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
Battery Life
Although the Pixel 5 is a small phone, Google still managed to with a rather large 4080mAh battery – which notable given the 151g weight of the device. Coupled with a 1080p 90Hz screen which seems to be of good quality, the Pixel 5 should do alright in the battery tests.
Indeed, in our web-browsing test, the Pixel 5 ended up lasting 12.5h, which is an excellent result for a device of this calibre. The phone seems to be significantly more efficient than the Pixel 4 XL last year, and it also does better than even some newer flagships this year which use less power-efficient displays.
In the more SoC power dominant PCMark battery test, the Pixel 5 also does very well at 11.1h runtime. The similar-specced LG Velvet beats it, but only due to a larger battery as well as a 60Hz display.
In general, the Pixel 5 does very well in terms of battery life and it seems to be amongst the most power-optimised devices in the market – usually small phones have to compromise on battery life compared to their larger battery siblings, however the Pixel 5 here does not.
It’s actually a stark contrast to last year’s Pixel 4 devices which had large power consumption issues – whatever compromises Google had to make, such as a different SoC, dropping Project Soli, or just overall power optimisations, it seems to have worked well in favour of the Pixel 5.
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Jon Tseng - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
>It’s been a couple of months now since Google announced the Pixel 5 –>Unfortunately we didn’t quite get to a timely review of the device due to
>other important industry coverage.
lol Anandtech's "it'll be ready when its ready" approach to deadlines is one of the most endearing features of the site
On that note has an Ampere/RTX3080 review on up yet? Obviously a somewhat hypothetical purchase but would be int to hear the view..
erple2 - Saturday, January 23, 2021 - link
Interestingly, maybe Anandtech is right to not actually post a review of the effectively unavailable RTX 30x0 GPUs. They're not available to most people anyway. Maybe Anandtech has been silently protesting the "paper" launch of the next gen GPUs? :)MattMe - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
I've owned the original Pixel, Pixel 3 and now the Pixel 5.I really liked the approach to offering top tier devices in a smaller form factor when the original was released, and appreciated the vanilla Android experience. The cameras have been fantastic, in all scenarios, I have been honestly left astonished at what the camera can capture even in challenging lighting environments.
I dropped and broke the glass on my Pixel 3 otherwise would likely have kept it another year or so, but having had a look around I opted for the Pixel 5. One thing I noticed right away that I don't feel the charts here get across is the real world battery life. I'd consider myself a power user, but not particularly focused on heavy workloads (I don't often play games or run other demanding apps on my phone outside some image editing and music creation/production), but I have noticed 50% of my battery remaining at the end of the day quite often, whereas on my Pixel 3 (even when it was new) I would be needing to charge by the end of the day.
The screen is great, the cameras are still fantastic, the resin/plastic back feels comfortable and grippy, the size is perfect. I really have no qualms whatsoever.
My main reservation before purchasing was the CPU, I'd heard that it was a noticable downgrade to the Pixel 4 and even 3 but in reality I have not noticed this. I read reviews mentioning how you can see image processing completing when opening a picture immediately after snapping it, but I always saw that on my Pixel 3 too. If anything I feel this is quicker than the 3 over all, and I never felt CPU-bound with that device!
All this is to say, I agree with the review. :)
The price could be lower, compared to the 4a5g may not be great, but in comparison to the 4 last year as a 'flagship' I would say it is.
I'm much more pleased with the device than I expected and would happily recommend it.
MattMe - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
That was a long one, I think I'm surprised by how it feels like an upgrade over the Pixel 3, despite many reviews talking about how it's a downgrade. I'd rather pay less if the only trade off is the CPU, which appears to be the case for the 5.BedfordTim - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
The reason I have always ruled out Pixels is storage. For phone where one of the main selling points is photography, 128GB is not enough and expandable. I filled 160GB on my old Lumia 950.supdawgwtfd - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
I have a Pixel 3.Unlimited cloud storage ;)
Photos only now are limited on cloud storage Pixel devices.
iphonebestgamephone - Sunday, January 24, 2021 - link
Not everyone has unlimited data ;)tipoo - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
Hard to believe the GPU in this underperforms what was in my iPhone 7, 5 years ago. They went really low end with this chip. Now Android seems well enough tailored for low end hardware that you're not feeling it too much, but certainly with intensive apps and games you would.GC2:CS - Saturday, January 23, 2021 - link
But A10 took like 6 or 7 W at full load and throttle badly to 3.This sucks up one. You cannot directly compare those.
Spunjji - Monday, January 25, 2021 - link
I mean, you can - and you just did.This is more efficient but slower than a 5-year-old chip. It would be fair to expect something that is both more efficient and *at least* as fast, given the intervening progress with manufacturing processes. Qualcomm can definitely build such a GPU, but they're choosing not to. It's sad.