So Google Pixel 7 is one of the most affordable flagship phones out there in 2022, despite packing one of the very best camera experiences of any blower out there. But if you’ve got a fair bit of cash stuffed in your mattress and you want to go supersized, well, the Google Pixel 7 Pro, merely a seriously enticing upgrade, is so shiny and big.
I think one of the most underrated features of the new MacBooks is their improved single-threaded CPU performance. I’ve been using them extensively this past month and they’ve worked great for my Sims. So here’s my in-depth Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 port review, so you can work out which one might be best for you if any of them.
Contents
Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro Design
Now, out of this pair, the one I’m most drawn to personally is the refreshingly compact 6.3-inch Google Pixel 7. Seriously, this thing feels better in the hand than an ice-cold pint on a redhot roasting day. Although it’s still not as pleasingly dinky as the Zen phone 9, it is much bigger than the Xiaomi 12 as well.
In contrast, the Google Pixel 7 Pro does seem somewhat unnecessarily oversized. Believe me, if I’m wearing one of my tighter pairs of jeans every time I attempt to bend over or sit down, the Google Pixel 7 Pro gives my pancreas a pretty bloody good probing. And even if you get the one-handed mode on the go, well, good luck actually using it with less than two hands still.
But of course, some people like a proper handful, and those people should be happier than a handy dashboard surrounded by human legs and cushions at this massive Google blower. Google’s updated design for the Google Pixel 7 series just looks absolutely fantastic.
Definitely more refined than the previous generation. Looks properly lush. Here on the regular Google Pixel 7, you also get a flat display, which might sway quite a lot of people onto the more regular model. In comparison, the Pro model sports a curved display just gently slopes around those edges for even skinnier bezels. Now, the regular Google Pixel 7 comes in a choice of three colors.
You have obsidian, snow, and lemongrass which roughly translate to black, white, and diluted cat urine. If you want the pure version instead, you can once again opt for white or black, while that lemongrass finish is swapped out for a moodier hazel effort. I think the Pixel 7 looks really cool.
Compared with the black Google Pixel 7 Pro, the black model looks very sleek and all but greasy fingerprints have absolutely no way to hide on this thing, while the lighter version looks cleaner and fresh no matter how much you finger it, even right after munching your way through butter, salt, bacon sauni. The same materials are used in these phones.
You’ve got grillegas victus up front for that to spare, and also around the back end as well. Between the two sheets is a metal frame. The actual frame still looks perfectly fresh on both the Google Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro. Unfortunately, the back and the front end of the Google Pixel 7 Pro have picked up some light scratches, which is kind of perturbing after just a month of use. Somehow Google Pixel 7 is still looking box-fresh.
I think it’s mainly luck that the phone doesn’t have any scratches. The phone was made with the same materials and it was built the same way. So if I were you, whichever one you get, I would say a stick on a screen protector and slap on some cover or case as well. Oh, and like most flagship smartphones, you’ve got full IP 68 water and dust resistance as well, so no worries if you want to do a bit of doomscrawler in the shower or whatever.
Android 13 And Features
Now, Android 13 may not be a jaw-dropping evolution over Android 12.
I agree that some of the new features, such as being able to record yourself snoring, are not that great. And on top of that, one of the best new features of Android 13 the weight prediction tool whenever you call an O 800 style toll-free number, isn’t even available here in the UK. I mean, seriously, Google, come on.
The Queen went and popped her clogs, we’ve been swapping our Prime Minister more often than we change our pants, and our currency is dropping in value at a terrifying rate, Money can be easily wasted when it is not wisely spent. This is especially true when it comes to things like toilet paper. So come on, Google, just throw us a frickin’bone already.
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More minor gripes include no microSD memory card slot to expand the 128 or 256 gigs of storage, and the single solitary SIM slot, although you do at least get eSIM support on top of that. On the plus side, though, while these Pixel blowers were occasionally a little bit glitchy prerelease, thankfully I’ve seen no buggy behavior whatsoever these past couple of weeks. The everyday experience is deeply satisfying and silky smooth to boot, with the reassurance of at least five years of updates and Google’s usual smart security measures.
And if you want to close a look at the software on these Pixel phones, well, I’ve done a full tips and tricks guide, which just went live about Zo too, of course, if you go have a gander at that one.
In more good news, the optical fingerprint sensor on both Google Pixel 7 phones is worlds better than the heap of bollocks that Google slapped on the Pixel Sixes. The scanner sometimes struggles if your hands are particularly moist, but otherwise, it’s all good. And there’s also now a face and lock, which you can use as a backup.
If you’re not going to be doing anything that puts you in a risky situation, choose the up option. It’s the safest option, you shouldn’t have to resort to pin entry. However, bear in mind that face recognition can’t be used to sign into apps, or to authorize payments either. For that, you will have to use your digit.
Display And Audio
No matter your choice of Google smartphone, you’ll be getting yourself a gorgeous OLED screen of 6.3 inches for the regular Google Pixel 7 and 6.7 inches for the mighty Pro. To make up for the bigger size of the Google Pixel 7, Google has increased the maximum resolution on the Pro to quad HD Plus.
Stick them side by side and you’ll get sharp, finely detailed visuals on both with no discernible difference. And also, don’t be put off by the fact that the Pixel 7 Pros display does curve around those edges because I found that even when I had this thing in a death grip, my palm fat and other bits didn’t accidentally intrude on that display and bought up the responsiveness.
You’ve got a 90 Hz refresh on the Google Pixel 7, and 120 Hz on the Google Pixel 7 pro. Again, there is no difference, both are super smooth.
You’ve got a stereo speaker set up that is impressively beefy on both models, and the Bluetooth 5.2 stream and works perfectly too. Although nope, there is no headphone jack on either of the Google Pixel 7 s, as if you even had to ask.
Performance And Gaming
Now both the Google Pixel 7 and the 7 pros have Google’s tenor g2 chipset stuffed inside. Once again a collaboration with Samsung, and serves up the Malley G 710 GPU, which is faster and more power efficient than the original Tenor GPU. But we are talking about a general evolution here, just like with Android 13.
And when I first had a play with the Google Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro, I found that everything ran beautifully smoothly until I tried booting up Gentian Impact and bumping those graphic settings all the way up to the maximum levels, at which point everything went a bit peat tongue or whatever.
The more up-to-date version of that Ryman slang is Benedict Swan. The Google Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro can now run Genshin on higher settings without making a big ol’mess in their metaphorical pants. Perhaps they were simply fine in their legs, or perhaps the subsequent updates smooth things out.
Either way, while the Tenor G2 still feels less beefy than its biggest rivals, it can at least come up under pressure, although these phones do get unnervingly warm at times as well, and not even when they’re under particular pressure. And thankfully I haven’t seen any bottleneck and I haven’t seen any HOD resets or anything like that happening, but it’s definitely something I’ll be keeping my eye on, especially as I had similar sort of issues with last year’s Pixel Sixes.
Also, Google’s Gim dashboard is back in action here, offering a small selection of useful features. Although the optimization tool is next to useless, there are only around a dozen titles that are actually supported by this right now, no matter your choice of four, you’ve got WiFi 6 e support and 5G connectivity as well, and no issues on the network in front, whether it be sat right here at home using my home WiFi, or out and about Roaming using that mobile data.
Battery Life
I wasn’t particularly impressed by the battery life on either of the smartphones when I started testing them out.
You’ve got a 4355 mah capacity cell here on the regular Pixel 7 that is boosted considerably to a 5000 mah one on the Google Pixel 7 Pro. But of course, to counter this, the Google Pixel 7 Pro also has to power a bigger, sharper display. I was having a hard time getting a full day of battery life out of both of these phones when I first started using them.
But thankfully about a week or so into my testing period, I found that the battery life did improve considerably, helped along by a couple of little updates that Google has done in the meantime. So these days I’ll get roughly 6 hours of full on-screen time with mixed use with both of these smartphones.
And that’s a bit of camera player, lots of media streaming, and a bit of gaming occasionally. So I haven’t actually made it to the end of the day and have been running on complete drags. I usually have at least 10 to 15% left in the tank by the time I collapse into Bennett snuggled up with Teddy.
And when it’s time to power them back up again, well, they support 30-watt wired charging, not the nippiest around, but certainly pretty standard for a smartphone that hasn’t come out of China. And they both support wireless charging as well if you’ve got a good old Qi wireless charging pad.
Cameras
Now, last up the optics in both the Google Pixel 7 and the 7 Pro sport an identical 50-meg Octa PD quad bar camera with optical image stabilization. In other words, it’s the same sensor tech as last year’s Pixel 6 series. And I would say it might disappointing that there’s no hardware upgrade here, but as the old saying goes, if it ain’t broken. And things more certainly in Brock because the Google Pixel 7 pair bought the best point-and-shooting camera performance of any smartphone in 2022.
When you’re shooting people or animals, you can swap for the excellent portrait mode and get gorgeous results with baking that you can mess about with in postprocessing if you want to. And the pixels boast a swift shutter speed too, so you can capture loads of photos in quick succession and make sure you kneel those blink and you’ll miss a moment. Complicated shots tend to be strong contrast on a problem either, especially using Google’s handy onscreen brightness sliders.
Even if the lighting is full-on, you won’t see much saturation and colors will appear natural. Google’s night vision mode can be automatically activated by the phone whenever the lighting is cack, and I would recommend not fiddling with that particular set as it makes a real difference, essentially allowing you to see in the dark absolutely best stuff. And both Google Pixel 7 smartphones also offer up an alternative 12-megapixel ultra wide-angle shooter.
And while colors aren’t quite as realistic with this option, it is there if you want to fit more into the frame. Now, when it comes to that camera tech, the major advantage that the Pixel 7 pro has over its regular sibling is the fact that it’s got a 48-megapixel telephoto lens on there with five times optical zoom that’s bolstered a biography of optical image stabilization, just like the primary shooter.
It’s an option that’s not available through the Google Pixel 7. It’s an extra cost that you have to pay if you want to use it. When you’re capturing a photo between two five times and five times zoom levels, you’ll end up with a hybrid photo stitched together from images taken with the primary and the telephoto sensors, meaning pleasingly crisp detail and no compromises. And when you push in over the five-time zoom level, it’s telephoto all the way.
And I’ve got to say, even most of the way up to the 30 times zoom cap, I got some bloody good results. This is easily one of the best telephoto shooters that I’ve ever tested, perfect for snapping kids, pets, or anything that you don’t want to disturb for natural-looking images, the camera does a great job of capturing images in low light. It keeps the image clear and doesn’t come apart, which helps produce great results.
I’m glad that we can now use the regular Google Pixel 7 camera with a telephoto lens! Yeah, it’s just like, oh, why switch things up with a bit of video? And again, these devices do a great job with very less effort. You don’t have an A K option, but my 4K test clips were crisp and detailed enough to enjoy on a telescreen, with detail levels only really dropping when the lighting became more problematic. The camera looks nice in vibrant colors. You can swap between the different lenses to capture a variety of colors.
And this isn’t too jarring, although color accuracy does take a hit when you’re away from that primary sensor. The telephoto lens on the Google Pixel 7 Pro is particularly impressive in low light, while the optical image stabilization once again counts as any vicious handwear caused by a few too many surprisingly strong loggers.
And as for audio, well, I’d have preferred some better wind cancellation, but otherwise, it’s top stuff. The Pixel 7 comes with a cinematic mode, which, like Samsung’s Portrait video mode, has a bockhistle effect behind your subject, although a month on this hasn’t improved at all. If your subject moves at all, the Pixel easily loses track and goes a bit berserk, so for now, just avoid it.
Likewise, all the motion stuff, which can add fake motion, blur or mimic a long exposure shot is all here, but it can be quite chunky and frankly feels a bit gimmicky and I imagine most people wouldn’t even bother touching it. And if you get yourself the Pixel 7 Pro, where you’ll also find you’ve got a macro mode on board, this can automatically activate whenever you get really, really close up to something we’re talking about a couple of centimeters away.
What it does is it automatically switches to the ultra-wide angle shooter, which on the Pro has an autofocus, unlike the regular Pixel 7. You don’t get a macro mode on the camera here, so the results aren’t as good as they could be. Although the images taken with the phone’s camera may not be perfect, they are still better than taking photos with a more powerful camera that doesn’t have a macro mode.
And one of the other new highlights of taking photos on these Pixel phones is the photo of the DeBlur feature as well, which to be honest, I really didn’t have to use very often at all, because it’s very rare to get a Blurry shot on these two. And I got to admit, I’m still not convinced. Using photo editing software can help a bit with making blurry pictures look less blurry.
While photo editing software can help reduce the blurriness of pictures, it’s not a miracle tool that can make them look perfect. It’s certainly not as immediately valuable and impressive as Google’s tool, which wipes out any background stragglers, effectively eliminating them from existence. But hopefully over time, with a good bit of machine learning or whatever, that deep Blur tool will really be worth its weight in gold.
And last up for the optics, both Pixel 7 phones pack a simple 10.8 meg fixed for a selfie shooter, which has been all clear for those social media snaps in low light. It’s once again sometimes a bit crap, vomiting out Blurry unsavory picks, especially if you’re not entirely still definitely best used when conditions are favorable.
Conclusion
And that right there’s my full final frank review of the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro after using them for just over a month. And I gotta say, I’m kind of torn because I love the more compact, hand-feel awesomeness of the Pixel 7. But the Pixel 7 Pro has that bloody awesome telephoto shooter which I just adore so much.
Aside from that, they are equally awesome. Great battery life, and pretty decent performance. Not the best out there, but certainly good enough even if you want to do a good bit of Gaming, Refined design, exceptional camera tech, and just all-around great software smarts as well. So let me know.
Are you tempted by the pixel 7 or the pixel 7 pros? Have you been using one of them as your full-time smartphone? Be great to hear from you down in the comments below.
