The Google Pixel 5: A Mini-Review - Small Package, Small Value?
by Andrei Frumusanu on January 22, 2021 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Pixel 5
Camera - A Quick Recap
I’m skipping the camera comparisons for this piece as it’s out of the scope of the short-form review today (they are very time consuming!). We’ve included the Pixel 5 in low-light photography in recent reviews such as the iPhone 12 piece and we’ll be publishing a more extensive camera investigation article in the coming weeks as well as the upcoming Galaxy S21 article coming soon, so I’ll reserve myself to just posting camera samples and commentary of the Pixel 5 performance.
In daylight, where the Pixel 5 seems to perform better than its predecessors is seemingly in terms of colours and colour temperature. Whereas the Pixel 4 and previous iterations seemed to have had a tendency towards warmer colours, the Pixel 5 more often tends to get things in a more natural and correct colour – at least in my own subjective experience.
One area that’s still prevalent in the Pixel processing is that I feel that it doesn’t do as well in preserving highlights of textures, giving them a flatter look compared to what we’re now seeing from the processing of the likes of Apple and Samsung.
The ultra-wide-angle module on the Pixel 5 is a definitive great addition to the phone and really augments the capture experience of this generation of Pixel phones, addressing a much lacklustre aspect of Google’s devices last year. The optics of the UWA isn’t as great as some of other competitors, but decent enough.
What is weird about the UWA is that although Google advertises as employing a 16MP sensor, the actual pictures coming out are sampled down to 12.2MP, matching the resolution of the main sensor. I’m not sure what the rationale is here, and I’m generally never a fan of this matching of resolution across different sensors in a phone as it never actually ends up in good quality results.
In low-light scenarios, the Pixel 5 is a bit of a mixed bag by today’s standards. On one hand, Google’s Night Sight computational photography mode is excellent in terms of bringing out light in very dark situations, but on the other hand the camera processing here doesn’t seem to have changed much since the Pixel 3. Night Sight in this sense can be a two-edged sword – produces high quality low-light photos, but sometimes it overdoes it in terms of brightening a scene too much, it no longer being representative of the subject. Night Sight also has a particular tendency to grossly over-correct for colour-temperature, losing the actual ambience of a scene.
In scenarios where there’s very low light, Google’s aging camera hardware really cannot compete against the newer generation sensors from the competition, which by now have caught up or also even surpassed Google in computational photography.
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Vitor - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
Lol that gpu perf. Looks like a soc from the 400 family.shabby - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
Omg i didn't know it was this bad, i thought the G in 765g stood for gaming? LolololFulljack - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
Qualcomm always botched graphic performance on their non 800-series SoC. never trust how many marketing done by Qualcomm or OEM/Vendor, it'll perform less than even two years generation ago of 800-series flagship.Spunjji - Monday, January 25, 2021 - link
Yup. I can only see it as a deliberate move - it means that even people like me with Snapdragon 835 devices can't really "upgrade" to a 700-series SoC unless we're willing to sacrifice GPU performance.TinyOilot - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
We'll.. Google pixel 5 owner from UK. Let's talk about ugly things.Well... I bought pixel for pixel features. And that was my big mistake. If you're not in US, there's nothing left from pixel specific features, as they are not available outside US. (No "Hold for me", "assistant calling", "call screening") So, this phone becomes just another mid range phone.
I guess, only purpose for me is early OS upgrades.
Rather should look into OnePlus, as I like their warranty policy.
Mekk Elek - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
Thank you for your review. It is, like what, a 5 month late, and there is absolutely nothing new in it, but your effort to copy it together deserves some recognition.lmcd - Saturday, January 23, 2021 - link
Thank you for your comment. It is, like what, a 5000 years post-sentience, and there is absolutely nothing new in it, but your effort to copy it together deserves some recognition.Hulk - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
I still have my Pixel 2 and don't see the need to upgrade except for battery life. I like the Pixel mainly because of the lack of crapware on the phone. Yeah I know I can root and get rid of that stuff but I'm lazy.icrf - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
I was in the same boat. I had a Pixel 2 and was generally still happy, but the battery life was debilitating, so I bought a Pixel 5 around Thanksgiving when it was $50 off (incidentally, the exact same price I paid for my Pixel 2 three years ago).It was also nearing the end of its updates, which is really Google's killer feature with the Pixel line. Are there other Android OEMs that provide consistent seamless updates for three years? Only Apple does better, and I'm not willing to make that jump.
The camera on the 5 is basically the same thing as the 2, plus the ultra-wide lens. I didn't care about 5G or headphone jack, but I really wanted the extra battery and waterproofing over the 4a. The extra storage and RAM is nice. I give no shits about GPU, and the CPU is adequate.
I like the smaller form factor, but honestly, the best form factor ever, IMO, was the 2013 Moto X. I could actually reach the top of the 4.7" screen with my thumb. The lack of bottom bezel on modern phones makes it hard to reach bottom navigation buttons/gestures.
toffty - Saturday, January 23, 2021 - link
You can enable the bottom buttons btw, it's somewhere in settings (Google it)