Google Pixel 4 Review UK

Google Pixel 4 Review: Overview & Price

In this Google Pixel 4 review, we go over everything you need to know about this brand new 2019 smartphone.

We go over the Google Pixel 4 design, specs, camera and much more. As well as showcasing the best Pixel 4 deals in the UK.

The Google Pixel 4 release date is October 24^th; pre-orders for the phone have been open from October 14^th, with the likes of EE offering a Chromebook 14 on the pre-order deal.

Google has always focused on the camera in their Pixel range; we all know how great the Pixel 3 shots were.

Night or day the Pixel 4 camera performs exceptionally well, and it’s safe to say we found that the Pixel 4 performs equally as well, but now with some extra AI sorcery too.

You may be wondering is the Google Pixel 4 waterproof? Find out shortly in the design section of this post.

The Google Pixel 4 price starts at £629 here in the UK for the 64GB model, whilst the larger Pixel 4 XL starts at a more expensive £829.

Here are some of the Pixel 4 specs;

• Grippy design
• 5.7-inch display
• 6GB RAM
• Snapdragon 855
• Dual camera set up

When comparing these specs on paper to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S10 and Note 10, it’s easy to think that the Pixel 4 is the underdog.

However, if you are someone who has owned Pixel devices, then you’ll know first hand how well Google put their cameras together.

They leave no stone unturned, and now with the use of AI and an extra lens, the Google Pixel 4 camera is seriously impressive.

Let’s take a closer look at what the phone has to offer…

Google Pixel 4 Review: Design & Display

The Google Pixel 4 design has had a bit of a makeover when compared to the previous Google Pixel 3.

The Pixel 4 has a metal frame, which is sandwiched between a front and back glass panel.

This glass is Gorilla Glass 5 which is particularly strong, granted its not Gorilla Glass 6, but it will still help protect the phone from scratches from your car keys.

The design is also covered in a rubbery coating that does feel a little strange to the touch, it helps with gripping the phone and we felt extremely comfortable holding this phone in one hand without the dread that it might fall and break.

It’s nice to see a different approach when it comes to the material used on the back of smartphones, most providers tend to opt for a metal and glass combination that is slippy and collects fingerprints like there is no tomorrow.

For some strange reason though Google has decided to make the Black colour glossy?

We aren’t sure why they have done this as they could have had a matte black phone but oh well; the batman look will have to wait.

The Google Pixel 4 comes in three new colours, Clearly White, Just Black and Oh So Orange.

We were lucky enough to get our hands on the Oh So Orange colour for just over 5 hours to conduct this Google Pixel 4 review.

We have to say this is by far our favourite colour, it stands out from the crowd and looks amazing in the sunlight.

As you would expect from Google’s new flagship the Google Pixel 4 is waterproof, with an IP68 rating this gives the phone dust and water resistance for up to 1.5m for minutes.

This means you don’t need to panic if the phone does submerge in the bathtub, as it will be absolutely fine.

We would recommend investing into a case and a screen protector for the Pixel 4, you can pick up some stylish skins too if you want to keep the phone in tip-top condition.

The Pixel 4 weighs just 162g, which is about average for a 2019 smartphone, this means its lightweight in your hand and easy to hold whilst still maintaining enough weight to feel premium.

At the front of the phone you will find a pretty large top bezel above the display, with a small chin too.

Around the back of the phone you’ll see the new dual camera set up which is located in the top corner, kind of looks similar to the iPhone 11 set up with a square section housing the cameras.

Below this camera set up there is the Google branding.

On the right-hand side of the phone you will still find the signature coloured power button, the Oh So Orange colour has a pink power button, which gives it that extra flare.

Below this is the volume rocker but there is no microSD slot here, so no room to expand the storage.

The Google Pixel 4 does not have a 3.5mm headphone jack either; whilst this may be annoying you can still use the USB-C port with an adapter for wired connectivity.

Alternatively, you can opt to purchase some wireless headphones and connect them via Bluetooth.

The Google Pixel 4 display is a 5.7-inch OLED panel that has a pixel density of 444ppi and a Full HD+ resolution.

One of the first things we noticed about the display is that it is flat, unlike most phones in 2019 that have gone for the melted look like the Samsung Galaxy S10.

This isn’t a bad thing as it means content won’t melt off the side of the display, but it doesn’t give you as much real estate as the melted look.

With the Pixel 4 display being OLED you get the best display possible, with super vivid colours as well as deep inky black.

This is excellent for those that love to watch Netflix on the go, or love to game on their smartphone.

So the reason why the Pixel 4 has that huge bezel at the top is because it now houses a whole host of cool sensors.

It houses the front-facing camera, infrared and a new radar, which is completely new on smartphones.

This gives you the fastest facial recognition in any smartphone, which is, of course, a big claim from Google.

When testing this new feature out we have to say it was lightning fast, Google has even removed the fingerprint scanner because they are so confident in the facial recognition feature.

This allows you to unlock your phone at rapid speeds by simply looking at your display, meaning that if any intruders do happen to pick up your phone there is no way they are going to be gaining access without your smiling face to do so.

The Google Pixel 4 uses a new ‘Motion Sense’ feature, which detects when you are coming near the phone; to pre-warn the sensors that you are coming to unlock the device.

This allows the phone to be ready to unlock your phone before you have even picked it up.

This works so well that by the time you have even picked the phone up and got it anywhere near your face, the phone is already unlocked.

One of the biggest improvements to the Google Pixel display is something called ‘Smooth Display’.

This is essentially the new 90Hz refresh rate option that allows the display to refresh much faster than the standard 60Hz.

This ensures that scrolling through the phone is extremely fluid and smooth, for example when scrolling through Instagram or Facebook you can really notice a difference.

Thanks to the 90Hz refresh rate you can read the text whilst scrolling, without it being blurry and unable to ready.

The OnePlus 7 Pro also uses a 90Hz refresh rate and when reviewing that phone we were blown away with how smooth and how much of a difference this makes in day-to-day use.

Overall the Google Pixel 4 display is impressive, it does have bigger bezels than we would have liked but there is a perfectly valid reason for that, the new face unlock feature.

Google Pixel 4 Review: Performance

The Google Pixel 4 specs ensure that the phone can handle anything you throw at this phone easily.

It has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset, which gives it plenty of horsepower, backed with an impressive 6GB of RAM, which gives it plenty of torque too.

This is needed to keep up with the competition as the likes of the Huawei P30 Pro and have 8-12GB of RAM, so Google has had to really ramp it up fro their previous 4GB which they have always stuck too.

The Pixel 4 comes with either 64GB or 128GB of internal storage, with the latter being the sweet spot for most users in 2019.

It is nice to see Google actually offering this option as we have come to find a lot of smartphone providers offering either 64 or 256GB which means if you want to opt for more you have to pay a lot more cash.

Google has hit the nail on the head with offering a nice medium, that being said for the users that use their phone for work or simply store a ton of music and videos on their phone.

This still may not be enough, and unfortunately Google has not included a microSD slot, which means there is no option to go any higher than the 128GB storage.

See Related:

*Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Review*
*Apple iPhone 11 Review*
*Google Pixel 3 Review*
*Google Pixel 3a Review

Thankfully though Google does offer completely free cloud-based storage with their phones, so we know it’s extremely hard to fill up that 128GB for the average user.

We tested the Pixel 4 out on a couple of our favourite games, the first being PUBG, we have to say it wasn’t quite as nice to play as the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 or Huawei P30 Pro purely because of the Pixel 4 display having bigger bezels.

We found it feels a lot smaller than we are used to, but this is because we always tend to opt for a the bigger model phone, whether that be the plus or XL.

The Pixel 4 showed no signs of slowing down even after extended periods of playing games intensely, the phone didn’t heat up or give us any annoying lag or fps drops which is great news for the smartphone gamers out there.

Thanks to the chipset and RAM combination this phone is capable of ploughing through just about anything you throw at it.

The Google Pixel 4 uses the latest version of the Android software, Android 10.

This operating system gives you a ton of perks that allow the phone to run at optimal performance, as well as preserve battery life too.

With a system-wide dark-mode than changes all of the white spots on your phone to black, helping the phone stay charged for longer.

One of the biggest upgrades is to the Google Assistant, this now allows you to have continuous conversations with the Assistant and it will not open specific pages on applications for you.

For example, if you said “Hey-Google, show Eminem on twitter” it will load up twitter and flick straight on to Eminem’s profile.

The new Google Assistant is superb and allows you to use the phone in a lot more hands-free scenarios, which is a lot more impressive that the assistant on the Google Pixel 3.

The Pixel 4 now has a brand new voice memo application, which will transcribe everything you say in real-time on the device; it will also record this in the text on a separate tab.

You can even go back in to search and type in certain words, and it will show you exactly where you said that word in the memo.

This is great for writers or those that like to get their thoughts down on paper but if you’re on the move this can be hard, not now with the Pixel 4.

The new Google ‘Motion Sense’ feature is how they are marketing the phone, with it allowing you to be able to skip tracks by simply waving your hand over the screen, thanks to the new radar.

This works exceptionally well but it was hard to find any real-world examples where you would need this device technology, the Pixel 4 also allows you to silence your alarm by doing the same thing.

Which we found was a lot more useful as the dreaded noise at 5 am does get rather ear piercing at times.

Not every application is compatible with these gestures, but thankfully Google does let you know by showing a glow at the top of the screen.

The gestures do work in the dark too; so don’t worry if it’s wintertime and you’re getting up early, as swiping your hand over your alarm will definitely silence it.

The Pixel 4 radar has a 180-degree field of view too so you don’t need to be incredibly accurate with your swiping, Google says it has developed this technology over the last 5 years and it is more than ready for the public now.

Google also has recruited some cool Pikachu wallpapers, which will have them notice and react to you when loading them up, this is, of course, a huge drain on battery but nevertheless we found ourselves using the wallpaper more often than not as its super cute.

Google Pixel 4 Review: Camera

Google has always done what the can with the one camera on their pixel range, but now the Google Pixel 4 sees a double camera set up?

Google focuses on software more than anything, and that’s how they have made exceptional cameras with their Google Pixel 2 and 3, but with smartphone technology changing they have added a new telephoto to keep up with current trends.

The Google Pixel 4 now has a 12-megapixel main camera but is paired with a 16-megapixel telephoto lens that aids in portrait shots and everyday images.

The new telephoto lens allows you to range between 24mm and 84mm effective focal length, which makes some impressive shots.

We are a little disappointed that Google hasn’t included an ultra-wide lens, as the square camera bump suggests that the Pixel 4 would be a triple camera set up.

However this is not the case, it is simply a dual camera set up, flash and laser auto-focus.

We were excited to see what Google could have done with an ultra-wide, but Google states that they feel a telephoto is more important for there Pixel 4 phone.

The Google Pixel 4 camera is still one of the best we have used in a smartphone, it takes exceptional shots with great subject separation and dynamic range.

Google continues to improve the software too, with there now being an HDR plus effect added to the viewfinder, this means that the shots you line up and are about to take are a lot closer to what is produced in the end result.

Dual exposure allows you to take better photos when there is a dark foreground against a light background.

There is a separate slider for overall brightness and shadow brightness, letting you dynamically raise and lower the brightness of the foreground without effecting the background much at all.

The famous ‘Night-Sight’ is still as fantastic as ever, it has been upgraded to now give you better emphasis on sky colours.

Shooting at night is still fantastic, as the Google Pixel 4 camera holds on to detail very well and draws as much ambient light as possible into the shots, which means you can take photos in almost total darkness and they will come out with an impressive amount of detail and clarity still.

This ties in well with the new dedicated ‘Astrophotography mode’, which takes as many as 15 successive long exposure shots of stars, unfortunately, we didn’t get time to test this feature but if the images come out anything like the demo shots then it is simply unmatched by any other phone.

Google says you’ll need to head out into less polluted areas to really take advantage of this mode, but it allows you to take some stunning photos of the moon, stars and galaxies so it’s definitely worth it.

However, you will need a tripod set up to be able to capture such stunning images.

Around the front of the phone, you get an 8-megapixel selfie snapper, this has an f/2,0 aperture and a 90-degree field of view that allows you to take some impressive selfies ready for the gram.

Selfies come out with plenty of detail and look fantastic in strong lighting, the portrait mode works well here too and allows you to take photos and blur the background, which focuses more on the subject and holds detail.

The Google Pixel 4 supports 4K video recording on the rear camera at 30fps, this allows you to capture high-quality video easily, whilst there is a 4K@60fps mode but it can take up to half a gigabyte of storage every minute.

The video recording is great, it is stabilised too which means you don’t need a sour steady hand to be able to capture some great footage for social media.

Overall the Google Pixel 4 camera is impressive, we do wish they had swapped the telephoto for an ultra-wide, but we can’t have it all our own way.

We absolutely love the new Astrophotography mode, although we didn’t get a chance to test it the demo shots from Google look absolutely incredible, they do take around 4 minutes to take but the end result is stunning.

Google Pixel 4 Review: Battery Life

The Google Pixel 4 houses a 2800mAh battery which is more than enough to see you through a full day of usage, this, of course, depends on how you use the phone as gamers and streamers will find it drain quicker.

For the most part the battery life on the Pixel 4 is more than enough for the average user, we found ourselves ending the day on around 30% of charge.

Thankfully the phone does support fast charging and comes with an 18W charger in the box, this will see you topped up from 0 – 100% in around 50 – 60 minutes.

Another great feature of the battery is the Qi wireless charging, this allows you to charge up other Qi devices by simply placing them on the back of the Pixel 4 with the mode turned on.

For example, if you own the new Google Buds or Samsung Galaxy Buds and they are running low on juice, simply turn on power-sharing on your Pixel 4 and place them on the back of your phone, this will drain some of the power from your phone and give it to your buds.

There aren’t many real-world examples where we found this useful, but it is a cool gimmick to charge your friends phone up when they are running low.

As a whole the Google Pixel 4 battery life is good, it isn’t going to blow you away but its more than capable of keeping you going all day and some.

Google Pixel 4 Review: Summary

So should you buy the Google Pixel 4?

Well if you’re looking for a smartphone with an incredibly impressive camera, able to shoot fantastic images of the moon, stars and galaxies, then yes.

Here at Device Dictionary, we try to give you the most unbiased mobile phone reviews in the UK, so we don’t want to push this on you but we also have to say it is a spectacular phone.

Given that if you take one of the Google Pixel 4 deals from the likes of EE, you get a free Chromebook at the moment.

Fitbit Versa 2 Health & Fitness Smartwatch with Alexa built-in, Sleep Score & Music, Black - Carbon 

This makes the phone great value for money, coupled with the phone itself it’s hard to argue with these types of deals.

Not only this but the Pixel 4 design is superb, with a matte grippy finish on two of the colours, however with phones in this category housing the Snapdragon 855+ chip, it’s hard to feel secure with the chip that this phone has.

You will be glad to know that the Google Pixel 4 is waterproof, with an IP68 rating which means it can be submerged in up to 1.5m of water for up to 30mins.

With the likes of the iPhone 11 and OnePlus 7 Pro not being far ahead of the Pixel 4 in terms of price.

That being said the Google Pixel 4 brings a lot to the table, with strong battery life and a stunning display.

The Google Pixel 4 specs are more than enough to keep you breezing through the UI and any games effortlessly, with some great storage options too.

We hope you have enjoyed our Google Pixel 4 review, feel free to check out our other mobile phone reviews and the best deals here.

Google Pixel 4: Full Specification: