Google launched the Pixel 8, the company’s latest flagship Pixel phone, earlier this month as the successor to the Pixel 7. This has a familiar, but a more rounded design with a large camera bar, gets a 120Hz screen finally, comes with the Tensor G3 SoC, new cameras, and also promises 7 years of updates. Is this a good upgrade to the Pixel 7? Let us dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Display, Hardware and Design |
| Camera |
| Software, UI and Apps |
| Fingerprint sensor |
| Music player and Multimedia |
| SIM and Connectivity |
| Performance and Benchmarks |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- Pixel 8 in Rose colour
- USB-C to USB-C Cable (USB 2.0)
- Quick Start Guide
- Quick Switch Adaptor
- SIM Ejector Tool
Display, Hardware and Design
Starting with the display, the Pixel 8 has a 6.2-inch Full HD+ OLED display with a pixel resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels, 20:9 aspect ratio and a pixel density of about 428 PPI. The display is bright, since it has up to 1400 nits brightness for HDR and up to 2000 nits peak brightness, making it 40% brighter than the predecessor. Outdoor visibility is just brilliant. Google is calling it Actua display.
The phone has a 120Hz refresh rate display for the first time for a non-Pro phone, compared to 90Hz in the Pixel 7. You can notice the high refresh rate, especially when you are scrolling through the UI and when gaming. It also has HDR 10+ support, which works for YouTube and Netflix.
Under the display options, there are different options to adjust colours based on your preference. There is also a night light option that lets you reduce the display’s blue light emission, so it doesn’t cause eye strain when you are reading at night. There is Dark mode and an always-on display option for the lock screen, but it doesn’t offer a lot of customization. It doesn’t have MEMC or DC Dimming option. The phone comes with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus protection, same as the Pixel 7.
There is a centre punch-hole display that houses a new 10.5MP camera which supports 4K 60 fps video recording and HDR at 4K 30 fps. Since this is small, it doesn’t disturb when watching videos. The earpiece on the top doubles up as the secondary speaker. The front camera also works for face unlock, which now meets the highest Android biometric class, so you can verify app sign-in and payments, like in banking apps, with just your face, thanks to the new Tensor G3 chip.
The phone has an optical in-display fingerprint scanner which is present almost near the centre area, similar to Samsung. You can also notice a small bezel below the display, which is slight bigger than the bezels on the sides and the top.
Coming to the button placements, the power button and volume rockers are present on the right side. The single SIM slot is present on the left side, and the phone has eSIM support for the secondary SIM. The USB Type-C port, microphone and speaker grill are present on the bottom. The secondary microphone is present on the top. Since the sides have an aluminum frame with satin metal finishes, you can see the antenna bands, and it doesn’t attract fingerprints.
It has a glass back with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus protection, so it doesn’t gets scratched, but the polished glass back attracts fingerprints and might be slippery for some. The camera bump is prominent and has a matte finish.
The phone is 8.9mm thick and weighs 187 grams, making it slightly thicker than the Pixel 7 and is about 8 grams lighter, even though it has a bigger 4,575mAh battery compared to, 4355mAh in the Pixel 7.
In addition to the Rose, the phone also comes in Obsidian and Hazel colours. The phone has IP68 ratings for dust and water resistance.
Camera
- 50MP rear camera with 1/1.3″ sensor, LDAF, f/1.68 aperture
- 12MP 125° Ultra-wide camera, f/2.2 aperture, macro option
- 10.5MP 92.8° front camera
The camera UI is simple with options for night sight, portrait, camera, video, panorama, photo sphere and Google Lens. There is no expert or pro mode for Pixel 8 since the Pro model is only getting it, but there is a RAW option, which you can enable from the advanced settings. Other features include, Astrophotography, Night Sight, Top Shot, Magic Eraser, Real Tone, Face Unblur, Long Exposure mode, new Best Take, Magic Editor and Audio Magic Eraser features are cool. However, Zoom Enhance feature is exclusive to Pixel 8 Pro.
Coming to the image quality, daylight shots are brilliant dynamic range from both the cameras. After pixel binning, you get 12.5MP output from the main camera. For ultra-wide, you get 12MP output. It also has macro option for the ultra-wide camera, for the first time in a non-pro model, but the colors are dull, so it is better to stick to 2x mode for macro shots. The 10.5MP front camera is good.
Even though the phone only has digital zoom up to 8X, the computation photography makes the image look clear. As usual, edge detection in portrait shots are good. Lowlight camera performance is also good, and the night sight helps in places where there is minimal light.
Check out the camera samples.
It can record videos at 4k resolution at 60 fps standard and 4K 30 fps HDR from main, ultra-wide and the front camera. You can also switch between the main and ultra-wide cameras.
The main camera has standard, locked, active and cinematic pan stabilization options. Standard is enough for most cases, and the active mode uses the ultra-wide camera, and zoom in for better stabilization. The phone also Slo-mo video support up to 240 FPS. Video quality is good from both the front and rear cameras. Pixel 8 Pro will get Night Sight video later this year, but Pixel 8 is not getting it, even though it has the same Tensor G3 chip. Pro camera mode is also Pixel 8 Pro exclusive, and it is disappointing.
Software, UI and Apps
It runs Android 14 out of the box with Android security patch for October 2023. The company has promised 7 Android OS updates, feature drops and security patches, for the first time in Pixel phones. You don’t get any bloatware.
Android 14 brings several features such as updated customization picker, making it easier to switch between wallpapers and update what you want to see at a glance. You can now set custom lock screen shortcuts, like QR reader or the Google Home app, so you have quick, one-tap access to your most used controls directly from your Android lock screen.
You can choose from a set of new, curated lock screen templates for fonts, widgets, colors and formats that best match your style. These options also use AI to adjust your screen based on your situation.
Coming first to Pixel 8 series, generative AI wallpapers use AI-generated text-to-image diffusion models will help you create wallpapers that match your vision. Android 14 also includes a monochromatic theme, but the all the icons doesn’t turn monochrome.
The Pixel 8 gets 8GB LPDDR5X of RAM. Out of 8GB RAM, you get 7.6GB of usable RAM, and about 3GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It doesn’t have memory extension or virtual RAM. Out of 128GB, you get about 109.6GB of free storage. It still has UFS 3.1 storage, and we got sequential read speeds of around 1000MB/s, same as the Pixel 7 and 7a. Apart from the Google apps, it doesn’t have any third-party apps.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has an in-display optical fingerprint sensor. Unlike most phones, it doesn’t immediately unlock the phone just by keeping your finger on the sensor, and takes at least a second. This was also present in the Pixel 7 and 7a. There is also face unlock option, which is now more secure for payments.
Music Player and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default music player. It doesn’t have Dolby Atmos or any other custom audio features. Audio through the stereo speakers is clear and loud, and there is no distortion even at full volume. Audio through the headphones is good as well. The phone has Widevine L1 so that you can play HD content on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and other streaming apps. You also get HDR playback on Netflix, in addition to YouTube.
SIM and Connectivity
The Pixel 8 has single physical SIM and an eSIM support, so you can use it as a dual SIM phone. The phone has the usual set of connectivity features such as 5G with support for n1/n2/n3/n5/n7/n8/n12/n20/n25/n26/n28/n30/n38/n40/n41/n66/n71/n75/n76/n77/n78 bands, dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 7 802.11be with 2.4GHz+5GHz+6GHz, 2×2+2×2 MIMO, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS + GLONASS and NFC support.
It also has USB OTG support. We did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume is good, even though it is present on the top edge. Similar to the Pixel 7 and 7a, I faced occasional 4G connectivity drops in some places. I also couldn’t get 5G to work all the time, since the phone was in 4G mode most of the time on Airtel. This might be due to the use of the same G5300i modem from the Pixel 7 and 7a, a version of the Samsung Exynos 5300.
The Pixel 8’s body SAR is 1.00W/Kg and head SAR is at 0.98/Kg which is slightly less than Pixel 7, and is well under the limit in India, which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).
Performance and Benchmarks
The Pixel 8 is powered by the new Google Tensor G3 SoC, an upgrade from the Tensor G2 in the Pixel 7 series. It has 1x Cortex-X3 @ 2.91GHz; 4x Cortex-A715 @ 2.37GHz; and 4x Cortex-A510 @ 1.70GHz with Mali-G715 MP15 GPU and also has Titan M2 security chip. This should use Samsung’s 4nm process tech.
The performance is smooth without any lags. When you play graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact, or use the camera for a long time for recording videos, it gets hot quickly. It reached maximum 43º in our testing indoors in Wi-Fi, but this might vary outdoors in 4G or 5G. I did not receive an overheating warning on my Pixel 8, but games throttle a lot when the phone gets hot.
Even though the performance has improved, Google has not tried a way to fix the heating issue in the Tensor chips.
That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
As you can see, the Tensor G3 chip is decent, but it can’t compete with Qualcomm or MediaTek’s flagship chips. It is even less than Pixel 7 in Geekbench Single-Core test result.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 4,575mAh (typical) built-in battery, which is slightly bigger than the 4355mAh in the Pixel 7. However, it did last for a day even with mixed use on 120Hz. I got over close to 5 hours of screen on time with over a day of use on Wi-Fi. With heavy use, it will last less than a day.
The phone has 30W PD fast charging, charges at maxium 27W, according to Google. It takes around 35 minutes to charge to 50%, around an hour to charge to 90%, and the next 10% takes another 15 minutes or so, so it takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes for full charge, which is at least 20 minutes faster than the Pixel 7 which charges at maximum 21W. This still has 18W wireless charging support from the Pixel 7, so it will take longer to charge the phone.
Conclusion
Overall, the Pixel 8 is a good upgrade to the Pixel 7 in terms of display, camera, faster charging and most importantly, 7 years of software updates. However, the Rs. 75,999 price tag compared to Rs. 59,999 price tag for the Pixel 7 is hard to justify since there are phones with powerful SoCs, bigger battery and faster charging at a cheaper rate.
Even if you consider this as an investment for 7 years, the phone should last that long, even with the company proming availability of the parts for 7 years.
Alternatives
Samsung Galaxy S23 is a good compact phone alternative with an additional telephoto camera, faster SoC and better thermals. Google’s own Pixel 7 is being sold at a cheaper rate during sale, if you are fine with a 90Hz screen and just 2 more years of Android updates.
Pricing and availability
The Google Pixel 8 is priced at Rs. 75,999 for the 128GB model and the 256GB model costs Rs. 82,999. It is available from Flipkart.
Pros
- Promise of 7 years of OS updates
- Brilliant display
- Good cameras
- Smooth performance
- Good build quality, IP68 ratings
Cons
- Gets heated quickly during intensive tasks, throttles heavily during intensive gaming
- Features like Pro camera mode, HDR Video Boost and Zoom Enhance are exclusive to Pixel 8 Pro