Google Pixel 6 review

17 November 2021


Sort by:

  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • gBV
  • 19 Nov 2021

The best feature of the Pixel 6 are the sliders:
white balance, shadows and brightness
I have access to an iPhone 13 Mini and Google's sliders are far more useful than Apple's photographic styles. Apple's photographic styles have a white balance slider, too (it's called warmth) and there is also a brightness slider, but Apple's user interface is cumbersome, if you often want to adjust the white balance and Apple's tone slider is far less useful than Google's shadows slider.

With the shadows and brightness sliders you can basically always avoid blown out highlights and still get a bright photo. The shadows and brightness sliders are also able to make HDR+ photos look like Night Sight photos. Though, Google applies too much noise reduction. Even a Pixel 3a + high brightness slider setting in its HDR+ enhanced mode can produce much better colors in low-light conditions than the HDR+ mode (with high brightness setting) of the 6 Pro..

There's also the issue that Google often decreases the exposure time per frame instead of the analog gain, if you decrease the brightness slider setting and if you don't use Night Sight, no matter what shadows slider setting. This can lead to a worse signal to noise ratio and can make the shadows look worse.

    • m
    • makatiPL
    • 64V
    • 19 Nov 2021

    In Poland I can get now Pixel 6 cheaper by 50 USD than OP 9 Pro - what choice would you recommend? I am
    much more into pictures than playing games or watching video

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • gBV
      • 19 Nov 2021

      ElioX, 19 Nov 2021You can easily adjust the level and strength of blur in gal... moreApparently, you didn't read what I wrote. I said that Google Photos uses a different algorithm for the background blur than the stock camera app. Bokeh balls look worse, if you adjust the background blur. The reason might be that the camera app applies the blur algorithm to the raw data whereas Google Photos applies the blur algorithm to the jpg. Though, the iPhone 13 Mini doesn't have this issue.

        Anonymous, 19 Nov 2021"I'm guessing that these images have a roughly 17... moreLike I said, I also took a look at outputs from a couple of other phones with higher resolution sensors for comparison. Pixel 6 resolves higher amount of details than other comparable 12MP shooters (e.g. Mi 10 Ultra) as long as its own noise reduction algorithms don't get in the way and mess them up badly. This is why I always see GSMArena's balcony/hotel shots to determine how much details the cameras are actually capable of resolving - unlike grass and other natural patterns, the hole patterns are usually much less affected by heavy texture smudging.

        "And I think that the 6 Pro uses its machine learning digital zoom algorithm already at 1x, so some details look slightly artificial"
        That makes logically no sense. Jagged edges, which Raisr is supposed to deal with, are still present in 1x shots. They don't have any reason to use it for non-zoomed shots in the first place, when its sole purpose is to upscale an image without causing fuzziness that other upscaling algorithms usually suffer from.

        "Google's zoom could lead to slightly more details because at least the Pixel 3a combines more frames when you zoom"
        Again, false. Super-resolution zoom and Night Sight do remove moire + false patterns and help restore correct details in the image, the articles from GSMArena and Anandtech confirm this.

          • E
          • ElioX
          • 3SI
          • 19 Nov 2021

          Anonymous, 19 Nov 2021"The default background blur lever is a bit much, too,... moreYou can easily adjust the level and strength of blur in gallery app, a.k.a. google photos. Obviously you can. You dont adjust it in a random 3rd party gallery app from playstore. But in google photos.

            Pixel 6 is my new daily driver and I couldn't be happier with my choice.
            There is definitely room for fine-tuning of some apps which will be achieved with Google's monthly updates.
            By releasing brand new hardware with new a new Android version, only noobs expect a completely polished user experience. Then they go online and whinge that not everything is perfect.

              • ?
              • Anonymous
              • gBV
              • 19 Nov 2021

              "The default background blur lever is a bit much, too, we'd say, and makes for a somewhat artificial look. You do get to tweak that in the gallery, though, so it's not a big deal."
              No, I have a 6 Pro and the blur algorithm of Google Photos is worse, it makes bokeh balls look worse. So, no, you can't adjust the intensity of the blur, if you want the same blur algorithm.

                • ?
                • Anonymous
                • gBV
                • 19 Nov 2021

                By the way, the Nexus 5x HDR+ On mode can take better selfies in a average/low-light conditions than the 6 Pro because the 6 Pro applies a huge amount of color noise reduction.

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • XWg
                  • 19 Nov 2021

                  I just want to know how iphone delivers much better results in battery test done by gsmarena despite having less battery capacity compared to android phones?

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • gBV
                    • 19 Nov 2021

                    Nick Tegrataker, 19 Nov 2021It's interesting to know that this year's Pixel&#... more"I'm guessing that these images have a roughly 17-19MP resolution"
                    Surely not. The iPhone just loses details due to its strong noise reduction. And I think that the 6 Pro uses its machine learning digital zoom algorithm already at 1x, so some details look slightly artificial. I have tested in perfect light conditions that the Google Nexus 5x camera does seem to have a slightly higher angular resolution than the Pixel 6 Pro main camera in the center of the image.
                    Also, in some cases the 6 Pro really loses details due to extremely aggressive noise reduction, which is also present when you zoom. The aggressive noise reduction is one of the reasons why I will return the 6 Pro.

                    I also have a Pixel 3a. Google's "super resolution zoom", which is now an anti-resolution zoom, was always just a marketing stunt. Google's zoom could lead to slightly more details because at least the Pixel 3a combines more frames when you zoom, this improves the signal to noise ratio. Digital zoom can also lead to a different exposure, which can lead to a better signal to noise ratio. And then there is also machine learning, which makes contours look smoother and less pixelated, but causes wrong details. In some cases, a crop of a 1x Pixel 3a photo does have more true details than a Pixel 3a digital zoom photo.

                      Anonymous, 18 Nov 2021Garbage battery life very disappointed.Only in standby. Web and Video playback are actually great.

                        Trent , 18 Nov 2021I agree with your assessment. I went for a Pixel 5a though ... moreFor me, top 3 are Samsung A52s, Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G, Motorola Edge 20 Fusion, as they all have a lot of positives and barely any cons. Oneplus Nord 2 is a really good phone, utterly ruined by explosion issues.
                        The issue with Pixel 5a is that it's not exciting. Yes, it has great battery and water resistance, but what about 90Hz? or Fast charging. That's what I want. Poco is also great, but yeah it's too big and the cameras aren't top notch.

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • mHi
                          • 19 Nov 2021

                          Looks better than the Pro model. When are they going to drop that ageing useless curved screen? They already did it for the TVs, about time to ditch it for the phones as well - or at least give people an option to buy a flat screen flagship model.

                            AnonD-994853, 19 Nov 2021Probably they need time to tune for the large sensorThere's nothing to "tune" - Other phones with equally large sensors that have gcam ports installed already perform substantially better as far as I could tell, and those ports have not been made with such sensors in mind.

                              • H
                              • Haplo
                              • MIn
                              • 19 Nov 2021

                              RandyRiffin, 19 Nov 2021Nope. At the same price, S21 has equivalent or even better ... moreI can agree with the design being... less polarizing and more... comfortable... safe on the S21.
                              Regarding speed, I care way more about real life performance then benchmarks. Pixel 6 is very fluid in my eyes. Handles various tasks (like updating 50 apps) very efficiently and fast. Perhaps a new S21 can nearly match that, I don't know exactly. But lets see in a year or 2... I have way more trust in Pixel software here.
                              Also the camera - I disagree that its comparable, but even if it were, I expect that after a few updates, S21 would be left far in the dust.
                              And well, I definitely wouldn't discard the new Tensor AI functions. Offline real time speech to text, offline real-time translations, offline, real time camera text recognition.... its all pretty awesome really.
                              May not be the main reason to buy the phone or something you'll use daily. But when you find use for it, those are fantastic, new functionalities. That can be used in a million new creative ways we didn't even think of yet, IMO.

                                • D
                                • AnonD-994853
                                • Kxf
                                • 19 Nov 2021

                                Nick Tegrataker, 19 Nov 2021It's interesting to know that this year's Pixel&#... moreProbably they need time to tune for the large sensor

                                  It's interesting to know that this year's Pixel's digital zoom is really just a digital zoom and doesn't offer any resolution advantage over the regular 1x shot unlike in previous generations. Judging from the way it renders the hope patterns on the balcony and hotel shots compared to other phones with higher resolution sensors (such as Xperia XZ3), I'm guessing that these images have a roughly 17-19MP resolution. So the regular shots look incredibly crisp and intricate textures such as grass are rendered very nicely, but zooming in before taking picture will straight up give you a clearly-upscaled-looking image that looks a hair better than a simple crop of a 1x shot (thanks to Raisr).

                                  Again, noise reduction algorithms continue to pose a problem for the Pixel 6 series and so far they are the biggest gripe people seem to have about its camera performance. Darker colours and shadows regions tend to have a weird "painted" look and in many cases details don't even look that much better than on Pixel 5 despite having substantially superior hardware. It's quite disappointing, as it's so goddamn clear that this should be quite easily fixable through software updates.

                                    bad everywhere, not worth for that price ($600).

                                      • j
                                      • jsdeveloper1024
                                      • Dky
                                      • 19 Nov 2021

                                      Anonymous, 18 Nov 2021please gsmarena. add battery test without high refresh r... moreThey actually did for the web browsing test. It is mentioned below the battery comparison section - just above the Charging speed section.
                                      The Pixel 6 clocked 14:23h at 60Hz, and 12:37h at 90Hz.
                                      14 and a half hours of Wi-Fi web browsing is quite good!

                                        Haplo, 18 Nov 2021I disagree. I mean its cool that Pixel 6 is cheaper. But ev... moreAlso, DO NOT get Oneplus 9 Pro. It will probably even get Marques' bust of the year. The battery life being awful, cameras not even that good (off color tuning especially since we had hasselblad expectations). You'd be better off getting the Oneplus 8 Pro, which is way better value.

                                          5 of 7