This month, Google finally unveiled the next iteration of its flagship Pixel lineup of the smartphone. Pixel or Pixel 1 was the first foray of Google into hardware. The phone was generally lauded for its design, specifications and particularly for its camera which was termed as the best phone camera at the time.

The phone replaced Google’s Nexus lineup last year and just like Nexus, the phone came out with the latest stock version of Android with the guaranteed upgrade when a new Android version comes out.

Pixel 2 has been launched in two models- Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. The phones have different sizes- while XL sports a 6.0-inch 2,880x1,440 P-OLED display, Pixel 2 has a more modest 5.0-inch OLED 1,920x1,080 display. Pixel 2 also has a 2,700 man battery while the Pixel 2 XL has a massive 3,520 mAh battery to power that huge screen.

Inside, both devices have an octa-core 2.35 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform, an Adreno 430 GPU, coupled with 4 GB of RAM. Onboard storage options have been increased and both phones come in 64 and 128 GB models.

Both the model also comes with ‘smarter’ Always-On Display which if enabled, will continually listen to audio playing around you and automatically displays song information on the lock screen.

Both phones have bezels which though goes against the current trend but is not a deal-breaker.

The phone carries forward the design language of Pixel’s first version and looks pretty good. This version is also finally water-resistant with the IP67 rating. Just like iPhone, Pixel 2 has also ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack and sports a USB Type-C port to charge and to connect to the headphone.

CAMERA
Pixel 2’ camera performance bunks the theory that two cameras are better than one. Google designed a custom imaging chip called Pixel Visual Core that takes the picture quality to the next level.

Google’s camera software is just unbeatable combined with the camera’s hardware quality.

Another new feature is that you can call up the Google Assistant by just squeezing the sides of the phone.

In conclusion, while the Pixel 2 lineup is not as fancy as Galaxy 8 or iPhone 8, the phone is a good-looking, solid performer with an amazing camera.

Not to mention some Google magic in the software with Assistant and other machine-learning features.