm us, and we end up just going with some big-name flagship, not necessarily because it's everything we were looking for (and nothing we weren't), but because it represents a seemingly safe, reliable option in a sea of unknowns?

But choice needn't be a bad thing – you just have to execute it well. 

Last year, Google brought us a pair of Nexus phones for the first time in the line's history, the 5.2-inch Nexus 5X and the 5.7-inch Nexus 6P. But the question of which model to pick up was a lot more complicated than preferring the big Nexus or the little Nexus, as the phones had different processors, different amounts of RAM, different storage options, were made by different companies, and just straight-up didn't look all that alike. That's a whole lot of factors to weigh for a set of phones that seem like they should be two peas from the same pod.

Now in 2016, not only has the Pixel lineup arrived to replace Nexus phones, but Google's seriously simplified the decision-making process for choosing one model or another. With the Pixel and Pixel XL, we once again have a “big” and “little” Google phone, but this time around that really is the extent of the decision shoppers need to make: from camera, to processor, to RAM, storage, design, connectivity, and more, you're getting largely the same hardware regardless of which Pixel you choose. The only differences are ones closely tied to hardware size: a bigger phone affords room for a larger battery, and a bigger screen makes sense to stuff with more pixels.

At least, that's how it all looks on paper, but how do the two Pixel phones really compare? We've already brought you a full review of the larger Pixel XL, and now we turn our attention to the smaller five-inch Pixel.

In the box:

• Google Pixel
• USB Type-C to Type-C cable
• USB Type-C to Standard-A cable
• USB Type-C to Standard-A (Quick Switch) adapter
• Power adapter
• SIM tool
• Intro cards (hardware, thank you, Google Assistant, Play Music 3-month trial)
• Warranty booklet