How Much Is a Google Pixel Phone

Nov 2021

Editor's annotation, Nov. 18: The combination of price, design, cameras, processor and software make the Google Pixel six ane of the best value phones you lot can buy, which is why we've given it a CNET Editors' Option Honour. The original review follows.

The Pixel half dozen exemplifies the best of what Google services and Android 12 have to offer. Then much so that I'd claim that the Pixel 6 is the nigh significant phone upgrade Google has made since it launched the Pixel line in 2016. The telephone's new cameras , Google's Tensor flake and premium ambitions follow months of hype -- partly stemming from Google announcing the phone months before it was released -- and its assuming two-tone design. All of these changes come up while keeping the Pixel 6 at a midtier $599 price, which easily washes abroad the bad taste left by the understated Pixel 5 .

Previous Pixel phones have lived in that safe, quiet and crowded midtier infinite where phones toll betwixt $600 and $800. For most people, they were proficient and sometimes dandy phones but lacked the luster, specs and entreatment of more premium phones from Samsung and Huawei.

Like

Two-tone design
Value for the price
The main camera is Google's best

Don't Like

Under-display fingerprint reader can be frustrating
Bombardment life is practiced, simply difficult to become more a mean solar day
The ultrawide camera is decent but not on the same level equally the main camera

So what's the problem? Well, in short, Pixel phones haven't sold well. It reminds me of the early on days when Michael Hashemite kingdom of jordan joined the Chicago Bulls but they weren't winning championships still. The Pixel half-dozen is an attempt to build the telephone up to be more successful and highly-seasoned. It's like when the Bulls decided to build a team around Jordan to help him win championships.

Instead of powering the phone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, Google fabricated its ain chip: Tensor . This allows the Pixel 6 to practice computations and AI more deeply and apace on the telephone than constantly using the cloud. Tensor opens upward a slew of new software features Google wouldn't accept been able to add using a different processor.

Google extended its three years of OS and security updates to five. In the US, the Pixel 6 is bachelor both through Google and all major carriers. And Google even created a subscription program a la Apple's iPhone Upgrade program. It'southward called Pixel Pass and costs $45 a month for 2 years.

Fifty-fifty the Pixel'southward crown gem -- its cameras -- got upgraded lenses and hardware that'south more premium. Now that Google has improved everything in, on and around the Pixel, is it fix for its championship? (I promise that's the last Bulls reference.) In short, yes.

This is the Pixel phone I e'er wanted from Google. I spent over a calendar week with the new telephone and it lives up to a lot of the hype. The Pixel 6 starts at $599 (£599, AU$999) and comes with 128GB of storage. For that toll, I can't remember of a improve phone to recommend right now.

If you're looking for an in-depth look at the Google Pixel 6 Pro, check out the review my colleague Andy Hoyle wrote .

The Pixel 6's bold ii-tone design makes me swoon

The Pixel half dozen has a 6.4-inch, 1080p screen. It can be set to automatically switch from 60Hz to 90Hz depending on the content onscreen. There'due south an pigsty-punch cutout for the selfie camera and the screen is apartment with thick, Sharpie-like bezels that bleed into the matte-terminate aluminum sides. For comparison'due south sake, it reminds me a bit of theiPhone XR and iPhone 11 , which likewise had similar bezels and rounded sides, and that'south non necessarily a bad thing.

In use the screen is pleasant. The resolution is good, just the Pixel 6 Pro'south is better.

The front is covered in Gorilla Glass Victus . Under the screen is a fingerprint reader, which at first worked for me one-half of the time. It was frustrating and not a very good experience. Later on a maddening few days, I double-registered my thumbprints and it worked nearly every time. Now I don't even demand to nail my finger into the screen.

The back is where the phone's design actually makes me swoon. It's made of Gorilla Glass 6 and has a two-tone color scheme. My review unit is Sorta Seafoam, which ways the lesser of the dorsum is sort of light gray or sort of light blue depending on the lighting. The pinnacle back strip is a light lime green, which contrasts nicely against the deep black of the camera bar. The overall look of the Pixel vi reminds me a tad of the Pixel 2 XL and its panda color.

The horizontal photographic camera bar runs across the width of the back and looks bold and different. The camera bar isn't just designed to be a Google branding element; y'all can put the Pixel 6 without a instance on a table and it doesn't wobble.

Overall, the fit and finish are overnice. If you grab a Pixel 6 Pro, which costs $300 more, you lot can encounter several pocket-sized means it feels more premium than the Pixel 6.

Google Pixel 6 camera bar — The photographic camera bar houses a main wide-angle camera and an ultrawide-angle camera.
Patrick Kingdom of the netherlands/CNET

The Pixel 6 takes amazing photos

Out of all the improvements, I was most hyped to attempt the Pixel 6'southward cameras , and Google definitely delivered. The Pixel vi, with its higher-specced lenses and sensors, takes fantastic photos. Allow me immediately undercut that to remind you that this is still a phone. A mirrorless photographic camera or DSLR can consistently take better photos in a wider range of lighting and conditions. Just people don't always have a mirrorless photographic camera with them.

The Pixel 6 has two rear cameras: a chief photographic camera with a wide-angle lens and a second camera with an ultrawide-angle lens. These are the exact aforementioned wide and ultrawide cameras found on the Pixel 6 Pro. The ultrawide camera offers 0.7x magnification instead of the 0.6x magnification on the Pixel five. Overall the ultrawide is good but non great. Details in photos are OK but often soft.

Google Pixel 6 ultrawide — Under brilliant soft lighting, the ultrawide can capture some decent photos.
Patrick Holland/CNET

In that location is a noticeable step down in quality going from the principal camera to the ultrawide. Take a look at the photos below that I took of the Transamerica building in San Francisco.

I wish the ultrawide camera were wider. I prefer the perspective from the ultrawide cameras on the Milky way S21 Ultra and iPhone 13 Pro more. Bank check out a comparison below.

The main camera has a 50-megapixel sensor, which uses pixel binning to create 12.5-megapixel pictures . Photos from the Pixel half dozen are astonishing. Details are great.

Google Pixel 6 main camera — The colors and clarity in this photo are excellent and accurate.
Patrick The netherlands/CNET

Google Pixel 6 camera portrait mode — Expect at the colors and detail of this matcha water ice cream cone.
Patrick Holland/CNET

At that place are and so many Pixel 6 camera modes and tools

Google'south Tensor scrap allows for even more camera modes and tools. At that place is Dark Sight, Google's version of combining multiple images together when information technology'due south as well dark. Information technology'due south excellent on the Pixel vi.

Google Pixel 6 Night Sight — I like the dramatic mode Nighttime Sight renders photos.
Patrick The netherlands/CNET

There's the new Motility way, which has two options: Activity Pan and Long Exposure. Activeness Pan gives the background of a photograph a dramatic motion blur. It's fun. It'southward not going to reinvent photography but it's pretty fun to utilize.

Google Pixel 6 Action Pan — Activeness Pan can take what might be an otherwise ordinary photo and add together pizzazz.
Patrick Holland/CNET

The 2d Motility mode is Long Exposure, which mimics a long-exposure photograph. There are apps that do something similar but I got some decent light trails from traffic and some silklike water from a fountain. Again, it'southward fun. It doesn't replace doing long-exposure photography on a dedicated camera.

Google Pixel 6 Long Exposure — Google's Motility style for Long Exposure works well plenty. It'south like to converting a Alive Photo in iOS to Long Exposure.
Patrick Holland/CNET

Simply that's not all. Google gives you a neat tool chosen Magic Eraser. It lets you pick an object, a person or a office of a photo to remove. Yous tin get to this tool in one of 2 ways. In Photos, you'll see a suggestion most removing people in the groundwork. Or when you lot go to edit, tap on Tools to reveal the feature.

Magic Eraser finds and identify the silhouettes of people in the background. You can besides employ your finger to pigment out the part you want gone. Overall information technology works well, but it's far from perfect. Sometimes I got absolutely amazing results like removing people from the photo below of a pedestrian walkway -- though on closer inspection, yous tin come across the blurry patches where parts of the photo were removed.

Other times, similar in the photo beneath, in that location were transition artifacts. It removed ii people in the background here, but as well disfigured the hand of the lady to the right.

In that location are so many more camera features that I wasn't able to highlight in this review, like Face UnBlur. Only CNET volition have an even more in-depth look at the Pixel 6 cameras shortly.

The Pixel 6 camera treats complexions more equitably

I comeback Google talked about was Real Tone, which was a major rethink and exploration virtually how photos, specifically Google'south algorithms and engineers, handle people with unlike complexions. I still want to explore this characteristic more, but the photos I took of friends, co-workers and other people with darker complexions look good, even if they're not nether the most flattering lite. Oftentimes when I showed someone a photo I took with the Pixel 6, even if it'due south them doing a mundane thing, they asked for a copy.

Google Pixel 6 Real Tone — This is ane of my favorite photos I took with the Pixel 6.
Patrick The netherlands/CNET

Beneath is a photo taken with harsh backlight. Admittedly, this isn't a great way to take a photograph, but I wanted to run into what would happen. Google said the Pixel six handles stray light amend. Meet how it did confronting a photograph taken with the iPhone 13 beneath.

The differences between the 2 photos aren't desperate, but Eric, who is the bailiwick, preferred the photo from the Pixel 6. He liked how it handled the colour and highlights in his skin. You can really notice this in his arms.

Videos from the Pixel half-dozen are better and selfies are merely OK

The Pixel half dozen records the best video from any Pixel phone. Details and color accuracy are ameliorate. In terms of comparing the image quality between photos and videos, there is a smaller difference than there has been on prior Pixels. Don't get me wrong, photos are still the strength of the Pixel.

When recording video in medium and low low-cal, image racket is pretty apparent. Besides, the improvements Existent Tone brings to photos are unmatched with how videos handle different complexions. Accept a look below at some sample videos I recorded with the Pixel 6.

On the front, the Pixel 6 has an 8-megapixel camera that shoots 1,080p video. The Pro has a wider selfie camera that tin can record 4K. Selfies photos from the Pixel 6 are skillful just in medium and depression light start to await noisy.

Google Pixel 6 selfie camera — Here is a Portrait mode selfie from the Pixel six.
Patrick Kingdom of the netherlands/CNET

The Pixel half-dozen is defined by Google'due south Tensor chip

The Pixel half dozen doesn't run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 scrap found in nearly every other flagship Android phone similar the Galaxy S21 and OnePlus 9 Pro. Instead, it runs on Google'south Tensor processor. It's the first bit Google has made and was specifically designed by Google for the Pixel. I found the Tensor chip and the 8GB of RAM fabricated the telephone peppy to use. Opening the camera app is fast, app animations expect smooth and information technology handles games well.

In terms of performance benchmark tests, the Tensor fleck doesn't fix any new records. In fact it's largely on par with the Snapdragon 888 and that'due south OK. The advantages Tensor brings are its security and on-device machine learning and AI.

GEEKBENCH V.v.0 SINGLE-CORE

Google Pixel 6

1,045

Google Pixel v

591

Samsung Galaxy S21

1,084

Apple tree iPhone 13

ane,721

Note:

Longer bars bespeak better performance

GEEKBENCH V.5.0 MULTICORE

Google Pixel 6

2,926

Google Pixel 5

1,602

Samsung Galaxy S21

3,282

Apple iPhone 13

4,681

Annotation:

Longer bars indicate meliorate performance

3DMARK SLINGSHOT UNLIMITED

Google Pixel 6

9,959

Google Pixel five

3,954

Samsung Milky way S21

10,070

Apple iPhone xiii

6,653

Note:

Longer confined point better performance

Google quotes a day on a fully charged bombardment and in regular apply I'd say that is accurate. But in heavy use, like shooting lots of photos and videos, it had a battery life of more like iii-quarters of a day. During the 10 days I tested the phone, the Pixel six averaged a screen-on fourth dimension of half dozen hours, which is good, only not great.

Android 12 is solid on the Pixel 6

The Pixel 6 runs Android 12 and it'south probably the most underrated aspect of the phone. Android 12 is a delight to use. I like the big obvious buttons and sliders. The overall look of Android 12 is welcoming and prioritizes clarity over animations. I like that its system colors tin can match and complement my telephone's wallpaper.

Google Pixel 6 Android 12 — The Pixel six runs Android 12 and even has a scattering of special features.
Patrick Holland/CNET

Android 12 combined with the Tensor processor provides a number of welcomed privacy and security upgrades. The Pixel half-dozen comes with several of its own Android 12 special features, some of which are powered by Tensor. A standout for me is voice recognition. I constitute in that location to be a lot of comeback with translation, especially when I had a conversation with a Portuguese speaker. Translations were fast and accurate. For vocalism typing in particular, information technology seems to understand context better and punctuate more than accurately and it's easier to command it and articulate mistakes.

I tested the Pixel 6 on Google Fi, T-Mobile and Verizon here in San Francisco. The Pixel half-dozen supports sub-6 5G . There are special carrier versions of the Pixel half dozen that besides back up mmWave 5G and outset at $699 instead of $599.

Google Pixel 6 battery — The Pixel half dozen has 30W fast-charging over USB-C and supports wireless charging, as pictured above.
Patrick Kingdom of the netherlands/CNET

Google improved the Pixel vi in many means

With all of the upgrades to software and hardware, you have to wonder if that will be enough to brand the Pixel six successful. And that's actually the merely thing I can't answer. I can say this is the best telephone Google has ever built. Every bit tempting as the Pixel half-dozen is, for $300 more yous can upgrade to the slightly more than premium Pixel half dozen Pro, which adds a telephoto photographic camera; a six.7-inch display with curved edges, a higher resolution and high refresh rate; more RAM; an ultrawideband chip and Gorilla Drinking glass Victus on the back. Merely if you take $600 and are looking for a new telephone, the Pixel vi is my recommendation.

Google Pixel half-dozen specs vs. Google Pixel 6 Pro, Google Pixel v, Apple iPhone xiii

	Google Pixel 6	Google Pixel six Pro	Google Pixel 5	Apple tree iPhone 13
Display size, resolution	6.4-inch OLED; 2,400x1,080 pixels; 60Hz or 90Hz	six.vii-inch LTPO OLED; 3,120x1,440 pixels; 10-120Hz	vi-inch FHD+ OLED; ii,340x1,080 pixels	vi.one-inch OLED; two,532x1,170 pixels
Pixel density	411 ppi	512 ppi	432 ppi	460 ppi
Dimensions (inches)	6.2x2.9x0.4 in	6.5x3x0.4 in	5.7x2.8x0.3 in	5.78x2.82x0.3 in
Dimensions (millimeters)	158.6x74.8x8.9mm	163.9x75.9x8.9mm	144.7x70.4x8mm	147x72x7.65mm
Weight (ounces, grams)	7.3 oz; 207g	7.41 oz; 210g	v.33 oz; 151g	6.fourteen oz; 174g
Mobile software	Android 12	Android 12	Android 11	iOS 15
Camera	50-megapixel (wide), 12-megapixel ultrawide	50-megapixel (wide), 12-megapixel (ultrawide), 48-megapixel (telephoto)	12.two-megapixel (standard), 16-megapixel (ultrawide)	12-megapixel (broad), 12-megapixel (ultrawide)
Front-facing camera	8-megapixel	11-megapixel	8-megapixel	12-megapixel
Video capture	4K 30, 60fps (rear), 1,080p 30fps (front)	4K thirty, 60fps (rear), 4K 30fps (front end)	4K	HDR video recording with Dolby Vision up to 4K at 60fps
Processor	Google Tensor	Google Tensor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G	Apple A15 Bionic
Storage	128GB, 256GB	128GB, 256GB, 512GB	128GB	128GB, 256GB, 512GB
RAM	8GB	12GB	8GB	Undisclosed
Expandable storage	No	No	No	No
Battery	4,614 mAh	v,003 mAh	iv,000 mAh	Undisclosed; Apple lists 19 hours of video playback
Fingerprint sensor	Under display	Under display	Rear	No (Face ID)
Connector	USB-C	USB-C	USB-C	Lightning
Headphone jack	No	No	No	No
Special features	5G sub-6 (some carrier models also have 5G mmWave) back up, Wi-Fi 6E, 30W fast-charging, wireless charging, Magic Eraser, Move way, Real Tone, Face Unblur, Cinematic Pan, v years OS security updates, IP68 rating for grit and water resistance, Gorilla Drinking glass Victus (forepart), Gorilla Drinking glass vi (dorsum), dual-SIM capabilities (nano-SIM and east-SIM)	5G sub-half dozen and mmWave support, Wi-Fi 6E, Ultra-wideband, 30W fast-charging, wireless charging, Magic Eraser, Motion mode, Existent Tone, Face Unblur, Cinematic Pan, 5 years Bone security updates, IP68 rating for dust- and water-resistance, Gorilla Glass Victus (front and back), dual-SIM capabilities (nano-SIM and east-SIM)	5G enabled; water-resistant (IP68); 90Hz-refresh-rate display; dual-SIM capabilities (nano-SIM and e-SIM); reverse wireless charging; fast-charging	5G enabled; MagSafe; water-resistant (IP68); wireless charging; dual-SIM capabilities (nano-SIM and e-SIM)
Price off-contract (USD)	$599 (128GB)	$899 (128GB)	$699	$799 (128GB), $899 (256GB), $one,099 (512GB)
Cost (GBP)	£599 (128GB)	£849 (128GB)	£599	£779 (128GB), £879 (256GB), £1,079 (512GB)
Price (AUD)	AU$999 (128GB)	AU$1,299 (128GB)	AU$999	AU$1,349 (128GB), AU$1,519 (256GB), AU$one,869 (512GB)