Thinking About the Pixel 4 (Premium)

I have been burned by the poor quality of Google’s Pixel handsets so many times that even considering a Pixel 4 should seem crazy. But I’m thinking about it. And the tune hasn’t changed at all from past years: Google offers one of the very best camera experiences in smartphones, and its phones are among the only that work fully with Google Fi, the search giant’s wireless service. These two factors, together—photography prowess and Google Fi—heavily bias any decision I make about a smartphone.

And it’s been quite the year for smartphones.

I ended up forgoing the Pixel 3 XL because of its hilariously large notch, tinny and unbalanced speakers, and stupidly expensive price tag, an so I entered 2019 looking, warily, for a replacement. There were many contenders, most of which offered at least some advantage over the Pixel 3 XL. Key among them was the Pixel 3a XL, which I still own: It is much less expensive, has a wonderful polycarbonate body, and shares the same basic camera system as its flawed predecessor. On the downside, the Pixel 3a XL exhibits major performance problems thanks to its mid-level processor, and it only comes with an unacceptable 64 GB of non-expandable storage. It’s so close.

There were and are others, of course. The OnePlus 7 Pro is truly excellent, as is the even better OnePlus 7T, but the camera systems fall a bit short and, like most non-Pixels, they dosn’t offer full Fi compatibility, meaning that they can’t automatically switch to the best network as I move around. (This has caused problems on trips where I find that I have to sometimes reboot the phone just to get it to connect to a network.) The OnePlus 7T, especially, is so close.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ has similar issues, and it is also much more expensive. The iPhone 11 Pro Max, again, same thing—very good camera, but not quite the best—and the Fi compatibility is even worse. Round and round we go.

I’ve literally spent thousands of dollars on smartphones this year—I paid for the Pixel 3a XL, a half-off Pixel 3 XL, and the Note 10+ already, and I’m part-way through paying off the iPhone—so I’m naturally looking to spend another thousand on the Pixel 4 XL because, again, money solves all problems (that’s sarcasm) and I’m incredibly rich (that’s an outright lie). But what if they get it right this time? What if… it actually works?

I know. I sound like a victim of abuse who’s looking to again give the abuser one more chance. But the pros so outweigh the cons, even given Google’s terrible history of reliability problems, that I just have to try.

So what does getting it right even mean? A number of things.

We know that the camera system will be fantastic, but it needs to land somewhere near the Huawei Mate 20 Pro/P30 Pro; once you use a handset with cameras that good, it’s hard to use others.

We know that it will be completely compatible with Google Fi, so I have no worries there.

It needs to be less expensive, and here, I’m sure, Google will fall short. But Apple lowered the pricing of its entry-level iPhone 11 this year, so you never know. Even $100 less than last year would be acceptable to me if everything else made sense.

It needs to have the right specs. That means the latest processor, lots of RAM, and lots of storage, even in the base model. Here, the Pixel 4 XL will apparently offer a mixed bag of good and bad: It will allegedly feature the Snapdragon 855 processor, and not the newer 855+. But it will come with 6 GB of RAM, an important jump from the 4 GB in the 3 XL. The base storage, sadly, is still 64 GB.

It needs to lose the humongous notch. This is happening, but the Pixel 4 XL will still have a large “forehead” bezel that reminds me of the Samsung Galaxy S8, which, yes, is about two and a half years old. Not great, but better than a big notch.

It will need a bigger battery to enable the all-day life that the 3 XL does not offer; that apparently is happening, as the 4 XL has a bigger 3700 mAh battery compared to the 3430 mAh unit in the 3 XL.

The display is the same size, but now Google is moving to 90 Hz for smoother scrolling. That should be a nice improvement based on my experience with the OnePlus 7 Pro and 7T.

It needs to nail facial recognition, since the Pixel 4 XL will not offer a fingerprint reader of any kind. This could be a huge mistake and is now an area of concern. So far, only Apple, with Face ID (and Microsoft, with Windows Hello on PCs), gets facial recognition right. I don’t ever trust this on Android, so we’ll see how they solve it. Assuming they do.

Most fundamentally, it needs to just work. The previous three Pixel generations all suffered from major reliability issues, with the exception, I believe of the Pixel 3a and 3a XL. Maybe this is an area where Google is finally making progress. But my previous experiences weigh heavily on the next phone. I will be hyper-sensitive to problems.

But I will preorder one, and immediately. If all goes well, I will trade-in my Pixel 3a XL for what I assume will be a nominal sum, given its as-new pricing, as I did similarly for my other phone purchases this year. (I traded in the Pixel 3 XL for the Note 10+, and I traded in the iPhone XR for the iPhone 11 Pro Max.) That will help me lessen my payment timeframe, and hopefully, I can pay the thing off by early 2020 and be done with that.

But I’m honestly not sure how I’ll handle it if the Pixel 4 XL doesn’t pan out. For all the money spent, for all the phones that come so damn close but don’t quite cut it for me, for all the years of shoddy Pixel quality, I’m still hoping, dreaming that this one may finally get it right. And I know that’s probably foolish and will lead to disappointment.

Here we go.