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Hãy viết đoạn tóm tắt về nội dung bằng tiếng việt kích thích người mua: The Pixel for the masses

The Pixel 8 is finally here, and it’s likely Google’s most distinct non-Pro model just yet. It’s significantly smaller and lighter than its predecessor, giving it a proper different touch and feel than the Pro model. It also misses some key features compared to its bigger Google Pixel 8 Pro sibling, giving the $300 price gap between the two make a lot more meaning than in previous generations. It’s clear that Google has learned a lot from the last two generations of its new hardware design and its own chipsets, and the Pixel 8 is the culmination of all the things the company stands for: It’s a software-first handset that can set itself apart from the competition with some incredible features, and it’s the one to get if you’re looking for a new flagship Pixel phone.

At the same time, there are some downright weird differences between the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. Along with making the Pixel 8 smaller and more distinct looking, the company also added arbitrary camera software differences between the two phones, and it rubs me the wrong way. The Pixel 8 is still a great phone, but in this review, I want to dissect both what the Pixel 8 adds to the Pixel lineup, and also what it misses compared to its bigger brother.

Google Pixel 8

Editor’s Choice

The Google Pixel 8 is Google’s best phone yet, and it’s the most distinct regular model when compared to the Pro version. It comes with a wonderful form factor that fits well in the hands and has the usual software prowess that you expect from a Pixel.

SoC

Google Tensor G3

RAM

8GB

Storage

128GB, 256GB

Battery

4,575mAh

Ports

USB-C

Operating System

Android 14

Front camera

10.5 MP Dual PD selfie camera

Rear camera

50 MP Octa PD wide camera, 12 MP ultrawide

Connectivity

4G, 5G mmWave, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth, NFC 5.3, NFC

Dimensions

150.5 × 70.8 × 8.9mm

Colors

Rose, Hazel, Obsidian Black

Display type

OLED, 60-120 hertz

Weight

187 grams (6.6 ounces)

Charge speed

Up to 27 watts

IP Rating

IP68

Display dimensions

6.2 inches

Display resolution

1080 × 2400 pixels

Charge options

Wired, Wireless

SIM support

Dual SIM (Nano SIM and eSIM)

Cellular connectivity

4G, 5G mmWave

Wi-Fi connectivity

Wi-Fi 7 (Except certain markets)

Bluetooth

5.3

Pros

• Bright and stunning display
• Great battery life
• 7 years of OS updates

Cons

• Arbitrarily limited software capabilities
• Still no even bezels all around the display

Availability, price & network

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: The Google Pixel 8 is $100 more expensive than its predecessor and costs $700 in the base 128GB configuration. The same increase also applies for the Pixel 8 Pro, and the Pixel 7a earlier this year is also $50 more than its predecessor. This brings the whole lineup up in price, which makes sense when you consider inflation. Google isn’t just making the phone more expensive, though. With its unmatched seven years of software support and its long battery life, it may just last you much longer than its predecessors, putting the price in perspective. More on this later, though.

As previous generations, the Pixel 8 is virtually available on all major retailers and carriers, including the Google Store itself. Internationally, both the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro are expanding to more countries than its predecessors. Other than the US and Canada, the phones are available in many Western European countries (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, UK) as well as Australia, India, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan.

The Pixel 8 works on all relevant networks in the US and internationally, though if you’re a Verizon customer, you’ll have to pay $100 extra to get a version with the appropriate mmWave antennas so you can use the network to its full extent.

Design

If you’ve seen the Google Pixel 7 before, you can describe the Pixel 8’s new design in a single sentence: It’s a smaller, more refined Pixel 7 with more rounded corners and slightly bigger cameras. That means it retains the signature Pixel look the company introduced with the Pixel 6. The visor-style camera stretching across the top of the phone’s back is still the defining design feature of the series, with the raised section smoothly transitioning into the rim of the phone. Like the Pixel 7, all of it is made of brushed aluminum, contrasting with the glossy glass at the front and back. This also means that the top and bottom of the camera array is still prone to catching all the dust and lint from your pockets, an unfortunate side effect of the design since the Pixel 6.

The Pixel 8 next to its predecessor, the Pixel 7

Holding the Pixel 8 in your hands, you will immediately appreciate how small it is and how nice the rounded corners feel in the hand. It’s just a few millimeters shorter and narrower than the Pixel 7 and a few grams lighter, but it makes all the difference. The Asus Zenfone 10 and the Samsung Galaxy S23 are still clearly smaller phones than the Pixel 8, but it’s getting closer. The new size also helps distinguish the Pixel 8 more from the Pixel 8 Pro, which is now clearly the iPhone 15 Pro Max pendant of the Google lineup when it comes to size. In fact, the Pixel 8 and the regular iPhone 15 have very comparable dimensions, with the Pixel having a slight edge thanks to its more ergonomic design.

The one design decision I wish the Pixel 8 got from its bigger sibling is the frosted glass back. The Pixel 8 Pro switches to an iPhone 15-like smooth back that does a great job of hiding fingerprints, and it’s a shame that the material is exclusive to the bigger and more expensive model.

In everyday use, I appreciate the small size of the Pixel 8 even more. Without a case, it’s a lot less noticeable in my pocket, and thanks to the easier grip it provides I’m a lot less afraid of dropping and shattering it. That said, you probably want to put it in a good case, be it for design reasons or only to protect your investment. Just don’t drop money on Google’s first party case if you don’t like soft-touch silicone — it collects dust and lint like a magnet and is rather hard to clean.

The Pixel 8 switches up the color selection significantly. It only retains the Obsidian black colors from the last generation and instead introduces new Rose and Hazel options. Green and especially a white option (Lemongrass and Snow, if you will) are missing altogether. With the smaller iPhone 15 also losing its white option, it looks like this design option is currently not in fashion. If you were smart about your other Google purchases over the past year, this phone generation allows you to match colors across Pixel products now. You can get the Pixel Tablet, the Pixel 8, and the Pixel Watch 2 (or 1) in Hazel, the one color they all share.

The Google Pixel 8 next to the much bigger Pixel 8 Pro

Display

Moving on to the front of the Pixel 8, and you’re presented with a 6.2-inch 1080 x 2400 OLED with a 20:9 aspect ratio. Google calls it an Actua display, a term that Google coined and that is supposed to mean that the display gets particularly bright. The numbers speak for themselves: The Pixel 8 can reach up to 1,400 nits in HDR and 2,000 nits in peak brightness, making it among the brightest in the industry. It supports a variable refresh rate between 60Hz and 120Hz.

While the display is smaller than the Pixel 7’s 6.3-inch screen, the increased brightness and the higher refresh rate make more than up for that. The Pixel 8’s screen is beautiful to look at, with rich colors, stable viewing angles, and good visibility even in sunlight. The display also seems to be laminated closer to its Gorilla Glass Victus cover, suggesting that it’s a flexible OLED. The screen basically feels like it protrudes from the phone itself.

The bezels around the screen have gotten a tiny bit smaller, allowing the big screen to sit in a smaller body than possible in a merely shrunken Pixel 7 design. The bezels to shrink the most is certainly the bottom bezel, though unlike the Pixel 8 Pro, the Pixel 8’s bottom bezel is still a little thicker than the others. It’s not as obvious on the Pixel 8 as on the Pixel 7 or other similar phones, but it bugs me that this is what Google stopped short of.

Another point of contention for those upgrading from an older Pixel might be the extremely rounded corners that also affect the display itself. It’s one of the roundest screens I’ve ever seen on an Android phone, giving it an iPhone-like look at the very first glance. It doesn’t negatively affect interface elements in any app I’ve used and I don’t mind it, but it’s certainly unique.

Tensor G3 performance and heat

At the centerpiece of the Pixel 8 you will find the Tensor G3 SoC, Google’s third-generation self-made chipset. During the announcement, Google was surprisingly shy about the exact internals. The first Tensor chip and the Tensor G2 are known for their tendency to run hot and overheat, especially on the super-thin Google Pixel Fold. In an interview with Michael Fisher, Google’s Rick Osterloh wouldn’t even acknowledge the heating issues directly saying that “all SoCs will get hot if you use it a lot” though he followed up with, “we’re really focused in this area, though, and we think we have big improvements in G3 with this.”

With this promising statement in mind, the Pixel 8 does get plenty warm when using it for extended periods of time. This is particularly true for more intensive tasks like taking high resolution images, using AI to magically edit photos (more on that later), and even when browsing the web and multitasking while on a poor mobile connection. At the same time, I never got the dreaded warning that flash can’t be used on the camera due to the heat, which is something I saw a lot on the Pixel Fold and sometimes also on the Pixel 7 Pro. To be fair, I’ve used both these phones in warmer weather than the Pixel 8 in the summer. With temperatures currently maxing out at 20° Celsius (roughly 70° Fahrenheit) at the moment, there is only so much external heat to pile up on the SoC’s own thermals.

It’s also worth noting that I haven’t experienced particular problems with the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro when I was using them last winter. The problems only cropped up in the summer, and even then, the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro were a lot cooler for me than the Pixel Fold. I wouldn’t say that the Tensor’s heating issues are blown out of proportion, but I think that the super-thin Fold did a big part to further tarnish the chip’s reputation. It’s likely that it was just not efficient enough to be crammed into the extremely thin device.

I wish I had a better answer on thermals, but at the moment, I can only say that I think it should be fine. The same is true for mobile connectivity. Pixel 6 and some Pixel 7 users have experienced a lot of issues with their connection, with phones barely able to stay connected to radio towers. Things have already gotten a lot better for most people with the Tensor G2, and I can’t say I’ve run into any unexpected problems with the Tensor G3 other than the usual poor state of Germany’s mobile networks, which is where I live. I also haven’t experienced any big problems with the Pixel 6’s connectivity, for what it’s worth, so we may have to wait for more crowdsourced reports on connectivity problems before we can reach a definite conclusion based on a single unit.

Disregarding heat and mobile connectivity, the performance of the Tensor G3 is good. The phone remains responsive and snappy even during more difficult tasks like photo editing and extensive camera usage. Even when getting warm, the phone doesn’t begin to throttle or stutter for me, which is something I feared could happen on a longer train ride with bad connectivity.

Other hardware and what’s in the box

The Tensor G3 is accompanied by 8GB of LPDDR5X RAM on all variants of the Pixel 8 and 128 or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. In also reuses the familiar Titan M2 security chip for encryption and more. The phone additionally supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3, USB Type-C 3.2, and offers IP 68 water and dust resistance.

The stereo speakers are an improvement compared to the previous generation. While it’s obviously no as good as a great portable Bluetooth speaker, the sound is more refined and less distorted on high volumes. Like most other modern phones, the Pixel 8 also suffers from uneven stereo sound, though, with the bottom-firing speaker significantly clearer and even louder than the earpiece at the top. It’s also easy to block the audio inadvertently by obstructing the speaker at the bottom, which is a problem on many other phones, too, but it still deserves mentioning.

In the classic understated white box with the image of the phone on it, you will find the handset itself, a USB-A to C adapter, a USB-C charging and data cable, and warranty and quick setup information with the SIM ejector tool tucked inside. The box mostly does without plastic, there is only a slim paper film protecting the display during transport.

Software

The Pixels are software-first products, and the same is true for the Pixel 8, though there are some caveats I will discuss in the camera section. Let’s start with the good stuff, though: The Pixel 8 will get seven years of full OS updates, surpassing virtually any other brand out there, including Apple.

Google has burned us a lot with discontinued products, including the laugahbly short life of the Pixel Pass, so take the update guarantee with a grain of salt, but if the company sticks with it, it’s the best policy we’ve ever seen in a mainstream phone. To me, this shows Google’s commitment to the Pixel project, and I really want to believe the company that it stands behind its phones, but I can understand why the reception of this 7-year promise isn’t as positive as it could have been. If things pan out as they should and Google keeps its current Android numbering scheme, the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro will get Android 21 in 2030. That’s bonkers if you think about it!

Apart from being the first phone to launch with Android 14, which you can read all about in my review, there are a ton of new software features that Google launches first on the Pixel 8 (and 8 Pro).

More secure biometric face unlock

On the security front, Pixel 8 and 8 Pro users can enjoy biometric face unlocks with Class 3 support, which is a fancy way of saying that the phones can securely use your face to unlock online banking and payments.

The Pixel 7 and 7 Pro introduced face unlock as an option to bypass your lock screen, but Google wasn’t confident enough about the security of the feature to allow for more critical security applications. Given that the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro come without a front-facing IR blaster, the secure unlock option is fully implemented in software, with Google saying that it improved the algorithm and machine learning capabilities to enable it.

In my book, it’s an incredible achievement to provide the same level of security solely in software whereas other companies need to rely on expensive and complicated hardware to aid it. It was a long journey for Google to get there, with the Pixel 4 still featuring an IR blaster, the Google Pixel 6 scrapping face unlock support after a short development period, and the Pixel 7 only offering it for lock screen bypasses, but the company has arrived at its goal.

The big advantage is how little space this solution takes up, whereas Apple and other Android manufacturers have to use bigger camera cutouts at the front of the screen. At the same time, the big disadvantage is that Google’s solution doesn’t work in the dark. Given that it still has a fingerprint sensor as a fallback, I think that Google manages to offer the best of both worlds with its dual solution. You’re still going to press and hold the fingerprint scanner area when you unlock your phone or your online bank, so your phone will just use whatever solution works best in the circumstances. This is particularly useful when you want to unlock your phone while wearing sunglasses or while laying in bed with part of your face obstructed by your pillow (this last one may be a me problem).

Assistant improvements, on-board AI features, and more

Google Assistant may seem like it’s become the neglected stepchild in Google’s question to bring its AI chat tool Bard to the masses, but the company still keeps adding new features to the good old voice assistant. Google says that the on-board Assistant is able to process speech even faster than before, and it can also pick up pauses and all your “ahs” and “ums,” making it easier to finish your thought or sentence without Assistant given an answer to an incomplete question. Comparing the Pixel 7 and the Pixel 8 side-by-side, this works just as intended, and it’s incredible how much easier it makes talking to Assistant. On the Pixel 7, you basically have to think of your command or question before you start talking, which the Pixel 8 is okay with waiting for you to finish your sentence. It’s a much more natural way of speaking, and I can only hope it will make its way to Assistant smart home devices.

Similar improvements are also coming to Google’s on-board voice dictation. The company promises that it’s twice as fast in processing your speech, and it also supports multilingual input, which previously only worked with the company’s older, off-device speech recognition model. I was very skeptical about that last part, considering Assitant’s multi-language version has never worked particularly well for me, and after testing it extensively, I’m split about how much I like it when dictating. I’m running into unintentional switches between German and English way more often than I would like, to the point where I found myself turning off German on my English keyboard to reduce those false positives when I know I’m sticking with one language.

Google also updated the At a Glance widget with a few more options that I’m sure will make their way to older phones soon, too. For example, it will now always show you a weather forecast for the next day the evening before. The company also says that it will now show event tickets and travel updates in the space, but I haven’t seen that during my review yet.

Pixel’s Call Assist has some new features on board, as well. The tool is now even better at filtering out spam, proactively asking callers what they want and then determining their intentions on its own. Since I’m fortunate enough to be mostly spared from spam calls (knock on wood), I don’t have much to report on this front, though. It can also offer you dynamic answer suggestions based on the conversation rather than the predetermined chips of old.

Battery life & charging

The battery life plainly surprises me on the Google Pixel 8. Despite heavy usage during my testing period, I haven’t been able to run down the battery completely before the end of the day. That’s even during a short trip to Germany’s coastal town of Rostock, with a three hour train ride with pretty much the worst mobile connection you can imagine. At the end of that day that was spent on a mix of Wi-Fi, said poor mobile connectivity, and some photo taking, I was left with a total of 5 hours and 50 minutes of screen-on time. On a day mostly spent on Wi-Fi, I could extend that number to 6 hours and 30 minutes. When I wasn’t trying to run the battery down on other days, I achieved rates ranging from 4 to 5:30 hours with 15 to 30 percent of battery reserves left.

While this is within the ballpark of what you can expect from other Android manufacturers, I’ve never been able to reach numbers this high. In my Pixel 7 review, 5 hours was usually the maximum I could achieve. This impressive difference makes sense when you consider that the Pixel 8 has a smaller display but still a bigger battery than its predecessor, upping the mAh count by 220mAh to 4575mAh. It’s an impressive engineering feat, especially when you consider that the new Pixel is only 0.2mm thicker. We also have to remember that it usually takes a week or two for Google’s adaptive battery to kick in, which should help extend the battery life even further.

Google also improved the charging rate ever so slightly. In my test, I was able to fully recharge the Pixel 8 from 1 to 100 in 1 hour and 33 minutes via cable, while leaving the phone idling with its radios turned on. This is slightly better than the Pixel 7, which we could top off in 1 hour and 40 minutes. Despite the small improvement, the Pixel still pales compared to high-end Xiaomi and Oppo phones that can reach charging speeds of more than 100W, allowing you to fully charge your phone within less than 40 minutes or sometimes even less than half an hour. Still, if Google keeps improving charging speed with every generation without sacrificing long-term battery health (a big concern I have with all these superfast charging phones), I can’t complain too much.

Wirelessly, the Pixel 8 supports up to 18W with the second-gen Pixel Stand and up to 12W with other Qi chargers. That’s the same as it has been on the Pixel 7, and like that last generation, it’s also a little slower than the Pro model, which can go up to 23W on the Pixel Stand. The Pixel 8 also doesn’t support Qi2’s MagSafe-like magnetic connectivity, which is a bummer. Like other Qi chargers, it’s a little magnetic, but it’s not enough to securely hold MagSafe equipment in place (I tried).

Cameras

Google wants to change what constitutes an image with the Pixel 8 series. While we can talk all about the new and improved cameras and the redesigned app, the highlighting features to be released with the Pixel 8 series are all about AI and image manipulation. Magic Editor lets you completely redo an image’s composition and tone, Best Take finally offers a fix for that one person always looking away in group images, and Ultra HDR photography offers a brand-new way to look at HDR content.

Camera hardware and samples

First things first, though. The Pixel 8 has a new primary camera that’s supposed to be 21 percent more sensitive to light than the one before it thanks to a bigger sensor. Google didn’t tell, but it’s the Samsung GN2, a newer generation camera than the GN1 in the Pixel 7 series. It still offers 50MP binned down to 12.5MP, but it should capture more light in darker scenes.

The ultrawide is still the Sony IMX386, but it’s the Pixel 7 Pro variant rather than the Pixel 7 variant. That means it can capture just a little more of a scene with a 125.8° field of view (denoted in the camera app as 0.5x zoom rather than 0.7x on the Pixel 7), and it’s also finally capable of macro photography, a feature missing from the Pixel 7.

On the front, the Pixel 8 gets upgraded to a 10.5MP Dual PD selfie camera, but it retains the fixed focus from the older generation — the Pixel 8 Pro gets autofocus here. The new sensor might be another piece of the puzzle when it comes to the Pixel 8’s Class 3 biometric unlock support, but for visuals, it doesn’t provide a big upgrade.

As expected, the Pixel 8 excels as a camera phone. The camera app is quick to load and lets you take a picture stutter-free almost immediately. No matter what you point it at, you’re basically guaranteed to get at least a decent shot in good lighting. The Pixel 8 is still the best option when you just want to point and shoot and forget about the whole process of photography, other than framing.

The Pixel 8 is also a beast in low light. While it doesn’t seem any faster in capturing low-light scenes, night mode kicks in later than on the Pixel 7 without any quality loss. This allows you to take shots of fast moving subjects and objects in less light, without having to worry about as much motion blur — which you can get rid of with Google Photos’ camera magic, to an extent. I’ve run into a few processing issues, though, with some lighting artifacts in a few pictures like the one below here. This is a rare exception, though, with most shots turning out fine.

For a look at the full resolution images, as well as a shot at viewing the Ultra HDR variants of the photos if you have a device that’s supported (more on that in a second), check out this Google Photos album.

Ultrawide, 1x, 2x, 8x

Ultra HDR

One of the most interesting changes to photography as a whole is coming with the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. Both are capable of capturing and displaying Ultra HDR images. In essence, Ultra HDR makes HDR images look more realistic. Rather than compressing different brightness levels into similar RBG ranges to show more details, it utilizes the Pixel 8’s display’s full HDR range, making HDR images look almost true to life. In our testing on both the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, this manages to impress me for the most part. When you compare the same image in its Ultra HDR version and its regular version, shots without the Ultra HDR seem colorless and dull.

HDR in cameras vs. Ultra HDR in Android 14 (Source: Google)

Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to show the difference if you’re reading this on most currently available devices. To view Ultra HDR content, you need to have the latest version of Chrome on Windows, macOS, or Android 14 and a compatible Ultra HDR display. The Pixel 7 and 7 Pro support displaying this content, for example, but it will take some time until the technology is really ready for prime time. While not as big a step, you can compare it with black and white TV screens not capable of displaying a color image, or, for a more recent example, an LCD screen not capable of displaying true blacks like an OLED.

We have an extensive deep dive into Android 14’s Ultra HDR for you courtesy of Mishaal Rahman, who explains exactly how this feature works across all the operating system, not just the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro.

Magic Editor, Magic Eraser, and Best Take

I have to say that I was and I still am skeptical about Magic Editor, a feature that allows you to fully recompose and re-design an image after the fact using Google’s AI image model. You can tap or circle objects and subjects and move them around freely in your image, you can change the sky to show more dramatic clouds or make the sea a deeper blue. You can also stylize the image to create a fantasy-like look. Your imagination is only limited by the tools that Google gives you with Magic Editor.

When I tested Magic Editor, I went in expecting nothing, and I came away somewhat impressed. At first glance, images edited with the Magic Editor look fine, but once you look closer you will see stitching errors, artifacts, and much of the usual weirdness you may have seen in AI images before. Some of my projects, like the photo of the case below, were full fails. But when you consider that it took me no more than two to three minutes to edit each of the samples below, it’s quite incredible just how okay it looks.

Original first, magically edited second

In the past, you would need to spend at least a few hours in Photoshop to achieve the same results, and I’d argue that Magic Editor’s results look better than what I could do manually in, say, half an hour (I know some Photoshop but I’m definitely not an expert). In fact, I could probably take the output from Magic Editor and touch it up myself to get a truly good result. It’s scary to think about what this means for the creative industry, but here we are.

Along with the introduction of Magic Editor, Google has also improved Magic Eraser. The tool lets you remove objects and subjects from images and was introduced with the Pixel 7 series. Google says it now works for larger distractions and items with more complex structures. Magic Eraser still isn’t perfect, but in my testing, it’s certainly better now. Like with Magic Editor, you have to keep in mind that Magic Eraser mostly wants to win you over with ease of use and speed. Editing an image in Photoshop and replacing objects there is always going to give you better results (at least today), but without prior knowledge, you might spend the better part of a day and still end up with an equally imperfect result.

First pair: Magic Eraser on the Pixel 8. Last pair: Magic Eraser on the Pixel 7

Another brand-new feature is Best Take, though unfortunately, I can’t showcase much of my testing here since I don’t have clearance from friends and family to post their images online (privacy is a human right, m’kay). You will have to take my word for it that it works pretty well, though I share my colleague Will’s sentiment that both Magic Editor and Best Take could take things to far, making us question what is even real. At the same time, photo editing and compositing is almost as old as photography itself, so maybe it’s just the next natural step.

Source: Google

Magic Audio Eraser

Magic Audio Eraser certainly earns its name. The Google Photos editing feature allows you to use machine learning to change your video’s audio, making it possible to reduce distracting noise, wind, speech, and more. When I tested the feature in the sample, I was able to eradicate all distracting wind sounds while keeping the sound of the waves intact.

If I wanted to, I could get rid of all the background noise or at least turn it down a notch, with a sliding scale from 0 to 100 allowing me to decide exactly how I want the video to sound. I remember hopelessly giving up on eliminating distracting background noise in one of my video projects a long time ago, and it’s incredible that a simple fix like this is now available on our phones.

It’s definitely not perfect though — as you may be able to tell, some of my speech is just missing in the last video. The algorithm likely tried to eliminate the wind noise that was louder than me more efficiently than me.

Not all new features are available on the Pixel 8

Unfortunately, Google decided not to bring some features to the Pixel 8 that are available on the Pixel 8 Pro. First and foremost, you can’t use the Pro’s manual camera controls. While manually tweaking your ISO, shutter speed, and focus are arguably “pro” features, it’s still clear that it’s entirely achieved in software, as demonstrated by Kamila Wojciechowska, who ported the software to the Pixel 7 Pro.

Something similar is true for some other Pixel 8 Pro features slated to come later this year. You won’t be able to use Video Night Sight on the Pixel 8, even though the processing takes place in the cloud entirely.

Many people won’t need these features, and I personally will likely not miss then 99 percent of the time either, but I just dislike the idea of arbitrarily limiting features to one device. It’s not that this is the first time that Google does this, with apps like Google Recorder still Pixel exclusive and some camera features only coming to new Pixel phones, but it’s odd to see this divide across the same generation of phones.

Competition

The most obvious phone to compare the Pixel 8 to is its sibling, the Pixel 8 Pro. This year, the difference between the two devices in Google’s flagship lineup is more distinct than ever, and I’d argue you could call the Pixel 8 Pro the most pro Pixel ever. It offers an even more incredible camera system, smooth frosted glass on the back that’s nicer than the Pixel 8’s regular glass, and it has some extra software features that aren’t making the cut on the Pixel 8. If this is worth $300 extra for you, that’s up to you — I’d argue it’s not.

The Pixel 8’s smaller size also makes it a contender for the small flagship crown. When you look at a truly small phone like the Asus Zenfone 10 or the Samsung Galaxy S23, you’ll quickly see that it’s one of the biggest of the bunch, though. In that sense, the Zenfone and the S23 are both great choices if you value a small and compact flagship above everything else — especially if you still find the Pixel 8 a tad too big. The Zenfone 10 also offers a pretty stock-like software experience, though it doesn’t come close to the long term software support the Pixel 8 has.

Looking at the other side, the iPhone 15 is also a good choice if you’re looking for a phone that will last you for a long time thanks to software support window of 6+ years and an extensive repair network. I’d argue that Apple’s long-term support track record is a lot more proven than Google’s, too, so if you want a phone that you know you will more than likely be able to rely on for the next six years, the iPhone is a safe choice.

Should you buy it?

The Pixel 8 is a clear purchase recommendation in my book, even clearer than the Pixel 7 before it. That’s based on the 7-year update promise and the much improved battery life. It’s definitely once again the most refined Pixel yet. Even if I’m still concerned about the long-term viability of the Tensor G3 chip, things are looking great for the smaller Pixel. It’s an all-round good choice if you want a small and still powerful phone that lasts you all day without breaking the $1,000 barrier. You really don’t need to spend $300 more on the Pro model.

At the same time, there is a bigger divide than ever between the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. If you want the latest and greatest hardware and software in this Pixel generation, you have to pick the 8 Pro. There is no reason why manual camera controls or Night Sight Video should be exclusive to the Pixel 8 Pro other than forcing people to pay a $300 premium to get in on them (or saving Google some money on server costs). I can live without these features, but it still rubs me the wrong way, and it makes me question what other features will not make the cut on the Pixel 8 in the future.

Going into this review, I thought that I would ultimately gravitate towards the Pixel 8 Pro due to its bigger year-over-year improvements to the Pixel 7 Pro. The Pixel 8’s small form that fits so well in the hand and pocket has me a lot more excited about the future of small phones, because it gives me almost all the things I want in a great form factor.

Google Pixel 8

The Google Pixel 8 is the Google phone for most people. It has most of the latest and greatest hardware and software without breaking the bank as much as its bigger sibling, and it should last you more than a few years without issues.

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