The new Pixel 4 catches up to the iPhone 7 Plus with new telephoto camera

Yeah, so Google has been the golden boy of single camera smartphone photography. While smartphones have moved on to pack multiple cameras, with this year’s iPhone 11 Pro packing three, Google decided that two’s enough. They have done well with one, two should be even better. Not going to judge them on that.

Funnily enough, while most smartphones in 2019, offer a wide-angle camera as the secondary shooter, Google catches up on an old trend: throwing in a telephoto camera. It does tout a 16MP sensor, higher than we usually see, and of course, Google delivers on the software front with Super Resolution Zoom to proffer better zoom shots. There’s no periscopic zoom or what not though, but it has OIS and EIS to keep things steady.

Meanwhile, the main camera is the same Sony IMX363, behind fast, optically stabilized f/1.7 optics. But what has always defined the Pixel series was never the hardware. Google will be using the new Pixel Neural Core combined with Google’s proprietary algorithms to make your shots better. It will bring Dual Exposure Controls, real-time HDR+, and a new Nightsight that can do not just 16-second exposures, but combine 15 of them.

For video, you will be better off getting some other smartphone. The Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL tops out at 4K30 and 1080p120 slow-mo videos, which is far from the best.

Over on the front, Google decided that notches are dumb, and has decided to throw in an entire forehead. There’s an 8MP selfie camera mixed in there somewhere, a 3D depth sensor for bokeh-ful selfies and face unlock, and Soli radar, for hand gestures above the screen. There’s no fingerprint sensor, so face unlock is something you will have to rely on. Apple says hello from 2017.

Oh and the display under the thick forehead are top-rated OLED displays that run at 90 Hz. The Pixel 4 gets a 5.7″ FHD+ one, while the Pixel 4 XL will be a bigger and better 6.3″ QHD+ panel. Google has built in battery saving features to help extend the battery life, allowing the screen to run at 60 Hz when idle, and switching back to 90 Hz when you are actually doing something on the screen.

Under the hood is rather outdated hardware, with a Snapdragon 855 mated to 6GB RAM and up to 128GB of storage. Quite silly considering that the Snapdragon 855+ is a drop-in upgrade for the Snapdragon 855, and doesn’t even require a redesign of any sorts. There’s also 18W USB-PD fast charging, giving you what you need to juice up the Pixel 4’s 2800 mAh battery and the Pixel 4 XL’s bigger 3700 mAh one.

Pixel 4 Specs

• Snapdragon 855, octa-core up to 2.84 GHz, 7nm
• 6GB LPDDR4X RAM
• Up to 128GB UFS 2.1 storage
• 5.7″ FHD+ OLED display, 90 Hz refresh rate
• 12MP f/1.7, OIS + 16MP f/2.4, 2x telephoto, OIS + spectral+flicker sensor
• 8MP f/2.0 selfie camera + 3D ToF sensor
• 2800 mAh battery, 18W USB-PD, Qi wireless charging
• 64GB: $799 (~RM3348)
  128GB: $899 (~RM3767)

Pixel 4 XL Specs

• Snapdragon 855, octa-core up to 2.84 GHz, 7nm
• 6GB LPDDR4X RAM
• Up to 128GB UFS 2.1 storage
• 6.3″ QHD+ OLED display, 90 Hz refresh rate
• 12MP f/1.7, OIS + 16MP f/2.4, 2x telephoto, OIS + spectral+flicker sensor
• 8MP f/2.0 selfie camera + 3D ToF sensor
• 2800 mAh battery, 18W USB-PD, Qi wireless charging
• 64GB: $899 (~RM3767)
  128GB: $999 (~RM4186)

The new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL will be available in Just Black, Clearly White and the new Oh So Orange. Would you pick one up though?

Pokdepinion: I definitely prefer an ultra wide-angle camera over a telephoto one. You can use digital zoom with a strong wide-angle to great effect, but you can’t simulate ultra-wide angle field-of-views via software.