Google isn't looking for volume, it wants to focus on quality and simplicity.
If you showed up here looking for details on a pair of all-new Pixel phones that push the envelope and bring tons of new specs and features, you're about to be disappointed. (You also probably didn't follow the bevy of leaks in the last month.) But I encourage you to stick around, because I'll tell you right from the start that the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL are worth your attention.
Google has never played the spec game. It has never focused on the raw quantity of features. Pixels have always been about creating an experience that's greater than the sum of their parts. The new are the best-ever expression of these values.
The latest phones focus on just a few main pillars: evolving the hardware design, improving an already wonderful camera, and giving users a display befitting the price tag. That is, of course, while holding on to what made their predecessors so great: a sleek software experience, powerful performance and the promise of Google's security and software support.
Evolution
Google Pixel 3 Hardware changes
This is a case of evolution, not revolution. The new phones are effectively unchanged in size from their predecessors, but the finishes and materials have been tweaked. Let's address the sizes first: they are so close in size to their predecessors you can squeeze one into a case designed for the other. (Though there are enough subtle differences to make this inadvisable.)
Same sized phone, but with a larger screen — while keeping stereo speakers.
The Pixel 3 is actually smaller than the Pixel 2, but now has a 5.5-inch 18:9 display for roughly 10% more screen space — that of course means smaller bezels, which make the phone feel properly modern. The Pixel 3 XL jumps to a 6.3-inch 18.5:9 display, but the number is a bit of a misnomer as its large notch and taller aspect ratio don't give it dramatically more room than the 2 XL.
But it's the changes to other aspects of the displays that are far more important — and potentially the most important change to these phones over their predecessors in any respect. Google spent an inordinate amount of time making these displays as great as possible, and in my time with the phones it absolutely showed. The OLED screens are clearly higher quality panels than before, which is a great starting point. Then Google went to work calibrating them: there was a huge focus on base-level accuracy at the panel level, and then further calibration in software to make them perform as well as possible.
Google says that the displays, when set to "Natural" mode, are purely 100% RGB compliant and "visually indistinguishable from perfect" — the exact sort of wording we hear bandied about with .
Google spent an inordinate amount of time making these displays as good as possible.
But not everyone wants accuracy, they want eye candy — that's why the phones ship in "Adaptive" display mode by default, which bumps up colors and saturation but has been tuned to limit the over-saturation of skin tones and reds in particular. Google also worked on the other important factors in judging a quality display, like reducing off-axis color shifting and increasing the brightness for a full-screen image to a minimum of 400 nits. It all looked wonderful indoors — the question now is how well it all works outside.