One yr later, the Pixel 6 Professional remains to be Google’s finest smartphone

This evaluate was initially revealed on March 29, 2022, and was up to date on August 26, 2022.

I will confess. I have been an enormous fan of Google’s Pixel telephone lineup for the reason that authentic Pixel. I appreciated the refined tweaks the corporate made to the plain model of Android. I additionally appreciated the Microsoft Floor-like strategy Google was utilizing to attempt to affect the likes of HTC, LG and even Samsung with its personal smartphone initiative. 

However, for the previous few years, it is felt as if Google’s Pixel lineup was misplaced. The Pixel 4 had some promise however fell brief on a number of fronts. The Pixel 5 felt just like the search big simply mailed it in — going again to the fundamentals, with out actually pushing the Pixel line ahead. In truth, throughout that point, the A-series — Google’s budget-friendly variations of its high-end smartphones — weren’t solely the very best deal, however had been the very best telephones Google made. 

Surely, the Pixel 6 Professional is the very best smartphone Google has ever made.

It did not really feel proper for the corporate behind Android and the entire providers hundreds of thousands of individuals depend on each day to need to accept having a lineup of low-end entry-level smartphones. In August of 2021, when Google introduced that it might use its personal Tensor processor within the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Professional, it despatched a message that the corporate was lastly getting severe about its smartphone ambitions. It is not a marginal funding to design, develop and produce your individual chips, particularly when Qualcomm has off-the-shelf chips for each tier of smartphone prepared on a yearly cadence. 

However saying one thing as bold as Tensor and following by by delivering an expertise that goes past what’s been supplied up to now are two various things. After spending the previous yr utilizing the Pixel 6 Professional on and off, I can confidently say that Google has outdone itself. 

Specs

Display6.7 inchesProcessorGoogle TensorDimensions163.9 x 75.9 x 8.9mmWeight210gRAM12GBInternal storage128/256/512GBBattery5003mAhCamera48MP telephoto (with 4x zoom), 50MP huge, 12MP ultra-wide, and 11.1MP frontColorStormy Black, Cloudy White, Sorta SunnyPriceBeginning at $899

This design is 100% Google

Early photographs of the Pixel 6 Professional confirmed that Google was taking a brand new design strategy. Gone is the plastic again with a sq. digital camera array within the prime nook. As a substitute, there is a glass back and front on the telephone, with three totally different coloration mixtures that give the telephones some life and break up the usual single-tone strategy that almost all telephone makers take. Your coloration choices are Stormy Black, Cloudy White and Sorta Sunny. 

On the again of the Pixel 6 Professional, slightly below the highest fringe of the telephone, is the Digicam Bar. As a substitute of a sq. or vertical digital camera array, Google opted to position a bar that spans the width of the Pixel 6 Professional, protruding from the housing and performing nearly like a kickstand that locations the telephone at a slight angle because it rests in your desk. There are three rear-facing cameras and a single punch-hole cutout front-facing digital camera. 

In contrast to the Pixel 6 and its flat edge design, the Pixel 6 Professional’s 6.7-inch show has curved vertical edges. It is much like what Samsung used to do on some Galaxy telephones, and a design strategy I slightly like. In contrast to older Samsung gadgets, I have not had any points with unintended touches or faucets on the facet of the display screen when holding the telephone and tapping or swiping my method round. 

On the best facet of the telephone is the sleep/wake button, with a quantity rocker slightly below it. On the underside is a USB-C port. The left fringe of the Pixel 6 Professional is naked, save for the SIM card slot. 

Photos do not actually do the colour mixtures or the design as a complete any justice. My first thought after opening the Pixel 6 Professional’s field was that this design is strictly what I would anticipate from Google. Mix the look of the telephone with the Materials You design strategy we now have in Android 12, and all of it is smart. 

Google Tensor packs efficiency and battery life

Contained in the Pixel 6 Professional is Google Tensor, the corporate’s first system on a chip that mixes the Pixel’s processor with different vital radios and chips. Google’s Titan M2 safety coprocessor. The Pixel 6 Professional comes with 12GB of reminiscence with storage choices of 128GB, 256GB or 512GB. A 5,003mAh battery can also be discovered contained in the telephone. 

By switching away from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon line of processors for telephones, Google is ready to customise and focus the efficiency of the Tensor chips on what the corporate prioritizes. For instance, Google touts AI and battery life as two areas the place the corporate centered on making a dependable expertise with Tensor. 

And from what I’ve skilled, Tensor delivers. The obvious instance is battery life. The Pixel 6 Professional’s battery lasts simply so long as Apple’s iPhone 13 Professional Max in my testing. Which means I can go a full day and into the center of the next day earlier than the 6 Professional’s battery runs out of energy. 

Google claims the efficiency of the Tensor chip is 80% sooner than every other chip beforehand utilized in a Pixel telephone, however that is not an enormous declare contemplating the Pixel 5 (and up to date A-series telephones) have not used Qualcomm’s flagship processors. As a substitute, they’ve all been geared up with a 700-series chip that is extra inexpensive at the price of efficiency. 

I can say this — the Pixel 6 Professional hasn’t proven any sluggishness or efficiency points during the last week. Apps not solely open quick, be it from the homescreen, app drawer or when swiping throughout the underside of the display screen when multitasking. However the animations which might be a part of Android 12 (extra on these in a minute) are fluid and do not stutter. 

Additionally: Google Pixel 6 is the brand new workhorse to the Pixel 6 Professional thoroughbred

To be clear, Tensor is not impressively quick when in comparison with different gadgets. I ran Geekbench 5 on the Pixel 6 Professional (Google Tensor), iPhone 13 Professional Max (Apple A15) and Floor Duo 2 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 888). Geekbench measures the CPU efficiency and gives a easy, quantitative solution to measure efficiency along with real-world expertise. 

The Pixel 6 Professional’s single-core rating was 963, and its multi-core rating was 2,607. The iPhone 13 Professional Max scored 1,732 and 4,673 on the identical exams. Whereas the Floor Duo 2 scored 1,106 and three,520, respectively. 

Benchmarks aren’t your entire story. And whereas the scores could point out that Tensor is slower than the competitors, the expertise on the system would not mirror that. 

One draw back to Google’s swap to Tensor that I did not anticipate however has performed out over the previous few months is the delay of software program updates from Google to the Pixel 6 line. Software program updates that Google itself is accountable for have been delayed and even skipped compared to the identical replace for its Qualcomm-enabled Pixel telephones. 

Proper now, that is my largest grievance concerning the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Professional. Up to now, one of many largest advantages to having a Pixel telephone has been routine and well timed software program updates throughout all Pixel gadgets, however for some cause, the Pixel 6 and 6 Professional have lagged behind older, Qualcomm-equipped fashions. 

The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Professional each have 5G connectivity, however not all Pixel 6 fashions are created equal. What sort of 5G assist the telephone has will depend on the place you purchase it, no less than for the usual Pixel 6. In keeping with a Google assist doc, any Pixel 6 Professional mannequin offered within the US has Sub-6 and mmWave assist. These are the slower and sooner variations of 5G, respectively. 

Nevertheless, the Pixel 6 is totally different. The Google Fi, Unlocked and T-Cellular fashions solely have Sub-6 5G. A Pixel 6 purchased from AT&T and Verizon have each mmWave and Sub-6. Complicated, proper? Yea. Your finest wager is to purchase the telephone straight out of your provider to make sure correct assist. 

Some individuals have had good experiences with the Pixel 6 Professional’s fingerprint reader that is embedded beneath the show, and others have had horrible experiences. I’ve had a primarily good expertise with it. I might guess in perhaps 1 out of each 20 makes an attempt the sensor fails to acknowledge my finger. Nevertheless, I had a horrible expertise with it a couple of days in the past when utilizing the telephone exterior in direct daylight. That ratio of invalid reads was simply reversed, with only one out of 20 scans working. I’ve no clue what was totally different, or if the solar was the rationale for the problems — however I can see why and the way some individuals complain. That mentioned, since then, efficiency has been again to what it is at all times been for me — acceptable and one thing I am completely tremendous with. 

The Pixel digital camera expertise will get higher

Google’s Pixel telephones earned the status of getting the very best smartphone digital camera accessible within the first few generations. Nevertheless, the final couple of releases began to point out the age of the {hardware} Google was nonetheless counting on to seize and course of photographs.

With the Pixel 6 Professional, Google added a 50-megapixel major digital camera, a 12-megapixel 114-degree ultra-wide digital camera, and a 48-megapixel telephoto lens with as much as 4x optical zoom. With the brand new digital camera {hardware} mixed with Tensor and Google’s customized picture processing and tuning algorithm, I had excessive hopes for the digital camera efficiency of the 6 Professional and I used to be not disillusioned. 

I spent a part of my time testing the 6 Professional’s digital camera taking photographs at a household occasion, capturing individuals in all kinds of various lighting circumstances. One factor that stood out to me about utilizing the 6 Professional’s digital camera is how little effort was required of me to get a superb shot. I might double-press the facility button to shortly open the digital camera and begin taking photographs, simply as shortly and simply as I do with my iPhone. 

The standard of photographs the Pixel 6 Professional takes has improved, as nicely. Portrait footage appear to determine the foreground and background extra persistently than earlier Pixel telephones, and the photographs are extra true to life — an analogous strategy to what Apple does with the iPhone’s digital camera. 

There are a number of new software program tips built-in into the Pixel 6 Professional, each for photographs and for on a regular basis use. Magic Eraser is one such device, promising to take away undesirable objects in a photograph both robotically or just by you circling an object. Whereas the demonstrations Google reveals are spectacular, in observe, it is nowhere close to pretty much as good. Usually instances it’s totally apparent that an object has been faraway from the picture. However when the function will get it proper, it is nice. 

The Pixel 6 Professional additionally gained some new Assistant calling options that each one intention to make the method of calling a toll-free quantity much less traumatic and simpler. For instance, when dialing a enterprise telephone quantity now you can see the common wait time primarily based on the time of day that can assist you determine when to name. Multi-option menus whenever you name a enterprise are actually introduced as buttons in your telephone’s display screen, so you do not have to truly take heed to the recording — and you’ll even have the telephone wait on maintain for you till somebody really solutions (that is an outdated function price calling out once more).

All that mentioned, the Pixel 6 Professional’s digital camera is likely one of the extra spectacular cameras I’ve used on a smartphone in latest reminiscence — exterior of Apple’s new Cinematic Video mode. 

Android 12 is the very best model of Android but

I am unable to recall the final time I put in a significant Android replace and felt just like the platform was shifting ahead as a complete. As a substitute, incremental options bundled with Assistant options and adjustments have been pushed out on a yearly foundation. With Android 12, not solely do Android homeowners obtain a protracted and enticing checklist of latest options, however the brand new design strategy to Android 12 is one thing I am an enormous fan of. 

There are new animations all through the interface that make it enjoyable to do easy issues like wake or put your telephone to sleep — there is a sluggish animation that reveals the display screen turning black and minimizing into the facility button. The identical impact is utilized when closing leaving an app and going again to the homescreen. It is a very minimal, however efficient trick that makes an enormous distinction even when it takes you a day or two to note it. 

The brand new Materials You design strategy makes use of your system’s wallpaper or background to find out the colour palette for the remainder of the interface. From the colour of Google’s keyboard to app icons to the app drawer and widget colours — all of it hinges on the colour of your background. I like this strategy, however it feels considerably buggy at instances. For instance, the present wallpaper I’ve set offers me three accent coloration choices to select from — certainly one of which has a predominantly peach theme to it, together with two blueish coloration choices. I opted for one of many blue choices, but when I restart the telephone, it defaults again to the light-peach theme, forcing me to return in and choose a special possibility. 

Android 12 additionally contains a number of new privateness options. A few of them have been borrowed from Apple’s iOS, corresponding to indicators when an app is accessing your system’s microphone or digital camera, or the flexibility to regulate how exact the situation info you share with an app is. Nevertheless, there is a privateness dashboard that not solely reveals how typically apps are accessing your private info but additionally offers options about your Google account as a complete and easy methods to higher lock it down. 

It is a disgrace that Google hasn’t discovered easy methods to streamline the replace course of to deliver main updates to extra gadgets than its personal Pixel line, and even now, it is struggling to do it for its personal telephones. As a substitute, many Android system homeowners are left ready on their telephone maker to implement after which launch the replace. Android 12 is an enormous change on many fronts. One which the Android ecosystem as a complete will profit from, and customers should not have to attend for it — particularly when privateness options are concerned.

You could be asking, what about Android 13? As I await for the official replace to reach on my Pixel 6 Professional, my ZDNET colleague Jack Wallen spent a while with the newest software program and had loads of good (and one dangerous) issues to say about it in his write-up. 

See right here: Android 13 on the Pixel 6 Professional is a superb improve — with one exception

Backside line

Surely, the Pixel 6 Professional is the very best smartphone Google has ever made. From Android 12 enhancements and customized Pixel options that enhance upon the expertise, to Google Tensor’s efficiency, battery life and the return of the Pixel’s superior digital camera expertise — there’s nonetheless lots to love there. 

However the query stays — despite the fact that that is Google’s finest, is it sufficient? With each Pixel launch, we hear about how severe the corporate is taking its {hardware} initiatives, and extra particularly how severe it’s about competing with different smartphone makers. 

It is a rhetorical query, in fact. Solely time will inform if clients new and outdated are as keen on the Pixel 6 Professional as I’m, and that comes right down to models offered. I proceed to hope that this is the Pixel when Google breaks by the Samsung and Apple smartphone duopoly within the US. 

If the Pixel 6 Professional cannot do it, I am undecided what can.

Alternate options to think about

In case you’re nonetheless on the fence concerning the Google Pixel 6 Professional, listed here are three worthy options to think about.