The Google Pixel 4 XL Review: Stuck In The Past In 2019
by Andrei Frumusanu on November 8, 2019 11:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Pixel 4
- Pixel 4 XL
GPU Performance
3D and GPU performance of the Pixel 4, much like all other devices this year with the same Snapdragon 855 chipset, will only be able to differentiate itself from the pack if it has any kind of special heat dissipation or extremely lax thermal throttling designs. We’re not expecting any big surprises here, and do hope the Pixel 4 XL is able to fare competitively.
Starting off with the 3DMark Physics test, which is actually a CPU benchmark within a temperature constrained test scenario, we see the Pixel 4 XL fall in line with the middle of the pack of Snapdragon 855 devices in terms of the sustained performance scores. It’s interesting to see the peak performance standing out and being ahead by a measurable margin against other S855 devices. I’m not too sure why this would be other than maybe Google having extra optimisations in the scheduling of the workload, or maybe even DVFS behaviour of the CPUs, as the actual workload performance shouldn’t change based on any other external factors such as drivers or software.
In the graphics workload, things are GPU bound and that’s the main limiting factor for the performance scores. Here the Pixel 4 XL again falls around the middle of the pack amongst other S855 devices.
This ranking is continued on over all the GFXBench tests as the Pixel 4 XL does adequately but still remains below medium amongst our Snapdragon 855 devices. A peculiarity we’re seeing in the benchmarks is that the peak performance of the Pixel 4 XL is a few percentages lower than that on other S855 phones. Again, I have no proper explanation for this other that it may be some regression in Qualcomm’s GPU drivers, or that maybe Google is being more relaxed on other DVFS behaviour such as on the memory controllers.
Again, whilst this performance isn’t outright bad, we have to keep in mind the pricing of the phone and its very late release date in the year. The contrast to Apple’s iPhone 11s here in the charts is pretty absurd, as it’s able to showcase scores essentially twice as fast as what the Pixel 4 XL can achieve.
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MaxUserName - Saturday, November 9, 2019 - link
You especially do not take pictures in very high-contrast scenes to hide the fact that the Google Camera does not work real HDR?swood15 - Saturday, November 9, 2019 - link
I was in the market for a new phone but wanted to wait for the Pixel 4 to drop before making a decision, ended up going with a OP7 Pro. Same SoC, 2x the RAM, 4x the storage, arguably a better implementation of the 90Hz display, larger battery, no forehead/notch, a respectable camera, and a clean OS for $50 cheaper than the cheapest Pixel 4?! Google needs to get serious.Bragabondio - Saturday, November 9, 2019 - link
Love Pixel devices as specs are not all. My feeling is that in the last few years phones are fast enough so specs in terms of pure speed are mostly meaningless unless you have some special case that I don have. Unlocked boot-loader, guaranteed fastest updates for 3 years and freedom to sideload apps is a big plus. Best camera on the market, IP68 dust and water resistance are also a must in my book and both Pixel 4 have them.I agree that the original price is to high ($799 for the regular version and $899 for the XL version) but with a recent $200 discount the new price is $599 for the regular version and $699 for the XL version making them much more reasonable buy.
I am personally skipping Pixel 4 as I plan to upgrade my Pixel 2 next year with Pixel 5.
Arbie - Saturday, November 9, 2019 - link
• No 3.5mm headphone jack.• No sale.
s.yu - Sunday, November 10, 2019 - link
I agree, not that the rest of this package would appeal to me if it even had the jack.For example:
• No 256GB+ storage.
• No sale.
Medstar1 - Sunday, November 10, 2019 - link
Interesting that the reviewer rigged Google for not introducing an ultra wide lens like their rivals; thus, ignoring the fact that LG introduced this feature several years ago.Andrei Frumusanu - Sunday, November 10, 2019 - link
What's your point? LG being first to the UWA doesn't change the fact that Google's the only vendor this year not having it.LG was first to it and I've always said it's a great addition to the camera experience, but it was Huawei in 2018 which popularised it as the UWA quality was far ahead of what LG was able to ever offer.
Oliseo - Sunday, November 10, 2019 - link
I would have said that the Pixels MAIN issue is the woefully short support timeframe from Google.3 years of support IS NOT ENOUGH for the price, regardless of anything else.
bengoey - Saturday, November 23, 2019 - link
Agree, my original 2016 Pixel won't have anymore updates from January 2020, so 3 years update only. If I bought an iPhone instead it will still have software update at least until the end of 2020, may be more. The camera of the Pixel however was better than iPhone at the time. Now iPhone 11 camera has improved and the video is better than the Pixel 4, if I am to upgrade I would buy the Iphone 11 , not the Pixel 4. To upgrade the memory to 128Gb will cost me £50 for the iphone 11 and £100 for the Pixel 4SirKronan - Sunday, November 10, 2019 - link
Yet another newly released phone with its full review complete, but still no word on the Note 10/10+ review?Is Anandtech not going to review the new Note phones after all? That would be a shame.