Review: Google Pixel 5

Briiiiiiing!

I scrambled for my phone. I was on hold for only five minutes, but for the first time, I didn't need to put my ears through terrible hold music. That's thanks to Google's new smartphone, the Pixel 5. It has a unique feature that uses the artificially intelligent Google Assistant to monitor when you've been put on hold with a 1-800 number. You'll hear a loud chime when you're finally connected to a human, so there's no need to attentively sit with the phone in hand and listen to Kenny G for hours on end.

It's small, helpful features like this that make me appreciate Google phones. Like how the Recorder app now lets you edit snippets out of a recording by highlighting and removing a sentence from the automatically generated transcript. And, of course, returning staples like Now Playing, which identifies songs playing around you, or Call Screen, which monitors and automatically declines robocalls.

But there's not much dramatically different with the Pixel 5. The few new features aren't as dazzling compared to previous announcements, like when Google endowed the Pixel 3 with Duplex, a service that has the Google Assistant schedule salon appointments and restaurant reservations on your behalf. There's nothing wacky, like last year's Pixel 4 that had a radar chip to detect hand gestures for controlling music playback. Google even took out its Face ID–rivaling authentication and stuck the tried-and-true fingerprint sensor on the back.

Even though Google has played it safe this year, it's made its best Pixel ever. Every prior Pixel has had one major compromise that bogged it down, like inadequate battery life on the last two models, display quality issues on the Pixel 2, and zero water resistance on the original. All of those kinks and quirks are gone on the Pixel 5.

My partner has a Pixel 4. She likes it a lot. But it's painful watching her plug it in to recharge two to three times a day just to keep using it.

The batteries Google stuffed in previous Pixels are criminally small, but this shortcoming has finally been addressed with the 5. The new phone has a 4,080-mAh capacity cell inside, and it easily lasts through a day and a half of average use. If I play Genshin Impact for too long, we can shave that down to a full day. Driving home the point is a new Extreme Battery Saver mode that shuts down Wi-Fi and pauses apps (you can un-pause certain apps) to give you up to 48 hours of additional juice. Point is, you won't be hugging a charging port every few hours with this phone.

The next best thing? How it feels to use it. This 6-inch device is not as small as the Pixel 4A or the iPhone 12 Mini, but it's nowhere near as ginormous as most other phones today. It's super lightweight, and I can wrap my entire palm around it. It's the Goldilocks phone; just right.

What's just as nice is that the back of the Pixel never feels grimy or littered with fingerprints, because it's 100 percent recycled aluminum instead of goop-grabbing glass. That's also one less part you need to worry about shattering (if you're still concerned, I like this eco-friendly case). The aluminum has a soft-touch coating that feels nice, and the "Sorta Sage" color looks like speckled, minty toothpaste. It's a pretty phone!

You might be wondering how Google got wireless charging to work here, considering the tech usually doesn't play well with metal. Well, it cut a little hole in the back of the phone, right over the coil, and ... filled it with a piece of plastic. It's smart. I'd love to see more phone-makers ditch breakable glass for this approach.

Speaking of charging, one of its other new tricks is Battery Share, informally known as reverse wireless charging. It's something we've seen before from the likes of Samsung and Huawei: Pop another device that's capable of wireless charging on the back of the Pixel, and voilà, it will siphon power from the phone. Handy when you want to juice up your wireless earbuds, or even a friend's phone.

Another treat is the display. I'm pro–dark mode, and I'm always in awe of how inky black it looks on OLED panels like the Pixel's. The colors here are nice and punchy too. Paired with the slim edges around the screen and a single, unobtrusive hole-punch selfie camera on the top left, it's chef's kiss. The screen also gets plenty bright enough to read outdoors. At least it did on the one non-overcast day we had here in New York.

Like the Pixel 4, the screen supports a 90-Hz refresh rate, something you won't find on the newest iPhones. It makes the entire interface feel buttery smooth and responsive, but that's also thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G processor powering it (and the 8 gigabytes of RAM). No, this is not the 2020 flagship processor you'll find in competing phones, but I haven't found that to matter one bit. This phone's performance has yet to stutter. If skipping the high-end chip is what brought the price down from its predecessor, I'm all for it.

Water resistance and three years of Android security and version updates round out the feature list. There are stereo speakers as well, but they don't get too loud, and they sound average. The only other things I could have asked for would have been a headphone jack and a MicroSD card slot so you can expand on the 128 gigabytes of storage, but I think those particular ships have long since sailed.

The Pixel 5's main camera uses the same exact 12.2-megapixel sensor as the one in the Pixel 4, except it's "less prone to bad lens flares," according to Google, and there are some improvements to its ability to capture images with a high dynamic range. Google says this sensor still gave it the best results over newer ones, as it has had the most training with the company's imaging algorithms. And instead of a secondary zoom lens, you now get a 16-megapixel ultrawide, a lens setup that matches the similarly priced iPhone 12.

Honestly? It's still a damn good camera. When it's sunny, you get a pleasingly natural shot, with nice colors, good contrast, and a well balanced exposure. That applies to the ultrawide camera too. Where it shines is at night. Google has taken cues from Apple and automatically triggers Night Sight—its dedicated night mode that takes multiple photos at different exposures and stitches them together—whenever it deems it necessary. (You'll see a moon logo in the shutter icon, and you can turn it off.) Night Sight shots require you to hold still for a few seconds, but it's far more forgiving for when you eventually shake your hands. You'll often end up with amazingly detailed and bright nighttime images, with perhaps a touch too much saturation.

I take a lot of Night Sight photos with Pixels. I also use Portrait mode all the time. You'll have to forgive my excitement when Google announced that it merged the two features, allowing you to use Night Sight in Portrait mode to get beautiful bokeh shots in low light—a feature Apple just announced on its iPhone 12 as well. The results, when it correctly surmises the outline of a subject, are far more detailed compared to low-light portrait mode on other devices. (I haven't tried it on the iPhone yet.)

Pixels can take great photos, but they've fallen short when it comes to videos. That's another long-running complaint Google addressed here. Now you get three stabilization modes to choose from outside of normal: Active, Locked, and Cinematic Pan. The latter is the most fun, slowing down footage and muting all audio, and it's best suited for panning scenic landscapes or for capturing some fast-moving action.

These modes help make the Pixel 5 take more watchable videos, but the problem is—just like most electronic image stabilization systems—they crop in a good deal to compensate for camera shake. The resulting quality isn't as good, and still can't match what you'll get on iPhones or Samsung devices.

The Pixel 5 is excellent. But phone-makers like Apple and Samsung have realized that most people don't want to pay $1,000 for a new phone. Both have introduced exceptional devices at similar prices, like the Galaxy S20 Fan Edition; Apple will release the even cheaper iPhone 12 Mini next month.

Those two phones don't skimp on anything either. To get a bit technical, the S20 FE uses the USB 3.2 spec for its USB-C port, allowing for quicker data transfer speeds, as well as UFS 3.0 for faster read and write speeds (snappier app load times, among other improvements). Contrast that with USB 3.1 and UFS 2.1 on the Pixel 5. Both the S20 FE and iPhone 12 Mini support Wi-Fi 6 too, the newest Wi-Fi standard. The new Pixel does not.

Google does offer sub-6 and mmWave 5G connectivity, but, as with all 5G phones, it's not worth thinking about yet because 5G is sparse in the US, not to mention you likely have to cough up for an upgraded data plan.

I suppose I was wrong when I said there is no major compromise that bogs this phone down—even with the $100 lower price tag over its predecessor, it's still not the best value. If budget is a concern, go for the $350 Pixel 4A or the $500 Pixel 4A 5G. The latter phone is very similar to the Pixel 5, except it's bigger, has a 60-Hz screen, comes with no wireless charging or water resistance, and is made of plastic.

You'd think Google would use all that data it collects to figure out exactly what price it should put on its phones. Ah, well, even if you do pay $700 for it, at least it means you won't have to hear anymore Kenny G hold music.