What Leaks Tell Us About the Pixel 3 XL (Premium)

Has any smartphone leaked as frequently as Google’s upcoming Pixel 3 XL? I don’t believe so. But a recently-released unboxing video gives us our best look yet at this new flagship handset. And it makes it very easy to compare the Pixel 3 XL to its predecessor, at least from a form factor perspective.

To do this, I broke out the packaging for my current handset and temporarily removed its protective case. Then, I tried to match up what I’m seeing here in person with the Pixel 3 XL imagery in the unboxing video.

Which you can find here.

And I have to say that, despite so many previous leaks, a few comparisons did surprise me. And not always in a negative way.

First of all, the packaging is entirely consistent with, if not identical to, that of the Pixel 2 XL. With one exception: The box shown in the video is completely free of any exterior imagery or text, whereas the Pixel 2 XL production packaging, of course, has both.

But it lifts off in the same way, and it utilizes the same tape-like protective sticker to prevent accidental removal. (Which the videographer removed before recording.)

Inside the box, the phone is on the top, sitting in a recessed tray molded in the shape of the phone. The production Pixel 2 XL was protected by a plastic sheet, but the one in the video appears to be al fresco, suggesting that the box was previously opened or that they didn’t protect the pre-production unit shown.

When the phone’s back is shown for the first time, we see the familial similarity. In fact, the rear of the Pixel 3 XL looks identical to that of the Pixel 2 XL, with the same glass top area (for radio transmission friendliness), same fingerprint reader placement, and same camera, at least from an external point of view.

The interior of the packaging looks basically identical, too, though the power supply and accessories compartments are reversed (so I’ve turned mine around “upside down”).

In the first accessories packet, we see the first major difference: The Pixel 3 XL will ship with a color-coordinated pair of Google Pixel Buds headphones. I assume these are not as powerful as the $160 pair that Google currently sells on its website, by which I mean that they are just headphones and will not include the language translation features of their retail cousins.

Underneath that, you see the same USB-C-to-USB-C cable, USB-C-to-headphone jack dongle, and USB-C-to-USB-A adapter that Google provides today with the Pixel 2 XL. They’re arranged a bit more cleanly and in a single place, but nothing has really changed there.

Finally, there is the USB-C-based power supply, which again looks identical, though the version in the video is a European-style plug whereas I, of course, have the US-style plug.

And then we finally get to the device itself. Here, I’d like to preface my comments by noting that the major complaints of the Pixel 3 XL, so far, both here and elsewhere, regard the prominent notch and “chin” on the device. With handset makers moving to be as “all screen” as is possible, these two design elements have seemed to be overly large.

But in viewing this video, it seems to me that the bottom bezel on the Pixel 3 XL, which houses a speaker and a microphone, is roughly the same size as that on the Pixel 2 XL. And I never found the bezels on this device to be particularly large. In fact, comparing my Pixel 2 XL’s bottom bezel to that of my wife’s Samsung Galaxy S8+, I find them to be roughly identical as well.

That said, the top bezel on the Pixel 2 XL is larger than that of the Galaxy by about a third, meaning that it is likewise larger than the bottom bezel. And this is somewhat understandable: In addition to housing a speaker and a front-facing camera, it also contains a variety of sensors.

More to the point, I think this explains the overly-large notch on the Pixel 3 XL. Google has had to squash the same components into an area that only occupies about a third of the width of the top bezel. So it extends further into the display than does the entire bezel on the Pixel 2 XL.

That said, we do have examples of phones with much smaller bezels. The OnePlus 6 is a great example, and its top display area is much less objectionable than that of the Pixel 3 XL. That said, the OnePlus 6 also does not provide stereo speakers. So they saved some space that way.

So here’s a new worry.

Like many who are nervous about a repeat of the Pixel 2 XL’s endemic reliability issues, I had hoped that this new phone would be better because it was ostensibly designed by a different team/company. (The Pixel 2 XL is an LG device, but Google hired/purchased most of the parts of HTC that helped design the non-XL Pixel 2.) But it’s very clear, looking at this device, that the exterior is very much identical, or nearly so, to the Pixel 2 XL.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean that the interior is the same. It is possible, perhaps, even likely, that we’ll see major differences whenever iFixIt or whoever rips this thing apart and compares it to its predecessor.

But here’s the thing. My own issues with this phone have very much been related to the exterior of the device. I’ve had to exchange my Pixel 2 XL twice because of the USB-C port. And there is no reason to believe this one is any different, externally. Unless, of course, that Google is serious about fixing the problems and has made changes there.

There is precedence for this. In the years after Apple shipped its incredibly-buggy iPhone 4, the firm silently kept upgrading its antenna design over the course of subsequent iPhone 4 versions (for Verizon) and then with the iPhone 5, 5C, 5S, and on to the 6/6 Plus. The connectivity problems got a bit better with each revision (and were probably temporarily fixed with the plastic iPhone 5C) until they stopped being a problem.

I’d like for the Pixel’s USB-C issues to not span several generations of devices. But for now, all I can do it wait and hope for the best.

And while I’m worrying, I’ll also point out another potential issue: The camera. Early camera test leaks are not promising, though the camera samples shown in this unboxing video look great. If the Pixel 3 XL camera is roughly as good as that of the Pixel 2 XL, I’ll be disappointed. Apple, in particular, will not stand still on this feature.

So we’ll see.