Google Pixel 6 review: This phone is everything I wanted

Editor’s note, Nov. 18: The combination of price, design, cameras, central processing unit and software make the Google Pixel 6 one of the best value phones you can buy, which is why we ‘ve given it a CNET Editors ‘ Choice Award. The original recapitulation follows. The Pixel 6 exemplifies the best of what Google services and Android 12 have to offer. then a lot so that I ‘d claim that the Pixel 6 is the most significant call upgrade Google has made since it launched the Pixel line in 2016. The earphone ‘s newly cameras, Google ‘s Tensor chip and premium ambitions follow months of ballyhoo — partially stemming from Google announcing the earphone months before it was released — and its bold two-tone design. All of these changes come while keeping the Pixel 6 at a midtier $ 599 price, which easily washes away the bad sample left by the understated Pixel 5. Read more: The Pixel 6 is about to go on sale at Target for Black Friday

previous Pixel phones have lived in that safe, hushed and crowded midtier distance where phones cost between $ 600 and $ 800. For most people, they were good and sometimes great phones but lacked the luster, specification and solicitation of more agio phones from Samsung and Huawei .
8.8

Google Pixel 6

Like

• Two-tone blueprint
• Value for the price
• The main camera is Google ‘s best

Don’t Like

• Under-display fingerprint reader can be frustrating
• Battery biography is good, but hard to get more than a day
• The ultrawide television camera is becoming but not on the same tied as the main television camera

So what ‘s the trouble ? Well, in unretentive, Pixel phones have n’t sold well. It reminds me of the early days when Michael Jordan joined the Chicago Bulls but they were n’t winning championships yet. The Pixel 6 is an attack to build the telephone up to be more successful and appealing. It ‘s like when the Bulls decided to build a team about Jordan to help him win championships. alternatively of powering the call with a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, Google made its own chip : tensor. This allows the Pixel 6 to do computations and AI more securely and cursorily on the call than constantly using the cloud. tensor opens up a skid of new software features Google would n’t have been able to add using a different central processing unit. Google extended its three years of OS and security updates to five. In the US, the Pixel 6 is available both through Google and all major carriers. And Google even created a subscription plan a lanthanum Apple ‘s iPhone Upgrade program. It ‘s called Pixel Pass and costs $ 45 a month for two years. even the Pixel ‘s crown bejewel — its cameras — got upgrade lenses and hardware that ‘s more premium. now that Google has improved everything in, on and around the Pixel, is it quick for its championship ? ( I promise that ‘s the last Bulls character. ) In short, yes. This is the Pixel telephone I always wanted from Google. I spent over a workweek with the newfangled earphone and it lives up to a batch of the hype. The Pixel 6 starts at $ 599 ( £599, AU $ 999 ) and comes with 128GB of storage. For that price, I ca n’t think of a better telephone to recommend right now. If you ‘re looking for an in-depth look at the Google Pixel 6 Pro, check out the review my colleague Andy Hoyle wrote . Patrick Holland/CNET

The Pixel 6’s bold two-tone design makes me swoon

The Pixel 6 has a 6.4-inch, 1080p screen. It can be set to mechanically switch from 60Hz to 90Hz depending on the content onscreen. There ‘s an hole-punch cutout for the selfie camera and the screen is flat with slurred, Sharpie-like bezels that bleed into the matte-finish aluminum sides. For comparison ‘s sake, it reminds me a act of the iPhone XR and iPhone 11, which besides had similar bezels and rounded sides, and that ‘s not necessarily a bad thing. In function the sieve is pleasant. The resolution is good, but the Pixel 6 Pro ‘s is better. The front is covered in Gorilla Glass Victus. Under the screen is a fingerprint lector, which at foremost worked for me half of the time. It was frustrating and not a very full experience. After a maddening few days, I double-registered my thumbprints and it worked about every time. now I do n’t even need to smash my feel into the blind . Patrick Holland/CNET The back is where the phone ‘s design in truth makes me faint. It ‘s made of Gorilla Glass 6 and has a two-tone color outline. My review unit is Sorta Seafoam, which means the penetrate of the spinal column is sort of sparkle grey or screen of light blue depending on the light up. The top back undress is a light calcium oxide green, which contrasts nicely against the deep black of the television camera bar. The overall attend of the Pixel 6 reminds me a tad of the Pixel 2 XL and its lesser panda color. The horizontal camera banish runs across the width of the back and looks bold and different. The television camera prevention is n’t just designed to be a Google stigmatization element ; you can put the Pixel 6 without a case on a table and it does n’t wobble. overall, the fit and finish are nice. If you grab a Pixel 6 Pro, which costs $ 300 more, you can see several small ways it feels more agio than the Pixel 6 . Patrick Holland/CNET

The Pixel 6 takes amazing photos

Out of all the improvements, I was most hype to try the Pixel 6 ‘s cameras, and Google decidedly delivered. The Pixel 6, with its higher-specced lenses and sensors, takes fantastic photos. Let me immediately undercut that to remind you that this is hush a phone. A mirrorless television camera or DSLR can systematically take better photos in a wide-eyed range of lighting and conditions. But people do n’t constantly have a mirrorless television camera with them. The Pixel 6 has two rear cameras : a main television camera with a fisheye lens and a second camera with an ultrawide-angle lens. These are the claim lapp across-the-board and ultrawide cameras found on the Pixel 6 Pro. The ultrawide camera offers 0.7x magnification alternatively of the 0.6x exaggeration on the Pixel 5. Overall the ultrawide is good but not great. Details in photos are all right but often soft . Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET There is a noticeable step down in quality going from the main camera to the ultrawide. Take a look at the photograph below that I took of the Transamerica build up in San Francisco. I wish the ultrawide television camera were wider. I prefer the position from the ultrawide cameras on the Galaxy S21 Ultra and iPhone 13 Pro more. Check out a comparison below. The independent camera has a 50-megapixel detector, which uses pixel binning to create 12.5-megapixel pictures. Photos from the Pixel 6 are amazing. Details are great . Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET

There are so many Pixel 6 camera modes and tools

Google ‘s Tensor chip allows for flush more camera modes and tools. There is Night Sight, Google ‘s translation of combining multiple images together when it ‘s besides benighted. It ‘s excellent on the Pixel 6 . Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET There ‘s the new Motion manner, which has two options : Action Pan and Long Exposure. Action Pan gives the background of a photograph a dramatic motion blur. It ‘s fun. It ‘s not going to reinvent photography but it ‘s reasonably fun to use . Patrick Holland/CNET The second Motion manner is long Exposure, which mimics a long-exposure photograph. There are apps that do something similar but I got some decent light trails from dealings and some satiny water from a fountain. Again, it ‘s playfulness. It does n’t replace doing long-exposure photography on a consecrated camera . Patrick Holland/CNET But that ‘s not all. Google gives you a clean cock called Magic Eraser. It lets you pick an object, a person or a function of a photograph to remove. You can get to this joyride in one of two ways. In Photos, you ‘ll see a suggestion about removing people in the background. Or when you go to edit, tap on Tools to reveal the feature of speech .
Magic Eraser finds and identify the silhouettes of people in the setting. You can besides use your finger to paint out the character you want gone. Overall it works well, but it ‘s army for the liberation of rwanda from perfective. sometimes I got absolutely perplex results like removing people from the photograph below of a pedestrian walk — though on closer inspection, you can see the bleary patches where parts of the photograph were removed. early times, like in the photograph below, there were transition artifacts. It removed two people in the background here, but besides disfigured the handwriting of the lady to the right field. There are thus many more camera features that I was n’t able to highlight in this review, like Face UnBlur. But CNET will have an even more in-depth look at the Pixel 6 cameras soon .

The Pixel 6 camera treats complexions more equitably

One improvement Google talked about was Real Tone, which was a major reconsideration and exploration about how photos, specifically Google ‘s algorithm and engineers, handle people with unlike complexions. I inactive want to explore this feature more, but the photograph I took of friends, co-workers and other people with dark complexions look good, even if they ‘re not under the most flattering light. Often when I showed person a photograph I took with the Pixel 6, even if it ‘s them doing a mundane thing, they asked for a copy . Patrick Holland/CNET

Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Below is a photograph taken with harsh backlight. true, this is n’t a great direction to take a photograph, but I wanted to see what would happen. Google said the Pixel 6 handles isolated light better. See how it did against a photograph taken with the iPhone 13 below. The differences between the two photos are n’t drastic, but Eric, who is the subject, preferred the photograph from the Pixel 6. He liked how it handled the color and highlights in his clamber. You can in truth notice this in his arms .

Videos from the Pixel 6 are better and selfies are just OK

The Pixel 6 records the best television from any Pixel telephone. Details and color accuracy are well. In terms of comparing the image quality between photos and videos, there is a smaller deviation than there has been on prior Pixels. Do n’t get me wrong, photos are silent the force of the Pixel. When recording television in medium and low light, picture noise is pretty apparent. besides, the improvements Real Tone brings to photos are unmatched with how television manage different complexions. Take a expect below at some sample videos I recorded with the Pixel 6 .
On the presence, the Pixel 6 has an 8-megapixel television camera that shoots 1,080p television. The Pro has a broad selfie camera that can record 4K. Selfies photos from the Pixel 6 are good but in metier and low light beginning to look noisy . Patrick Holland/CNET Lexy Savvides/CNET

The Pixel 6 is defined by Google’s Tensor chip

The Pixel 6 does n’t run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip found in closely every other flagship Android call like the Galaxy S21 and OnePlus 9 Pro. alternatively, it runs on Google ‘s Tensor processor. It ‘s the first gear chip Google has made and was specifically designed by Google for the Pixel. I found the Tensor chip and the 8GB of RAM made the call bouncing to use. Opening the camera app is fast, app animations look smooth and it handles games well. In terms of performance benchmark tests, the Tensor chip does n’t set any modern records. In fact it ‘s largely on par with the Snapdragon 888 and that ‘s OK. The advantages Tensor brings are its security and on-device machine learn and AI .

GEEKBENCH V.5.0 SINGLE-CORE

Google Pixel 6

1,045
Google Pixel 5

591
Samsung Galaxy S21

1,084
Apple iPhone 13

1,721

Note:

Longer bars indicate better performance

GEEKBENCH V.5.0 MULTICORE

Google Pixel 6

2,926
Google Pixel 5

1,602
Samsung Galaxy S21

3,282
Apple iPhone 13

4,681

Note:

Longer bars indicate better performance

3DMARK SLINGSHOT UNLIMITED

Google Pixel 6

9,959
Google Pixel 5

3,954
Samsung Galaxy S21

10,070
Apple iPhone 13

6,653

Note:

Longer bars indicate better performance

Google quotes a day on a fully charged battery and in regular manipulation I ‘d say that is accurate. But in heavy function, like shooting lots of photos and videos, it had a battery life of more like three-quarters of a day. During the 10 days I tested the telephone, the Pixel 6 averaged a screen-on time of 6 hours, which is good, but not bang-up .

Android 12 is solid on the Pixel 6

The Pixel 6 runs Android 12 and it ‘s credibly the most underestimate expression of the call. Android 12 is a delight to use. I like the big obvious buttons and sliders. The overall search of Android 12 is welcoming and prioritize clarity over animations. I like that its system colors can match and complement my earphone ‘s wallpaper . Patrick Holland/CNET Android 12 combined with the Tensor processor provides a number of welcome privacy and security upgrades. The Pixel 6 comes with several of its own Android 12 special features, some of which are powered by Tensor. A standout for me is voice realization. I found there to be a batch of improvement with translation, specially when I had a conversation with a portuguese loudspeaker. Translations were fast and accurate. For voice typing in particular, it seems to understand context better and punctuate more accurately and it ‘s easier to command it and authorize mistakes. I tested the Pixel 6 on Google Fi, T-Mobile and Verizon here in San Francisco. The Pixel 6 supports sub-6 5G. There are extra carrier versions of the Pixel 6 that besides support mmWave 5G and start at $ 699 alternatively of $ 599.

Patrick Holland/CNET

Google improved the Pixel 6 in many ways

With all of the upgrades to software and hardware, you have to wonder if that will be enough to make the Pixel 6 successful. And that ‘s very the alone thing I ca n’t answer. I can say this is the best telephone Google has ever built. ampere charm as the Pixel 6 is, for $ 300 more you can upgrade to the slenderly more premium Pixel 6 Pro, which adds a telephotograph television camera ; a 6.7-inch display with swerve edges, a higher resolution and high gear refresh rate ; more RAM ; an ultrawideband chip and Gorilla Glass Victus on the back. But if you have $ 600 and are looking for a modern earphone, the Pixel 6 is my recommendation .

Google Pixel 6 specification vs. Google Pixel 6 Pro, Google Pixel 5, Apple iPhone 13