The Google Pixel 3 Review: The Ultimate Camera Test
by Andrei Frumusanu on November 2, 2018 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- camera
- Mobile
- Pixel
- Snapdragon 845
- Pixel 3
Battery Life
In terms of battery life, we should be expecting the Pixel 3 to do better than the Pixel 2, as we have an 8% larger battery coming at 2915mAh compared to last year’s 2700mAh unit. On the other hand, we also have to consider the Pixel 3 has a larger screen that needs to be powered, and the SoC efficiency can go either way. For our battery tests, we set the device brightness to 200 nits using our colorimeter tools.
Unfortunately, the Pixel 3 sees a regression in terms of battery life, ending up 18% or 1.5 hours behind the Pixel 2 in the web browsing battery test. I did some quick power characterisation, and the Pixel 3 uses about 90mW more power when idling at minimum brightness in airplane mode. Stretched over a 9-10 hour period, this is about 8% of the total battery capacity. On top of this, the phone has to power a bigger screen, and we have a much more performant SoC. Overall the Pixel 3’s battery life doesn’t end up as particularly surprising.
In PCMark, the Pixel 3 sees better performance, as the SoC is able to counter-act the phone general less efficiency. Here the Pixel 3 lands just slightly ahead of the Pixel 2, landing in the middle of the pack in terms of battery life.
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Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, November 5, 2018 - link
I can't replicate your issue in any browser. Sounds really odd.s.yu - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Oh I had the exact same problem, but only on page 7, by page 8 it's gone but I didn't go back to check again.AceMcLoud - Tuesday, November 6, 2018 - link
Still slower than my old iPhone 7. Amazing.Nikophin - Thursday, November 8, 2018 - link
"Currently the silicon, as well as Google using the most up-to-date version of Qualcomm’s scheduler, make this the snappiest and fastest device on the market."Lower scores on some benchmarks on different OSs, does not mean "slower", just so you know.
evan89 - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
I like the design of new Google pixel 3 more than its predecessor. Judging by the specifications, it becomes clear that this will be the flagship smartphone, so we can expect the cost of this phone to be too high in many countries. I would like to protest, namely to do stress testing for similar games https://casinos-top-online.co.uk/. Really looking forward to when it appears in sales.Himanshu 011 - Friday, November 9, 2018 - link
Display specifications are wrong it should be Pixel 3xl have 6.3" Samsungs Amoled not LG's P-OLED and Pixel 3 have 5.5" lg's p-Oled not Samsung's AmoledAs found by ifixit guys https://www.91mobiles.com/hub/pixel-3-xl-teardown-...
darkich - Friday, November 9, 2018 - link
Just have to say you are the greatest smartphone expert and authority on Earth, Andrei.Astonishing review that puts others of this kind to shame.
RedBeardMcGee - Friday, November 9, 2018 - link
I wish you would test speaker distortion. I am hearing lots of distortion even at the lowest listening levels with my pixel 3xl.santz - Sunday, November 11, 2018 - link
that was an awesome read. superb hard work on the photos evaluation.Ashan360 - Tuesday, November 13, 2018 - link
I almost want other major reviewers to acknowledge and comment on this review, since it brings up a lot of issues and disparities with the main conclusions of many other big review sites. I find this to be a fresh and honest look at what the product is rather than a drinking the cool aid product promotion. Google still has a lot of work to do to catch up to Samsung and Apple hardware, but they're pricing like they don't. The low light photo feature is really neat, but I think it's far more limited than many people are imagining. You can't capture any motion in the frame when pushing these limits, so it's only for dark landscapes. And close up still life can be captured with a flash, so while it may be a vast improvement in a certain situation, that situation is going to likely be a small fraction of the pictures we generally want to take. I feel like people are getting overly worked up by this like it's going to revolutionize photography (computational photography in general, sure; this specific feature? not so much).