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Google has revealed its Pixel 3: the flagship phone you never have to use as a phone, and which might actually be the best camera you’ve ever held.
The new handset is intended as Google’s expression of the way Android should be and an attempt to wrestle some of the market from popular companies like Apple and Samsung.
And it intends to do that with a relatively slim range of features: a camera that includes some of the most advanced technology ever folded into any device, and a phone that means you never have to think about just how complicated it all is.
Camera
The camera is, appropriately, incredible. The first Pixel’s camera was incredible and the second Pixel’s camera was incredible – the third Pixel’s camera manages somehow to stretch credibility even more thin, throwing out photos that are vastly more beautiful than real life and which will cement its near-undisputed position as the best camera available on a phone.
The actual camera is plenty good, but it’s really secondary to the real reason that everything it takes is so pristine. What’s more important is what happens before and after the information gets to that camera: a vast array of electronic calculations that make those photos just so splendid.
Together it’s called computational photography, and on this evidence it looks to take over the world. At the most simple level it means that the phone’s computers can take a whole host of pictures at once and stitch them together, choosing the best bits of each so that the darks are rich and black and the lights are shining and bright. Similarly it can lift up the darkness of a picture taken at night, with a feature that Google says will stop anyone having to ever use a flash again – a ridiculous boast if the effect weren’t so convincing in use.
But then it gets altogether more complicated. The phone can take an array of different pictures before and after you actually press the shutter, for instance, and then look at them to decide which is best. If someone’s eyes were half-closed when you decided to take the photo, the camera will save their and your embarrassment and pick the picture actually taken a moment before you pressed the button.
And it has a secret, extra selfie camera that means you can pop out and capture just about everything in front of the phone. It’s like using a selfie stick with none of the risk of being banished from polite society.
Put simply – and this is ultimately a simple process, because despite the vast whirling complexity of the processes underpinning that camera you still just hold it up and press the button – it might be the best camera you ever hold.
Phone (or, more accurately, not phone)
The camera is just the start. A great start, of course, but one entirely expected.
The rest of the story unfolds with the phone. Which is a fantastic example of the ways that Google is using its smarts and commitment to making phones sources of healthier and happier experiences.
Or rather, it unfolds without the phone. The central genius of the Pixel is that you might never need to use it for its intended purpose again.
Google’s Duplex, for instance, allows the phone’s voice assistant to make calls on your behalf, ringing up a restaurant to make a reservation without you having to lift a finger or a vocal cord. And it can answer as well as make calls: if it thinks that you’re being bothered by a telemarketer, you can ask the phone to take the call on your behalf: it’ll provide a transcription, allowing you to pick up the all or report it as spam accordingly.
And if you’d rather avoid the phone entirely, it has a special mode to “shh” it. Flip the phone over and it’ll shut up.
In another nice move, the phone can turn into something else entirely if it’s put into its small charging dock. (It’s appropriately known as the Pixel Stand.) Once it’s in, it turns into something like an Amazon Echo Show: listening out for voice instructions, showing useful information, and transforming into a thoughtful alarm clock that will display important information when you wake up.
They are all relatively superficial features, the kind that feel specifically crafted for sounding good in a product keynote and then a round-up like this. But what’s more important than any of those individual updates is the spirit that is guiding them: a commitment to introducing useful, thoughtful updates that are focused on making your phone less of a nag and more of a help, less fear and more fun.
And everything else
That’s all well and good, but what if you actually want to buy it?
Pricing starts at £739 or the bigger XL for £869. It costs roughly the same in dollars and euros. And all of the major carriers are signed up, with pay monthly deals that let you get the phone for £50 or so per month.
It’s available for pre-order now and will go on sale on 1 November.
There are three colours: black, white and a colour that Google is referring to as “not pink” that is actually just very pink in an attempt to be cute that just comes off as grating. They all look remarkably subtle, with the exception of the power button on the side that comes in a bright, glowing highlight colour: on the pink one, it’s a hot coral, which shines out of the side of the phone like a beacon.
The back is matte, in an inspired touch that means the phones eschew the kind of mirror-finish that’s found on the back of the iPhone X. It makes them look subtle and also ensures they have sufficient grip to use them without a case, though Google provides plenty of nice textures and textiles if you want to wrap it up in a cover.
The Independent
