TWO WEEKS WITH THE GOOGLE PIXEL 8 PRO

With pricing no longer on its side, Tom Morgan-Freelander takes a fortnight to find out if Google’s latest Pro-grade Pixel phone still deserves its flagship billing

from £999/ go.stuff.tv/Pixel8Pro

DAY 01

Google’s last Pro-grade Pixel had some of the most capable cameras you could find on a smartphone. Nothing from Apple, Samsung or anyone else quite managed to beat it – and yet buying one left a smaller dent in your wallet than any of its closest competitors. But things are different this year.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max (see p29) and Galaxy S23 Ultra have upped their game with clever zoom lenses and huge pixel counts, while Google seems more interested in AI-assisted image editing. A price hike has also pushed this Pixel firmly into premium territory for the first time.

There is some good news, though. A subtle yet significant glow-up means the 8 Pro is the best-looking, best-feeling Pixel phone yet, with more prominently rounded corners and a flat display in place of the old model’s curved-edge panel. (I’m very happy the phone world seems to have called time on that particular fad: curved glass looked cool, but usually meant disaster if your handset took a spill.) The camera bar still looks like a Cylon’s visor, but the new matt finish means the rear glass is no longer a magnet for messy fingerprints. The whole thing feels more polished and practical.

It’s apparent from day one that Google isn’t going to give up its photography crown without a fight, as the few shots I’ve taken so far look truly stunning. The biggest change is to the ultrawide snapper: it keeps the same 125° field of view as the Pixel 7 Pro, but steps up to a 48MP sensor. That puts pixel count on a par with the telephoto (still good for 5x optical zoom), while the main camera stays at 50MP. All three lenses have larger apertures now, which should help in low light.

While I’m not the biggest selfie fan, I can still appreciate autofocus returning to the front cam after multiple Pixel generations. But it’s the pro controls for things like shutter speed, ISO and manual focus that are more appealing to me. The next two weeks should satisfy my inner shutterbug… and hopefully uncover whether the new AI editing tools are all they’re cracked up to be.

It’s apparent that Google isn’t going to give up its photography crown without a fight: the shots I’ve taken are stunning

Donut of Truth™

01 Takes fantastic photos in all lighting conditions

02 Slick styling and stellar screen justify the price hike

03 Powerful enough to run Android 14 smoothly

04 Battery life and charging speeds remain average

05 It’s over £1K if you want more than 128GB of storage

06 Can’t match top-tier rivals for gaming muscle

DAY 02

I reckon it’d take a magnifying glass to tell that the Pixel 8 Pro’s screen actually has fewer pixels than its predecessor. Everything simply looks needle-sharp. The AMOLED panel also brings epic contrast, and the 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate guarantees menus scroll smoothly without sapping battery life. It’s an astonishingly bright display too – Google claims a peak 2400 nits – and today I’ve enjoyed reading stuff outside in direct sunlight. Without taking off my sunglasses.

DAY 04

The in-display fingerprint sensor is speedy enough, but now that face-unlock is secure enough for my banking apps I’m using it a lot less often. Not sure I’ll break out the new temperature sensor much either: Google reckons it’s useful for measuring drinks, cooking pans and bathwater, but I’ve found the readings vary significantly. Some of the AI smarts also feel pretty gimmicky.

DAY 06

Battery life is living up to Google’s familiar ‘all-day’ claim if I go easy on gaming and don’t record much 4K HDR video. That’s short of the longest-lasting flagships, but not so much that I need to keep a power bank close by. Charging is fairly pedestrian, though.

DAY 11

Google’s homegrown Tensor CPUs like to run hot, but this new Tensor G3 tries to avoid thermal throttling with a more efficient design – and performance does seem to be more consistent now. Games have largely defaulted to medium settings, but even Diablo Immortal plays consistently once I crank the details up a notch or two.

DAY 14

The new Best Take camera mode is freakishly good at rescuing group shots. It looks at other photos you’ve taken, then lets you swap out each person’s face to create a composite pic where no one is blinking and everyone is looking right at the camera.

Other machine-learning tricks include Audio Eraser, which strips out background noise from your videos. The really clever stuff, like Zoom Enhance image upscaling, won’t land until a future Pixel Feature Drop – but right now you’re already looking at one of the best phone cameras around.