Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL hands-on review

Android 9 Pie with gestures and Active Edge

Both the Google Pixel 3 and the Pixel 3 XL come with Android 9.0 Pie out of the box. We’ve seen this build on other phones already (like the Essential Phone and Google’s own Pixel 2/2 XL) and there’s nothing truly new here.

The Pixel launcher in its latest iteration

The Pixel 3 phones come equipped with Google Assistant that can be prompted either by voice or by squeezing the edge of the phone with Active Edge. As before, you can adjust the force needed to activate Google’s Assistant.

Google is introducing something called Call Screen, which will allow the Assistant to screen your calls to let you know who’s calling (this will be a US only feature).

With the Google Assistant baked into Pixel 3, our new AI-powered Call Screen feature goes even further to help people in the U.S. screen calls and avoid spam calls. #madebygoogle pic.twitter.com/l1Oe2vyA93

— Google (@Google) October 9, 2018

Google Assistant will also ease your wake up moments with Sunrise Alarm - it will display warm sunrise colors just before your alarm goes off.

The new Living Universe live wallpapers

Google Lens has received an update that allows it to show suggestions, read QR codes, copy numbers and addresses straight from the camera on the Google Pixel 3 and 3 XL, in real time.

Some of the available Settings

Playground on the Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL enables AR stickers and superheroes in the camera viewfinder (similar to what the Pixel 2/2 XL did). Since it’s 2018 we’re also getting Playmoji on the Pixel 3 and 3 XL which can react to you and read your facial expressions.

With the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL Google is introducing Titan M, a custom-made security chip that protects sensitive data on the phone.

Finally Android 9 Pie brings Adaptive battery and Digital Wellbeing. The first limits resources to apps and services you’re not using while the other gives a rundown of your usage of the phone with options to set timers for apps you think you’re overusing.

Digital Wellbeing control panel • Shhh is technically a new feature though nothing unseen

Performance Benchmarks

Just like it did last year, Google has underclocked the CPU of the Snapdragon 845 chipset that powers the Pixel 3 phones. The big Kryo 385 Gold cores are at 2.5GHz (0.2GHz down) and the smaller Silver cores are at 1.6GHz (0.1GHz down). This is done to improve battery life and should only impact peak performance, no CPU today can hit its max clocks under a sustained workload.

Google Pixel 3 XL

CPU performance seems largely unaffected by the clock speed changes. Single core performance (determined by the big cores) is on par with other Snapdragon 845 devices and even edges out the Galaxy S9+. The change is felt in the multi-core test, but the Pixel 3 duo still outperforms the Kirin 970 inside the Huawei P20 Pro.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  11432
• OnePlus 6
  9011
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  9003
• LG V40 ThinQ
  8769
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  8349
• Google Pixel 3 XL
  7712
• Huawei P20 Pro
  6679

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  4777
• OnePlus 6
  2450
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  2438
• LG V40 ThinQ
  2425
• Google Pixel 3 XL
  2363
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  2199
• Huawei P20 Pro
  1907

Was the GPU clocked down as well? It doesn't seem like it, the Pixel 3 XL hits the mark. Note that it has a QHD+ screen while the smaller Pixel 3 has a 1080p+ screen, which will affect the benchmark results (though games often render at a different internal resolution than the screen resolution, so that can be a wash).

Basemark X

Higher is better

• OnePlus 6
  44229
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  44013
• LG V40 ThinQ
  43860
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  43652
• Google Pixel 3 XL
  43073
• Huawei P20 Pro
  39945

Overall, the Pixel 3 and 3 XL offer fluid performance. The up-to-date Android 9.0 Pie with minor enhancements over stock runs smoothly. However, we'll need to spend more time with these two to see if the RAM is a limiting factor - modern flagships start at 6GB and many of them have 8GB. Is that just for bragging rights or is there more to it?

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  4915
• OnePlus 6
  4440
• LG V40 ThinQ
  4211
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  4196
• Google Pixel 3 XL
  3895
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  3713
• Huawei P20 Pro
  3252