Pixel 7 Professional evaluate: Nonetheless the most effective Android cellphone you should buy

The Pixel 7 is likely to be Google’s first-ever flagship smartphone sequel.

Which may appear to be a wierd factor to say about “model 7” of a smartphone, however prior to now, each flagship Pixel has switched producers or used a brand new design from 12 months to 12 months. This technique is the precise reverse of the one utilized by the bigger, extra critical {hardware} firms like Apple or Samsung, from which you’ll anticipate regular, iterative smartphone designs, with large redesigns coming each few years. If you’re scrambling to construct a smartphone from scratch yearly, it is laborious to do a lot in the best way of error correction, enhancements, or adjusting to buyer suggestions.

The Pixel 6 Professional was already the most effective Android cellphone you could possibly purchase, so Google did not should do an excessive amount of to show in a very good smartphone this 12 months. All of the vital bits from the Pixel 6 are right here, just like the category-leading price ticket, nice digital camera, and speedy, clear software program. However even with that strong base, Google did a very good job of fixing a few of our minor complaints concerning the Pixel 6. There isn’t any purpose to improve when you’ve got a Pixel 6, however an precise “model 2” of Google’s flagship smartphone may entice extra folks to attempt the model.

Refining an already-great design

The most effective a part of the Pixel 6 design, the digital camera bar, returns within the Pixel 7. Google’s digital camera bar stays the most effective rear digital camera design within the trade because it accomplishes the purpose of constructing area for a digital camera lens whereas additionally being useful. The bar is a raised, horizontal stripe throughout the again of the cellphone, permitting the system to sit down on a desk with out rocking backwards and forwards (an unlucky aspect impact of corner-mounted digital camera bumps). It is a large enchancment over the same old wobbly smartphone. The digital camera bar additionally helps with grip should you stick an index finger below the ridge it makes throughout the again of a cellphone. It is tough to help a tool by a nook digital camera bump, however the large, tactile ridge provides you yet another level of contact.

The Pixel 6’s digital camera bar was a multitude of components, although. The highest and backside edges had been aluminum, and a single strip of glass coated each lens. Google could not curve the glass across the left and proper sides, so the glass abruptly stopped and awkwardly switched to black plastic. The large glass sheet was additionally a magnet for glare in some lighting circumstances. Gentle might enter the strip of glass from many angles and bounce round to clean out your photographs.

The Pixel 7 digital camera bar simplifies issues. A single piece of aluminum now makes up the cellphone body, the perimeters, and the surface of the digital camera bar, with just one or two glass cutouts for the digital camera lenses. Glare points are diminished. The digital camera has not modified a lot, however a 5x telephoto lens (and 30x software program zoom) has been added.

Google made all of the unsuitable decisions with regards to differentiating the design of the Pixel 7 Professional and its little sibling, the Pixel 7, ensuing within the cheaper cellphone having a greater total design. The Pixel 7 Professional makes use of a mirror end on the aluminum sides and digital camera bar. The end picks up fingerprints and highlights scratches, and my barely one-week-old evaluate unit’s digital camera bar is already scuffed up. The bottom-model Pixel 7 has a brushed, matte aluminum end, which hides scratches higher. The brushed aluminum seems higher, because it does not get coated in fingerprints, and it feels higher, with the matte aluminum sides offering a bit extra grip than the slick end of the Professional.

The bottom-model Pixel 7 additionally has a very flat display, whereas the Pixel 7 Professional has a curved show. Curved shows distort content material on the edges of the show, seize glare, and make unintended touches simpler. They seem to be a marketing-driven anti-feature that producers ought to dispose of. The Pixel 7 Professional show is noticeably much less curved than the Pixel 6 Professional, however why not simply fully unburden the person from this disagreeable design?

With a greater aluminum end and a flat display, the $600 Pixel 7 looks like a serious improve over the $900 Pixel 7 Professional, and it is what I’d select if I might get the bottom mannequin with a high-end, 120 Hz display. Google ought to toss the 7 Professional design and make two variations of the Pixel 7 as a result of not one of the “premium” design modifications it made are value it. Day by day, I decide up the Pixel 7 and am tempted to change from the Professional as a result of the surface design is a lot nicer.

Talking of dangerous traits, let’s discuss mmWave. The worst a part of the Pixel 6 Professional design was a large plastic mmWave window on the highest fringe of the cellphone. On my white model, it is an enormous white strip on the highest of the cellphone, and it does not match the cream-colored again or the silver-colored aluminum band. The Pixel 7 Professional seems significantly better, decreasing the cutout to a rounded, color-matched window that solely takes up about 40 p.c of the size of the highest. It is a large enchancment.