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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Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, November 11, 2019 - link
We don't have the Note10's and we'd have to buy them to review; I don't feel the phones have any major differentiating factors over the S10 to be that much worth it.SirKronan - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Andrei, thanks for your response! I was afraid of that. Would you be willing to do a review if I could arrange for a loaner to be sent to you?ithehappy - Sunday, November 10, 2019 - link
So far all the reviews I have seen has showed that the loudspeaker loudness (or maybe even quality) of the Pixel 4 is better than the iPhone 11, this review says on the contrary! Also those reviews showed the Pixel 4 performing better for day to day tasks (like app opening etc.) faster than the iPhone 11.Was the reviewer here let down even from before reviewing the device or something? Astrophotography mode was not even tested! If the iPhone 11 had that feature would you cite the pretty nonsense reason of poor weather to skip that part? I don't think so. Not sure what went here.
In any case, Google could have done so many things right with this phone. But they chose not to. Withdrawing the original quality upload was one of the terrible decisions, so was the terrible battery capacity on the Pixel 4 non-XL model. There is no doubt for 2019-2020 the iPhone 11 is a much better choice than the Pixel 4, but this review has some unnecessary and uncalled negative bias towards the Pixel 4.
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, November 11, 2019 - link
> So far all the reviews I have seen has showed that the loudspeaker loudness (or maybe even quality) of the Pixel 4 is better than the iPhone 11Loudness isn't an issue, the P4 gets very loud. Quality is on par to lesser than the i11.
> you cite the pretty nonsense reason of poor weather to skip that part? I don't think so. Not sure what went here.
I'm not sure what exactly you expected want me to do here, take pictures of clouds?
ithehappy - Monday, November 11, 2019 - link
I expected you, the reviewer, to use that mode. It's not only for taking photos of clouds is it now? It's just something which lets the shutter open for much longer time compared to Night Sight even which would have led to some astonishing shots no doubt.PenGunn - Sunday, November 10, 2019 - link
Just bought a Huawei Mate 20 Pro from Virgin in BC Canada. I'm getting good at this phone change negotiation and got a smoking deal.Stunning phone. For some reason, here, Google crap works fine.
raju516 - Monday, November 11, 2019 - link
Andrei,U said many vendors have displays calibrated better than Google . Can you name one vendor and the phone model other than Apple?
Thanks
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, November 11, 2019 - link
Samsung, OnePlus and Huawei on some devices.peevee - Monday, November 11, 2019 - link
HOW have they managed to make Pixel 4XL work slower than Pixel 3? Wow, have Google lost ALL of its good and even decent engineers?yetanotherhuman - Tuesday, November 12, 2019 - link
I'm dissatisfied with basically all the new phones on the market. Bleh.