Smartphone track app reviews Google Pixel 4
This is arguably the only real irk of using the new camera. That control blip ignored, the results are otherwise excellent.
In daylight you'll get great detail and colours, with fantastic vibrancy. This is thanks to Google's ever-evolving computational smarts that process the image right after its taken. At night time you can switch to the dedicated night mode. In this mode it takes a few seconds to draw in more light, stabilise any hand-shaking, correct the white balance, and leave you with a photo that doesn't really look like it should be possible with a smartphone camera.
It's not a unique feature any more - even the iPhone 11 has it now - but it's still very good. Google also has a new astrophotography mode think of this as the next-level night mode. For this particular mode, however, you need a tripod. It kicks in automatically after you've chosen the night mode, providing the phone is completely still.
The only thing we noticed that could be marked down as a negative against the camera is that if you use it for a while, snapping a number of photos, the phone gets noticeably warm. It's never overheated to the point of shutting down the app - something that old Sony phones used to do - but it was a little uncomfortable to hold once the camera app had been open for minutes.
Stock Android software hasn't always been known for its built-in customisation options. In fact, that's normally something you expect other third-party manufacturers to add in their own flavours of software. But with Android 10 on the Pixel 4, that's changed.
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In a move similar to what we've seen from OnePlus over the years, Google's latest Android version lets you choose from a handful of different accent colours and icon shapes. You can choose from four pre-installed themes which change font, colour and wallpaper. Or you can create your own custom one. There's a system-wide dark mode, which can also apply to some of Google's own wallpapers and any apps that support it too. Plus, there are two new preinstalled apps: Recorder and Safety.
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The former is a voice recording app which leverages Google's machine learning expertise to automatically transcript voice recordings, and does a pretty remarkable job. The Safety app is used to add in your personal information and medical conditions; it'll also let you send a quick location update to a chosen few contacts when you're in a pickle. On the whole the software is otherwise very much as you'd expect it to be on a Pixel: clean, smooth and minimal.
You don't get lots of bloat, pre-installed apps, nor unnecessary theming or skinning. And the Now Playing feature on the lock screen is as useful as ever, automatically showing you what song is playing without you having to hunt for Shazam. The Google Pixel 4 not only looks and feels great, it has a brilliant camera for taking great photos. This, as with its predecessor, is what really sells the home-grown Google experience. That said, the exclusive Soli-based Motion Gestures are virtually useless at present, there's no wide-angle camera to be found here, while the overall experience is increasingly threatened by the more feature-packed competition.
We would warn you against the fourth-gen Pixel if you're a heavy-going smartphone user, as that battery life just doesn't cut it - sometimes it'll be done by late afternoon. Overall, we can't help but enjoy the Pixel 4 experience for its software, camera and design standpoints. The contrasting matte white and black finish is simply sublime.
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But that'll only go so far when the battery is this limited, so at the least we'd suggest looking at the larger XL model. This article was originally published on 17 October and has been updated to reflect its full review status. Price wise, the iPhone 11 is somewhere between the Pixel 4 and the Pixel 4 XL, marking it as the nearest competitor from Apple.
It offers many of the benefits you get from the 11 Pro and Pro Max, except it's considerably cheaper. Battery life is much longer than the Pixel 4, and Face ID works for a plethora of apps. The Galaxy S10 is Samsung's small-scale flagship, offering a triple camera system, powerful internals and all the bells and whistles you could wish for.
Like the Pixel 4, it suffers a little in the battery department because it's smaller, but that's a compromise you often have to make to get a more pocketable phone.
Google Pixel 4 review – a powerful super-snapper that's almost perfect
Pixel 3a is made of plastic, but the software it runs is the same as the Pixel 4, with decent performance - despite the lower-powered processor - and it has a fantastic camera. If your budget is constrained, it's a fantastic shout. Pocket-lint It's not just about contrasting visuals either: the Pixel 4 in this colour feels different to most phones out there too.
Pocket-lint Within this forehead you'll find an array of sensors and cameras designed for 3D facial recognition and Motion Gestures more on those later. IR smarts and motion gestures Soli radar chip for Motion Sense gesture control IR-based face unlock system No fingerprint scanner Rather than go the route of in-display fingerprint scanners, or any fingerprint scanner at all, Google has opted for the aforementioned 3D facial recognition hardware in the Pixel 4 family.
Pocket-lint The full scope of Motion Sense is yet to be realised - and Google says that this is a system that's just getting started - but as it stands we really can't see that it adds, well, anything. Fit will use your Android phone's sensors or Wear OS by Google smartwatch's heart rate sensors to record your speed, pace, route, and more.
Meeting your goals each day? Based on your activity and goal progress, Google Fit will help you adjust them so you can keep challenging yourself to achieve a healthy heart and mind. Enjoy a different type of workout? Select it from a list of activities like pilates, rowing, or spinning, and Google Fit will track all the Heart Points and Move Minutes you earn. Learn more about Google Fit and see a list of supported apps at: www. Reviews Review Policy. View details.
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Flag as inappropriate. Visit website. Google Classroom. Operating system: Android Battery life was really poor. The Pixel 4 only lasts just over 14 hours between charges. Remove it from the charger at 7am and it will be dead by 9pm. Turning off the bells and whistles such as the ambient display only added about 40 minutes to the battery life.
That was while using it as my primary device, with or so emails, messages and push notifications, two hours of browsing in Chrome, four hours of Spotify via Bluetooth headphones, 40 minutes of Into the Badlands from Amazon Prime Video, and three photos. For comparison, similarly sized iPhone 11 Pro lasts 32 hours and the Pixel 4 XL lasts 26 hours under similar conditions, while the majority of smartphones in can last at least 24 hours with heavy usage.
The Pixel 4 is one of the first smartphones to ship with the latest version of Android 10, complete with system-wide dark mode, full theming support for changing colours, icon shapes, typefaces and more, and vastly improved gesture navigation.
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The Pixel 4 also has the same new on-device natural language processing that was so impressive on the larger Pixel 4 XL. Google Assistant is much faster and works without an internet connection for many tasks. Motion Sense uses radar to track motions around the phone. The technology is more impressive than the functionality currently. To use Face Unlock developers need to update their apps to support the new unified biometric system built into Android, with only a small handful having done so currently.
Given Monzo is saying it will take a while to implement, you can probably forget your traditional banking apps working soon. Google has made a name for itself with some of the best smartphone cameras on the market, and the new dual-camera system on the back of the Pixel 4 is no different.