Pixel 3 Review | Hacker News Reader

Pixel 3 Review

anandtech.com

90 pointsendorphone79 comments

The basic point and shoot camera tests are fascinating. A cursory glance shows the Pixel 3's camera the best of the bunch, sometimes by far.

That said, as an iPhone user it's annoying to see Apple purposely hobbling itself with its overly aggressive (re: terrible) image processing.

In this image, for example:

https://images.anandtech.com/galleries/6731/A_iX_IMG_0308.jp...

The cobblestone ground is literally left unrecognizable, a shame considering the sensor is capable of so much more.

Since iOS 7 we're able to shoot raw, and Apps like ProCam show just how much better our sensor can be if it weren't for all that blurring.

If you shoot with an iPhone I highly recommend using RAW, your shots will easily match the Pixels excellent results for basic point and shoot detail.

> A cursory glance shows the Pixel 3's camera the best of the bunch, sometimes by far.

I am surprised that you drew that conslusion from the review. I got the impression that iPhone and Samsung flagships consistently beat the Pixel 3 in daylight and normal light shots. They just have better hardware. He stated multiple times that iPhone is a better representation of the actual scene. However the night mode is obviously best in class (given nothing in the frame is moving).

Yeah, looking for I should qualify in overall presentation yes.

My comment was more a remark on the de-noise Apple's default camera app applies.

Again, I'd check out that image I linked to. At 100% zoom the ground detail is quite literally erased from the iPhone X image, to the point where it looks like a stylized art filter was applied.

The Pixel at least retains detail in such places (also, for example, on the roof tiles). Link: https://images.anandtech.com/galleries/6731/G_Pixel3_IMG_201...

None are perfect of course -- Samsung loves them some sharpening, and the Pixels images have a slightly garish blue cast I'm not a fan of.

I will agree with you that iPhone X photo looks poor. But that is last years flagship. The iPhone xs looks as good, if not better then the pixel. And if you compare the pixel 3 and iPhone xs at 2x zoom for the same photo, you will that the iPhone has much more detail (thanks to the telephoto lens). Google just can’t compete with the better hardware of the iPhones and Samsung phones, even with their better algorithms.

Based on EXIF data that image was taken with an iPhone X back in October.

Which means the OS was 12.0 which had a widely reported bug where the image processing was interpolating images incorrectly. This has been fixed in 12.1. Would be interesting to see the photo taken again to see if the quality has improved.

Also why are you comparing an iPhone X against the Pixel 3. The iPhone Xs has had significant improvements to the camera.

Pretty sure that bug only affected the front facing camera.

Something I've been trying to figure out without much luck is how different the raw images are between the iPhone X and XS. Any idea where I could find a comparison?

The reason I ask is because feature such as smart HDR have shown great promise but I don't know how much is software and how much is sensor performance.

This might help. Also, check a few other posts on the same blog.

https://blog.halide.cam/iphone-xs-why-its-a-whole-new-camera...

I see a bunch of numbers, a bunch of graphs, 10,000+ words analyzing them, and a bunch of photos that all look perfectly fine to me. The top two comments here say that Google and Apple, respectively, are clearly the best.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say I was in audiophile territory.

The photos are all really bad (technically, I mean, they're also bad artistically, but that's not the point), but you can easily tell the difference, it's not linear PCM vs DSD placebo effect.

Personally, I buy cheap Motorola G4/G5/G6, etc phones. $150 or less, new. They are fast enough, and work well enough for me. And, cheap enough that buying next year's model when it comes out isn't a problem. And no anxiety about dropping it.

Yah, I've been doing the - buy a generation or two back of the flag ship release. Just bought the LG g5 which was their flagship 2 years ago, amazing phone.

I wouldn't mind doing that but the security update patch problem for Android phones that suddenly stop getting them is a nightmare.

GP mentioned the LG G5 which is still receiving security updates

If you go with that strategie you usually buy community supported or open phones. Everything with a locked bootloader is pretty much worthless after the 2-3 year update window.

I have a Oppo a37 for 3 years now. Except the rather shitty camera I don't see a single reason why I would want anything more from a phone.

I'm using a Pixel 2XL currently... previously an One Plus One, Nexus 4p, and I don't recall exactly before that. Mostly following the google developer line. This will probably be the last Google recommended phone I use. Mostly because of ongoing bluetooth issues since Oreo, fixed briefly in the late P betas, but broken again in P release.

I just can't justify the price tag. At $250-400, I'd buy almost every year. At the current price tag, I want 2-3 years out of it. In the end, I'm probably going back to mid range pricing territory after 2019 unless there's something really compelling. All I feel looking at the results is, "meh."

I buy a super cool top end phone, then I wrap it in an otterbox, and in the end, I'd rather have that be closer to the mfg case with a bigger battery. The round to the edge screen makes it harder to use without a case. I think it's a time to take a step back and re-evaluate the place of function with form.

I really appreciated the critical honesty here. With a Pixel you're getting an 8 month old SoC. The reason this detail is important is because the 8 month old Galaxy S9 is now selling far below MSRP. You can get them new for around $500. That makes the Pixel FAR more expensive than it's SD845 brothers.

Also, it's crazy to me that Apple has such a huge lead in single threaded CPU performance. They've been ahead for years, and no one seems to be catching up.

> the 8 month old Galaxy S9 is now selling far below MSRP. You can get them new for around $500

I am only seeing them ~$800 (not plus or note which are obviously even higher), e.g. from AT&T [0] and Verizon [1]. That's quite the difference from $500, can you link where you are seeing this or do you mean second hand or when you switch carriers or something?

0 - https://www.att.com/cellphones/samsung/galaxy-s9.html#sku=sk...

1 - https://www.verizonwireless.com/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-s...

- Unlocked: https://swappa.com/buy/samsung-galaxy-s9-g960u1-unlocked?con...

$600 looks to be the most reasonable price for a sealed new unlocked Galaxy S9 [in the US]. The lower priced 'new' copies on Swappa look open-box, which are likely not new, but a refurb/return, or someone selling their used device as new. Most of the new copies on Swappa are apparently open-box units, as are most of the new units on Ebay. Definitely hard pass there.

Best Buy has new copies for $700 - that'd probably be the... best buy. Maybe you can find a like-new refurb for $500, but it seems like a sealed actual new copy will be harder to find for that price.

So like $150-250 saved by choosing Samsung, and probably getting a superior package in most ways. Google has reduced the warranty period in the US of the newest waves of Pixels by 1 year, so really they aren't offering a ton of value for that high price.

I don't think the price from private seller should count, so yeah, That BB's price ($700) should be the one used for comparison.

B&H for 600: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1406055-REG/samsung_s...

That's an international model. Who gives a warranty, B&H?

The NA model is still $720.

Oh, right. I've missed that, thanks.

At the same time - yes, B&H gives it their own warranty.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Samsung-Galaxy-S9-SM-G960U1-64G...

The Xiaomi Mi 8 has the same SOC and Sony IMX363 sensor as the Pixel 3, so if you want a cheaper device that's a good option. The only thing you really miss out on are waterproof and wireless charging, but considering its less than half the price...

They are in general providing hardware well above the competitor at most price points, just got an A2 and I'm loving it, camera included, gives a real run for money to high end devices

The sensor isn't what makes the Pixel's camera great though, it's the Pixel-exclusive camera software.

I have a Pixel 1 and neither the Pixel 2 nor the Pixel 3 are a compelling upgrade for the price. I'm worried that Pixel 4 will be also be mediocre, but I'll be forced to upgrade anyway because Google will start to drop support for Pixel 1.

You have until October 2021 before you need to worry about support being dropped. Plenty can happen before then, I would be worried more about putting your phone in the washing machine than the lack of updates from Google, it will still turn on in November 2021, you just won't get Android Yummy-sweets or whatever the release will be called by then.

You mean security updates?

Consider that by the time a phone arrives in your hands that the SoC has been in development for at least a year or two, and the phone has been in development for up to 18 months. The SoCs in all modern phones are years old, even if someone shipped one sooner than others. And there's much more to the phone than the SoC. Single threaded performance is one number that's easy to point to and say "up == good; down == bad" but it's a single number that's not the end of the conversation when it comes to the full experience of owning a modern smartphone, and doesn't matter that much to a majority of the smartphone market.

What I was saying was, if the SoC is 8 months old (8 months since it began selling in retail devices), then the 8 month old device will likely be on sale. Getting a device that just launched (but contains the same 8 month old SoC) likely won't be on sale.

In this example, a Galaxy S9 is 8 months old. It retailed for $720 8 months ago. Now it sells for $520.

The Pixel 3 (with the same SoC) sells for $800. So it's not just $80 more. It's really like $280 more.

OEMs have different release cycles to maximize their sales; you see the same thing with blockbuster movies releases and television programming.

If there's one high end CPU from your favorite CPU manufacturer that comes out each year, guess what?

I guess it seems $280 more expensive for the same SoC, but consider that Pixel has plenty of custom silicon in it to justify a higher price (than simply the SoC). The camera literally relies on it.

I thought that Samsung did a bunch of buy 1 get 1 free offers.

Do SoC's even matter that much anymore. The article is full or nice graphs and numbers, but at the end of the day, we're at a point where everything is fast. These days, the improvement in processing and memory are negligible. What matters much more to me is things like battery life, computational photography and new features that actually make a difference in my everyday use.

For example, with night sight, I actually took a bunch of pictures during Halloween, whereas otherwise I wouldn't even have tried. With call screening, I actually get to check all those scam calls I get every day. Wireless charging is also a pretty nice feature to have.

Things like that are much more impactful in my everyday use of a phone than having a 5% faster CPU.

What I'd like to see in addition to raw stats is stacking up service and warranty.

What's kept me an Apple user for high-end laptops and phones is being able to go to a brick and mortar store and walk-out with a replacement device.

Ive been doing the 'buy 2' high quality products instead of the 'buy 1 apple product'.

Now, I dont actually buy 2 products, but I simply replace with the latest high end product when I want/need to. I am unsure whats cheaper and better quality.

Im curious in studying this for comparison(I run a consumer website), what are your quality metrics for service and warrenty?

So far I have:

>Time to fix/repair(downtime)

>Cost/deductible/copay

>Annoyance(losing contacts/photos/etc...)

Can you think of anything else?

Yeah that's pretty much it, for me at least. I'd consider myself very technically inclined (replaced screens on my iPhone 5's, build dozens of PCs...), but as I've learned from experience I'd rather just pay slightly more and expect it to work for my personal stuff.

I guess one can view it as buying the cheapest new car with a long warranty versus a reliable as-is used car just so I never have to worry about it not working.

I agree; it's hard to beat retail. The majority of customers don't have time to wait to mail stuff out or deal with trying to repair things on their own. They have $$$ and are willing to pay to just have their devices fixed. Making this as low friction as possible should be a priority, otherwise that's money left on the table.

I distinctly remember working with grad students in 2006 whose project was "collaborating with Nokia to make super high quality cameras in cell phones".

At the time, I laughed inside and thought, "ha, it's gonna be tough to beat a D2Hs and a decent set of lenses."

I was very wrong. Image sensors have come a long way incredibly fast.

I am considering selling my camera.

To be fair my 500$ lens on a $1000 consistently takes better looking portraits (I know it is subjective) than a phone .. but my phone already takes good pictures and is always with me.

It also automatically updloads my pictures to google photos, which is both creepy and incredibly useful.

It’s not even subjective. I would love to leave my dslr behind, but phones are just not there yet. My d7100 with a 50mm takes amazing portrait shots, even in my amateur hands. The d7100 isn’t even a newer body.

the best camera is the one you have with you

The buttons to toggle photos from different phones don't seem to work here.

Got "ReferenceError: ifg is not defined" error every time I click it.

I had the same problem. Try going to individual pages: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13474/the-google-pixel-3-revi...

Very thorough review!

Phone reviews are pretty tough to go by. I'm including users comments on phones. If you're going with a major brand like Google or Apple chances are that your phone will be damn good. For the other tiers do some research to make sure the phone is obviously not bad or you can live with purported issues.

Hopefully you can go with a phone that has a decent return policy in case it's not great.

The reason I'm typing this is because if you go online for phone reviews you will probably only get an iPhone. There are plenty of great phones out there where minor issues get blown out of proportion.

I don’t know why people like MKBHD. I much prefer reading a thorough objective analysis like they do on Anandtech than some anecdotal opinions. It’s entertaining to watch MKBHD though.

I want data. Not entertainment in my reviews.

> I don’t know why people like MKBHD

> it’s entertaining to watch MKBHD thought.

Touche :-)

He's a likeable fellow, doesn't ham it up too much.

I watch very little video, broadcast TV nearly gives me hives listening to their anxious desperate voices, but do not mind an occasional Marques Brownlee video. Actually kind of soothing ...

That's a totally valid point of view to have.

I used to be the same and care a lot about objective comparisons but I realized when I just listened to those I usually regretted my purchase. For me personally, the subjective things like feel, design, UX are way more important so that's why I now prefer anecdotal opinions because things like UX can't really be measured.

For example the Fiesta ST was car of the year and very highly praised by critics, but when I test drove it, I felt nothing. I instead preferred a car that was much worse but for whatever reason I liked it and in the end isn't that what's important?

If nothing else, MKBHD reviews are 10 minutes of 4k video showing the phone from every angle

I'm confused as to why you suddenly brought up MKBHD.

Or why you think Marques should in any way be compared to Anandtech given they serve completely different purposes. MKBHD is a fun, light hearted Youtuber designed for a quick watch often whilst you're doing something else. Anandtech is a multi-page, detail focused review where you often need to block a half hour to read through. The two simply aren't comparable.

>I want data.

I can't help but frown : the anandtech review really rubs me the wrong way when it starts with a long benchmark.

Unfortunately benchmarks are an extremely poor simulation of real life workload and have indirectly contributed to extremely poor devices by making OEMs very tempted to optimize their devices for benchmarks and not for real life workloads.

The phone is good, but the price is nuts. I'd rather have a disposable Chinese phone and spend the difference on Sony A7 III.

As much as I appreciate the software efforts put in this but hardware wise a Chinese phone offers the same stuff for half the price.

That's a $2000 camera, almost three times as expensive as the Pixel 3, not counting the cost of the cheaper phone.

I'd rather use a string between two cans and spend the difference on a Mercedes.

Ive had cheap phones. They're miserable. You're waiting for 30 seconds for google maps to open up while you're in traffic and need the directions...no thank you.

I've had the original ZTE Blade when it was a new thing and Orange was selling it for 100 GBP.

Best phone purchase I ever did.

Depends on how cheap you go. "Disposable" phones aren't going to be comfortable to use, but you can get much better value for your money with a Chinese phone that failed on the international market and is massively discounted one year after launch.

My current phone cost 1/6 of the new Pixel but has more than 1/6 of the hardware. My only hard requirement was support for LineageOS 15.1, which is already somewhat of a quality filter because no volunteer is going to support a phone that's too shitty to use.

You need to look again. I use Nubia M2, it's fast, the battery is great, the screen is OLED, 64GB space, and it's crazy cheap. The downsides are - the camera is garbage, and Android is 6.

Google maps opens and is ready to use in 2-3 seconds.

That may be a great option for you. For me, I'm an ultralight traveler. For a month-long vacation I took in Europe last summer, I packed everything into a single 19-liter backpack. I'm already bringing my phone, and when I'm debating whether I really need 5 pairs of underwear or if I can get by with just 4, a separate camera and lens is completely out of the question.

I chose a Pixel 2 because of its integrated camera (and really amazing image processing software) and because of the cost and convenience of Project Fi when abroad. The pictures were all fantastic, and every time I review my photo album I have absolutely no regrets with my decision. There were days when I was in London when I left my wallet in the hotel room, because I could use Google Pay (NFC) for all the public transportation and for (almost) all restaurants and vendors. So, I had navigation, communication, camera, ability to pay for food, and audio tour guides all in one device. And I didn't have to stress about whether I'd lose my bank cards and ID from a pickpocket. If the phone gets stolen, it's locked and encrypted.

I hear you on the price though. A used Pixel 2 in excellent condition is selling for about $400 right now. After looking at my co-worker's Pixel 3 and comparing the cameras, I wouldn't pay the premium for a brand new Pixel 3.

Don't underestimate the convenience of having a decent small camera. Since it also is your all-purpose pocket computer and communication device it is super convenient. Having to grab an interchangeable lens camera out of your bag for every shot gets annoying.

Sometimes you just want a quick snapshot, sometimes you don't want to carry several pounds of camera gear at all times.

It looks like a decent phone and I would love to use a Google phone for that clean-Android experience.

Unfortunately headphone jack is still the dealbreaker for me.

Get a Nokia. Clean Android experience and my Nokia 8 had a headphone jack. I'm on Android 8.1, 9 should arrive later this month so it's not too far behind. Only £260.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nokia-SIM-Free-Smartphone-Tempered-...

There's been a few stories & comments about the Qi Fast charging not working except on approved chargers - defaulting to 5W rather than 10W.

I've looked for (but can not find) some graphs showing what a 5W vs 10W wireless charge over time actually looks like. I assume it's non-linear, and it's not a 2x factor at any battery %. For all the talk it's odd there's no good actual numbers though.

Those pictures... that's Luxembourg. Beautiful city.

Anyone considering this phone and Project Fi, there's a really good offer going one if you get two of these and get a friend to sign on to Fi JUST for a month, you get $799 in credits. Really good if you're already paying monthly Fi.

The credits get paused if your friends subscription stops, from what I saw in the terms.

That said if anyone is interested in a pixel and Fi, email me and maybe we can arrange this.

The offer isn't available anymore (last day was Nov 1st IIRC).

I hate these BOGO offers. I was so close to buying it but saw the offer. So I stopped, called up bunch of friends, one was looking to buy Pixel 3 but already had Project Fi.

We did more research and it looked like we could still get this offer as long as we get a new line for 30 days. Seemed a bit crazy but there were people on Reddit who had confirmed this with customer service.

So again ready to place order and there is new post on Reddit where it claimed that customer service is now saying you cannot deactivate the 3rd line. Time to do more research.

Friend backed out. I am waiting for people who bought extra phone for the deal to start selling their phones. Or maybe I will wait for Black Friday deals or get LG G7 ($400 after $150 service credit).

I wish Google had released it for just $400 without BOGO deal. This whole thing was such a waste of time.

I got new Huawei Nova 3 and photos are excellent, battery life 1.5 days. Super fast with 128gb storage for (edit 3-4 times) times cheaper than pixel or any apple crap.

No wonder trumbo wants to block huawei phones from US market. Would sell like hot cakes.

As a Pixel 1 owner, I'm a bit disappointed by this new version. It just does not seem worth it to spend that much money on what looks like a small incremental improvement.

There's no headphone jack. It's a downgrade.

Anybody bothered by the Google's evil privacy flaws and deep integration of software?

Yeah. Everyone seems to miss the fact that in addition to your messages and emails, the always on microphone, google is now going to listen to your calls as well. Why everybody seems so delighted by that feature when it seems to be the root of a new evil is beyond me.

im very excited of being able to take photos at night but what about videos?

can I record really edgy, film fps, at night? usually in downtown alleys.

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