The Pixel 4 has everything you expected (plus a killer price-tag)

The rumors are true

Fergus Halliday (PC World) on 16 October, 2019 02:00

Google's fourth attempt at a flagship smartphone sports high-end specs, a competitive price-tag and a dual-lens camera that hangs with the best of them.

Announced earlier today, Google's new flagship smartphone is available in two sizes (regular and XL), three colors (Clearly White, Just Black and Oh So Orange) and a pair of storage variants (64GB or 128GB).

Under the hood, the new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL comes powered by 6GB of RAM, a Google-grade version of Android and a Snapdragon 855 processor.

As with last year's Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL and the more recent Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL, the main differences between the two devices come down to the size of the display and the capacity of the battery. The Pixel 4 features a 5.7-inch 1080p display and a 2800-mAh battery. The Pixel 4 XL gets you a larger QHD 6.3-inch display and a bigger 3700-mAh battery.

Regardless of which model you'll go with, you'll get a slick OLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate, IPX8 water resistance and support for Qi wireless charging.

As for the camera, the Pixel 4 features Google's first dual-lens rear camera. The back of the flagship device boasts a 12.2-megapixel (f/1.7) primary lens and a 16-megapixel (f/2.4) telephotos lens. There's also new learning based white balancing, dual-exposure controls for HDR+, a wider ranged portrait mode plus an improved night sight mode capable of astro-photography.

Compared to last year's flagship Pixel phones, the new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL bring with them a few new tricks beyond the previously-announced Motion Sense gesture controls and support for face unlock. The fourth-generation Pixel devices also introduce a new Recorder app that leverages all that Google has learned through its efforts in the voice assistant space to deliver fast and reliable transcription.

Google also say that a new and improved version of the Google Assistant will be introduced later this summer that will be faster and offer better support for on-device functionality.

The best part though? The Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL are actually cheaper than last year's Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL.

Google are taking preorders for the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL from today through their official store ahead of an October 24th launch day. In Australia, retail pricing for the Google Pixel 4 starts at AU$1049 while pricing for the Pixel 4 XL starts at AU$1279.