Can this flagship killer from Google set newer benchmarks?
Google Pixel smartphones are known for their clean and smooth software experience combined with a flagship camera experience. The Pixel 6 series has had a good run in the international markets except for India where only the Pixel 6a (Review) got launched in the last quarter of 2022. With the Pixel 6 series, Google came with their in-house Tensor chipset, which was yet another success for Google.
This year Google finally took the lead to launch their Pixel smartphones in India namely the Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro. The Pixel 7 seems to be a perfect flagship killer from Google as it brings some very good specifications like a 90Hz AMOLED display, a premium build and design, a powerful Tensor G2 chipset, a good set of cameras and the software experience is just the icing on the cake.
With the Pixel 6a, Google saw a good amount of success last year in the Indian market but there were some areas where it did feel slightly compromised. So can Google with the Pixel 7 be the flagship killer in this highly competitive market where we have other flagship killers around? Is it worth buying? Let's find out in the full review.
Google Pixel 7 Design:
The Pixel 7 has a glass sandwich design where both the front as well as the back are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus +. Like the Pixel 6, the Pixel 7 has a slightly new design where the back has a newer camera module which has a larger aluminium bar or strip that consists of dual cameras with a LED flashlight which is a good upgrade over the polycarbonate bar found at the back of the Pixel 6.
The back has a matte finish that provides a good grip while holding hands and also catches very few fingerprints which is good. However, the camera bump is slightly protruding which makes it slightly difficult to keep on a flat surface as the smartphone does wobble slightly. The Pixel 7 has an IP68 rating which means it can survive under fresh water at 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes and also it is dust resistant.
Instead of the dual-tone finish on the Pixel 6, there is only one colour that is present at the back except for the aluminium bar. The Pixel 7 is available in two different colours - Snow, Obsidian, and Lemongrass where Snow colour has a silver-coloured aluminium bar, Lemongrass has a gold-coloured one and the Obsidian has a darker silver-coloured aluminium bar.
The Pixel 7 weighs around 197 grams which makes it slightly heavier. Around the sides, Google has gone for a rounded aluminium frame instead of the flat one seen on many smartphones. The aluminium frame looks premium and the right side of the frame has volume buttons with a power button whereas the left side has a dual SIM card slot.
The smartphone is thicker at 8.7mm. At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port and two speaker grilles. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack and you also miss out on a microSD card slot for storage expansion. On the front, there is a single punch-hole display that has the earpiece located on the top which also doubles up as a secondary speaker. Overall, the build and design feel premium and look good.
Google Pixel 7 Display:
The Pixel 7 has a slightly compact display i.e. 6.3 inches compared to the 6.4-inches display on the Pixel 6. There are almost minimum bezels around the sides and this is a 6.3-inches Full HD+ (1080x2400 pixels) OLED display which has a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. The display on the Pixel 7 has support for a 90Hz refresh rate which makes things smoother while multitasking between applications.
The refresh rate is a standard one which means you can switch between standard 60Hz or 90Hz only. For better battery life, it is always recommended to keep the display at 60Hz. Combined with the 90Hz refresh rate, you get a 180Hz touch sampling rate which means you get faster touch responses. In terms of display brightness, the Pixel 7 display can reach a peak brightness of 1400nits which is very good.
Under direct sunlight, the display has good visibility. The Pixel 7 has two different colour modes to choose from - Natural and Adaptive where the Natural mode covers the sRGB mode and the Adaptive mode covers the DCI-P3 gamut scale if you want saturated colours, then it is recommended to keep the display in the Adaptive mode.
Since this is an OLED display, you get an optical in-display fingerprint scanner which is fast and accurate. The display on the Pixel 7 has support for HDR on YouTube and also there is support for Widevine L1 so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime, etc. and HDR support is also present on Netflix. Overall, the display is great for media consumption.
Google Pixel 7 Performance:
The Pixel 7 is powered by the latest Tensor G2 chipset which is a slight upgrade over the Tensor G1 chipset present on the Pixel 6a. The Tensor G2 chipset is present in an octa-core setup (2+2+4) which has a 2x2.85 GHz Cortex-X1 core with 2x2.35GHz Cortex-A78 cores and another 4x1.8 GHz Cortex-A55 cores built on an efficient 5nm process and is coupled with Mali-G710 GPU.
This chipset is not much different from the Tensor G1 chipset used on the Pixel 6a except that you now get slightly higher clock speeds and better Cortex-A78 cores instead of Cortex-A76 cores on the Tensor G1 chipset. In terms of daily tasks, the smartphone handles everything easily like multitasking between applications.
In terms of gaming, this chipset does a good job as it handles almost all the heavy games easily. In games like Apex Legends, BGMI, etc, the smartphone could run at higher graphics settings but after long hours of gaming, there were some lags or stutters noticed and also the back of the smartphone did feel warmer just like on the Pixel 6a.
However, the gaming performance is not as good on the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset-powered smartphone. In the CPU throttling test, the Pixel 7 could maintain a sustained performance of around 5-65-70 per cent which is just average and there is some thermal throttling present. In benchmarks, the scores come out good but still, it is lower than the scores of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1-powered smartphone.
In terms of network connectivity, you get good carrier aggregation and have support for up to 10 bands of 5G. However, the Pixel 7 is available in only one variant - 8GB LPDDR5 RAM with 128GB UFS 3.1 storage. This is slightly disappointing as you do not get a 12GB RAM and 256GB storage variant which most smartphones offer.
Google Pixel 7 Software:
The Pixel smartphones' uniqueness is defined when it comes to the software experience they provide. The Pixel 7 runs on the latest Android 13 and you get a clean Stock Android user interface with no ads or bloatware. All the Android 13 features like support for Spatial Audio and Call Screening which lets you take the call and lets you know what is being said in the call and captions are also available for it.
Some interesting Pixel features include Photo Unblur where if an image is stored in the gallery which looks blurred, using this feature, removes the blur in the subjects and background in the image itself, then there is an enhanced Privacy Dashboard where you can see which applications are using the microphone, camera as well as location also.
Depending on the wallpaper, the colour gets applied to almost all parts of the user interface and also there are a lot of themes present. The notification tray looks clean and all toggles are pill-shaped. Since it is a Pixel smartphone, it will get faster software updates and Google promises another three years of AndroidOS updates and five years of security updates which is good.
Google Pixel 7 Cameras:
The Pixel 7 has a dual camera setup that remains unchanged from the Pixel 6 and consists of a 50MP f/1.9 Samsung JN1 sensor for the main camera and a 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera. There is no telephoto camera like on the Pixel 7 Pro. The Pixel 7 has a 10MP camera on the front.
The images from the main camera come out with good dynamic range and the details look sharper. There is very less noise in the background and also the colours look well-balanced and have a natural tone. With HDR shots, the colour does look saturated and also almost no noise is present. At night, the images have much sharper details with less noise present in the background.
The Pixel processing works very well and the colours come out natural in the background. The dynamic range is good but still, exposure in low-light areas needs some improvement. However, the images are not so brighter and with the Night Sight turned on, things do improve quite a bit as you get slightly better dynamic range and noise is almost not present.
The ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of details that look sharper but around the edges, there is very slight distortion present. This ultrawide camera takes images with natural colours and very less noise in the background. At night, the images come out with good dynamic range, details look good but a tad softer and noise is also well under control.
Since the Pixel 7 lacks a telephoto camera, it uses the main camera for 2x zoomed images. At 2x digital zoom, the images have a great number of details that look sharper and the dynamic range is also very good. Google uses its Super Res algorithm which works really well to remove noise from the background. At night, the images have good contrast and dynamic range with almost no noise present.
The Pixel 7's ultrawide camera does not double up as a macro camera since it lacks autofocus and also it lacks a dedicated macro camera. In terms of portraits, the main camera does a good job in both 1x and 2x portraits where you get good dynamic range and proper edge detection with a good level of background blur. The human skin tones look natural and noise is also well under control in the background.
In terms of selfies, the front camera does a good job in terms of details that look sharper and have a good dynamic range. The skin tones look natural as there is no oversharpening present and also during the night, the selfies look great. In terms of portrait selfies, the dynamic range comes out good but edge detection could have been better and exposure needs to be slightly in control.
In terms of videos, all the cameras of the Pixel 7 can record 4K videos at 60fps which is great since most of the flagship smartphones in this price segment do not offer 4K recording on the ultrawide and the front camera. The videos from the main camera come out with sharper details, excellent dynamic range and contrast with no noise present as the OIS work perfectly.
Even in low light, the videos from the main camera have an excellent level of detail, good dynamic range and very less noise present. The videos from the ultrawide camera come out with good details that look sharper but the dynamic range could have been slightly better. On the front, the videos come out with good dynamic range and no noise since the EIS works perfectly.
Google Pixel 7 Battery Life:
The Pixel 7 houses a slightly smaller 4435mAh battery which is slightly lower in capacity compared to the 4614mAh battery on the Pixel 6. With normal usage that includes casual gaming, web browsing, streaming social media, etc. and the display is set to 90Hz, the smartphone easily lasted one and a half days with some charge left but with the display set to standard 60Hz, the smartphone lasted for two days easily.
With heavy usage that includes playing heavy games like Call Of Duty Mobile, Apex Legends, etc, rendering videos, running benchmarks, etc, the smartphone lasted one day with some charge left with the display being set to 90Hz but switching it to 60Hz, the smartphone lasted for one and half day. The standard screen-on time recorded on the Pixel 7 is around 5.5-6 hours which is pretty good.
The one big disappointing feature that the Pixel smartphones lack is support for fast charging when compared to the competition. Here the Pixel 7 supports 20W fast charging which is not the fastest but still good enough as it takes around 30 minutes to reach 0 to 50 per cent whereas the full charge from 0 to 100 per cent takes around 1 hour 45 minutes which is very much time-consuming.
But the issue is that like Samsung and Apple, Google has also not provided a fast charger inside the box so you can use any other 20W fast charger to charge it. However, still you get support for faster 20W wireless charging which is good and also there is support for reverse wireless charging.
Google Pixel 7 Audio Quality:
The Pixel 7 has a dual stereo speaker where the sound comes out equally good from both the bottom-firing speakers as well as the earpiece on the top of the display. There is support for Hi-Res audio and you get a very clear sound that does not feel muffled even at the highest volume settings. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack present though.
Verdict:
The Google Pixel 7 seems to be a perfect flagship killer as it brings a perfect build and design, a good 90Hz OLED display for media consumption, good performance in daily tasks, a good set of cameras and a great software experience. The motto of every Pixel smartphone has to be the clean software experience and the cameras and that is what the Pixel 7 delivers perfectly well.
But there are some areas where the Pixel 7 could have been better Google could have provided a telephoto camera, the charging speeds are very slow compared to competitors that offer 65/120W fast charging capabilities, and the battery life though good is not so good and if you are considering this smartphone for gaming, then you can go for this but still Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 powered smartphones are better for gaming.
So if you are a person who values the Pixel smartphones, then the Pixel 7 is the perfect buy as it delivers almost everything well except for a few shortcomings. If you want a smartphone with the best software experience and a great set of cameras with all flagship features, then the Pixel 7 is a great buy and definitely it is a great flagship killer that will definitely set newer benchmarks for all.
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