JOIN USGoogle Pixel 7 Pro review: Pure Android joy with magical camera
Earlier in the month, Google's Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro made their global debut. What's surprising was the search engine giant bringing premium Android phones to India, after a gap of more than three years.
Yes, the Pixel 4 series had a special high-tech Soli motion sensing radar component that used a 60Hz mmWave frequency spectrum and is locked to Indian military defence and science projects in the country. But, the next iterations--Pixel 5 and 6 series-- didn't have any such hardware. And, when the Pixel 7 series was unveiled, we here in India, thought, we might have to wait several months for the launch of the mid-range Pixel 7a in mid-2023.
To everyone's surprise, Google released the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro in India, as part of the first phase of the global roll-out. I already tested the standard Pixel 7 (review) and loved it.
The Pixel 7 Pro Pro goes a notch up with the camera capabilities and also the battery wise too, it has impressed me. Here are my thoughts on Google's ultra-premium phone.
Design, build quality and display
The Pixel 7 Pro shares the design language of the Pixel 7, but with minor differences.
First, the curved display panel on the front slightly cascades up to the rail around the edge on the right and left sides.
And, on the back, the trademark camera visor has three sensors with LED flash. Also, the metal used for the camera module and the frame are glossy and have chrome-like polished touch compared to the regular model. It is made of 100 per cent recycled aluminium.
The rest of the shell on the back has a smooth glass cover and the lone 'G' Google brand engraving. It has a minimalistic design, but the camera visor makes the Pixel 7 series stand out in the crowd.
It exudes premium hand-feel experience but is very smooth for my sweaty handy. The back and front panels are protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass Victus shield, but the latter can only protect against scratches. And, with IP68 rating, the device is said to be capable of surviving a drop in the swimming pool. It can withstand up to 1.5 metres (around five feet) for close to 30 minutes.
Also, the snow white-hued Pixel 7 Pro variant does a fine job resisting (read hiding) the sweaty finger smudges, but accidental falls, like any other phone, can break the display easily.
So, prospective buyers are advised to get the cover case while purchasing the handset. Spigen is the official partner of Google's Pixel 7 series.
It has a bigger and brighter 6.7-inch AMOLED QHD+(1440 x 3120p) LTPO LED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and supports up to peak brightness of 1,500nits.
The screen is really good to watch TV series during the long commute between the home and the office. And, the reading experience even under bright sunlight has been great throughout the review period. But, it did notice one bug; the display at random times, showed some lag-ness while scrolling, but not always. Overall, there is no pressing issue to complain about.
As far as the in-screen fingerprint is concerned, it worked well with fewer false rejections. Even the face unlock feature too performed fine in natural light conditions, but not so at the night with no light.
Performance
The Pixel 7 Pro is powered by Google's second-generation proprietary Tensor G2 silicon with a Titan M2 security chip, 12GB RAM and 128GB storage. The phone works smoothly in terms of day-to-day activities and also excels with value-added features such as fast audio transcriptions. Even Google Assistant has become better at comprehending user language and responding more accurately to queries.
Like in the Pixel 7, I'm very impressed with the thermal performance. The phone though warms up a bit when playing graphics-rich games such as Asphalt 9: Legends or while recording slow-motion videos or high-resolution videos, but it was always under control.
The Pixel 7 Pro runs Android 13 out-of-the-box and is guaranteed to get three more Android OS updates (Android 14, 15 and 17) till 2025 and five years of security software support.
With vanilla Android, you'll find just the Google apps and all are essential. The home screen and app drawer with colourful app icons (thanks to the material you theme for wallpapers) look as clean and beautiful as a coral reef.
And, also with the Titan M2 chipset, all the sensitive information like passwords and biometric data are well-secured in the Pixel 7 series from all possible threats. It has been tested by third-party security companies too.
Battery life
For me, the Pixel 7 Pro (with 5,000mAh capacity)was able to easily lasts a full day with more than 20-25 per cent juice left in the tank. But, battery life is always subjective as it depends on individual behaviour.
If you are an extreme gamer and play for several hours or consume too much multimedia content on cellular data, it may last till the evening. And, on Wi-Fi, it may go on a few extra hours.
I'd like to note that during the testing period, the battery dropped by 4 per cent with 20 minutes of the Asphalt 9: Legends gameplay with Wi-Fi connected. However, as I mentioned above, if you are connected to a cellular network for data, the battery will drain faster.
So, if you like to stream content on OTT (Over-The-Top) apps such as Netflix, Amazon Video Prime or YouTube or others, my advice to you, is to download those TV series episodes or the movies the previous night via Wi-Fi and watch them offline.
This way, you save a lot of battery and limited daily data quota for consuming content on Social media platforms or playing games, and the phone can last through the day.
As far as the charging speed is concerned, it supports up to 23W wired and wireless fast charging. As Google doesn't offer the charger in the retail box, I tried the 20W charger, and the phone took close to two hours to fully charge from zero to 100 per cent.
Photography
Google's Pixel 7 Pro houses a feature-rich triple-camera module-- main 50MP wide-angle lens with a 12MP ultra-wide-angle (with auto-focus) sensor and a 48MP telephoto lens with 5X optical zoom and LDAF with LED flash.
It supports macro focus photo mode, realtone, support high-resolution 30X digital zoom, Pixel's next-gen Super Res zoom, up to two times faster Night Sight processing, sharper photos with Face Unblur, and new features like Cinematic Blur.
In almost light conditions, Pixel 7 Pro's Artificial Intelligence(AI)-powered native camera app aces with great pictures. As you can see in the sample photos, Pixel's new generation Super Res Zoom works great both indoors with controlled light conditions and outdoors with natural sunlight.
With night sight, the Pixel 7 Pro trumps all rivals in delivering great snaps. It beautifully balances the street lights, vehicle tail lamps and headlights, and neon lights of business establishments, in delivering colourful nightlife photos. Even while moving on the bus, I was able to get fantastic photos from the window seat.
The motion mode makes it even more special with light zooming effects.
The Magic eraser continues to be a great tool to remove the photo bombers and obstructions and the camouflage tool, ensures, there is almost no hint of obstructing elements in the photos.
The portrait blur and photo unblur features of the Google Photos app are great value-addition to the photography experience and these are things, which make the Pixel phones so special.
The perk of owning the Pixel 7 Pro over the generic Pixel 7 is that the former supports macro mode and astrophotography.
The macro focus promises to deliver Pixel HDR+ photo quality from as close as three centimetres away, and boy, it does a great job. The Pixel 7 Pro ultra wide-angle lens manages to capture a great amount of details and of course, retains natural colours.
And the astrophotography mode kicks once you put the phone on a tripod or stable support at night. It will take around five minutes to come up with a spectacular view of the night sky.
The sample image in the tweet above was the best I could take in the two weeks in Bengaluru which has been covered with clouds for more than a week. It can really show its true potential if you take the phone to the city outskirts with fewer street lights around the place.
On the front, it features a 10.8MP selfie camera. The portrait mode feature is absolutely great. The colour of the face is very natural. It doesn't over-process to lighten the skin tone or smoothen the surface as we see on other phones. There are filters such as afterglow, colour pop, vivid, luminous, radiant, ember, airy, and more to make the photos appear more dramatic. But, like the photos unblur, and portrait blur tools, you will find the aforementioned filters on the Google Photos app.
Both the back and front cameras support 4K video recording. The quality is good and stable on par with most of the rival premium phones.
Final thoughts
First things first, Google has done a marvellous job with the Pixel 7 Pro's camera capabilities.
The Astrophotography mode, portrait blur, motion mode, night sight, photo unblur and magic eraser are class-leading photography features in the industry. Even the macro mode is great too, on par and in some cases, better than most of the rival brands.
The live translations and audio transcriptions bring great value-additions to consumers, more so for journalists, who have to sit through hours for transcribing long interviews.
And, the thermal performance of the Pixel 7 series was a pleasant surprise for me, considering the shortcomings I saw in the Tensor (1st Gen)- based Pixel 6a.
Yes, they are a few bugs as I mentioned earlier about the scrolling (not always, but at random times) lag-ness issue on the display. And, after the update, it has been reduced to a great extent. And, unlike premium competitors such as iPhones or Asus ROG Phone 6 series, it is not a gamer's delight.
And, as I mentioned in the Pixel 7 review, I wish Google brings the 256GB storage model, as 128GB will run out of space soon thanks to fantastic photography hardware.
But overall, Google has done a really pretty good job with user experience on the Pixel 7 Pro.
By getting more control over hardware and software, the search engine giant is already reaping benefits in photography, live translation, live audio transcription, improved user language comprehension capability of Google Assistant and to an extent, in terms of heat dissipation. If more effort can be put into the deeper integration of features to improve faster performance and battery life, Google has a serious opportunity to become a real challenger to Apple iPhones.
Google Pixel 7 Pro (128GB) is available for Rs 84,999 exclusively on Flipkart in India.
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