Alright, on-wards and upwards!
Let's start with more shiny picture of the phone. Note these were all taken with the old phone (Glacial Green OnePlus 8 Pro, as previously mentioned), which for various reasons, is not the finest smartphone camera in the world. But it did okay.
Side Profile:
Now, dear friends, we've talked about how it feels in the hand, and the build quality, but let's be honest. None of that matters, because under pain of death my wife has sworn me to keep this phone in a case at all times.... no if's, and's, and especially no but's.
I decided, thanks to
@Matthias's pictures of his phone, to go with the Bellroy leather case, specifically in Biscotti. In fact, if I'm being completely honest, it was the preview shots of the case on the website that sold me on the Rose phone, because the coppery metal just goes so well with the light leather. (If you, too, want to be suckered in to the miracle that is modern marketing, here's the
stock photo)
Now, for my reproductions:
Note to readers: You may notice the background changing in the photo's, because... well, I'm not a photographer, but the phone was also delivered during my work day, so I kept getting interrupted trying to write this review by my boss telling me to "Do my job". The sacrifices we make, they are indeed real.
Here's another angle, with less white man:
Lastly, I'm not sure how well it comes across, but if you look closely at the front, there's a thin edge of the coppery metal around the screen. It's the perfect accent to the leather of the case, and wholeheartedly reinforces my decision.
Now, you've somehow read this far, and at this point you may be thinking
He's definitely given us a bunch of half-arsed photos, but when's he actually going to review the phone?", and to that, I say, if you want a formal review, look no further than
Ars. (
I'll admit, reader, this was not my favourite Ars review. I found the author randomly interchanged Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, and I'm not too proud to confess I got a bit confused reading it after half a whiskey. But it has all the normal review-y things, and what can I say, it's a good site). This review is definitely going to be focused on only what I care about. Which means we'll be skipping benchmarks, battery life metrics, and other miscellanea. Partially because I don't care, but mostly because I don't know how. But instead, we'll talk a little about my experience setting it up.
First things first. I haven't transferred phones in a while, and usually I just skip all the transfer crap, login to Google, and then begin to swear as I try to remember all the apps I liked on my old phone. This time, I figured I'd try out the transfer tool. It was fairly slick. You start by logging in to Google, connecting to Wi-Fi, and then on your old phone you merely scan a QR code and you're off to the races.
After signing your life away numerous times, in various ways that I both did and did not agree too (You can decline a surprising number of Google's -isms), the phone begins the transfer process. It took about 10 minutes to transfer, although I'll admit I chose not to transfer the ~100GB or so of photos and videos. All are sync'd to OneDrive, and I can pull them back down if necessary.
[EDIT: One thing I forgot to mention was heat. I did the transfer in the case, and it was mildly warm but not anywhere close to hot. This was a SIGNIFICANT departure from the OnePlus 8 Pro, which worked quite nicely as a replacement for a hot water bottle when you really got it chugging]
When complete, you're popped into the homescreen. The new theming is quite nice, and adds a lot of nice complementary colour options. The stock wallpapers are delightful, and overall I'm please with the size of the phone. It fits the hand nicely, and the lack of curved screen makes it easy to use and my frustration level trying to type some passwords with the letter q, elevated bibliophiles, was non-existent.
One thing I miss from the OnePlus, mostly from a muscle memory perspective, is the slider switch for Silent-Vibrate-Noise, but it's pretty easy in Android 14 so I'm sure that will come quickly. On the topic of vibration, whatever they installed in here rivals a washing machine... I keep thinking I've gone to a 4D theatre every time it goes off in my pants.
Now, the next thing I played around with was the Camera, and this, Arsians, is the part of the show I'm sure you'll enjoy the most. Because, what better way to celebrate a new phone, than to take photos of the old phone! This is also where you'll learn why my wife was so strict on me not taking the phone out of the box until the case arrive. Without further adieu, I present my Glacial Green OnePlus 8 Pro!
First off, the corner of death. As you can see, without the telephoto lens the photo is a bit grainy, but you can still see how the lack of glass goes all the way through to the inner sub frame. Moving up a lens:
We can see the grainy-ness improves, but the Pixel has trouble focusing on all the little shatter marks that make up what's left of the corner glass. Should we try the further lens, friends?
As you can see, at this point we can't really get into the details of the phone, and the focus is munch more on the phone as an object, and less on the details. Why, we can't see the cracks on the face of the phone at all! Let's remedy that now, with some full frontal nudity.
Much better! In the middle of the screen, you can see a delicate curve that would make a mathematician smile, from the crack running from one corner, over the fingerprint reader, to the other corner. (
At this point reader, you might be wondering just how long the phone's been like that. If you guessed a year, you're probably close to being right)
Now, how does the Pixel camera handle colour? Let's check that beautiful Glacial Green finish. While not as gorgeous as the shimmery blue of the
Honor 8, it is still a beautiful colour.
Now, here's something interesting. Both of these photos were taken at the same time, from the same angle. The first is with the
Macro Focus feature automagically enabling itself. Now here's the second, without that feature turned on:
Notice the difference in colours, background colours, and even the angle (The bottom corner looks significantly more stretched).
The adjusted photo also solves the shadows, and has much better definition of the delicate spiderweb of cracks across the back, although neither really is able to demonstrate the depth of destruction from this particular angle.
With that, my Arsian friends, I leave you my first day unboxing and initial review of the new Google Pixel 8. I'll keep adding my thoughts, and as I mentioned if there are specific things you want me to test, or if you want me to try to remember all of my old phones, or even photo comparisons between all the phones that I've still got, please let me know! This is a choose your adventure ride, and I'm happy to provide you with the content YOU want to know about. I'm Canadian, ya know, and we're socialists like that.
