Google Pixel 8 Pro Smartphone Review

Google Pixel 8 Pro Smartphone Review – The Google Pixel 8 smartphone series was launched in October 2023 and the Google Pixel 8 Pro is the flagship Google smartphone. The Google Pixel 8 Pro smartphone was launched globally and is available for purchase in almost every country. This is a 5G smartphone and features a design that is not too different from its siblings, the Google Pixel  7 Pro.

Google promises that the new smartphone brings several improvements in almost every aspect of the smartphone compared to the previous model. Google is also upping its AI games and they believe it will greatly enhance the smartphone experience. So, let’s begin with a detailed review of the Google Pixel 8 Pro and find out everything it has to offer.

Google Pixel 8 Pro Smartphone Review

Highlights

1. The Google Pixel 8 Pro features a 6.7-inch LTPO OLED display with Full HD+ resolution, 120Hz high refresh rate, HDR10+, and 2400 nits peak brightness.
2. The chipset inside the phone is the 4nm Google Tensor G3 5G nona-core SoC clocked at 3.0GHz.
3. The phone arrives with the latest Android 14 out-of-the-box with a stock Android user interface for the best Android experience possible.
4. There’s a 50MP triple camera system in the rear with a 10.5MP selfie camera in the front.
5. The phone has a Li-Ion 5050mAh battery and supports 30W wired fast charging and 23W wireless fast charging.

Design and Display

The design of the Google Pixel 8 Pro isn’t too radically different from the Pixel  7 Pro and Google is sticking to the Visor design on the back. This can be a good thing as it differentiates the Pixel smartphones from others in the industry. Most smartphones tend to feature designs that look similar to each and the Pixel 8 Pro’s design with Visor makes the smartphone easily recognizable among the crowd of smartphones.

The Pixel 8 Pro side frame is made of Stainless Steel, which is a very strong metal but is also very shiny and that shine makes even the tiniest of scratches appear brighter than anything else. This may make it seem like it gets stretched more often, which it doesn’t but it certainly looks that way. Even the rear panel is also made of gorilla glass as opposed to the Pixel 8 non-pro model.

This makes the rear panel very prone to fingerprints. The Google Pixel 8 Pro is made available for purchase in three colors, Obsidian, Bay, and Porcelain. On the front, the Google Pixel 8 Pro features a 6.7-inch LTPO OLED display with Full HD+ resolution and HDR10+. The display features a 120Hz high refresh rate and being an LTPO panel, the display can switch its refresh rate from 120Hz to 1Hz to save battery. It dynamically changes the refresh rate based on the content.

The display also gets up to 2400 nits peak brightness under direct sunlight. Both the display and the rear glass panel are protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2, while the smartphone is protected by IP68 dust and water resistance.

Memory and Internal

Google equipped the Pixel 8 Pro with their newest and greatest Google Tensor G3 5G chipset. This is a chipset that is custom-made by the Pixel team and Samsung. This allows Google to have greater control over how the chipset operates and how the Android OS can utilize that. The real word performance of the Tensor G3 is closer to that of the Snapdragon and often loses out to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

But Google introduced some cool abilities that allow it to take full advantage of the processor’s sheer power. Hence, the system is fluid and the animations are smoother. It also has a Nona-core CPU configuration that is clocked at 3.0 GHz. Nona-core configurations signify the use of 9 cores in the chipset, which along with its superior software tremendously upps its game against its biggest competitor, Samsung. Speaking of software, the Google Pixel 8 Pro runs on Android 13 with clean and stock user interface.

Google also promises to provide 7 years of Android and security updates, which will certainly expand the software experience in the long run. Its Immortalis-G715s MC10 can also easily handle games like PUBGm, CODm, and Genshin Impact. The Google Pixel 8 Pro also has support for 5G connectivity. For memory and storage, the Google Pixel  8 Pro is available for purchase with up to 12GB of RAM and 128GB to 1TB of internal storage.

Camera

The Google Pixel 8 Pro has a triple-camera setup with a 50MP sensor as the main camera, a 48MP sensor as the ultra-wide camera, and another 48MP sensor as the telephoto camera. The main rear camera produces some great pictures with detail levels that exceed our expectations and can easily beat any other smartphone in the industry. The pictures feature accurate colors and nothing can beat  Google’s computational photographic algorithm.

The 48MP ultra-wide camera is also equally capable and can capture pictures with a 126˚ field of view. The detail levels are comparable to that of the main camera and there’s no shift in colors between the two cameras, which is something only a handful of smartphones manage to achieve. There’s a 48MP telephoto camera as well. It can capture pictures with 5x optical zoom, which can be further expanded with hybrid zoom and the pictures are simply fantastic.

There’s also a selfie camera in the front with a 10.5MP sensor that can take some more than decent selfies with a natural skin tone. When it comes to video recording, both the rear and the selfie cameras can shoot videos at [email protected] rear camera also has OIS and gyro-EIS support, which will come in handy when recording video footage as it will be quite stable.

Battery and Others

The Google Pixel 8 Pro has a Li-Ion 5050mAh battery, which can last around 2 days. However, this is with lighter usage like social media apps, a bit of browsing, or listening to a bit of songs. But if you take a lot of pictures or play a lot of games, then the battery inside will last lower than that and may not even last a full day. Gaming and camera are often very heavy on the system and that can lead the smartphone battery to drain faster.

When it comes to charging, the Google Pixel 8 Pro smartphone supports 30W wired fast charging, which can charge the smartphone to 50% in just 30 minutes. Now, it may not seem quick enough but considering the  5050 mAh high-capacity battery, this is fast enough. Apart from that, the smartphone has support for tri-band Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, an under-display fingerprint sensor, NFC, and a USB Type-C connector for charging.

There are a bunch of new AI features that are exclusive to this smartphone. They can vastly improve the user experience depending on the user’s requirements. The smartphone is available in India for $979 (Rs. 80,990 in India) approx.

Google Pixel 8 Pro Pros and Cons

Google Pixel 8 Pro Specifications Detail

Down below you can see the full specifications of the Google Pixel 8 Pro smartphone.

Conclusion

The Google Pixel 8 Pro smartphone does seem to provide the best of Google’s hardware and software. It has a powerful new processor along with a very high-performance camera setup that blows some of the most prominent smartphones out of the pool. On top of that, Google is providing 7 years of software support, including OS upgrades, security updates, and regular features.

This will dramatically improve the user experience in the long run and help build trust and reliability among its users. Considering the specs and the software support in mind, the slight price increase does sound somewhat justified. We would have all liked it at its previous pricing but good things usually don’t come cheap and if you want such high-grade software support, you will have to pay that premium.

However, if Pixel is not the Jam that you are looking for, you can go flagship Samsung smartphone. Smartphones like Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra or its younger sibling, Galaxy S23 Plus, are excellent smartphones and could be a great alternative to the Pixel 8 Pro. In fact, the Galaxy S23 series may hold an edge over the new Pixel smartphone in terms of hardware and is available almost at a similar price tag.