Is The Google Pixel 3 Worth It?

The Pixel 2 has aged relatively well, but it's hard to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room. While the Pixel 2 did well, the Pixel 2XL had some major screen issues. Not only were those XL phones plagued by color issues right out of the box when they were brand new, but they also suffered from severe burn-in with those early units. To be fair, software has largely solved these problems, and most of the issues have been addressed.

However, not all Pixel 2XL models were created equal. Some had screen issues that persisted even after software updates. But for the standard Pixel 3, which boasts a larger 5.5-inch display, the results are more positive. The phone's screen is very vibrant and looks fairly accurate, although it does have its drawbacks.

One of the most notable features of the Pixel 3 is its notch, which has become increasingly popular in recent years. However, for some people, that's a major drawback. The notch is quite large, and it takes up a significant amount of space on the front of the phone. Some might find it distracting or annoying.

But one thing's for sure: the Pixel 3 XL's screen is not hot to touch, which is a concern for any phone. And while the Pixel 2XL had some issues with burn-in and color accuracy, the Pixel 3 and 3XL have largely avoided these problems.

Of course, there are other factors to consider when choosing between the Pixel 3 and its XL counterpart. The XL model has a larger screen, which might be beneficial for users who need more real estate for their apps or media. However, it also means that the phone is bigger and heavier, which could be a drawback for some.

But what about price? The Pixel 2 was $650 last year, while the Pixel 3 starts at $800 this year. That's a significant increase, but it's worth noting that other flagship phones have also become more expensive in recent years.

So who should consider buying a Pixel 3 this year? Well, if you're looking for a high-end smartphone with top-notch cameras and a great screen, the Pixel 3 is definitely worth considering. And if you're willing to spend a bit more money, the XL model offers even more features and a larger screen.

But before making a decision, it might be helpful to compare the Pixel 3 with another flagship phone, such as the iPhone XR. Both phones offer similar specs and features, but they have some key differences that might make one more appealing than the other.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Hey guys, this is Austinput the Pixel 3 side by sidewith last year's model,you'll find something that looksa lot like a Pixel 2.5,at least until you lookat the display whichis slightly style challengedthanks to the giant notch.Look past the looks, though,which is sometimesdifficult and you're goingto find a truly excellent smartphone.There's no doubt that the Pixel 3 is anice piece of hardware.It's an all aluminum and glass buildwith a few interesting touches.The rear has a two tone finish.Again, it is all glass,while on top it's glossy,the bottom is a much more matte finish,which not only matchesthe previous Pixels,but still feels reallynice by adding a littlebit of grip to the phone.Importantly, this alsoenables not only theIP68 water resistance,but importantly, thebrand new fast wirelesscharging on the Pixel 3.Which is all fine andgreat until you realizethat, uh, well, a slightdrop onto concretemight shatter the entireback of your Pixel 3.Specifically, if a certain friend of yoursborrows the phone toshoot some footage andthe wind blows it onto the concrete.- You guys weren't supposed to tell him.- For real, though, this droppedfrom like three feet and the entire backis shattered and even thefront corner is shattered.- Yeah, I mean I think it hit just right,but this is gonna crack either way.- Yeah.- But it does scratch pretty easily, here.- So, fun fact, don't drop your Pixel 3,or the glass back willshatter and you'll haveto ask Jerry to rig everything very kindlyto fix your phone for you.- Get a case atAustinEvans.com/PixelCases.- Great, now I gottalike make that a URL now.Something I appreciate is we have the samesqueeze feature to access Google Assistantfrom last year.In my opinion, this is way more usefulthan say if a company were to put ahardware button on the phone,which can't be re-mappedand is only usefulfor a very useless voiceutility feature, Bixby.Anyway, all you do is just squeeze it,what's the weather tomorrow?- Tomorrow in Claremontit'll be sunny with a highof 85 and a low of 61.- It should be nosurprise that the Pixel 3only has a single USB C port,there's no headphone jack to be found,but what's nice is,is that not only is there a pair of USB Cheadphones in the box,but you also have the USB C power cable,the fast charger, and importantly,a headphone jack adapterand a USB A adapter.You know, like none of the thingsthat Apple includes with the iPhone X,which is more expensive, so, yeah.The stereo speakers have returned,and while they're supposedly 40% louder,I've gotta say the Pixel3XL sounds noticeablybetter than the standard Pixel 3.Now a big part of that, I think,is that this one seemsto distort a little bitat higher volumes,whereas the XL sounds a lot richer,and specifically doesn'tdo that same distortion.Now mind you,neither of the phones are going to compareto something like the Razer Phone 2,but they sound pretty good,just the 3XL is a lot better.It might be a small thing but somethingI appreciate on the Pixel 3 is thesmaller camera bump.When you lay it down flat on a table,it doesn't really rock as much,especially compared to the iPhone.(tapping phone)The Pixel 2 had thebest camera of last yearand arguably this year as well,and it should be nosurprise that the Pixel 3steps up even farther.One of the most impressive things here isnot only just the dynamic range,but the overall color.Things look so, so good on this camera.And I don't think it'sreally an exaggerationto say that this makesevery other smartphonecamera look bad.Seriously, I mean just look at someof this stuff.The portrait mode is also fantastic.Even though it doesn'thave the telephoto lensto get that extra depth data,Google does such a good job of being ableto isolate a subject and really pull itout of the background of a photo.I've said it before, I'll say it again,this camera is straight up awesome.And a lot of it really just does come downto the level of AI, machine learning,buzz wordery, that really just makesthis camera dope.I'm just gonna keep saying that'cause it's really good.While the Pixel 3 still has a singlerear facing camera,what it has new this year is apair of front facing shooters.A standard angle camera as well as a muchwider angle which is what,like 184% wider than the iPhone XS?- Yeah.- (laughing) Did he almost he almost,did he almost like into the back of me?- Yes.(Austin laughing)- What's cool is thatthere's a zoom sliderthat will seamlessly move between thefront facing cameras,and when you go wide,it is really, really wide.So, you know, when you wanna take a photowith all your friends,you can get them all ashot with the Pixel 3.Right, friends?Friends?Friends?(camera clicks)Yeah, there we go.All my friends, withmy Pixel 3, it's great.- Take that, Wes.- This is what 4K videolooks like straightoff of the Pixel 3.So not only can youtell if there's a decentamount of dynamic range,and pretty good stabilization,but on top of that it hasreally good auto focus.So all you need to do is tap on a subjectand it will track it around,so as I get closer or farther awayfrom the camera,the focus should naturally follow.The only real downside here is that thereis no 4K60 support,unlike most of the phones this year,but with all the processing that's beengoing on in here,the Pixel 3 looks seriously dopeas far as videos are concerned.At the launch event,Google heavily focused on features likeCloud computing, AI, machine learning,other cool buzz words,but what they didn't talk too muchabout is performance,which actually is really, really solid.The Pixel 3 has verystandard specs for 2018.You've got the Snapdragon 845,only four gigs of RAM asopposed to six or eight,and 64 or 128 gigs of storage.If that sounds a bitunderwhelming in a worldwhere the much cheaper Pocophone has thesame processor and more memory,then you aren't alone.At the press conferenceI was kinda disappointed.The 845 has been around for quite a whileat this point,and the next generation is definitelyright around the corner.Now this is a complaintI've levied at otherphones that have come out recently,including the Galaxy Note9,but it's just as wellthat here on the Pixel 3,this is a smartphone with specs that willbe outdated very shortly.However, after about 10seconds with the Pixel 3my doubts quickly vanished.This thing is straight up fast.Now when you compare it to the OnePlus 6,which up until now has been theAndroid speed king,this is even faster and even smoother.Now that might not be a huge surpriseconsidering that Google hopefully knowsa thing or two about optimizingphones for Android.And to be fair there are definitelysome other advantages, here,including not only isit running Android Pieright outta the box,they've got the animations nicely tuned.But the long story short here,is it is incredibly fast,it's incredibly smooth,and it's, well, maybenot the most outdatedspec in the world 'cause it works.With Android 9 Pie onboardyou're getting a lotof nice little additions,but one of my favorites isthe gesture navigation.Now, I'll be honest,this is one of my favorite partsof using the iPhone X.It's real easy to move between apps,and it is almost asintuitive here on the Pixel.There are a lotta other smaller features,including some that will be comingto previous Pixel devices,but my favorite, by far, is call screen.The way this works issimilar to Google Duplex,is if you get a callin and you don't wannaanswer it, you can justallow Google to screenthe call and you get a live transcription.(phone ringing)Oh, look, Matt's calling.I'm going to screen it.- Hi, theperson you're calling isusing a screening service from Google,and will get a copy of this conversation.Go ahead and say why you're calling.- Is Mr. Austin Evanshappy with his long distance provider?- Do you need to get a holdof them urgently?- Yes, this is very urgent.- Just so it's clear,go ahead and say moreabout why you're calling.- We have a really great deal oncollect calls and really happy to,- They can't talk right now,but they'll give you a call later.Thanks and good bye.(phone beeping)- (laughing) I love it.It even automatically hangs up.This is like the greatest thing ever.That's so cool.- That's so rude.- I'm never gonna answer anyone'sphone call ever again. (laughing)Looking back, I think it's safe to saythat the Pixel 2 has aged well,but it's hard to avoidthe elephant in the room.While the Pixel 2 did pretty well,the Pixel 2XL had somemajor screen issues.Not only the XL have some color issuesright outta the box when it was brand new,but it also has some fairly severeburn in with those early units.Now to be fair,software has solvedsome of these problems,and they've replaced most of the issueswith the actual burn in.But still, Pixel 2XL screen, not too hot,which brings us to the Pixel 3.So first of all we havethe standard Pixel 3,which does have a larger 5.5 inch display.Now this is, I believe, still an LG panel,but the gist of it is, is that while it isall there we don't haveany of those same issuesthat we had last year.Color's very vibrant,it looks to be fairly accurate,and that also applies to the Pixel 3XL.Of course, there's nooverlooking the notch,and the chin, yeah, okay look,I'm gonna be completely real with you,this is one of theugliest phones I've seenin quite a while.Now for some people,that's probably going to be no big deal.I mean, you know,you're looking at a screen,not what's around the screen,but, uh, I've never seena notch I didn't like,until I saw screaming, tortured faceof the Pixel 3 XL.-Noooooooooooooooooo.- Unlike other large notches,like on the iPhone,which has not only thefront facing camera,but all of the face ID tech.Here we got something a little different.Two front facing cameras,as well as the front firing speaker.Now the speaker does sound good,but it just sounds likethe little bit of a,I don't know,is it really worth this huge notch?Maybe they could of just movedsome things up,or made it not quite so deep.And don't get me started on the chin.It's just not symmetrical.I mean I don't mind having a little bitof a chin, but, I, eh, hm,not good looking, not, not uh, hm,um mm, uh mm, uh mm, uh mm.I mean it still is a great phone,but as far as I'm concerned,I would much rather usethe standard Pixel 3which doesn't have a notch but alsodoesn't look ugly and un-symmetrical.And it's also a normalhuman sized phone, unlike,- Also not broken.- Something that's goneup this year is price.So where the Pixel 2 last year was $650,the Pixel 3 now thisyear starts at 800 bucks.Now it's not quite a big of a differencewhen it comes to the XL models.Last year was $850 andthis year it's 900 bucks,but regardless this is definitelya more expensive phone this year.I can't believe I'm saying this,but it actually isn'ttotally unreasonable.This is definitely a yearwhere thousand dollarflagships have become the norm,so $1800 is kind of not that bad.What I really wanna see is a comparisonbetween the iPhone XR and thestandard Pixel 3.Now this is a smaller phone,and it's about $50 more expensive,but they have similar aluminum buildwith a glass back,a single great camera on the back of it,as well as what shouldbe pretty decent screens.If only we could do a comparison testof these two phones,when the other one comes out, soon.Hint, hint, wink, wink.Subscribe for the full video coming soon.Whether it's the smaller Pixel 3or the larger Pixel 3XL as well as a pairof sunglasses so you don't have to lookat the chin and the notch all day,I think it's pretty clear that the Pixelsare worth this year if you're lookingfor a very high end flagship.Not only are these some of the best phonesof 2018, but probablysome of the best phonesof 2019 as well.- Sunglasses?- Yeah, you know, soyou don't have to lookat the chin and the notch.- That's not how seeing works.- Just squint, it's fine!What's the problem?Just, look, just, eh,oh, I can't see anything besidesmy glorious screen.That notch is just not even there.It's blinded.