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The Google pixel 3 XL is a great big-screen camera phone for a great price

ByMark Spoonauerpublished 14 August 20

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The pixel 3 XL delivers the best camera on a phone, an immersive 6.3-inch OLED screen và the handiest AI features yet.

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Pros+

Best-in-class camera

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Amazing Screen điện thoại tư vấn feature

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Swift everyday performance

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Android Pie makes life easier

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Improved OLED screen

Update: Google has discontinued sales of the the px 3 XL, though you can still find it on sale from some retailers. The mid-range Google px 5a và the more premium Google px 6 và Google px 6 Pro are currently the phones to get instead.

If you really care about photo quality, the pixel 3 XL is the điện thoại you want to lớn own. It"s one of the best camera phones you can buy, and it"s also the best pure apk phone I"ve ever reviewed.

I tested the 6.3-inch px 3 XL, and this flagship ranks right alongside the iPhone XS & other flagships on our các mục of the best smartphones, thanks to lớn its superb camera quality, amazing AI smarts and smooth performance. Still, the kiến thiết doesn"t wow và the display — while improved — could be brighter. If you"re looking for a smaller screen, check out our px 3 review.

Although the new px 4 looks lượt thích a great phone with its Motion Sense gestures, improved dual cameras, Face Unlock và faster Google Assistant, the px 3 XL is still a very good value, especially since it"s going for less these days.

Pixel 3 XL Cheat Sheet

The 6.3-inch OLED display looks gorgeous, but the display could be brighter và the notch is pretty deep.The dual front cameras feature a wide-angle lens so you can fit a lot more scene into your selfies.The pixel 3 is smart enough khổng lồ screen your calls for you. It works amazingly well.You don"t get facial recognition or an in-screen fingerprint sensor.The pixel Stand accessory delivers wireless charging while turning your phone into a mini Google Home.

Pricing and Availability

At launch, the pixel 3 XL cost $899, though that has now dropped to lớn as low as $399 on retailers lượt thích Amazon for an unlocked version.

In the U.S. The pixel 3 XL started out as a Verizon exclusive among major carriers, but you can buy it unlocked through Google và other retail channels & bring it lớn your carrier of choice.

Design

The pixel 3 XL doesn"t look radically different than before, but you bởi vì get a bigger 6.3-inch display with QHD+ resolution (up from 6 inches on the px 2 XL). The screen looks colorful and immersive, though I"m not a big fan of the swooping notch. It"s narrower but deeper than the one on the iPhone XS Max.

Around back, Google has delivered a glass back with a matte finish, which is a pretty great feat. Not only does it provide a good grip, but it resists fingerprints. I tested the Just black Model, but you can also order the pixel 3 in Clearly White và Not Pink (which is more lượt thích a blush hue). Some have complained about the back easily scratching, but I have not found that to be the case so far.

The px 3 XL has a fingerprint reader on the back, too, so you can forget about facial recognition or an in-screen fingerprint sensor, which is a bit of a bummer.

Google px 3 vs px 3XL Sepcs Compared

	Google px 3	Google px 3 XL
Price	$799/£739/AU$1,199	$899/£869/AU$1,349
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 845	Qualcomm Snapdragon 845
Screen	5.5-inch	6.3-inch
Cameras	Rear: 12.2MP f/1.8 aperture with OIS & EISFront: Wide-angle lens with f/2.2 aperture, second lens with f/1.8 aperture	Rear: 12.2MP f/1.8 aperture with OIS & EISFront: Wide-angle lens with f/2.2 aperture, second lens with f/1.8 aperture
Battery	2915 mAh battery, with 18-watt fast charging and Qi wireless charging	3430 mAh battery, with 18-watt fast charging & Qi wireless charging
Memory	4GB	4GB
Storage	64GB or 128GB	64GB or 128GB
Damage Protection	IPX8	IPX8
Audio	2 front-firing stereo speakers	2 front-firing stereo speakers
Software	Android 9 Pie	Android 9 Pie
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 5.0	Bluetooth 5.0
Special Features	Wireless charging, up khổng lồ 10 watts	Wireless charging, up to lớn 10 watts
Materials	Aluminum frame, hybrid coating	Aluminum frame, hybrid coating
Colors	Clearly White, Just Black, Not Pink	Clearly White, Just Black, Not Pink
Weight	5.2 ounces	6.5 ounces
Size	5.7 x 2.7 x 0.3 inches	6.2 x 3.0 x 0.3 inches

Display: Colorful but could be brighter

The pixel 3 XL is one of the better looking OLED displays on a phone this year, & it looks like Google has taken the criticism khổng lồ heart on the px 2 XL. This panel is colorful and accurate.

When watching an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, the 1971 Ferrari in Fly Yellow looked downright luscious, và the picture was so sharp--right down khổng lồ the fly on the hood--I felt like I was driving around with Jerry Seinfeld.

On our lab tests, the pixel 3 XL"s screen turned registered a very good 170.2 percent of the sRGB color gamut. That"s in between the iPhone XS Max (123 percent) and Galaxy note 9 (224 percent). The pixel 3 XL"s panel also turned in a Delta-E score of 0.35 (0 is perfect), which means you should expect accurate hues.

However, the brightness could be better, as this panel emits only 362 nits. The iPhone XS hit a whopping 606 nits và the Galaxy lưu ý 9 604 nits in our testing.

MORE: OnePlus 7 Pro vs. Pixel 3: Which Phone Wins?

AI Cameras Steal the Show

Based on our testing, the pixel 3 XL is now the best camera phone you can buy. Và it"s also the smartest.

Google is leveraging AI in ways that Apple and Samsung are not. A new vị trí cao nhất Shot feature on the 12-MP rear camera automatically snaps a bunch of photos in succession and attempts to choose the right one. This worked well when I snapped a photo of my colleague, Adam. I just swiped up and could easily see which pics Google had picked out.

Super Res Zoom is also very impressive. I shot a photo of text on a wall from across the room, and I could easily make out the words, even though the px 3 XL doesn"t technically have an optical zoom. The camera is smart enough khổng lồ reframe the photo and fill in the details.

To test low-light performance, we tried the px 3 XL"s Night Sight Mode. The phone captures a succession of frames to lớn simulate a long exposure time, and then stitches those frames together to return màu sắc to spaces where it"s been lost with the help of AI. The results are simply amazing, as you can see in the above photos we took with Night Sight mode on và off in our dark video lab.

Night Sight also works wonders with the front cameras. Normal camera mode picked out some detail in the below selfie but the overall unique is dark. Turn on Night Sight, và the result is a bold & bright pic.

So how does the pixel 3 XL camera perform otherwise? Very, very well.

Take the above challenging scene, which was taken around 6 p.m. In Herald Square in thủ đô new york City. The pixel 3 XL"s HDR+ camera does a superb job of exposing the people in the foreground while still delivering detail in the sky. You can also make out the reflections in the glass building on the left.

When we compared the pixel 3 XL against the iPhone XS Max và Galaxy lưu ý 9, Google’s camera performed best overall, but it didn’t win in all cases.

In this shot at Bryant Park, the px 3 XL’s image delivered more detail in the tree trunks và there’s better contrast overall. The photo from the iPhone XS Max looks great, but everything just pops a bit more on the pixel 3 XL, including the leaves.

When we pointed both phones toward a building, the pixel 3 XL’s shot came out overly warm, and the iPhone XS Max did a better job with the light in the foreground. So perhaps the HDR was working better in this case. It’s a more balanced image from the iPhone.

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Click above to lớn expand

The pixel 3 XL jumped back into the lead with this shot of Monica và Phillip. Everything is sharper, & the shadows come across the best here. With the iPhone XS Max, Philip’s face takes on a yellow cast. The Galaxy cảnh báo 9 delivered a crisp shot, but there’s a bit of a green-blue tint that’s off-putting.

Last but not least, we used the pixel 3 XL’s portrait mode to lớn snap a shot of flowers. The px 3 XL’s shot nails a more accurate purplish-pink, while the iPhone XS Max’s pic had a much warmer cast. I actually prefer the look of Apple’s photo in this case, but the Pixel’s is more realistic.

Some px 3 owners have encountered a bug that prevents photos from saving, but Google says that an upcoming update will address the issue.

Wide-Angle Selfies

Google isn"t the first to do this, but I lượt thích the dual front cameras on the pixel 3 XL. The company says the wide-angle lens captures 184 percent more of the scene than the iPhone XS, & the results are impressive.

The standard lens captured pretty much just me và my colleague Adam, but switching khổng lồ the wide-angle lens fit in much more of the background. We could have easily squeezed a few more people in.

If there"s one are where the pixel 3"s camera falls behind the iPhone XS, it"s video. In our in-depth video clip shootout, Apple"s phone captured clearer và crisper footage in most situations along with better nighttime footage & audio quality.

Call Screen

As spammers get better and more sophisticated, it can be all too easy khổng lồ fall for a telemarketer when answering your phone. Google is fighting back with a new call screening feature.

Google Assistant will step in và transcribe the gọi in real time, so you can decide whether it"s worth answering. I tested this feature by calling the px 3 from my iPhone XS. With a tap of the button at the top of the display, I selected Screen Call and Google Assistant got to lớn work, introducing herself và then taking down every word as I spoke.

This is one of the best implementations of AI that we"ve seen, and I could see other companies trying to copy this feature. Google says that Google Pixels will get transcription support for hotline screenings before the over of the year.

MORE: Pixel 3 Deals

Performance and Benchmarks

Featuring a Snapdragon 845 processor and 4GB of RAM, the pixel 3 XL delivers silky smooth performance in everyday use & specific tasks, but its benchmark scores trail some other app android phones.

When transcoding a 4K video video to 1080p in the Adobe Premiere video app, the px 3 XL took 2 minutes & 42 seconds. The Galaxy S9+ was a bit faster at 2:32, while the A12 Bionic-powered iPhone XS took only 39 seconds.

On Geekbench 4, which measures overall performance, the pixel 3 XL scored a surprisingly low 7,684. The Galaxy cảnh báo 9 hit 8,876 & the OnePlus 6 9,088. The iPhone XS Max reached 11,515.

We also ran 3DMark Slingshot Extreme to lớn measure graphics performance. The px 3 XL reached 4,396, which is comparable to lớn the iPhone XS Max (4,339) but not as high as the cảnh báo 9 (4,639).

However, there have been reports of the px 3 XL (as well as the smaller model) occasionally halting background processes abruptly. Initially, many theorized this was an indictment of the phones" 4GB of RAM compared to the 6GB & even 8GB in other flagships, but it turns out the problem may actually have more to vày with a glitch in the Pixels" memory management code.

To get around that, Google confirmed lớn 9to5Google that it will distribute a software update "in the coming weeks" which will hopefully address the issue. For what its worth, our in-house units have sporadically closed background apps, lượt thích Spotify while streaming music — though that"s only happened two or three times after nearly a month with the devices.

Battery Life

The px 3 XL packs a 3,430 mAh battery, which is slightly smaller than the 3,520 mAh battery in last year’s pixel 2 XL. On the Tom’s Guide Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over T-Mobile’s LTE network at 150 nits of screen brightness, the pixel 3 XL lasted a lackluster 9 hours & 30 minutes. That’s not terrible, but it’s below the 9:48 điện thoại cảm ứng average.

Strangely, this time is a lot less than the 12:09 the px 2 XL turned in last year on the same LTE network, & the somewhat small difference in battery form size doesn’t seem to tài khoản for the delta in endurance. We will be running additional tests to lớn confirm our results & will be adding anecdotal battery life data after a few more days of use.MORE: Smartphones with the Longest Battery Life

It’s worth noting that the px 3 lasted a similarly short 8 hours and 27 minutes, which was well below the pixel 2’s runtime of 11 hours & 7 minutes.The iPhone XS Max (3,174 mAh) lasted 10:38 on our battery test, and the Galaxy cảnh báo 9 and its 4,000 mAh battery endured for a considerably longer 11:16.

Software và Interface

If you haven"t used android 9 Pie yet — & most of us haven"t — get ready for a new way to lớn interact with your phone. The pixel 3 runs the new Google OS, và you use the trang chủ button khổng lồ go back trang chủ and swipe up to show recent apps. It"s fairly intuitive, & there"s haptic feedback when you press the software-based home button.

You still swipe down from the đứng đầu of the screen lớn access settings. I lượt thích that the Recent Apps thực đơn puts a Google tìm kiếm box from & center. Other welcome app android Pie features include app Slices, which allows you khổng lồ get things done without opening the ứng dụng itself. For instance, you can start booking a Lyft right from the tìm kiếm results thực đơn on the phone.

If you"re concerned about your phone addiction, there are Digital Wellbeing features offered, including the ability to lớn set timers for phầm mềm usage. Kiểm tra out all of the vị trí cao nhất features of app android Pie.

Pixel Stand

Out of the box, the pixel 3 supports fast charging via an 18-watt charger, but you can also go the wireless route with the optional pixel Stand ($79/69).

With this accessory, you can enjoy looking at your photos, control smart home gadgets & listen khổng lồ music via the px 3 XL"s dual front-firing speakers. It"s kind of lượt thích a mini Google home dock.

Bottom Line

Among big-screen phones, the px 3 XL is the one khổng lồ beat when it comes to camera performance và AI. The iPhone XS has a nicer design and more pure performance through its A12 Bionic chip. And the cảnh báo 9 has the px 3 XL beat for productivity with its S Pen. The new Huawei Mate 20 Pro và its three rear cameras also show a lot of promise.