Google Pixel 3 review

Google's recipe for Pie

The Pixel phones are meant to showcase Google's software, and the Pixel 3 comes with Android 9.0 Pie preinstalled. The Pixel launcher is on top - in a way, Google's custom skin over its own OS.

We're familiar with the Pie on Pixel combo from the beta we fooled around with for a bit, though things have evolved slightly since then. For one, gone is the option for tap-based navigation - it's all gestures now.

A tap on the pill button takes you Home, a quick flick from it to the right switches back and forth between the last two apps, while sliding it to the right takes you to one of the UIs for task switching. A short-ish swipe up from the bottom evokes the 'other' task switcher which is also the way to go into multi-window, and it's about as clumsy as they could have possibly made it.

A longer (like seriously-almost-all-the-way-to-the-top-longer) swipe up takes you straight to the app drawer, though a second swipe up from Task switcher 2 will also work. It's not all ideal, no. Ah, and there's a back button on top of all that, there's no gesture for that. There's also Active edge - the squeeze for Assistant shortcut that maybe someone uses?

Lockscreen • Homescreen • Folder view • Task switcher 1 • Task switcher 2 • Active edge

The notification shade has been redesigned yet again and now the quick toggles don't let you change stuff then and there, but take you to the respective settings menu. The settings have colorful icons, and there are display color modes out of the box unlike the Pixel 2's dull-only fiasco at launch. Best of all, the Now playing feature that recognizes ambient music now keeps history.

Notifications • Quick toggles • Settings • Display modes • Now playing keeps history now

The emphasis with this year's software is on your digital wellbeing - that is, taking proactive steps towards spending less time on your phone, and making sure that the time you do spend is quality time. Or, you know, just look at the stats once, and move on to the next cat video.

The Digital Wellbeing hub of sorts tells you what it is that you've done on your Pixel 3 today, and how much time you spent on each app, plus it counts the notifications and the number of times you've unlocked the phone. Delve into the Dashboard and you can get per-app stats, as well as set limits for the time spent in each one. There's a handy shortcut to Do Not Disturb mode called 'Flip to Shhh' - pretty self-explanatory, just... please, don't put your phone face down on a hard surface, please?

Digital Wellbeing homescreen • Dashboard with per-app statistics • Shhh

Then there's Wind Down. What a time it is to be alive, when you need your phone to change the tint of its display in low light, then go all grayscale at a predetermined time, and engage Do Not Disturb mode, so you can get some rest.

Wind Down

The Pixel Stand is where you could potentially keep the phone at night, so it can both charge and serve as a desktop office for your Google Assistant. Come morning, it can brighten up with warm colors before it blares the death metal alarm you've set up to get you out of bed on Mondays. Just don't take it out on the Stand, as it costs some $79.

Stuff the Pixel 3 can do on the Stand

Google Lens is an in-camera helper for copying texts, shopping for stuff you see around, scanning barcodes, and whatnot. Well, it fails miserably in the shopping part, and we so wanted to buy a Pixel 3, but it figured we should get ourselves an original Pixel. And purchasing a pair of Sony headphones isn't quite like purchasing Sony Corporation.

Google Lens

Synthetic benchmarks

Guess what, the Google Pixel 3 is powered by the Snapdragon 845 chipset like only every other top-tier droid on the market that isn't Huawei's or Samsung's (and even the Koreans use Qualcomm's chip for China and North America). As is customarily the case with Pixels, the CPU is slightly downclocked to 2.5GHz for the high-performance cores (vs. the typical 2.7GHz), and 1.6GHz for the efficiency-focused cluster (nominally 1.7GHz).

Predictably, the Pixel 3 doesn't quite achieve the same results we've seen from competitors using the same chip. More importantly, however, the Pixel is unable to maintain its slightly lower results over repeated runs of most benchmarks and experiences severe throttling. Forcefully cooling it helps greatly and allows it to put out sustainable performance.

In GeekBench, for example, the cooled Pixel 3 could put out multi-core results upwards of 8,300pt run after run. Off our active cooler, however, the highest it got was 8,146 and run after run the score would drop a little until eventually reaching a low in the 6,900s which it could then sustain. That's with major competitors pushing 9,000 points.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS
  11472
• Huawei Mate 20
  9793
• Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
  9110
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  9003
• HTC U12+
  9001
• OnePlus 6T
  8977
• Razer Phone 2
  8923
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  8883
• LG G7 ThinQ
  8865
• Samsung Galaxy S9
  8830
• LG V40 ThinQ
  8769
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  8607
• Xiaomi Mi 8
  8494
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  8349
• Google Pixel 3 (cooled)
  8337
• Google Pixel 3
  8146
• Google Pixel 3 XL
  8088
• Oppo Find X
  8018
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  6739
• Huawei P20
  6722
• Google Pixel 2
  6437
• Google Pixel 2 XL (Android 9)
  6055

There was a similar disparity in the single-core results where the cooled Pixel 3 could post figures just under 2,400, while otherwise the score would peak there and fall all the way down to around 1,800. Here, the other Snapdragon 845 handsets aren't that far ahead, but the current Exynos and the latest Kirin have a significant advantage.

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS
  4823
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  3771
• Samsung Galaxy S9
  3759
• Huawei Mate 20
  3284
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  2486
• HTC U12+
  2456
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  2438
• Xiaomi Mi 8
  2431
• OnePlus 6T
  2431
• LG V40 ThinQ
  2425
• Razer Phone 2
  2424
• Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
  2421
• LG G7 ThinQ
  2395
• Google Pixel 3 (cooled)
  2383
• Google Pixel 3
  2377
• Google Pixel 3 XL
  2363
• Oppo Find X
  2322
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  2199
• Google Pixel 2
  1912
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  1900
• Huawei P20
  1897
• Google Pixel 2 XL (Android 9)
  1807

In Antutu, cooling the Pixel 3 allowed it to reach very high scores, towards the top of the pack. Those numbers, however, were unattainable off the active cooler at all, not by a long stretch. There was some consistency between runs though, and not much of a drop in scores after multiple ones.

AnTuTu 7

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS
  346379
• OnePlus 6T
  293994
• Oppo Find X
  291218
• Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
  286076
• Razer Phone 2
  285051
• Google Pixel 3 (cooled)
  285044
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  284555
• Huawei Mate 20
  273913
• LG V40 ThinQ
  270634
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  265314
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  264044
• HTC U12+
  263696
• LG G7 ThinQ
  259393
• Google Pixel 3 XL
  258244
• Samsung Galaxy S9
  250156
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  246660
• Google Pixel 3
  233699
• Xiaomi Mi 8
  217298
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  207016
• Huawei P20
  206906
• Google Pixel 2 XL (Android 9)
  206711

Graphics-only tests yielded similar results, only here the uncooled Pixel 3 was often able to match its performance when cooled for the first benchmark run, and the differences weren't that drastic once the throttling did kick in.

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS
  60
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  35
• OnePlus 6T
  35
• Google Pixel 3
  35
• Google Pixel 3 (cooled)
  35
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  35
• LG G7 ThinQ
  35
• HTC U12+
  35
• Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
  35
• Oppo Find X
  35
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  35
• Razer Phone 2
  35
• LG V40 ThinQ
  35
• Xiaomi Mi 8
  33
• Google Pixel 3 XL
  28
• Huawei Mate 20
  28
• Samsung Galaxy S9
  28
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  28
• Google Pixel 2 XL (Android 9)
  24
• Google Pixel 2
  24
• Huawei P20
  23
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  23

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS
  47
• Google Pixel 3
  33
• Google Pixel 3 (cooled)
  33
• Xiaomi Mi 8
  33
• OnePlus 6T
  31
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  31
• Huawei Mate 20
  28
• Oppo Find X
  28
• Google Pixel 2
  26
• Huawei P20 (cooled)
  23
• Huawei P20
  23
• Razer Phone 2
  22
• Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
  22
• Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
  20
• HTC U12+
  20
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  19
• LG G7 ThinQ
  18
• LG V40 ThinQ
  18
• Samsung Galaxy S9
  14
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  14
• Google Pixel 2 XL (Android 9)
  13
• Google Pixel 3 XL
  12