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The Pixel 4 has gained a notorious reputation for being the most leaked smartphone ever. Despite this, Google has managed to keep at least a few of the new Pixel’s features under wraps. The phone was officially revealed on October 15th, at Google headquarters in New York. It was part of the Made by Google event, which is where Google annually reveals all the hardware products it has been working on over the past year.
Probably the biggest unleaked feature about the Pixel 4 is the new display. It’s a 5.7-inch (6.3-inch on the Pixel 4 XL) OLED panel, with a 2280×1080 (3040×1440 for the XL) resolution and, of course, a 90 Hz refresh rate for super-smooth scrolling. That means the display will refresh itself an incredible 90 times every single second. The increased refresh rate can drain the battery, so Google has made it automatically adjustable so it can be fast when you need it and slow when you don’t. The rest of the internals are pretty standard for 2019, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 and 6 GB of RAM as well as 64/128 GB of storage. However, Google has included what they call a Pixel Neural Core, for improved AI applications. The battery is quite small at just 2800mAh (3700 mAh in the XL), so battery life could be an issue.
The main selling point for all previous Pixels has always been the camera, and the Pixel 4 carries on the tradition. It now features 2 rear cameras, positioned in a square patch, instead of just one on previous models. One is a normal camera with 12 MP and the second one is surprisingly a 16 MP telephoto, instead of the more traditional ultrawide used in dual-camera setups. The camera quality appears to be superb. Pixel users will even be able to do ‘astrophotography’ and take stunning pictures of the night sky.
Additional features include a radar sensor, the first on a smartphone, which is used for hand gestures to control the phone. The Pixel comes in 3 colors, black, white and orange. The price starts at $799 for the Pixel 4 and $899 for the Pixel 4 XL.
