So I have been using the Google Pixel 7 Pro for a week, and while there are some great things about this particular phone, there are several drawbacks that I found with this almost USD900 smartphone, so let’s “Pixel Peep” and find out how it compares against the iPhone 14 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.

And speaking of which, here is a photo comparison between all of the three phone, can you guess which is the Pixel? I’ll reveal the answer later!

 

Unboxing

[easy-image-collage id=11185]

 

Specifications

Now, before anything, I want to say thank you to my buddy, Muaz Malek, for loaning me the unit. Now as usual, during my review videos, I won’t go into the specs details of the phone, so here are the specs for your reference.

 

✅ Reason To Get 

Let’s first start with the positives. Now, Pixel being Pixel, I have always thought that the clean Android software experience beats every Android smartphone out there. Now this is not because Google makes Android because Samsung’s One UI is still my preferred option even compared to this phone.

But things like having the Google Home at the menu, selecting easy color themes based on the wallpaper, the always-on listening music feature, and the upcoming what’s next calendar seems like a simple feature to have, but that is why I just love it.

At first, I thought that I would not like the app prediction menu at the bottom of the phone, but it did an excellent job by making sure that the apps I was using and planning on using were there, which is kind of a scary thought too, since Google is always listening, but convenience factor, that’s a plus for me.

And while the Pixel 6 had tons of bugs that sometimes were fixed and then it came back again, as of the recording of this video, it is nice that Google has took a huge bug exterminator and sprayed all of the bugs, hence making this phone a way better experience when I was using it daily for a week.

Now, with Google’s very own Tensor G2 Chipset, they have also added some enhancements like the Super Intelligent Speech Detection, which I felt was the best, and yes, even slightly beating the new Siri detection feature on the iPhone, especially with my Malaysian Indian accent.

However, the other software enhancements, like the Photo Unblur, where if you take a blurred image because your phone shook while you are taking a photo, you can actually unblur those in a software optimization. Now, while that is cool and some may find it helpful, I never ever used it before, as I do feel that it is quite a hit or miss based on my test, because everything may not be how you might expect it to be.

Then the Magic Eraser sometimes did work, sometimes did not, so in my humble opinion, just practice and learn to take better pictures.

And knowing the fact that there are 3 years of software updates and another 2 years of security updates, that is definitely a huge factor on why you should consider the phone.

Then the Pixel 7 Pro has done a very good job on the overall image processing moving forward, as they tend to be oversharpened at times on the previous Pixel phones.

Speaking of image processing, if you want a really versatile camera smartphone, then this phone might be worth getting as the pixel-binned 50-Megapixel main camera’s picture looks very great indeed.

Then the ultrawide lenses were really great as a more of a point-and-shoot way.

But, if you want to compare it against the S22 Ultra and also the iPhone, that will be a totally different story.

In this photo comparison, the ultrawide lenses for the Pixel had a slight edge on better shadows, but I prefer the overall ultra-wide shots of the S22 Ultra. The dynamic range on all the phones for the ultra-wide shots are identical, so it all comes down to your preferred color, and of course, you can always adjust in post.

 

Going into the main lenses, when putting it side-by-side with the other Samsung and also iPhone’s flagships, I am still leaning towards the S22 Ultra’s image, and this could be due to its larger sensor.

And I have to say that I love the 5x optical zoom, which has one of the best focal lengths compared to other smartphones that I have tested, and knowing that this is a 48-Megapixel lens, even though with the higher aperture of 3.5, the images still turned out great.

I have always said that the iPhone 14 Pro Max, or even the 13 Pro Max, had one of the best (if not the best) Macro photography, and I can say that the Pixel 7 Pro joins the gang of having a great macro shot.

Then for the rear portrait mode, when taking photos of objects, the dynamic range for the background area was equally as good, but the S22 Ultra does a better job on the edge detection.

Switching over to portrait mode for humans, just comparing the Pixel against the iPhone 14 Pro Max, the edge detection on the tip of the hair was way better on the iPhone instead.

Then when it comes to the front camera shots, going back to when I first got my hands on the Pixel 2 XL, that phone was THE phone as there is NO other smartphone that could come close to being as good as the Pixel, and as time pass by, the Samsung and also the iPhone caught up pretty well.

And based on these images, I would say that now I prefer the pictures coming out from the iPhone as the skin tones and oversharpening were not as extreme compared to the Pixel, and of course, the S22 Ultra always gave a more than usual vibrant color tone.

Speaking of which, out of all the pictures (from the beginning of this article), which is the Pixel? Well, here is your answer!  

Now, I have to say that I still really love the Night Sight pictures on any Pixel devices, so the pictures produced were one of the best, when it comes to the night mode shots.

Moving over to the video recording, it looked great, with excellent dynamic range, and the image stabilization for the main and the ultra-wide was also great too.

Next, all three phones also comes with the Cinematic Mode, with all coming with different available names, but the biggest drawback that I found with the Pixel is the fact that it does not have this Cinematic mode for the front camera, where it is available both on the iPhone and also the S22 Ultra.

So looking at the rear camera samples for this Cinematic Mode, the iPhone obviously does a way better job as the phone records up to 4K. But I have to say that the Pixel goes on second place with a better video quality than the slightly over-sharpened video on the S22 Ultra.

Then the Pixel joins Samsung to be the only two Android smartphones to have front 4K video recording (Yes I’m talking about you, Xiaomi and all the other Chinese smartphones!) where the image stabilization was excellent, but compared side-to-side to the king of smartphone front camera video, the iPhone has a nicer and sharper image compared to the S22 Ultra and the Pixel as well.

So one of the things that I really wanted to test out is the audio recording on the Google Pixel 7 Pro because apparently it also has noise-cancellation for the microphone. So I intentionally went outside to test it out, there is quite an amount of wind and also I’m literally next to a highway as well, so you could be the judge whether or not the microphone is great on the Pixel 7 Pro. [Vlog test available on my YouTube video]

So with this, I still think that the Pixel 7 Pro has a great camera if you don’t really compare side-by-side with the other flagship smartphones, because ultimately this could be based on a personal preference, or am I just being too nice to the Pixel 7 Pro?

Going into the final two more reasons, next would be gaming because while I am not a huge fan of how the phone feels on my hands when I play games for a longer duration, more on that later, gaming on this phone has been great, with maximum settings on Genshin Impact, with very minimum warmth at the back of the phone. This is with Motion Blur turned on, beating the gaming performance of the S22 Ultra but on par with the iPhone.

Then as for the final reason on why you should probably get the phone is the phone’s battery life, as it did get me an average of 7 and a half hours of heavy usage, which was better than the S22 Ultra and about the same as the iPhone 14 Pro Max and this is because of the huge 5000 mAh of battery, so that was quite expected when it comes to this phone’s battery life.

Alright, so in a nutshell, you should get the Pixel 7 Pro for its software, battery, gaming and cameras… Is that it? Unfortunately, yes, because there are some reasons why you should probably NOT get the Pixel 7 Pro.

 

❌Reasons NOT To Get 

Firstly, the hardware of the Pixel 7 Pro is definitely not worth shouting about, because even though I love the haptics of the phone. While yes, the design looks nice and fresh, although it had a very similar design to the Pixel 6, 

I found the phone to be extremely slippery, so there is a huge risk of dropping the phone, and if you are one of those who rock a phone without a case, this Obsidian color, or shall I say, Black is such a fingerprint magnet!

And yes the polished aluminum camera bump gets scratches very easily, so please keep that in mind. But the slightly good news is that the camera bump does help when it comes to the phone wobbling on a surface, like if you place it on your table.

Now, another minor thing, and this may not be an issue for anybody else, but I find that it kind of annoyed me, is the placement of the power button on top and also the volume rocker below on the right hand side, which made me do a lot of accidental pressing of the shutter button when I was trying to lock the phone.

Now I do understand that in time you will get used to it due to the muscle memory, but that is something that kind of got me quite awhile for me to get used to, especially if you are coming from a Samsung phone or even an iPhone flagship.

The following reason I feel that you should not go out and immediately buy the phone, is the phone’s screen. Now, this is not because the screen is horrible, it is because I feel that as a supposedly flagship smartphone from Google, the screen is not even close to being as good as how the S22 Ultra looks or even the iPhone 14 Pro Max too.

Out of the box, it is switched to the resolution of 1080p, so keep that in mind. And even though I switched to 1440p or QHD+ display, I found that the screen to be just mediocre at best, and I felt that the display was a bit dull, whether or not I changed it to the Natural or Adaptive mode. By itself, just looking at it daily is fine but if you really compare it with the other flagships, here is where you will see the difference.

Now, this could also be because it’s using the first generation LTPO panel, so it does not go all the way to 1 Hertz when it is not being used, but instead it goes to 10 Hertz instead. But I have to say that the refresh rate was nice and smooth, and the display quality for consuming media was just okay as I mentioned earlier and it wouldn’t be the biggest reason to go out and get it.

Next, the stereo speakers on the Pixel 7 Pro was one of the worst compared to the iPhone and also the S22 Ultra, with the iPhone being the best of the lot where the speakers sounded so hollow in comparison on the Pixel 7 Pro, and its highs were almost fully drowned by the music, and here is where I felt that Google should have stuck to the front stereo speakers as they did in the Pixel 2 XL starting from then.

Then if you are looking to game on the phone, well I did mention that the performance on the gaming was great, but because of how the build quality was and how it was super slippery, I wouldn’t get this phone when it comes to long gaming sessions. Not only it was really uncomfortable during a longer gameplay, and because it is so slippery, if you are the kind of person who gets your hands sweaty easily then… Khalas!

Then, while Google was boasting about how Face Unlock is back on the Pixel, let me tell you that while Face Unlock works, but it only works in a brighter environment, not during low light or if you have a mask on. Now, this is because there is no infrared or radar sensor from the Pixel, and what’s weird is that it can also sometimes unlock your phone with one eye open.

So if you are looking for a secure phone with proper authentication for important apps like banking or such, the phone does not allow you to do so, it is as though Google themselves are saying that the phone or the Face Unlock is not as secure.

Then the final reason why you should not get the Google Pixel 7 Pro is that if you are from countries like here in Malaysia, where there are no official Google Store. Seriously, Google? Until now, no Google Store in Malaysia? Now you can argue that there is no official Apple Store here in Malaysia, but at least there are some very good, reputable authorized resellers.

And speaking of country-specific, cool features like the Call Screening is also not available in Malaysia, so that is a huge bummer.

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So, since I have laid it down very clearly for you, I would like to know what you think – would you now consider getting the Pixel 7 Pro?

Get the Google Pixel 7 Pro at the link below:-
https://invl.io/clfdrrs (Shopee)
https://amzn.to/3HHdgGv (Amazon)