It’s been a few months since Google announced the Pixel 5. Unfortunately, we have not been able to get the right timely review of the device due to other important operational coverage. Today I wanted to visit the phone again in a brief overview and review some important aspects of the phone, such as the performance, the battery life, and add some remarks about the camera capability.
The Pixel 5 is a change of tactics for Google, with the company preferring to follow the path of a cheaper “premium” or high-end component configuration, rather than setting up the Pixel 5 as an overall flagship phone. Given the company’s release of products over the years, they always released new phones by the end of the year, just around the turn of the next generation’s spring. This schedule has always been a downside for Pixel flagships, and perhaps Google’s change of strategy here for the middle class is a more sensible approach.
| 2020 Google Pixels | ||||
| Pixel 4a | Pixel 4a (5G) | Pixel 5 | ||
| SoC | Snapdragon 730G
2x CA76 @ 2.2 GHz Adreno 618 |
Snapdragon 765G
1x CA76 @ 2.4 GHz Adreno 620 |
||
| DRAM | 6GB LPDDR4X | 8GB LPDDR4X | ||
| Storage | 128 GB UV 2.1 | 128 GB | 128 GB | |
| Show | 5.81 “OLED 2340 x 1080 (19.5: 9) |
6.2 “OLED 2340 x 1080 (19.5: 9) |
6.0 “OLED 2340 x 1080 (19.5: 9) 90Hz |
|
| Size | Height | 144.0 mm | 153.9 mm | 144.7 mm |
| Width | 69.4 mm | 74.0 mm | 70.4 mm | |
| Depth | 8.2 mm | 8.2 mm | 8.0 mm | |
| Weight | 143 grams | 168g (sub-6) 171g (mmGolf) |
151g | |
| Battery capacity | 3140mAh (typical)
18W fast charging |
3885mAh (typical)
18W fast charging |
4080mAh (typical)
18W fast charging |
|
| Wireless charging | – | – | Yes | |
| Rear Cameras | ||||
| Head | 12.2MP 1.4 Dm Dual Pixel PDAF f / 1.7 77 ° lens with OIS |
|||
| Telephoto | – | – | – | |
| Wide | – | 16MP 1.0 urn
f / 2.2 107 ° |
||
| Extra | – | – | – | |
| Front camera | 8MP 1.12 urn f / 2.0 84 ° lens; fixed focus |
|||
| I / O | USB-C 3.5 mm headphone jack |
USB-C | ||
| Wireless (local) | 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi Bluetooth 5.0 LE + NFC |
|||
| Cellular | Snapdragon LTE Integrated X15 (LTE Category 12/5) |
Snapdragon 5G Integrated X52 (LTE Category 18/13) (5G NR Sub-6 + mmGolf *) * excludes non-mmWave model of 4a (5G) |
||
| Other features | Dual speakers | Dual speakers | Dual speakers IP68 rating |
|
| Dual SIM | 1x nanoSIM + eSIM | |||
| Introductory price | $ 349/349 £ / 349 € | $ 499 / £ 499 / € 499 $ 599 * (mmGolf) |
$ 699 * / £ 599 / € 629 | |
Starting with the SoC, as we’ve been discussing it for the past few months, the big difference for the new Pixel 5 is that it has a ‘premium’ range of Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 chipsets, rather than the modern-day Snapdragon 865 flagship use. SoC. It is undoubtedly a saving measure for Google to achieve this new price point of $ 699 / € 629.
The SoC should still do a lot of work for everyday use, thanks to the two Cortex-A76 large cores, one clocked at 2.4 GHz and the other clocked at 2.2 GHz, but it will still be a significant downgrade compared to the flagship soCs that use both newer CPU cores as well as higher clock. The SoC’s Adreno 620 GPU will also be a major factor in the overall performance of the Pixel 5, which will make some major gaming performance compromises that we will discuss in the GPU section in more detail.
Google pulls the Pixel 5 with 8GB of LPDDR4X memory and a single 128GB storage option, without any expandable storage.
The front of the Pixel 5 fits the similarly uniform edge design introduced with the cheaper Pixel 4a, and is a departure from the chin and forehead style of previous generations, and also avoids the use of foreign camera caps. Instead, we have a camera cut-out in the upper left corner, which works pretty well. It’s definitely a much more modern design we’ve seen in previous generation Pixel phones.
The actual display is a 2340 x 1080 OLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate. This year, I did not see any issues with the screen, as it is fairly high quality, although the specifications do not exactly match 1440p 120Hz competitors.
However, the 6.0p resolution is not an issue as the pixel density is very viable.
The camera setup on the Pixel 5 is fairly simple, but Google has made some major changes to the secondary module compared to the previous generation, by replacing the dedicated telephoto module with an ultra-wide camera. It is always possible to pinch to zoom in to get closer to your subject (although it decreases with quality), but it is not possible to pinch out to get a wider field of view if you do not have the camera hardware for it do not have. This was a huge criticism of the previous generation Pixel phones, as they were the only relevant devices in the market that did not use a UWA module. The camera here is a 16MP 1.0 eenheidm unit with an nf / 2.2 aperture and a 107 ° FoV – not the widest out there, but still very competitive and very usable.
The main camera module is still a 12.2MP 1.4 µm sensor module with f / 1.7 optics and OIS – this is the same module we saw in the Pixel 4 and an overall camera formula that we did not see in many generations of Pixel phones . Google has announced improvements to the HDR algorithms this year – though you can not say that the overall camera experience is as groundbreaking as it was a few years ago.
The one point where the Pixel 5 really distinguishes itself from almost any other contemporary phone in the market is the building material and its build quality. Unlike the usual glass sandwiches of recent years, the Pixel 5 uses an aluminum unibody. It is not bare aluminum as it has a special plastic coating on it, which gives a pleasant feel but also is not exactly the same as a full plastic phone.
The special thing about the aluminum housing is that Google was still able to charge wirelessly through a cutout in the frame, which is of course invisible to the user due to the plastic cover on it.
Overall, I found the design of the Pixel 5 pretty good and it has excellent ergonomics. It is very rare that there are currently good small phones, and with only 70.4 mm width and 151 g weight, the Pixel 5 does very well to address this part of the market. Google has decided not to release a Pixel 5 XL this year, so you do not really have a choice if you prefer a larger variant of the phone – you have to go with the Pixel 4a XL or another competitor device.