Google Pixel review: The best Android phone, even if it is a little pricey

Google's getting into the hardware game (again) with the pricey Pixel and Pixel XL. But has it done enough to tempt people to switch to Android?

Welcome to the age of Google Hardware. Apparently tired of letting third-party Android OEMs serve as the stewards of Android handsets, Google has become a hardware company. (Again).

Earlier this year Google, launched a hardware division with former Motorola President Rick Osterloh at the helm. With the high-ranking title of "Senior Vice President," Osterloh doesn't oversee a side project—his group is on even footing with Android, Search, YouTube, and Ads. The hardware group is so powerful inside Google that it was able to merge Nexus, Pixel, Chromecast, OnHub, ATAP, and Glass into a single business unit. The group's coming out party was October 4, 2016, where it announced Google Home, Google Wifi, a 4K Chromecast, the Daydream VR headset, and the pair of phones we're looking at today: the Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL.

The arrival of the Pixel phones marks the apparent death of the Nexus line; Google says that it has "no plans" for future Nexus devices. With the new branding comes a change in strategy, too. The Pixel brand is about making devices that are 100 percent Google, so despite Google's position as the developer of Android, get ready for Google-designed hardware combined with exclusive Google software.

Google has borrowed Apple's vertical integration strategy—and Apple's approach to pricing. Say goodbye to the Nexus' "value" price tag; the Pixel and Pixel XL are both priced like iPhones ($649/£599 for the 5-inch device, and $749/£719 for the 5.5-inch device). The Nexus 5X and 6P were both decent pieces of hardware, and their $350/£339 and $500/£449 price tags made it easier to excuse their shortcomings. But those excuses won't apply to hardware this expensive.

Comparing each new Android phone to the iPhone is something of a cliché at this point, but the Pixel line makes the comparison unavoidable. Pixel phones carry the same prices as iPhones, have a similar design, and even use marketing that pokes fun at the iPhone. Google has set itself a high bar to clear.

Design and build quality

Before diving into the decisions that created this phone—which are really the most interesting part of the Pixel story so far—let's talk about what Google has actually delivered. The Pixel handsets, which were manufactured by HTC, are about as high-end as you can get in the Android world. They have a Snapdragon 821 SoC, 4GB of RAM, 32 or 128GB of storage, and one of the best cameras ever fitted to a smartphone. They are also the launch devices for Android 7.1 Nougat, the exclusive owners of the new "Google Assistant" voice command system, and the first Daydream VR-compatible phones.

Both devices have AMOLED screens—a 1440p display for the 5.5-inch version and a 1080p display for the 5-inch version—covered by Gorilla Glass 4. (No, it's not the newer, more shatter-resistant Gorilla Glass 5, which is disappointing.)

The Pixels' aluminum unibody design does make them feel like products that belong in the $650-$750 range. Things get a little strange on the back, though, where another Gorilla Glass 4 panel at the top of the phone surrounds the rear camera and fingerprint reader. The glass panel is the device's unique design decision, but adding more glass to a phone isn't necessarily a positive. While the two-thirds metal back is easily superior to an all-glass Samsung phone, it's a step below the all-metal backs you'd get from Apple or HTC.

It's not clear what the reason is for the glass back panel, either. It might let signals in and out of the device—but the bottom of the phone still has antenna lines. And there's no wireless charging or other features that might obviously justify the need for more glass. The design screams for attention, since the glass is never the same color as the surrounding metal, but at least there's no camera bump. The back is totally flat, allowing the phone to sit on a desk without a hint of wobble. This is probably thanks to the phone's wedge shape—it's 0.8mm thicker at the top than at the bottom.

The Pixel's speaker is significantly worse than what came on the Nexus 6P. The $500 6P had front-facing stereo speakers, while the $650-$750 Pixel phones has just a single mediocre speaker on the bottom edge of the phone. The small opening is the only way the speaker can breathe, so if you block this with your hand, the sound disappears. The speaker downgrade is one of the Pixel's biggest disappointments, given that last year's was so good. Even if you don't listen to music or videos using the device speaker, Google's push to use Google Assistant means you'll listen to voice responses through the speaker more than before.

Pixels use USB Type C ports for charging. As with the Nexus phones, Google still uses USB Power Delivery for quick charging instead of going with Qualcomm's proprietary solution. This year the wattage is a bit higher—18W instead of last year's 15W. The official claim on charge time is "up to 7 hours of usage from 15 minutes of charging." We charged both devices on their bundled chargers for 15 minutes, and both went from totally dead to about 25 percent in that time. (Another bonus to the Type C port: actual USB 3.0 transfer speeds!)

The phones' metal sides are flat, with a wide chamfer handling the transition to the display, while a round corner handles the transition to the back. Mixing the two design motifs feels a little weird, and the look suffers in comparison to the iPhone 7's rounded sides, which transition seamlessly to the glass panel. The iPhone also feels substantially more "dense" and "solid" than a Pixel does. While the Pixel's construction is in the same ballpark as Apple, Apple still gets more of the little details right.

Google also lags when it comes to water resistance. The iPhone 7 and Galaxy S7 can both survive being submerged in water, with IP67 and IP68 ingress ratings, respectively. The Pixel phones only have an ingress protection of IP53, which means they will only survive "spraying water" and only at certain angles.

#MadeByGoogle or from pre-existing HTC parts?

With the switch from "Nexus" to "Pixel" comes a change in design responsibility. Nexus phones were co-branded and designed in partnership with an OEM, while Pixel phones are 100 percent Google designed, as indicated by the "Made by Google" marketing campaign. The official explanation from Google's Rick Osterloh is that "Google has done the design work and a lot of the engineering" for the Pixel phones. According to Osterloh, HTC is the "contract manufacturer," playing a similar role that Foxconn does for Apple. But it's hard to see many practical examples of this design shift in the final Pixel products, leading us to wonder exactly what "designed by Google" means.

Nexus phones usually shared DNA with the "partner" OEM, to the point that the Nexus line never had a design motif that was shared across devices. Nexus handsets felt like Google took someone else's phone and loaded it with Google software; indeed, the LG-made Nexus 5 had so much in common with the LG G2 that you could swap parts between the two. The Motorola-built Nexus 6 looked like every other Motorola phone and was actually a rebranded Moto X Pro. The Huawei-build Nexus 6P looked like every other Huawei phone, especially the Huawei P8.

The HTC Desire 10 Pro versus the Google Pixel.

Credit: HTC / Google

As for Pixel phones, they look... like any other HTC phone (most notably the HTC One A9 and the Desire 10). HTC's recent lineup has been criticized for looking too much like the iPhone; the Pixel phones look like iPhones, too.

When you look at their feature list, you can't shake the feeling that Pixel phones were cobbled together from an HTC parts bin. For instance, is there a design reason that the $500 Huawei Nexus 6P had stereo speakers and the $750 Pixel XL does not? Or is the reason that stereo speakers are not part of HTC's current lineup and therefore were not among the parts Google had to choose from? Is there a design reason the Pixel doesn't have waterproofing, when its direct competitors from Samsung and Apple do? Or is the reason that HTC didn't have a pre-made waterproofing solution available, so the option was not made available to Google? Is there a design reason why the bottom bezel is so large? Or is the reason that HTC phones typically have a fingerprint sensor or hardware buttons down there, so the parts made available to Google accounted for this?

Again, when you're dealing with a Nexus phone that is several hundred dollars cheaper than the competition, compromises like this are expected. Nexus phones were inexpensive because the design group didn't have the budget to develop new things. Instead, Google piggybacked on the partner OEM's existing designs. Now that we're at $650-$750, though, having a unique design that nails the details becomes an expectation.

Until the launch of the Pixel phones, the "Pixel" brand did feature some intriguing designs. The Chromebook Pixel 1 and 2 and the Pixel C Android tablet all came with minimal, squared-off designs, a silver body with black accents, and a trademark Google-colored light bar. The Pixel phones haven't carried over any of these motifs. If not for the name on the box, you wouldn't know the products were related.

Google certainly has internal design chops. For instance, look at the amazing job it did with the design of the Google Home, a product announced alongside the Pixel. The design motif there seems to have been "make it look like the Google home page," which resulted in all white hardware with green, blue, red, and yellow accents. Home is distinct and absolutely screams "Google."

Pixel phones aren't necessarily ugly, but I'd like to see Google do better than this derivative "me too" design. Even something like a Pixel light bar on the existing design would have gone a long way.

Why become an OEM?

Google now refers to itself as an "OEM"—an original equipment manufacturer—because it fully designs and sells the Pixel handsets. But what's the point of Google becoming an OEM? When rumors of a "Google branded" smartphone popped up earlier this year, I wrote an article arguing that creating its own smartphone didn't make much sense for Google. Many of those questions still stand now that the Pixel phones have arrived.

Between the Nexus program and its control of Android OS, Google already sold phones where it had total control of the software. Pixel software features like the Google Assistant, Pixel launcher, and support for the Daydream could have all happened in the Nexus program. What's different about the Pixel phones is that Google has more control over the hardware now. Yet, at least with this first incarnation, Google colored within HTC's lines and produced a cookie-cutter piece of hardware.

Google could have pushed the envelope on price, which it was fond of doing with Android One and (formerly) the Nexus program. It could have integrated some of its experimental smartphone projects, like the 3D-sensing Project Tango. Google could have done something really crazy and resurrected Project Ara. Or Google could have done something as simple as build a device that values battery life over processing power.

Google's hardware ambitions feel like a work in progress, so maybe that explains the cookie-cutter hardware for round one. Dave Burke, Android's VP of engineering, told Bloomberg that Google is already working on future Pixel devices and that eventually Google plans to ship its own chips (though whether this means building coprocessors or assuming a more Apple-like control over SoC design isn't clear). Something like that would be a real reason to become an OEM.

None of that has happened yet, which all adds to the feeling that this first round of Pixel phones amounts to a "dry run." Google is probably wrapping its head around creating a supply chain, working on building relationships with carriers, and crafting a brand name for marketing. But the first result is of those efforts is a little disappointing.

The Pixel software—just a little bit different

The switch from "Nexus" to "Pixel" hasn't meant much for the hardware, but Google is trying to do something special for the software. Google's phones are switching from a showcase for "Pure Android" to a showcase for a distinctly proprietary "Google Android." In the past, the "Google Now Launcher" was briefly an exclusive Nexus feature, but these Pixel phones bring a whole host of exclusive software. The System UI, launcher, and settings have all been Google-fied, and the Pixels get exclusive features, too. Most notably, they're the first phones to launch with Android 7.1 (still called "Nougat"), and they get a revamp of the voice command interface, now called the "Google Assistant."

Every part of Android on the Pixel is just a little different from AOSP or what came with Nexus devices. Some of these changes are going to be exclusive Pixel features, while others will show up in Android 7.1.(Other than a few major pieces Google has called out like the new navigation bar and Google Assistant—both Pixel exclusives—no one is sure which changes belong to AOSP and which belong to the proprietary "Pixel skin.") So we'll just label our pictures "Pixel" and "Nexus." For more clarity, we'll have to wait for the Nexus devices to get Android 7.1, which will happen sometime in December after a beta period that begins later this month.

The Google Assistant

The headline feature of the Pixel phones is the new Google Assistant. This revamp of Google's voice search technology "humanizes" Google's responses, making them sound more like Siri and less like the "Star Trek Computer" Google had been pursuing. The Assistant is currently caught up in some weird politics internally at Google: it's obviously meant to be a cohesive, omnipresent entry point for voice actions on Google products, but on smartphones it's "exclusive" to the Pixel phones. At least for some amount of time, don't expect to see it come to Nexus devices or other Android phones. Google (the search company) basically made the new version of Google Search exclusive to a certain phone.

(Beyond phones, the Assistant is not as arbitrarily restricted and will appear on Android Wear 2.0 and Google's upcoming voice command appliance, Google Home. There's also a text-only version of the Assistant built into Google Allo, Google's weirdly limited instant messaging app.)

When I say that this is "the new version of Google Search," I mean it; the Assistant is an evolution of the "Ok Google" voice command system, and like that feature, the Assistant lives in the Google Search app. The "Ok Google" hotword still summons the Assistant, and just like on Nexus devices, the hotword is always on and works even when the screen is off. You can also hold down the home button and the Assistant will pop up and start listening.

The Assistant's relationship to the previous "Ok Google" voice command feature really can't be overstated. When it comes to getting stuff done, the Assistant uses the same backend—Google.com—as did the previous "Ok Google" feature. While Google is a cloud service that is always evolving, the commands, factual answers, and abilities are mostly all the same. What's really new in the Assistant is the on-screen interface and the humanizing "fluff" like telling jokes and playing games.

The new interface significantly downplays the old-school Google results. As an extension of the Google App, the old voice command system was built on top of the Google search results page. You could ask it what the weather was like, and you'd get the answer in an card, but you would also get the standard "10 blue links" below the card. This made sense when Google's voice command system was in its infancy; since the system probably wouldn't have the answer you wanted, loading the 10 blue links every time was a good idea.

With the Assistant, the voice command system doesn't load search results anymore. The interface is rendered like a messaging app where your questions to the Google Assistant show up in speech bubbles, and the Assistant's answers are returned in another speech bubble next to a Google-y avatar image. If the answer needs more space, the Assistant can also attach an answer card or a horizontally scrollable list. After a result, you can ask a follow-up question, either with your voice or by choosing from a list of suggested queries below the result.

If the Google Assistant can't deal with your request, only then will it show a card with the first Google result and a link to the full search results page. This is a much more confident approach.

We're feeling lucky with the Google Assistant.

Besides the new interface, the Google Assistant also comes with a more "human" presentation. It's a chatbot now and can tell jokes, provide interesting facts, and answer silly questions like "Do you know Siri?" Google apparently called in the experts from Pixar and The Onion to "craft a personality" for the Assistant, and there is no shortage of quips and other fluff. The craziest of these is the "I'm feeling lucky" command, which starts up a You Don't Know Jack-style trivia show complete with theme music, an audience, and wacky sound effects.

There are one or two genuine improvements over the old voice command system. I'm not sure if it's the microphone setup in the Pixel, but the Assistant is much better at recognizing "Ok Google" while playing music (a nearly impossible task on a Nexus 6P). Even side-by-side, with both playing music, the Pixel will understand the command and the Nexus won't—great for music commands like "Ok Google, Next track." Overall, the Assistant feels faster and it more consistently answers the "Ok Google" command, but again, it's hard to tell if that's hardware or software.

You can still make shopping lists, launch apps, send messages to people, control music, ask about your flights, and set reminders. One new feature is the "Good Morning" command, which will read off the time, weather, traffic info, your agenda, and your reminders in rapid succession. There's also a new "remember" feature, where you can tell the Assistant to remember something like, "OK Google, Remember my luggage combination is 1234." Later, you can ask what your luggage combo is and you'll get the answer.

The Google Assistant also absorbs "Google Now on Tap," a feature introduced in Marshmallow that would scan the entire phone screen and offer search links for items. After summoning the Assistant, instead of speaking a command, just pull the card up and you'll get the Now on Tap interface. Now on Tap still feels like a completely useless feature, however, that offers only to search for every proper noun on the screen. At this point it seems like a failure, especially now that it has been demoted in favor of the Assistant.

The Google Assistant gets hyped as "artificial Intelligence," but really it's not much different from Google's old voice command system. If you liked using the "Ok Google" voice command before, you'll still like using it now. if you didn't, nothing here will entice you.

The "Google" System UI

The most eye-catching change to the software is the new navigation buttons, which switch from the old outlined Back, Home, and Recent Apps to solid white versions. The new Back and Recent buttons don't function any differently, but the Home button now activates the Google Assistant, so it gets more design embellishments. Besides the extra ring around the home button, tapping it at any time will cause four Google-colored dots (red, blue, green, and yellow) to peek out momentarily. Hold the button down and the dots will dance around a bit; the new Google Assistant will pop up and start listening for commands.

The colored dots are a fun design touch, and they partially solve the problem of discoverability that was present in Now On Tap. On Tap used the same gesture—long pressing the home button—but with nothing to remind the user of the long tap gesture. As a result, it was easy to forget about Now On Tap (or never find it to begin with). The colored dots peeking out at least tell the user that something is special about this button.

The new navigation bar buttons are part of change in the System UI from an AOSP version to a version internally called "SystemUIGoogle." The System UI, if you're not familiar, covers the navigation bar, status bar, Recent Apps screen, notification panel, lock screen, volume controls, and power menu. Like the operating system overall, we're not currently sure what features here are Pixel exclusives and which will arrive in Android 7.1.

The Android notification and Quick Settings panel has undergone a bit of a redesign. Viewed on the phone, the grey background color has noticeably shifted a bit from a cool grey to a warm grey—but take a screenshot and the color comes out pinker than the last version did. The top section of the notification panel is larger now, making room for a settings button and an extra toggle button. On the Quick Settings panel, teal accents have been swapped for a more Google-y blue color, and the "edit" button has now moved to the top of the screen.

Google also broke down and fitted the power menu (accessed by holding down the power button) with a restart button. In a perfect world you would never need this, but Android isn't perfect and sometimes a restart will fix whatever problems you encounter.

Pixel Launcher

Another exclusive Pixel feature is the Pixel Launcher, a home screen app that freshens up the Android interface and adds one or two new features.

The main new feature of the Pixel Launcher is "app shortcuts." Remember iOS's 3D Touch quick actions? App shortcuts is like that—long press on an app icon and a list of actions will shoot out of it. This lets you do things like navigate to your home right from the Google Maps icon or jump right into the "compose" screen from the Gmail icon. One new wrinkle here is that you can drag items out of the list and they will turn into permanent icons on the home screen. The included list of actions stems from a new API in Android 7.1, so if you aren't interested in the barebones Pixel launcher, this feature will probably be picked up by other launchers soon.

The downside of app shortcuts is that Google co-opted Android's existing long press gesture. Now long pressing is a bit complicated, especially from the app drawer. If the app has an app shortcut, long pressing without moving your finger will open the shortcut list—but if you long press and move your finger, you will drag the app around instead. It's complicated and tricky.

Annoyingly, you can never tell what app shortcuts exist without long pressing on every single app; a complete list somewhere would be nice. App shortcuts also don't include anything in the widget drawer, so those offer even more hidden actions an app can have. Take Google Maps, for example. You can long press on the icon and pull out a "go home" shortcut, but you can also open the widget drawer, pull out a completely different "directions" shortcut, and type in your home address. Settings work the same way—long pressing on the settings icon lets you pick from three different settings shortcuts, but hit up the widgets drawer and you can pick from 23 different settings shortcuts! Splitting functionality between the widget drawer and the app shortcut menu doesn't make much sense; all these extra shortcuts should live in a single place somewhere.

You'll also notice lots of design tweaks in the Pixel launcher. The most eye-catching are the round icons. Google added a new API in Android 7.1 that allows apps to declare a round icon specifically for the Pixel launcher. Presumably this is Google giving up on uniquely shaped Android icons and moving to an iOS style icon template where everything has the same shape. Right now, the icons are a mix of round Google icons and uniquely shaped third-party icons, but the app drawer has always been a mix of different shapes, so it's not a huge change. Some of Google's circular icons are custom pieces and look great, like Google Maps. Others are... less great, like Gmail, which just sticks the old icon on top of a white circle. Hopefully, every Google app will get a custom circle icon soon, because these white circle backgrounds look ridiculous.

The Google Bar widget is now just a "G" logo that lives on the left side of the page. It looks a bit like a pull tab, and sure enough swiping to the left opens up the standard Google Now interface. And even though the search bar is gone, you can still get old-school search functionality by tapping on the "G" logo, which will expand out to a search bar.

The app drawer looks a bit different, too. It's now a full-screen interface launched by swiping up on the dock at the bottom of the screen. (There's no more "App drawer" button, either.) Folder icons were redesigned, too, and a new wallpaper picker pulls down beautiful wallpapers from 500px and Google+. You even get the option to rotate wallpaper designs every day.

Other extras

Google added a few new gestures to the Pixel phones. The coolest is a swipe-down motion on the rear fingerprint sensor, which will open the notification panel. This is especially nice for the larger Pixel XL, where certain grips can have trouble reaching the top of the screen. A double click on the power button launches the camera app—a returning feature from last year's Nexus phones and extremely handy when time is of the essence. When you've got the camera open, you can also twist the phone to launch "selfie mode."

"Night Light" provides the ever-popular "brown mode" that seems to be creeping into every smartphone. The idea is that less blue light coming from the display makes it easier to sleep after a late night smartphone session. If you've ever tried F.lux, this is the same thing. You can have the feature kick in automatically during sunset and sundown or at predefined times. Night Light is a built-in Andorid 7.1 feature, so expect to see it on other devices.

As the first devices built for Nougat, the Pixels also have Google's Chrome OS-inspired "seamless update" feature. Basically, there are two system partitions now, one online and one offline. When a new system update comes in, the offline partition is updated in the background, and you can continue to use your phone. During the next reboot, the partitions swap, instantly giving you an updated version of Android without any downtime. We'll have to wait for the Pixels to receive an update before we know what this looks like in practice.

For novices, Google is really pushing the support angle. There's a big "support" tab in the settings now, which offers easy access to 24/7 support directly from Google. Finally, for expert users, it's still super easy to unlock the bootloader—just like on Nexus devices—and flash whatever you want to the device.

Camera

This year Google outfitted both Pixel phones with identical 12.3MP cameras. Google's "HDR+" camera algorithms are back, and thanks to hardware and software improvements, they don't add any shutter lag. The camera app starts up super fast, and it's easy to get to via the "double tap power button" gesture.

Google has been hyping the Pixel camera in the strongest possible terms. During its launch presentation, Google Product VP Brian Rakowski claimed it was the "the best smartphone camera anyone has ever made." Last year, Google did a great job with the Nexus 5x and 6P cameras, so expectations are high here.

The "best ever" label may be up for debate, but the Pixel camera consistently produces great shots for a smartphone camera. Smartphone cameras are all so good now that there isn't much separation to see in well-lit shots, but in low light the Pixel captures stands out when producing bright colors and preserving detail. It's easily on par with the iPhone 7 Plus camera—despite that one having two lenses. (Once you take pictures, you'll need somewhere to store them, and for that Google offers Pixel customers "unlimited, full resolution" storage on Google Photos.)

You can judge the results for yourself below. We've got comparison shots against Apple's best camera, the iPhone 7 Plus; Samsung's best camera, the Galaxy S7; Google's old camera, the Nexus 6P; and a cheap option, the OnePlus 3.

Performance

The Pixel phones are the first devices we've seen that feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821. The original sales pitch for the Snapdragon 821 was that it was identical to the 820 but clocked a bit higher—2.4GHz instead of 2.15GHz. Now the Snapdragon 821 has arrived, but Google isn't running it at the maximum clock rate. Instead it's back to 2.15GHz, just like the Snapdragon 820. What gives?

The Pixel's 2.15GHz "Snapdragon 821" performs as well as the typical Snapdragon 820. We saw no benefit from the extra "+1" on the end of the model number, though perhaps that should be expected. The Snapdragon 821 has the same internal designation as the Snapdragon 820: "msm8996." Maybe Google got a higher-binned SoC from Qualcomm, but there's not much more to it than that.

Below, we have the usual Snapdragon 820 benchmark scores. For the most part, the two Pixels perform identically, and in those cases, we show only one entry called "Google Pixel."

The Nexus phones have typically lagged behind high-end flagships when it comes to storage speed. On the Nexus 5X and 6P, things were "ok-but-not-great" and on the Nexus 6 pokey storage was one of the device's major downsides. We're happy to say that with the move to Pixel, it looks like Google has finally outfitted its phones with flagship-worthy storage using UFS 2.0.

We can't actually test the storage, though, because our storage benchmarks don't work on the Pixel phones right now. We reached out to the developers of Androbench about this and were told that some shenanigans seem to be happening where the "Direct I/O" calls on the Pixel are actually not that direct. Calls to storage end up going to a RAM cache instead, so you end up with ridiculously high scores of 1GB/s in some cases. Hopefully the storage benchmark developers will be able to get to the bottom of this situation, and we'll update our results when they do.

The battery life is fine. Our tests are for screen on time, at a standardized brightness with auto brightness disabled. Under these conditions, the Pixels don't separate themselves much from the pack.

Update:A new version of Androbench is out, so we've got benchmarks now.

Rookie hardware with expertly-crafted software

As a rookie OEM, Google has produced a middling piece of hardware with the Pixel phones. The design is a bland iPhone rip-off with a clunky back panel bolted on. The large and empty bezels feel like a downgrade from past devices, and the phones also have a few objective downgrades, like price and speaker quality. In terms of price vs. performance, the Huawei Nexus 6P feels like something that was designed and built by an experienced, well-oiled machine, while the Pixel really does feel like a new company's first attempt at hardware.

The hardware is also unambitious. For Google, becoming an OEM meant shaking up relationships with its Android hardware partners. Despite the company's assurances that Samsung and friends are fine with Pixel, this was a move that Google was unwilling to make just two years ago. In the end, we don't see anything in Pixel (yet) that justifies stepping on the toes of OEMs. Fortunately, the Pixel features an excellent camera thanks to Google's killer software algorithms. The camera is fast, has killer low-light performance, and features video stabilization and 240 fps video.

It's what's on the screen that counts.

Credit: Ron Amadeo

The software on a smartphone is almost always more important than the hardware, though, and here, the software is excellent. This isn't really new territory for Google; as with Nexus devices, you get Android from the creator of Android. That means this is the only version of Android that feels like a cohesive whole, with a consistent design and layout. The OS not only matches the unskinnable Google apps but also most of the third-party app ecosystem, much of which has adopted Google's design guidelines. The software here feels like it is all cooperating to deliver a single vision instead of serving as a battlefield between Google and your hardware OEM's software ambitions.

The Pixel-exclusive additions don't move the needle much. The Google Assistant is fun, but as basically the new version of Google Search, we can't imagine it being exclusive to the Pixel phones for long. (If you're really desperate, there are already a million-and-one hacks on XDA that bring the Assistant to other devices.) The rest of the changes, like the Pixel launcher, feel more like change for change's sake.

You also get Android supported by Google, with the fastest updates in the Android ecosystem. (This is already the first device with Android 7.1.) Buy a Pixel phone (or Nexus device) and the biggest problem in the Android ecosystem just isn't your problem any more. We'd still like to see Google do better on support, as this is another case where the best Android can do still isn't as good as Apple. Google promises only two years of major OS updates; Apple typically does four or more.

As with the Nexus devices, getting Android from Google is a "killer app" in the Android universe, and that alone makes the phone worth considering regardless of how derivative the hardware is. The price is the Pixel's biggest downside, which gives some real breathing room to budget devices like the OnePlus 3. OnePlus offers a similar phone—an all-metal Snapdragon 820 device with nearly stock Android—for $250 less. With the Pixel phone, you're paying more for a better screen, better camera, and better software updates. Both phones have competent out-of-the-box software, and either one is worth a purchase.

Still, Google is just getting started. The company successfully established enough design, engineering, supply chain, and marketing expertise to get Google Phone 1.0 out the door. Maybe in the future, Google will make even greater changes to its hardware. Maybe we'll see some of that fabled "hardware and software integration" that doesn't seem to have happened much this time around. Maybe we'll even see some of Google's crazy experiments integrated into Google hardware—like a Project Tango phone. For now, though, we have a first attempt.

Android 1.0 was not an incredible piece of software, and Google Phone 1.0 is not an incredible piece of hardware. What made Android great was continual iteration and improvement over many years. Hopefully, Google's hardware team keeps at it and one day justifies the decision to become a hardware OEM. For now, we say: welcome to the cutthroat Android hardware business, Google.

The Good

• Android from Google. This is a cohesive, consistent software package instead of being a branding battleground between Google and a third party.
• The Assistant is fun, fast, and useful. A great evolution of Google's already great voice command system.
• The only 2016 Android phone with fast OS updates.
• One of the best cameras on a smartphone. Great low light shots and speedy performance.
• Has a headphone jack. Won't explode.

The Bad

• The sky-high price feels more like a marketing ploy ("We're just as good as the iPhone!") than a justifiable price point.
• The single speaker is a big downgrade from the Nexus 6P. Google is charging more and delivering less.
• A rear glass panel adds fragility and ugliness in exchange for... nothing? Just use metal.
• Other devices at this price point from Samsung and Apple are "dunkable" in water with IP68 rating. The Pixels are not.
• Still no SD card slot even though Google made SD cards much more usable in Android 6.0.
• Google's two years of major OS updates can't compare to Apple's iPhone support, which is often 4+ years of OS updates.