Google Pixel 2 review

Welcome to the best Google Pixel 2 review on the internet. Even with the technical issues that this Android phone went through at launch, it remains one of our most recommended for one reason: it has an amazing camera and starts at a normal smartphone price. On top of that, Google has since issued a patch for the audio glitch problems, so it stays put as one of our favorites. Your only issue may be finding one in stock, as Google in the US and UK is sold out. Luckily, it's readily in stock at Verizon and via Google Pixel 2 deals.

The Google Pixel 2 is here to prove that two rear cameras aren’t always better than one on a phone, especially if you favor photo quality over the latest all-screen designs. We have the picture proof below.

It’s Google’s superior software that pushes this Android Oreo phone to snap the best-looking pictures we’ve seen, topping the camera on last year’s impressive Pixel and Pixel XL debut.

What’s more, this year's upgrade is faster, water-resistant and adds a new way to call up the Google Assistant: simply squeeze the phone’s sides to launch your new AI buddy. It sounds like a gimmick, but it’s easier than accidentally hitting another (Bixby) button.

Best Pixel 2 deals for Black Friday:

Watch our design and screen review of the Google Pixel 2 series below. 

The Pixel 2, with its 5-inch screen, doesn’t look like the future of smartphones, except for its lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack – you're going to want a pair of our best Bluetooth headphones for this one.

Unlike the Pixel 2 XL, which has an edge-to-edge 6-inch display and tall 18:9 aspect ratio, the Pixel 2 is bezel-heavy. Of course, we now know it has more vibrant colors and no signs (yet) of screen burn-in problems like its larger counterpart. Depending on how the XL screen performs in the long run, the Pixel 2 may actually be a case of "better small than sorry."

• Want something larger? Check out our Google Pixel 2 XL review

The bezels won't bother you if you want a phone that’s a great size, runs smart software and has a fantastic camera that will make your friends – even your Samsung-owning friends – jealous. The Pixel 2 is for people who favor functionality over fashion.

Price and release date

• Starts at $649 / £629 / AU$1,079 for 64GB model
• Announced October 4, shipped Thursday, October 19
• In the US, try Verizon if the Google Store still has delays

The Google Pixel 2 price didn't increase year-over-year, so like its dated design, it isn't keeping up with the competition. This is surprising for a phone announced on October 4, and a release date of October 19.

It costs $649 / £629 / AU$1,079 for the 64GB version, and $749 / £729 / AU$1,229 for the 128GB configuration. In the US, this phone is sold on-contract through Verizon only among carriers, but worry not, ordering it from the Google Store will mean it works on all networks, including AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.

For a limited time you can get a free Google Home Mini with your purchase of the new Pixel 2 if you're in the US, UK, Australia, Canada or Germany. However, expect long wait times, especially for the delayed white version of the phone.

New Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL photo examples 

The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL have the same camera, and our very own Cameron Faulkner had both on his honeymoon to give us example of photos people take outside of a testing lab. Check out some of the shots below, then continue to read out review.

Design

• Great size and likable design
• Squeeze the sides to launch Google Assistant
• Waterproof, but no 3.5mm headphone jack

The Google Pixel 2 has a likable size and aesthetic, if you can look past the fact that the phone won’t wow you with an all-screen front. It has a futuristic camera, but the design has a distinctly last-year feel to it.

It easily fits into one hand thanks to its palmable dimensions and light weight. A few years ago this would’ve been considered a phablet, but today, next to the Note 8, it’s a normal-sized Android phone. Most will be able to manage one-handed operation of its 5-inch screen, something that's literally a tall order with the 6-inch Pixel 2 XL.

Both new Pixel phones are now IP67 waterproof (meaning they can survive underwater up to 1m or 3.3ft down for an hour) and retain a glass-and-metal design on the back, albeit with less glass toward the top compared to their predecessors.

The fingerprint scanner has been moved – don’t worry, it’s not off-center, as on Samsung’s new phones – onto the textured aluminum portion of the back, while the camera remains on the glass part, and has a protective ring around it now.

You won’t find a headphone jack on this phone, nor even USB-C earbuds inside the box – it comes with just a simple 3.5mm-to-USB-C adapter. Google may have done some research and figured out that you probably own better headphones than the ones it usually supplies for free – plus, it’s all the more reason for you to buy into those Pixel Buds that just launched, right?

Music on this phone sounds great through headphones, and we even liked listening to music through the dual front-facing stereo speakers. Yes, there's an odd ticking noise coming from some Pixel 2 speakers, but Google promises a software fix for this issue.

Front-facing stereo speakers have become rare among smartphones, which too often fire onboard audio out of the bottom of the phone through a single speaker. Having them increases the size of the top and bottom bezel, but stereo speakers are part of the functionality-over-fashion trade-off we’re talking about.

The Pixel 2 also acquires a feature from the HTC U11 called EdgeSense. Squeezing the phone’s sides launches the Google Assistant, which in our experience has come in handy, and is way better than adding a dedicated AI button – Samsung uses such a button for its Bixby assistant, and we can’t stop accidentally pressing it on the Galaxy S8 and Note 8. Our only complaint is that Google won’t allow you to customize this squeezable feature to open up the camera or another app of your choice.

The Pixel 2 XL comes in four colors: Just Black, Clearly White, Kinda Blue and Black & White. In the US, the currently sold out Kinda Blue version is a Verizon-exclusive.

Screen

• Full HD 1080p screen is bright and colorful
• Thick bezels make it far from an all-screen phone
• Not the best choice for Google Daydream VR

The 5-inch Google Pixel 2 display looks superb for Full HD, but it’s also uninspiring at the same time. It’s bright and colorful, though not as rich as a best-in-class Samsung smartphone screen.

What’s distracting is its screen-to-body ratio, with large bezels flanking the screen on all sides. This is even more noticeable in 2017 with so many all-screen Android phones around, including the bigger Google Pixel 2 XL – and it's especially distracting when the standard trio of on-screen buttons are sometimes displayed within a black bar that eats into your precious screen space.

The display works okay with Google Daydream, but it’s less than ideal given the fact that you can see individual pixels at 1080p. The headset really calls for the Quad HD display from the Pixel 2 XL.

We did like the new always-on display, which shows the date, time and notification icons, and the overdue double-tap-to-wake-the-screen functionality. It’s now a lot easier to see what’s going on with your phone before you wake it up. 

You just have to get beyond the bezels, and the fact that putting your Google Pixel 2 in a case makes the outline seem even more pronounced.

Interface and reliability

• New Android Oreo software enhancements
• To get Android P and Android Q first

Google Pixel 2 is how many people will experience Android Oreo for the first time, and it’s a great way to get to know all about Google’s latest software update.

It’s pre-installed with Google’s apps, and the user interface is exactly how the company wants everything to be laid out. We will go on the record to say that Samsung’s software has gotten better over the years, but stock Android is still extremely clean, yet thoroughly customizable.

Here’s what’s different if you’re upgrading: swiping down on the rear fingerprint sensor now pulls down the notification shade (and it goes back up with a swipe up). That makes one-handed operation of this phone even simpler.

View our review of the user interface below. 

Picture-in-picture is seemingly everywhere, and the little floating box works with more than just YouTube videos that keep running as you navigate throughout the rest of your phone. We also found Google Maps kept us on the right path in a small window as we opened up our email to find the exact name of our destination. How brilliant is that?

The best part is that the Pixel 2 is due for Android P and Android Q updates and will be among the first devices to get them thanks to everything being owned and operated by Google. That’s a big deal for anyone who is months away from being able to update to Oreo. We feel your pain.

Specs and performance

• Fast Snapdragon 835 chipset and 4GB of RAM
• 64GB or 128GB of internal storage, but no microSD card slot
• Boot times filed down to just 10 seconds

The Pixel 2 fails to introduce the world to a brand new Snapdragon chipset like its predecessor did – it’s the same chip that’s in the Samsung Galaxy S8, LG G6, Moto Z 2 Force and so on.

That’s okay, because the eight-month-old chipset and 4GB of RAM run smoothly on the Pixel 2 and it more than meets the benchmarks of its closest competition. Why do some phones have 6GB of RAM then? They're gearing up for apps two years from now and desktop virtualization. For now, we found 4GB of RAM enough to handle today’s multitasking needs.

How good is the battery and gaming on the Pixel 2? View our review video below.

Our Geekbench benchmark scoring put the Google Pixel 2 at a 6,260 multi-score, and it never sank below 6,000, even when trying to pressure it with multiple app downloads and multitasking. That’s a good sign for the future, at least.

You’ll get more storage from the Google Pixel 2, which starts at 64GB of internal space, instead of last year’s 32GB of starter size, and it maxes out at the new 128GB of storage option. There’s still no microSD card slot on the Pixel phones, which is a shame when so many other Android phones carry this expandable storage option.

Pixel 2 boot times are about ten seconds long, meaning we’ve come a long way from the unforgivable minute-and-a-half boot times we experienced on Google’s Nexus 6 phone four years ago. Back then, the phone’s camera was poor too. Times have really changed for Google phones.

Camera

• Stunning 12.2MP camera that shoots great low-light photos
• The software behind it makes it better than Samsung's camera
• The camera app could use a couple more features

The camera is the best part of the Pixel 2 experience. Pictures are consistently in focus and true-to-life while still looking vibrant. Color accuracy is what Google gets right.

That actually doesn’t do this camera justice. Photos taken in low-light conditions, likely a dimly lit restaurant, looked as if we had turned on the lights when using the Pixel 2. Everything seemed a lot darker when using the iPhone 8 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Note 8, which you’d expect to be the two smartphone camera leaders.

Watch our camera review of the the Pixel 2 below. 

Google’s 12.2MP main camera, with an f/1.8 aperture, and 8MP selfie camera, with an f/2.4 aperture, bests its competition in almost all ways. It has a background-blurring portrait mode both on the front and back camera, 240fps slow motion video and settings that get deeper than any Google camera before today.

The default camera software isn’t perfect, however. Both Samsung and LG make it easier to snap a timed photo with a convenient hand gesture, while Google forces you to tap buttons. In group photos, this either results in an awkward face for the photo-taker who lunges to press the button while holding the phone out, or having to configure the timer while the group waits. We also miss the easy swipe-to-switch gesture to transition between the main and selfie cameras, which both Samsung and LG do so well. 

The photo quality is best-in-class, even without a second telephoto camera, and the video quality is steady with electronic image stabilization. This phone has optical image stabilization (OIS) this year and proves steady in our tests, more so than the original Pixel phones.

If you’re looking for the best camera on a mobile phone, you’re not going to be disappointed with your photos. It’s now the leader among smartphone cameras.

Battery life

• Smaller 2,700mAh battery still gets all-day battery life
• Battery saving tricks can extend the battery life further
• Fast charges, but no visual power meter when phone is off

The Google Pixel 2 battery lasts all day with moderate use, which you may not expect given its rather small 2,700mAh battery size. It saves power in a number of important ways.

Its 1080p screen is a secret weapon to burning fewer unnecessary pixels, even when the screen remains bright. Google also has fairly smart Android Oreo battery saving options right in the notification shade. This can help extend the battery life beyond a day if you’re careful enough.

Running a looped HD video at full brightness and at a full charge resulted in 86% remaining in the battery life tank. That’s about average for smartphones of this size. You’re not going to be disappointed, but you’re also not going to be impressed with how this one performs.

While the Pixel 2 charges quickly thanks to fast charging, we’re sad that Google hasn’t found a way to display the battery life percentage whenever you charge a turned off phone. Every other Android phone can do this. When charging a phone from 0%, it’s impossible to tell if it’s at 10% or 100% unless you boot up the phone mid-change. That’s a bit annoying.

It all makes sense now. The Pixel 2’s standout camera clues us in on why Google named its smartphone series the Pixel in the first place. It was on its way to building the best camera on a phone, and this device fulfills that foreshadowed promise.

Great photos are among the most desirable features of any new smartphone, and this single-lens camera performs better than the advanced dual-lens cameras we’ve tested in almost every way. It’s even a great performer in low-light conditions. 

View our overview of the Google Pixel 2 below.

We got use out of the new Google Assistant shortcut that has you squeeze the sides of the Pixel 2, and we like it a lot better than Samsung’s often-mispressed Bixby button. Dual front-facing stereo speakers and a water-resistant design make it an even more enjoyable phone.

I’ve heard people pre-judge the Pixel 2 (and Google) by its look, and not because they’re being forced to say goodbye to the headphone jack. It’s due to the design, especially the screen, which doesn’t look ambitious. It’s large bezels don’t scream 2017. You shouldn’t, however, judge the Pixel 2 by its cover – judge it by testing out its new camera.

Who’s it for?

The Pixel 2 is a great choice for anyone who wants to upgrade their always-on-them camera to the best among smartphones. It doesn’t have a fancy dual-lens camera or telephoto capabilities, but it does have portrait mode on both the main and selfie camera and color accuracy we just can’t find on another device. 

Should I buy it?

Yes, if you’re looking to have the edge among smartphone photos, this is your new weapon. It’s not for people who carry around a DSLR or a mirrorless camera to snap great photos already, or people who couldn’t care less about taking quality pictures in the first place. This is for everyone else in that meaty middle who thinks of themselves as an amateur photographer (on Instagram) and hasn’t already been swayed from Samsung’s superior edge-to-edge screen.