Okay, let’s rewind a little bit, but the Indian pricing is way off in this case. The Pixel 8 has to be the worst smartphone of 2083. Not a good year for an Android fanboy, but currently the Pixel 8 is selling at almost 25,000 with card offers and everything; it can go even further low at 50,000. What? Like now, I picked up the Pixel 8 again from the box and gave it a second chance. It has all the latest feature drops running on the latest Android 15 Vita, so the question has to be asked: in the sale, should you get the Pixel 8?
Let’s just go. Now there are some solid pros about the Pixel 8 and some cons that you must know, and before we get to them, the first thing that I really found impressive about the Pixel 8 is the design. The Pixel 8 looks quite similar to the Pixel 7; the only difference is that on the back, it has curved edges, like if you see a pixel phone in public, it has a different pixel identity. Now one thing I noticed is that although the back is glass, it’s kind of difficult to show on camera, but it has picked up minor scratches, and mind you, we were using it on and off with the case. Plus, it’s quite a fingerprint magnet here due to this color, but the fingerprints aren’t very noticeable. Also, compared with the competition after the S23, I think the Pixel 8 is a compact phone out there, like companies have just stopped making it. Now, in terms of display, you get these specs comparatively if you put them side by side with the S23, which costs about the same as the Pixel 8. See here I’ll play this movie. Mosul on Netflix, both on the S23 and Pixel 8, both of which look more or less similar in color. The Pixel 8 is slightly brighter, but not that much of a difference. So whatever you get in a flagship phone in this segment, the Pixel 8 has it. Now let’s come to the most-awaited part: cameras. Just for a refresh, these are the camera specs, and we took some photos. They look good. The Pixel has that contrasty, natural-looking color tone, but let’s compare it with a worthy competitor, the Samsung S23. If you see side by side, Pixel has those cool, close to natural colors, S23 has that warm tone and slightly boosted colors, looks good to the eyes, and again, it’s that 1920 difference, like if you zoom into this photo, S23 is noisy, Pixel 8 is much better, and sometimes Pixel 8 misses the focus, S23 is better. A few times the S23 has a brighter color, the Pixel 8 looks better; a few times the Pixel 8 is darker, the S23 looks better.
The difference is minor. In selfies, I found the S23 to be slightly better and sharper, and there’s a weird thing that I noticed when I’m clicking a selfie in low light or just indoor conditions. If you see the noise, it is visible on the viewfinder, but when you click the picture, there is no noise. In videos, you can shoot max at 4K 60FPS, and the good thing here is that you get video stabilization at 4K 60FPS. It uses EIS plus OIS to deliver stable videos. It is good to see someone stating actual facts rather than quoting them as AI. Wait, you didn’t understand this? Well, you can watch this video over here. Doubt solved. And you also get the option to shoot portrait videos. However, it is only limited to 1080p, but the background cutout, the blur, and everything else are pretty good. So, overall, from the camera point of view, it is not the best but quite a good camera experience. Coming to another pro part of Pixel is software. I believe this is the major reason for buying a Google Pixel phone. As of now, no phone can get you Android 15, but the Pixel 8 is currently running on Android 15 beta 1. Now, there were occasional glitches with this beta build while playing games or scrolling through social media apps, but no complaints in this area because it’s a beta build. And talking about Android 15, this feature is quite good. So suppose your father asked you how to share location from WhatsApp. You just go to the screen recording option, select one single app, and then select WhatsApp here. And then, when you’re recording the steps to share location, in the middle of the screen recording, you get a text notification from your special one. Now the recording is done, and see, I’ll play it back here. See, the text notification didn’t show up here; the entire screen recording is of WhatsApp only, and now you can send it easily to your father, a pretty handy feature. Another new feature is app archiving, so suppose I installed this Licious app for a discount; everyone does it. And then I don’t need this app anymore; I just archive it to save storage space.
And now you’ll be like, How is it different from uninstalling an app? See, well, when I restore the app, I don’t have to log in. The app has all the login credentials saved. That’s how archiving is different from uninstalling an app. But apart from these couple of features, there’s not much new to Android 15. There are pixel-specific features here, like now you get the option of location sharing from the contact page. So now I tap on this option and set it to 2 hours. And now my location is being shared with the contact via Google Maps, which is a pretty nifty feature. Another Pixel exclusive feature is that you can turn on quick phrase, and now when I go here and in a phone call, if I say answer, it will answer the phone, or in alarms, if I say stop, the alarm stops. It’s a very practical feature that I use every day. This feature works on Pixel 6 and above. Also, a circle to search is here on Pixel. I saw this amazing gadget here, so if I do this, voila, I can open the Amazon page of the product. This option will later come to other Android phones by the end of this year. You also get a magic editor on Pixel 8, and you can remove objects from the photos, but I guess pretty much every Android, from MIUI to One UI to Oxygen OS, has this feature, and that’s the point. These Pixel exclusive features, or Android first features that you get on Pixel eventually, after 6 months, come to every Android phone. It’s just that with the Pixel, you can enjoy it a little bit early, and that’s how I see the software experience on the Pixel now: everything you get a bit early. But what wasn’t a good experience was performance. That’s the very first con, like this has tensor G3 and tensor G1 and G2 has a past profiting so quickly. If you look through the benchmarks, the end-to-do score or the CPU throttling graph isn’t a good score, but this is very interesting in real life. Does isn’t a good score, but this is very interesting in real life. Does it perform the same as how the benchmarks say? So I was on a video call with Sian and Shobik scrolling through Flipkart looking for some good smartphone deals for hashtag theme tag visor, and the Pixel 8 performed this heavy task well, but whenever I do this task on mobile data, the device gets warmer than any other phone.
And while gaming, I was able to play COD at 120FPS; the gameplay here was also very smooth. But within two small multiplayer matches, the device gets hot. And other phones also get warm, but this one gets hot. But then again, being a compact phone, all of this is acceptable. But the area where the Pixel 8 kind of falls short is network connectivity. In my usage, in areas where the 5G network is strong, the Pixel 8 was constantly switching between 4G and 5G. Like here, let me show you side by side. Now we are outside. And if you can see, the S23 is on 5G, whereas the Pixel 8 just keeps switching between 5G, LTE, 4G, and 5G, and this back and forth switching between 4G and 5G causes the Pixel 8 to heat and thus battery drain. The 4500 mAh battery is okay, like on a single charge, it gets you through the daytime, but in the evening, the moment I reach my place, I have to charge the phone immediately. The Pixel 8 supports 30 watt fast charging, and it took about 1 hour and 10 minutes to charge the phone quite aptly. Rest assured, you get all the flagship features, including IP68 water resistance, wireless charging, reverse wireless charging, and all of that good stuff. So what’s the conclusion here? Does the Pixel 8 deserve a second chance? Should you buy it in the sale? It has good cameras with improved video-taking capability and a clean Android experience, and the performance is also okay. But one thing that is not good here is network connectivity. In 2024, it’s the basic job of a smartphone to keep you connected via calls and the internet, and every smartphone, from flagship to budget, gets it right. And if you leave all of that aside, at the $55,000 price point, the competition has better offerings, like the Samsung S23, everything that the Pixel 8 offers plus the AI features, or there’s the OnePlus 12, which gives better value for money compared to the Pixel 8. But yes, you should buy a Pixel 8 if you want those features or the latest Android updates. 6 months before everyone else gets it, you need a Pixel. And as an Android enthusiast, I really want the Pixel 9 to stand out and do something better.
