There's two ways to think about Android, generally speaking. The first is as a totally open platform that manufacturers can bend to fit phones, tablets, set-top boxes, TVs or basically anything, and which users can further customise freely to their needs. The second is as Google's mobile platform.
If you're in the latter camp, Android phones have until now been pretty frustrating. The likes of Samsung, Sony and LG insist on building their own software on top of the operating system, and can take ages to institute new features rolled out by Google, if they do so at all. Meanwhile, any truly interesting features of the new phones are often hobbled by the fact that they don't play as nicely with your Google services as they really ought to.
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Google releases 'Pixel' smartphones
Google introduces two new 'Pixel' smartphones promising good battery-life and a high quality camera.
The Pixel changes all that. Not only is this a brilliant, high-end (read expensive) and smooth as silk Android phone, but it's 100 per cent Google. From the brand new Pixel Launcher that injects the company's new Assistant into every part of the phone, to the close integration with Google's cloud storage system, this is the ideal phone for somebody who wants an Android experience to just work perfectly out of the box. And it's all made better with the knowledge that as soon as Google finishes a new update it'll appear on the Pixel first.
There are two flavours of Pixel, the smaller 5-inch version and the 5.5-inch Pixel XL. Aside from the size (and the price) the two are identical, making your choice purely a matter of taste.
Hardware
The phones feature a brilliant AMOLED screen, running at a resolution of 1920x1080 or 2560x1440 depending on which model you get, which is plenty for phones of their respective size. I was impressed with the smoothness of the adaptive brightness adjustment, although the maximum brightness isn't quite as high as I'd like. It's good for your battery, but not awesome in direct sunlight.
Under the hood the phones are powered by 4GB of RAM the brand spankin' new Snapgradon 821 processor. This is the beefiest mobile chip of 2016 in terms of raw power, and it shows. Every movement of the Pixel, from swiping through screens to running the latest Android games, is incredibly fast and fluid.
Design-wise the Pixel plays it extremely safe, especially when you're viewing it from the front. Apart from the earpiece, light sensor and front camera there's just nothing there, with the 'Google Imprint' sensor on the back of the phone. In fact it looks like an iPhone 7 if the Home button was ripped off the front and moved to the back, which draws attention to the fact that the lower bezel is unnecessarily huge.
Things are a bit more interesting around the back, with the fingerprint scanner mounted inside a glassy panel. It looks great, especially on the white and silver model where the pearly panel offsets the otherwise metal frame. There's not much functional about the panel, although it does help your finger find the fingerprint scanner more easily. In addition to unlocking your phone, the scanner can be swiped up or down to raise and lower your notification shade. I didn't think this would be that useful, but it turns out being able to do that without touching your screen actually comes in handy quite a bit.
The phone features a USB-C port, which makes charging extremely fast. Google claims you can get 7 hours of juice out of a 15-minute charge, and I believe it. Handily, both a USB-C to USB-C and a USB-C to USB-A cable is included in the box, so you can connect Pixel to any older stuff easily. Next to the port is a downward-facing speaker, which is plenty loud but may take some getting used to if you put your hands there while watching videos. And yep, there's a 3.5mm headphone jack here, right at the top of the phone.
Google has made much of the main camera on the Pixels, with DxOMark rating it the highest of any smartphone shooter. I'm no photography expert, but I was incredibly impressed. In low light the Pixel captured more detail than I've ever seen from a phone camera under similar conditions, and in the light of day the pictures are stunning and sharp. The camera app is not as feature-filled or customisable as some others but — when the results are this good on the automatic mode — it doesn't have to be.
The one glaring error hardware-wise is that the Pixel is not certified water resistant. Google says that it'll survive a splash, but to be honest that's not good enough for a premium phone in 2016.
Software
As someone who usually spends the first 20 minutes with a new Android phone installing Google's launcher and apps, I honestly didn't know what to do when I started up the Pixel. All of the company's core apps are already installed, as is the awesome new Pixel Launcher.
I'm not sure how I'll be able to go back to a different launcher after this, because getting around the Pixel is just so intuitive. From the home screen you can touch the big 'G' button to start a Google search, or pull it to the right to get access to your personal Google Now cards. Swiping up from the bottom of the screen opens the app drawer with all your stuff in it, while placing apps and widgets on your home screens still works just like it always did.
The other big new feature is Google Assistant, which can be called up at any point by holding the Home button or saying "OK Google". Talking to your phone is still very weird and something I can't bring myself to do in public, but when you do use it it performs perfectly. With the power of Google at its beck and call, Assistant understands your natural language requests and can sort instantly through the web and your personal data to perform any task you give it, from setting alarms to remembering birthdays to finding out when a certain movie is playing at a certain theatre.
Meanwhile, having Chrome, Google Calendar, Play Music and all the rest ready to go by default is great, but the setup also shows how weird it is that Google has three separate messaging apps. While Messages is fine for SMS and Duo is great for video calls, it's difficult to find a use for the Assistant-powered Allo.
New in this version of Android are contextual menus, which work a little like Apple's 3D Touch. For compatible apps (pretty much just Google apps at the moment), you can press and hold to bring up a menu and jump straight to a certain part of the app. For example holding Maps brings up the options to navigate home or to work.
There's a lot of little touches to appreciate here as well, some coming as part of Android 7 Nougat and some specific to the Pixel. Options like night mode, customisable quick settings and split screen, which have previously been seen in other Android phones, are now baked in and work great. Meanwhile Google has done a killer job with the built-in wallpapers, something that phone-makers often overlook. There's a number of innovative choices for artsy, data-driven or 3D dynamic backdrops, plus heaps of photographic options and the ability to have a new wallpaper automatically applied daily. They're all stored in the cloud, so don't sit around taking up room in your phone.
Speaking of which, Google really wants you to take advantage of the cloud. The base Pixel model has a measly 32GB of storage and no SD card slot, so keeping tonnes of stuff locally is not an option. To remedy this, Pixel owners can automatically upload an infinite number of photos to the cloud, and there's the option to automatically delete any data that's been backed up and hasn't been used for a while. If you're keeping your files on Drive and your music on Google Play, it's conceivable 32GB will be enough. If not, you'll need to drop some extra cash on the 128GB model.
Should I get one?
If price was no object, I'd recommend the Pixel to just about anyone. Some hardcore devotees will continue to prefer phones from Samsung or Sony, but Google's phone provides such a pure Android experience that it seems to push those handsets into the realm of niche.
Before launch there was a lot of talk about whether Pixel was just a Nexus device under a different name, but I can tell you it is not. Nexus was clean Android, and Pixel is Android elevated.
With a legitimate two-day battery life, an excellent camera, brilliant performance, no bloatware, the best version of the latest software and heaps of Google-specific features built in, this is the phone you want if you're after an Android that's optimised perfectly before you even turn it on. Since everything on it is designed by the one company, there's no other phone that feels complete like the Pixel outside of the iPhone, and yet this is Android so you're free to change anything you like if you want to.
Still, all that perfection comes at a price. The cheapest Pixel, with a 5-inch screen and 32GB of storage, is $1079. Upsizing costs $190, and upping storage to 128GB is $150, meaning the biggest and best model is $1419. If you want it on a plan you have to go through Telstra, and the monthly payments right now are kind of brutal.
Pixel releases Thursday October 20, and you can get it from the Google Store, JB-Hifi or Telstra stores.
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