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 n...