If last year Pixel 6 is a new leap for Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro Smartphones are a small jump. At the Made by Google event in New York City today, the company unboxed two of its new flagship phones, both with small but welcome improvements—like Face Unlock like an extra way to authenticate your identity, and the Cinematic Blur feature adds a portrait-like look to video footage.
The Pixel pair wasn’t the only piece of hardware released at the event. Google also provided more details about the Pixel Watch, the company’s first smartwatch that you can Read more about it here.
The Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro priced at $599 and $899 respectively, keeping the same price tag as last year’s Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro while keeping the price down most contests. This is everything new.
Two P’s in a group
Both new Pixels keep the same overall look that Google launched last year with the Pixel 6, except that instead of an all-glass camera bar at the back, it’s now mostly aluminum. (The good news is that the camera bar on my Pixel 6 is now cracked.) The Pixel 7 comes in colors called Obsidian, Snow, and Lime, while the Pixel 7 Pro comes in Obsidian, Snow, and Hazel. Colors and finishes are slightly more muted than last year’s devices, which is a bit disappointing, but they definitely look more classy. The Pro model uses polished aluminum, and the standard Pixel has a matte finish.
Two changes I like? The Pixel 7 is slightly smaller and lighter than the Pixel 6, with a 6.3-inch display (versus 6.4-inch). The Pixel 7 Pro has the same 6.7-inch screen size, but the display glass has less curves along the edges, which Brian Rakowski, Google’s vice president of product management, says is a change. Made in response to customer feedback. However, the display is still not quite as flat as it is on the Pixel 7. Speaking of the display, the only big change from last year is screen brightness. Google says these displays are up to 25% brighter outdoors (1,400 nits peak brightness).
There are no significant changes to Google’s battery life claims for these phones. The Pixel 7 has a smaller, 4,355 mAh battery that keeps track of the smaller size, and the Pixel 7 Pro has a 5,000 mAh battery — both of which are expected to last “beyond 24 hours” like the Pixel 6 series. In my testing, Last year’s devices comfortably lasted more than a full day with heavy usage, so you can expect the same here. These phones will charge up to 50 percent after 30 minutes of charging, that is slow compared to their peers. You can still charge the new Pixels wirelessly.
There’s still an in-display fingerprint sensor, but that’s not the only way to unlock the phone. Welcome to Face Unlock! You may remember that Google tried this feature on Pixel 4, but this new version … worse. Yes, it can unlock your phone and can’t be tampered with by your own photos, but since Google doesn’t use a bunch of 3D sensors like Apple uses for Face ID, Google’s solution doesn’t. like sure. So while Face Unlock gives you a quicker path to your home screen, you can’t use it to authenticate payments or sign in to banking apps — you will have to use your fingerprint for that. It feels a bit toasty, especially since the Pixel 4’s Face Unlock to be safer. “We’re not trying to claim this is the safest thing ever,” says Rakowski.
Say cheese
Pixel phones are known for their high-quality cameras, but it’s hard to say exactly how much better the cameras on the Pixel 7 series are than their predecessors without trying them out.
