The Pixel 8 Pro: A Mixed Bag of Features and Flaws

When Google launched the Pixel 8 Pro, it touted several features that promised to revolutionize the smartphone experience. However, as time has passed, some of these features have proven to be more hype than substance.

One of the most notable issues with the Pixel 8 Pro is its temperature sensor on the back. When the phone first launched, Google claimed that users could use the temperature sensor to measure objects, such as a soda can or cup of coffee. However, recent testing has shown that this sensor is not accurate at all. In fact, it seems like a bad idea to rely on this sensor to measure your own body temperature. If you're feeling sick, you need to know what's going on with your body, and using the Pixel 8 Pro's temperature sensor would be unreliable.

Another feature that has aged poorly is the Tensor G3 chipset. While it's still a capable processor for basic smartphone tasks like shooting videos, browsing the web, or checking emails, it falls behind other processors in terms of performance. Specifically, the Qualcomm Snapdragon HN3 chipset outperforms the Tensor G3 in numerous metrics. However, if you're only using your phone for casual activities, the Tensor G3 is still a good choice.

The camera experience on the Pixel 8 Pro has also been a point of contention. Google removed the sliders that allowed users to control brightness, shadow, and color temperature when they first opened the camera app. Instead, these controls are now relegated to a separate Pro mode, which requires users to navigate through multiple menus to access them. This is a significant change from previous Pixel phones, which made it easy for users to customize their shots without having to switch modes.

This decision has been met with criticism from some users, who feel that the removal of the sliders has reduced the overall camera experience. While the Pixel 8 Pro's camera is still excellent in many ways, the lack of intuitive controls makes it less user-friendly than previous models.

Despite these flaws, the Pixel 8 Pro is still a solid choice for those looking for a high-quality smartphone. However, if you're willing to wait, there are better options on the horizon. Specifically, Google has announced plans to release the Pixel 9 series, which will include a middle-tier phone called the Pixel 9 Pro. This phone promises to offer almost all the same features as the Pixel 8 Pro but with a more compact design.

If you're someone who needs a new phone right away, the Pixel 8 Pro is still worth considering. However, if you're willing to wait for something better, it might be worth holding off on purchasing this model. The long-term support commitment of Google is also a point to consider. For the first time ever, Google has promised seven years of updates and security patches for the Pixel 8 Pro. This is a significant improvement over previous models, which typically received only two or three years of support.

Overall, the Pixel 8 Pro is a mixed bag of features and flaws. While it still offers an excellent camera experience and solid performance, some of its design choices have proven to be less than ideal. If you're willing to wait for something better, there are certainly options on the horizon that promise to improve upon these shortcomings.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI've been using the pixel 8 Pro every single day for the past 6 months and I'm here to tell you if it's still worth buying in 20124 if you're considering buying a pixel8 pro in 2024 you probably have three questions on your mind since the phone is about 6 months old now number one what about it has aged well number two what about it has aged poorly and number three of course is it still worth buying today one of the most notable as aspects of the pixel 8 Pro doesn't seem that important when you first think about it but it actually really is and that's the fact that it has a flat display previously all prevel pixel phones have had curved displays curved does offer some benefits such as when you're watching Netflix or YouTube on your phone the curve display hides the bezels a little bit making you more immersed in that content the problem with curve displays though is that when you're doing gesture navigation such as swiping in from the edge to go back you have to swipe over that curve and it's not really convenient to do that flat displays though make swiping like that a breeze so in other words having a flat display makes the phone easier to use also it makes the phone more in line with what we expect in the future the Galaxy s24 series for example all have flat displays Now iPhones all have flat displays and we're expecting a lot of phones from other manufacturers to start adopting flat displays over curved displays this makes the pixel8 pro a good investment for the Long Haul because as the years go on it'll be on Trend instead of feeling like a phone from a few years back another thing about the pixel8 pro that's aged really well is class 3 biometric security support for Face Unlock what does all that mean first let's look at the iPhone most iPhones that come out these days do not have fingerprint sensors they rely wholly on face ID that means when an iPhone user needs to unlock their phone for a contactless payment or needs to access a secure app such as a banking app they need to use face ID or a pin the pixel 8 Pro has the best of both worlds you can use your fingerprint sensor as a class 3 biometric or you can use space unlock as a class 3 biometric the choice is yours this makes the pixel 8 Pro incredibly convenient to use and it also puts it a leg up over pretty much every other Android phone on the market since most do not offer class 3 support within Face Unlock of course we can't talk about the pixel 8 Pro without talking about all the cool AI features that introduced with the phone back in October when it launched there are a whole bunch to look at but I want to talk about three that have become integral to my life and that's Circle to search magic editor and video boost Circle to search is something that I've talked about in a bunch of Android authority videos already so I'm just going to touch on it briefly essentially you Circle what you see on your display and it immediately goes to a Google search for you this has been super helpful for me when it comes to things like shopping translation while traveling or just figuring out what's going on in a video that I'm watching magic editor is something that I use all the time as well I take a lot of photos for Android authority and sometimes that photo is just a little bit off I could go into Photoshop and fix it up manually but sometimes just couple of TAPS in Magic editor and it is fixed up this is a huge timesaver and I highly recommend giving this a shot video boost is another incredible feature with this phone and it's something that is totally exclusive to the pixel 8 Pro the way video boost works is that you capture video on your phone you upload that video to Google servers Google processes that video and then allows you to download it and when you get it back it's completely different and so much better than what you shot we can't talk about pixels without talking about cameras and the pixel 8 Pro has Bar None the best camera system of any pixel ever the 50 megapixel primary sensor is absolutely astounding and the telephoto lens also produces stunning results I just went on South American trip with my family most of whom use iPhones and I became the designated photographer because they all saw how much better the shots came out when I used the pixel 8 Pro than when they used their iPhones I highly recommend using the pixel 8 Pro if smartphone photography is really important to you there's pretty much nothing else on the market that can compete unfortunately not everything about the pixel 8 Pro can age well and the thing that's aged the worst is the temperature sensor on the back when Google first launched the pixel 8 Pro it said that you could use the temperature sensor on objects only such as a soda can or a cup of coffee it did say that it was going to get FDA approval so you could use it on yourself and to its credit it did do that however all the evidence we've collected so far shows that this temperature sensor is not at all accurate using that on myself just seems like a bad idea if I'm feeling sick I need to know what's going on with my body and I need to use a thermometer that I can trust and I can't trust the pixel8 Pro another thing that's aged poorly about the pixel 8 Pro is the tensor G3 chipset maybe I shouldn't say that it's aged poorly let me say that it is going to age poorly when T G3 first came out in October it was already behind the Qualcomm Snapdragon H gen2 beat it in numerous metrics now we have the Qualcomm Snapdragon hn3 and it absolutely clobbers tensor G3 across the board let me be clear though that that doesn't mean that the tensor G3 is a bad chipset in fact it's really good if all you're doing is basic smartphone tasks like shooting a video browsing the web checking your email you're going to have a fine time when you start to push the limits of what the processor can do by playing really intensive games for a long period of time or trying to do highlevel tasks like video editing you're going to face some bottlenecks at least you're going to face bottlenecks that you wouldn't face if you were using a Qualcomm Snapdragon hn3 instead but once again if all you care about is doing your basic smartphone stuff tensor G3 is going to be fine finally one of the biggest problems I have with the pixel 8 Pro is the camera experience now I know I already talked about how great the camera is on this phone but Google did make a controversial change here and that is is it removed the sliders that you see when you first open the camera app on every other pixel phone prior to the launch of the pixel 8 you would have three sliders when you first open that camera app one would control brightness one controlled Shadow and one controlled color temperature this gave you a high level of control over how your shot came out without needing a pro mode with the pixel 8 Pro Google for the first time ever offered a pro mode and because of that it removed the sliders and moved those controls into that Pro mode that's fine but it also removed the sliders from all the other pixels including the pixel 8 so that means that no one gets these sliders anymore and if you want to control those aspects of your shot you have to use Pro mode what's even worse is that having those sliders buried in the Pro mode of the pixel 8 Pro it's not as easy to use as when you had those sliders right there on the display is the pixel 8 Pro still worth buying today in 2024 if you're just looking for a simple answer I'm going to go ahead and say yes the pixel 8 Pro is probably the best phone you can get on the market right now now for a more nuanced response it may be better to wait if you want to buy a new pixel for example let's start with the update commitment for the first time ever Google is offering 7even years of updates for the pixel 8 Pro but what does that really mean when the pixel 11 comes out many years down the line is the pixel 8 Pro going to get the features for that phone or is the pixel 8 Pro just going to get the latest version of Android and a security patch we don't really know the answer to this question because Google's never offered this length of support for its phones before granted you might be okay with just getting the latest version of Android in a security patch and missing out on the new features but that still will be a little disappointing likewise the pixel 9 series is right around the corner corner and it's going to be incredibly exciting we already know that there's going to be a middle phone the pixel 9 Pro that's going to be about the same size as the pixel 9 but offer almost all the same features that we've seen in the pixel 8 Pro so if you're somebody who wants your phone to be a little bit more compact but still as powerful the pixel 9 might be worth waiting for but if you need something right now I have no problem recommending the pixel 8 Pro that's about it for this video though I'm looking forward to hearing your comments about what you think about the pixel Pro and whether or not you think it's a good buy 6 months laterI've been using the pixel 8 Pro every single day for the past 6 months and I'm here to tell you if it's still worth buying in 20124 if you're considering buying a pixel8 pro in 2024 you probably have three questions on your mind since the phone is about 6 months old now number one what about it has aged well number two what about it has aged poorly and number three of course is it still worth buying today one of the most notable as aspects of the pixel 8 Pro doesn't seem that important when you first think about it but it actually really is and that's the fact that it has a flat display previously all prevel pixel phones have had curved displays curved does offer some benefits such as when you're watching Netflix or YouTube on your phone the curve display hides the bezels a little bit making you more immersed in that content the problem with curve displays though is that when you're doing gesture navigation such as swiping in from the edge to go back you have to swipe over that curve and it's not really convenient to do that flat displays though make swiping like that a breeze so in other words having a flat display makes the phone easier to use also it makes the phone more in line with what we expect in the future the Galaxy s24 series for example all have flat displays Now iPhones all have flat displays and we're expecting a lot of phones from other manufacturers to start adopting flat displays over curved displays this makes the pixel8 pro a good investment for the Long Haul because as the years go on it'll be on Trend instead of feeling like a phone from a few years back another thing about the pixel8 pro that's aged really well is class 3 biometric security support for Face Unlock what does all that mean first let's look at the iPhone most iPhones that come out these days do not have fingerprint sensors they rely wholly on face ID that means when an iPhone user needs to unlock their phone for a contactless payment or needs to access a secure app such as a banking app they need to use face ID or a pin the pixel 8 Pro has the best of both worlds you can use your fingerprint sensor as a class 3 biometric or you can use space unlock as a class 3 biometric the choice is yours this makes the pixel 8 Pro incredibly convenient to use and it also puts it a leg up over pretty much every other Android phone on the market since most do not offer class 3 support within Face Unlock of course we can't talk about the pixel 8 Pro without talking about all the cool AI features that introduced with the phone back in October when it launched there are a whole bunch to look at but I want to talk about three that have become integral to my life and that's Circle to search magic editor and video boost Circle to search is something that I've talked about in a bunch of Android authority videos already so I'm just going to touch on it briefly essentially you Circle what you see on your display and it immediately goes to a Google search for you this has been super helpful for me when it comes to things like shopping translation while traveling or just figuring out what's going on in a video that I'm watching magic editor is something that I use all the time as well I take a lot of photos for Android authority and sometimes that photo is just a little bit off I could go into Photoshop and fix it up manually but sometimes just couple of TAPS in Magic editor and it is fixed up this is a huge timesaver and I highly recommend giving this a shot video boost is another incredible feature with this phone and it's something that is totally exclusive to the pixel 8 Pro the way video boost works is that you capture video on your phone you upload that video to Google servers Google processes that video and then allows you to download it and when you get it back it's completely different and so much better than what you shot we can't talk about pixels without talking about cameras and the pixel 8 Pro has Bar None the best camera system of any pixel ever the 50 megapixel primary sensor is absolutely astounding and the telephoto lens also produces stunning results I just went on South American trip with my family most of whom use iPhones and I became the designated photographer because they all saw how much better the shots came out when I used the pixel 8 Pro than when they used their iPhones I highly recommend using the pixel 8 Pro if smartphone photography is really important to you there's pretty much nothing else on the market that can compete unfortunately not everything about the pixel 8 Pro can age well and the thing that's aged the worst is the temperature sensor on the back when Google first launched the pixel 8 Pro it said that you could use the temperature sensor on objects only such as a soda can or a cup of coffee it did say that it was going to get FDA approval so you could use it on yourself and to its credit it did do that however all the evidence we've collected so far shows that this temperature sensor is not at all accurate using that on myself just seems like a bad idea if I'm feeling sick I need to know what's going on with my body and I need to use a thermometer that I can trust and I can't trust the pixel8 Pro another thing that's aged poorly about the pixel 8 Pro is the tensor G3 chipset maybe I shouldn't say that it's aged poorly let me say that it is going to age poorly when T G3 first came out in October it was already behind the Qualcomm Snapdragon H gen2 beat it in numerous metrics now we have the Qualcomm Snapdragon hn3 and it absolutely clobbers tensor G3 across the board let me be clear though that that doesn't mean that the tensor G3 is a bad chipset in fact it's really good if all you're doing is basic smartphone tasks like shooting a video browsing the web checking your email you're going to have a fine time when you start to push the limits of what the processor can do by playing really intensive games for a long period of time or trying to do highlevel tasks like video editing you're going to face some bottlenecks at least you're going to face bottlenecks that you wouldn't face if you were using a Qualcomm Snapdragon hn3 instead but once again if all you care about is doing your basic smartphone stuff tensor G3 is going to be fine finally one of the biggest problems I have with the pixel 8 Pro is the camera experience now I know I already talked about how great the camera is on this phone but Google did make a controversial change here and that is is it removed the sliders that you see when you first open the camera app on every other pixel phone prior to the launch of the pixel 8 you would have three sliders when you first open that camera app one would control brightness one controlled Shadow and one controlled color temperature this gave you a high level of control over how your shot came out without needing a pro mode with the pixel 8 Pro Google for the first time ever offered a pro mode and because of that it removed the sliders and moved those controls into that Pro mode that's fine but it also removed the sliders from all the other pixels including the pixel 8 so that means that no one gets these sliders anymore and if you want to control those aspects of your shot you have to use Pro mode what's even worse is that having those sliders buried in the Pro mode of the pixel 8 Pro it's not as easy to use as when you had those sliders right there on the display is the pixel 8 Pro still worth buying today in 2024 if you're just looking for a simple answer I'm going to go ahead and say yes the pixel 8 Pro is probably the best phone you can get on the market right now now for a more nuanced response it may be better to wait if you want to buy a new pixel for example let's start with the update commitment for the first time ever Google is offering 7even years of updates for the pixel 8 Pro but what does that really mean when the pixel 11 comes out many years down the line is the pixel 8 Pro going to get the features for that phone or is the pixel 8 Pro just going to get the latest version of Android and a security patch we don't really know the answer to this question because Google's never offered this length of support for its phones before granted you might be okay with just getting the latest version of Android in a security patch and missing out on the new features but that still will be a little disappointing likewise the pixel 9 series is right around the corner corner and it's going to be incredibly exciting we already know that there's going to be a middle phone the pixel 9 Pro that's going to be about the same size as the pixel 9 but offer almost all the same features that we've seen in the pixel 8 Pro so if you're somebody who wants your phone to be a little bit more compact but still as powerful the pixel 9 might be worth waiting for but if you need something right now I have no problem recommending the pixel 8 Pro that's about it for this video though I'm looking forward to hearing your comments about what you think about the pixel Pro and whether or not you think it's a good buy 6 months later\n"