The Pixel 4's industry-leading cameras, super-smooth display and intuitive Face Unlock help it stand out, but short battery life holds it back. Trusted Reviews may earn an affiliate commission when you purchase through links on our site. There was a problem. On the Pixel 4 XL, there's a clear distance range where the face unlock method will work.

forces the phone to confirm attention before unlocking, Motion Sense and Face Unlock will not make a return in the upcoming Pixel 5, set to break cover at an event on Sept. 30, Google Pixel 5 event live blog: All the big news as it happens, Google Nest Audio release date, price, sound quality and features, How to watch the Google Event: Live stream 'Launch Night In' right here, Where to buy Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 — latest on pre-order stock, 5.7-inch OLED with 90-Hz Smooth Display (2280 x 1080), Dual: 12.2-MP primary wide (ƒ/1.7); 16-MP telephoto with 2x optical zoom (ƒ/2.4), Just Black, Clearly White, Oh So Orange (limited edition), No unlimited photo storage at original quality. The Soli chip knows when you reach for the Pixel 4, even when the phone is sleeping. On my end, my local bank app doesn't support it yet (and I doubt it'd add it for another year or more), which means I have to enter my password every time I want to open it. Case in point: this stunning scene inside the New York Public Library, which the Pixel 4 painted with brilliant contrast and a nuanced touch, especially in the highlights.

While it's about a tenth of an inch taller than the 5.8-inch iPhone 11 Pro, Google's offering is also narrower by the same margin, making the Pixel slightly easier to reach across with your thumb. Those gestures are surprisingly intuitive, but there's a slight learning curve. Apple's rendition is also brighter, with more eye-catching specular highlights on the metal screws at the center of the pole. And in keeping parity with last year's phone, this one is also rated as IP68 water-resistant, meaning it should withstand 5 feet (1.5 meters) of submersion for up to 30 minutes.

One Motion Sense annoyance is that, when you're skipping a succession of songs, the Pixel 4 sometimes erroneously registers movement back to your hand's starting position as an intentional gesture. (At least this time around, there are technical justifications for the bulky forehead, but we'll dive into those later.). I say "theoretically" because it's not yet supported in any of the banking apps I use, which previously worked with fingerprint sensors. The Pixel line has rarely been praised for its displays, but Google's fourth-generation handset goes a long way toward changing that reputation. The updates, that apply to all models from the 2/XL and up, offer a fix for a memory leak issue that can prevent additional Bluetooth Low Energy connections and a fix for an issue with dropped Bluetooth audio inputs in call. The iPhone 11 Pro is, unquestionably, a more luxurious handset, with a noticeably heftier build and surgical-grade accouterments. Fast, passing motions are preferred; slower actions seem to confuse the radar. Once again, the iPhone 11 Pro plays up the warmth well beyond the actual ambient lighting conditions. At just 429 nits through our light meter, Google's flagship is merely a candle compared with the white-hot intensity of the iPhone 11 Pro's category-leading 752-nit reading. The Pixel 4 is the first Google device with a screen capable of refreshing at 90 Hz — a feature the company has dubbed Smooth Display. The radar chip knows when you reach for the Pixel 4, so it's ready to identify you before you wake it. Rest assured that the Pixel 4 still feels snappy in regular use and handles demanding games, like Asphalt 9 and PUBG Mobile, about as well as other flagships.

However, in the months following the phone's release, it's been heavily discounted on more than a few occasions. We check over 130 million products every day for the best prices. The update also brings a fix for keyboard lag when opening some applications. It's not only worse than the Pixel 3 (8:27) but well off the longevity of the iPhone 11 (11:16), iPhone 11 Pro (10:24) and Galaxy S10 (10:19).

In a word, everything. As with Live HDR+, you'll see the results in real time, which makes the whole experience more intuitive. You could also buy an unlocked phone and take it to practically any carrier. All this is to say that some might call the Pixel 4's über-minimalism and lack of an edge-to-edge screen ugly, and I can sort of understand that sentiment. Between the 90-Hz display, Soli radar and all the sensors and projectors necessary for Face Unlock, the Pixel 4 packs a lot of additional power-sipping components the Pixel 3 did not. Google has dropped a Pixel 4 update that fixes a long-standing and remarkable security flaw with the phone's Face Unlock feature.

There's some muscle memory you'll have to ascertain, particularly with that waving shortcut. That doesn't sound encouraging, and well, the results weren't, either.

The Pixel 4's battery life is not only worse than the Pixel 3's; it's well off the longevity of the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and Galaxy S10.

Personally, I prefer the matte version, but I can't deny the premium flair of the shiny option. Much like Apple's Face ID technology, Google's system unites an array of infrared cameras, a flood illuminator and a dot projector to identify your face reliably. In case you were wondering about this, the phone can unlock in pitch darkness without a single problem. This is different from Apple’s Face ID on iPhones, which requires eye attention by default.

The Pixel 4's design doesn't match Apple's, but it is delightfully weird — and damn, if there isn't space in this oversaturated market for weird. And yet, even though the Pixel 4 resembles the most forward-thinking and ambitious handset Google has ever made, it still repeats too many of the company's tired missteps. In an age when high-end phone makers are finally listening to consumers and sacrificing some thinness for much-needed endurance, Google is still inexplicably reluctant to follow suit. That gets me to the elephant in the proverbial room: face masks. However, it must be said that it has taken more than six months to get to this stage, rendering the feature practically worthless as an effective security tool until now. Sure, Google has produced yet another all-time best camera phone with the Pixel 4. The edges of the Fifth Ave. and West 41st St. signs also reflect the light with more pronounced contrast, which helps to convey texture. It even modifies earlier words and punctuation based on contextual cues that become evident later. With intuitive Face Unlock, a smooth 90-Hz display and capable dual cameras, Google's flagship seems like a winner. The Pixel 4 starts at $799 for a 64GB model, and you can get a model with double that storage for $899.

Google's smartphones have long been renowned for their cameras, but the best thing about the Pixel 4 is that it's about so much more than the photos you can take with it. So you'd imagine Google would have increased the size of the battery, right?

The Pixel 4 doesn't draw quite as close to the subject as the iPhone 11 Pro can, so Phil's hair, skin tone and blue sweater appear slightly blurrier through Google's lenses. Those are necessary improvements, but they still leave the Pixel 4 behind other premium Android phones — not to mention Apple's latest A13 Bionic-powered iPhones, which remain the best-performing smartphones. But there's a second shooter now — a 16-MP, ƒ/2.4 telephoto lens — that, when combined with Google's Super Res Zoom technology, gives the Pixel 4 incredible range: up to 8x with limited loss of quality. Super Res Zoom is a microcosm of Google's entire imaging strategy with the Pixel 4: to use a mix of computational photography and artificial intelligence to do what hardware alone cannot.

However, those aforementioned annoyances, coupled with renewed competition as of late from the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S20 and OnePlus 8 Pro, mean that Google's flagship narrowly misses our list of the best phones you can buy.
Das Google Pixel 4 schneidet in unserem Test mit der Gesamtnote 1,8 („gut“) ab. The numbers aren't record-setting, but Google's phones have never been about raw performance. That's an issue Google admits it must solve quickly, though it's mostly the responsibility of third-party developers. Please refresh the page and try again. But it does expend a lot of battery power, as Google points out the moment you switch on the feature (which, conveniently enough, you can do right from the volume slider). In contrast, the Pixel 4 clapped back with an alarm set for 5 p.m. almost instantaneously. And unsurprisingly, it trails the iPhone 11 Pro (6,163) by an even larger margin. But there are other aspects to be excited about, too, like an intuitive, time-saving, secure Face Unlock system and a tantalizingly smooth 90 Hz display.

But the way Motion Sense enhances Face Unlock is probably Google's cleverest use of the feature. If you're low on space, you can back up content at "high" quality, but those pictures and videos will be compressed.

Further Reading Google Pixel 4 review—Overpriced, uncompetitive, and out of touch I got used to this small delay, but I wish I didn't have to. That meant sleeping Pixel 4 owners were susceptible to pranks, at best, and serious security breaches in the worst instances. Thank you for signing up to Tom's Guide. He's based in South Florida, USA. Night Sight on the Pixel 4 produced a striking scene elsewhere in the park, exposing the tree trunks, the bed of green beneath them and the faces of nearby buildings more clearly than the iPhone 11 Pro could manage. The iPhone 11 demolished both, at 3,251. One of the most common theoretical complaints about face unlock is having to lift your phone to unlock it when it's on a desk.