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Google is now on its eighth-generation of making its own smartphones. Previously, Google worked with Android manufacturers for its Nexus program, and then in 2016, Google debuted Pixel. Which was a phone that was built by Google (with some help from LG and HTC of course). Now, 7 years later, we have a pretty incredible set of phones from Google, and they are even starting to gain market share in many key markets. Will the Pixel 8 Pro help the company to grow that market share in countries like Japan and the US? Possibly. The Pixel 8 Pro has a lot going for it.
The phone has ditched the curved display in favor of a flat one, it has a slightly upgraded camera, and a massively upgraded processor in the Tensor G3. And of course, because this is Google, there are lots of AI features included here. And some that are coming in the future.
But is that enough to get you to spend $999+ on the new Google Pixel 8 Pro? Let’s find out in our full review.
Google Pixel 8 Pro Review: Hardware & Design
The Google Pixel 8 Pro still features a pretty familiar design here. The two major changes that you’ll see here compared to the Pixel 7 Pro, is going to be the camera bar and the backside of the phone. The camera bar now has one cut out for all three cameras. Compared to the Pixel 7 Pro which had a cutout for the wide and ultrawide cameras, then a separate one for the periscope 5x telephoto lens. That’s all one cut out now, and does definitely look much nicer here.
Then there’s the backside. What’s new here? Well, aside from the colors, it is now a matte finish. This is something that I wish Google had done with both Pixel 8 models, but instead it is only available on the Pixel 8 Pro. But the weird thing with this matte finish, is it still feels very slippery. Compared to the likes of the iPhone 15 Pro Max, the Motorola Razr+ and a few others with a matte finish, that are nowhere near this slippery. Honestly, I’ve spent most of the time with this phone, with it in a case. Luckily, along with the Bay blue Pixel 8 Pro, Google provided its matching Bay colored silicone case, which is quite nice. We’ll have a separate review on that, however.
Otherwise, the only other major change here is going to be that display. It’s now a flat display, instead of a curved display. Which was really my only complaint about the Pixel 7 Pro, besides the Tensor G2 chip. Though we’ll talk more about that display in a little bit, because it did get a really big update.
This year, on the Pixel 8 Pro, Google went with a glossy finish on the sides and the camera bar. On the Bay color that we have here, that camera bar is almost like a mirror finish, which means it is going to show scratches and fingerprints quite easily. If the Pixel 7 Pro is anything to go by, this camera bar is going to get scratched very easily. Yet another reason to go ahead and put a case on the Pixel 8 Pro.
Google Pixel 8 Pro Review: Display
The display on the Pixel 8 Pro actually got a really big upgrade this year. And no I’m not talking (entirely) about the display being flat. Though that is a really great change here, and Samsung is also rumored to be going with a flat display on the Galaxy S24 Ultra next year. But rather the brightness.
This year, Google is using a new display, which they are calling the “Super Actua Display”. This display is able to get super bright. We’re talking about a peak brightness of 2,400 nits. Now to put that in perspective, Samsung’s displays on the Galaxy S23 series, Galaxy Z Fold 5 and others are only 1,750. The new iPhone 15 Pro series are only seeing a peak brightness of 2,000 nits. So this is very impressive.
On top of that, the typical brightness is also fairly bright at 1,600 nits. Now, I don’t have any type of tool to measure how bright this is, but while I was in New York City, I did take a photo of the display in direct sunlight and with a dark wallpaper. A shot that would normally make the display look very dim and unreadable, with plenty of shadows. But you can actually read everything very clearly. This right here was very surprising to me, and really good to see.
Aside from that, I’ve used the Pixel 8 Pro outside in direct sunlight quite a bit over the past week, and never did I have any issues with seeing what’s on the display. And even in direct sunlight, the screen brightness is typically sitting at 96%. Meaning it could get even brighter. Which is just mindblowing. I really hope that this becomes a trend over the next year with smartphones getting much brighter displays – especially foldables.
The new king of smartphone displays
Typically, Samsung is the king of smartphone displays. This is because they make the majority of the displays on smartphones, and usually save the newest and greatest panels for their own phones. So when companies like DisplayMate grade the new display on their new phones, they get the highest grade. Usually beating out their previous flagship. But now, Samsung has some competition.
Now, we don’t yet know who made the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro displays, it might still be Samsung for all we know. But these displays are really incredible. Not only are they crazy bright, but they look really good too. Contrast is there, and really makes the icons on your home screen pop off the screen. Honestly, It’s going to be hard to go to another phone after using the Pixel 8 Pro, the display is just that good.
Google Pixel 8 Pro Review: Performance
The achilles heel of the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series had been the Tensor chipset. That is Google’s new chipset, that it designed entirely for the Pixel experience. But it’s really just an Exynos chipset that was custom-made for the Pixel. So just as many had issues with the Exynos-version of the Galaxy S22 series, Pixel owners had those same problems. This included the Tensor chipset being slow, getting hot for absolutely no reason, and battery life being subpar.
With the Tensor G3, Google says that it has greatly improved the processor. Every sub-system has been upgraded here, and so far, you can tell that there are some big upgrades in day-to-day use. I’ve used the Pixel 7, 7 Pro, 7a and Fold over the past year. Carrying the Pixel 7 Pro until the Fold came out and carrying the Fold until now. And the Tensor G2 was never really that great of a chipset. It started out pretty decent, but in the Pixel 7 Pro it was quite slow compared to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. It would also get really warm, just sitting in your pocket. This improved with the Pixel Fold, but it would still get quite warm.
So far, that has not been the case on the Pixel 8 Pro. Which is really good to see. The phone has gotten a little warm, but that was really only when using the camera a lot, or watching video outside where the brightness is maxed out. And that would cause any phone to get pretty warm. Of course, we’re only a week into the Pixel 8 Pro’s life, so things could change, but so far, performance is looking pretty good.
Google Pixel 8 Pro Review: Battery Life & Charging
One of the bigger complaints with Tensor, since it debuted on the Pixel 6 a couple of years ago, was the battery life. Battery life has been pretty mediocre on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7, and that seems to be the same this year on the Pixel 8 Pro.
Battery life is decent, but it’s still a step down from phones like the Galaxy S23 Ultra or the OnePlus 11, which use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. During my testing here, I was able to get about seven to eight hours of screen on time. That’s enough to get you through the full day, unless you’re a super hard user on your phone. But it is well below those Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones, where we were getting double-digit hours of screen on time.
Now when it comes to charging. Google did make a pretty nice upgrade here. The Pixel 7 Pro was charging at a max of 23W, and now the Pixel 8 Pro is able to charge at 30W. It’s not a huge difference in charging speeds, but it is a big enough difference to notice it. I was able to charge the Pixel 8 Pro in a little over an hour, which is much faster than the Pixel 7 Pro actually. But keep in mind, you’ll only see this 30W charging speed when your phone is below 50%. So it’s going to be faster to 50% than before, but charging all the way to 100% is still going to be pretty long.
Overall, battery life and charging is not the best here on the Pixel 8 Pro, but it is an upgrade over the Pixel 7 Pro.
Google Pixel 8 Pro Review: Software
The Pixel 8 Pro’s second biggest feature is always going to be software. With the first being the camera, which we’ll talk about next. But before we even get into the actual software, there’s something else we need to talk about first.
That is updates. Google has stated in their launch event that they will be updating the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro until 2030. That’s seven years of updates. And no, Google isn’t talking just security updates, but Android OS updates, feature drops and more. That’s a huge deal, considering most of its partners/competitors are doing four years of updates, with Apple usually doing around six years. So this is a huge deal, but considering how Google is with its own products, many are skeptical about whether Google will kill the Pixel before then. Though, I don’t think they will, maybe a rebrand, but not killing it off altogether.
Now let’s get into the software. This is the first phone (along with the Pixel 8) to launch with Android 14. This update doesn’t bring a ton of user-facing updates to the Pixel, but there are a few smaller details here. Including the new clocks and lockscreen customization. The battery life screen is also much better this time around.
Having said that, Android 14 does change a lot under-the-hood. And the update itself has been pretty smooth on the Pixel Fold, even during the beta process. And it seems to run just as well on the Pixel 8 Pro here. That’s definitely great news.
Lots of new Generative AI features
This is Google, so we knew there’d be a good amount of AI included in the Pixel 8 Pro. One of those Generative AI features that Google announced, we’ll be talking more about in the Camera section, and that’s Magic Editor. It’s honestly one of my favorite Generative AI features out there. It lets you replace the sky, making it clear, cloudy, or even putting it in Golden hour. As well as letting you create portraits and do other styles. It’s really quite cool.
Aside from Magic Editor, another one of my favorite AI features is the AI Wallpaper. This is included in the wallpaper section of the phone, and it works pretty easily. You choose a topic, something like Imaginary, Luminous, Mineral, etc. Then you get a couple of other variables you can change, one usually includes colors. Then you can tap on “Create Wallpaper”. It’ll generate a handful of wallpapers that you can swipe through, and if you don’t like them, you can make it do it again. Once you set it as a home or lockscreen, it’ll appear in that section, so you can easily go back to it.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to extract these yet to use on other devices, like a Pixel Tablet, or maybe a Chromebook. Though that might come in the future. So far, Google is keeping this pretty limited, though that will change. Just in the week that we’ve been using the Pixel 8 Pro, we’ve seen four more topics added here.
The other cool AI features are part of Google Assistant. And one that I’ve actually used quite a bit, is the ability to summarize web pages. Once you go to a webpage, you can bring up the Google Assistant by long-pressing the home button or saying “Okay Google”. From there, you’ll get a couple of options, including Summarize. Tap on that, and you’ll get, usually, a three bullet-point summary. This works pretty well, especially on news articles. But on longer articles like reviews, it can be hit or miss.
Another option within the Google Assistant here, is the ability to read the webpage aloud. It’s pretty good actually, though it does use the more robotic voice of Google Assistant, but it works. You can also have it translate what it’s reading. So say you speak Spanish, and you’re on an English page. Assistant can read the English page aloud to you in Spanish. That’s a really crazy good feature, to be quite honest.
The AI stuff here is just the beginning really. As Google did also announce the Assistant with Bard is coming soon, likely in the December Feature Drop. Which is going to put Assistant on steroids. It’s going to be a really cool time for AI features on phones.
Google Pixel 8 Pro Review: Camera
It wouldn’t be a new Google Pixel phone without talking about the camera and all of the new AI tricks that Google has added here. One of the more impressive features that Google added to the camera, is a video feature. Last year, they debuted Magic Eraser, which was a cool way to get rid of people and objects from your photo. Now, they are doing the same thing, with audio. It’s called Audio Eraser.
Audio Eraser uses AI to identify a number of different sounds in your video. That includes Wind, Nature, Noise, Speech and Crowd. There’s likely more, but that’s what I’ve seen so far. You can choose to remove one, or all of them, and there are sliders available for all three, so you can remove some or all of the sound. I did this on a video I took in Times Square. As you might expect, there’s plenty of noise, people talking and crowd noise. After removing all three, there’s almost no sound on the video. I can also opt to keep the noise, and remove the speech and crowd noise. Which is really impressive. This will save your video as a copy, instead of overwriting the original video.
Google also added Magic Editor here on the Pixel 8 series, which they first teased back at Google I/O. It’s still in its early stage, and not fully baked, but it’s going to be basically Magic Eraser on steroids. It does a better job at erasing people and objects from your photo, but you can also make things bigger or smaller, and move them around. You can also change up the sky, all thanks to generative AI. It really makes you wonder, “what really is a photo anyways”. Google has said that they will be adding more AI features to Magic Editor too.
Below are a few pictures from Magic Editor. The first two are of the Empire State Building, with the first one putting it in Golden Hour, and the second being a stylized option. The third is a selfie, where the sky was changed to Golden Hour.
The other big AI feature in the Pixel 8 Pro’s camera, is Best Take. Now, when we started seeing leaks of this feature, we thought it was creepy, but now it seems pretty cool actually. Best Take is meant for group shots, where it’s hard to get everyone looking good at the same time, or even smiling. Basically what Google does here, is burst shots. And allows you to change up the persons face from another photo that the camera captured during that burst shot.
How good are the cameras, actually?
Okay, so, enough talk about all the AI features in the camera, how well does it actually take pictures? You know, just point and shoot and boom. Well, as it turns out, pretty good. Google still has three lenses here, a 48-megapixel ultrawide and telephoto and a 50-megapixel main sensor. That gives you four focal lengths actually, 0.5, 1, 2 and 5. Google is punching in on that 50-megapixel sensor to give you a 2x zoom, while the telephoto is an actual 5x lens.
Let’s start with that telephoto lens. It’s still one of my favorite camera lenses on any phone. These pictures are really sharp, and even when you zoom in, you don’t see a lot of artifacts. You may not always need a 5x zoom on your phone, but it is nice to have. The only downside I’ve seen here is that Google is not letting you do 5x portraits like the iPhone does. The periscope lens here doesn’t offer a lot of bokeh either. That is definitely something I’d like to see Google change in the future.
The main lens is also very good. As you would expect from Google. Pictures come out looking very sharp, and a pretty nice natural bokeh effect. Of course, you can also change that after the fact and add a lot more bokeh if we would like.
The real upgrade this year comes to the ultrawide, which is now a 48-megapixel sensor. This is a big deal, not because you need that much more resolution for taking photos of buildings, but because this lens is used for macro shots. And getting 48-megapixels of resolution for a macro picture is a big deal. Since you’re already super close to the object, you definitely need all the resolution you can get. Which results in some really great looking macro shots here.
Here are some camera shots from the Pixel 8 Pro, all unedited.
Google finally gave us Pro controls!
Another big feature on the Pixel 8 series this year, which I believe deserved its own section here, is Pro Controls. This is a feature that the Pixel has lacked for many years, and it always seemed odd. But it’s finally here, and it’s everything you could want.
Now in the camera app, you’ll see a little gear icon in the lower left-hand corner. Tap on that and you’ll see Photo Settings, with a General side and then a Pro side. On the Pro side, you can change from 12-megapixel to 50-megapixels, choose JPEG or JPEG and RAW and also choose whether you want the camera app to automatically switch cameras.
Over on the right side, you’ll see an icon that looks like three sliders. This is where all of the Pro Controls are. So you have options for Brightness, Shadow, White Balance, Focus, Shutter Speed and ISO. Most of this is stuff that we have seen before, but Google lets you do manual focus here, that’s not something we’ve seen on many other phones. You can do it on the iPhone, but with a third-party app, for example.
Will most of us use these features or settings? No, of course not. But it is really great to see them here. Giving the user more control over their photos.
Should you buy the Google Pixel 8 Pro?
This year, Google put a lot more of a difference between the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, instead of just being about size and the telephoto camera. There’s a lot to like about the Pixel 8 Pro here, and it makes it an even harder decision between it and the Pixel 8. Especially with the price increase for both models, of $100. If you’re coming from a Pixel 7 series, the upgrade isn’t really worth it. But if it’s a Pixel 6 or older, then the Pixel 8 Pro is pretty worth it. And there’s loads of great trade-in options available right now.
You should buy the Google Pixel 8 Pro if:
– You really want that big display, or telephoto camera.
– You prefer Google’s Pixel software over Samsung or OnePlus’ software.
– You want the best camera in your pocket – even if it does need some software and AI trickery.
You should not buy the Google Pixel 8 Pro if:
– You have a Pixel 7 series phone.
– You need amazing battery life