Pixel 2 2020: Aging gracefully

Many modern phones have price tags pointing toward 800+. Often we can find older flagships from 2017 to 2018 as a great value purchase. 

This is the case of Pixel 2.

Pixel 2 is an iconic phone widely known as the phone to spark the computational photography revolution. In 2020 it’s well beyond the better days of its life but it still has value as one the best budget phones money can buy. I have several reasons to believe this. I will get to them but first, let’s go over the basics.

The Basics

Let’s go over some basic specs and hardware design:

Processor: Snapdragon 835

Gigabytes of RAM: 4

Base storage: 64 Gigabytes (can bought with 128 GB)

The Pixel 2 is packing a Snapdragon 835, this processor is still powerful as performance is smooth and overall very good. This processor is interestingly slightly more powerful than the snapdragon 670 that’s found in the current Pixel 3a. You can find some benchmarks over at Geekbench or here. This processor difference is interesting as you can normally get the Pixel 2 for less than the Pixel 3a, this offers better performance for a better price. Having that processor boost really helps to get more value out of this phone.

The design is spotless and minimal. Pixel 2 comes in several colors, all with two tones, one for the main back and one for the glass top. They coated the main back in texture that helps make the phones easier to grip. This also hides the antenna lines. Next to the camera that has a flashlight right next to it, this can double as a flash you probably won’t be needing it because of the inclusion of night sight in a software update; more on that later.

    Screen 

*Now, I, unfortunately, don’t have the bigger Pixel 2 XL with me so I can’t report on the screen (if you want to find info about the screen on the Pixel 2 XL. So the screen part of this review will apply mostly to the smaller Pixel 2.*

The screen has been a controversial issue with this phone for a variety of reasons that mostly boil down to:

• Questionable color tuning on the Pixel 2 XL (this mostly does not apply to smaller Pixel 2)
• Bezels on both the smaller Pixel 2 and the XL

Software updates fixed the first point and considering the price on these phones the OLED panel on the Pixel 2 XL is still superb for the price. Now dealing with the bezels is a personal journey. I for one ignore the bezels on these phones. I mean if you're going to buy this phone you probably don’t really care about the bezels. People who will buy this phone is 2020 will mostly care about the overall experience. Most budget android phones deliver on price..and that’s about it; Pixel 2 offers a complete experience of the screen, build quality, software, and camera. Oh wait, did I tell you about this camera?

             

                  Camera and software

Budget Android phones are notorious for having horrendous cameras, this is not the case with the Pixel 2.

The camera technology that’s implemented in Pixel 2 is actually nice and continues to hold up in 2020; it gets the signature Pixel look. The Pixel neural core is where it gets interesting. It has activated new features such as Night Sight, this completely changes the landscape of value that you can get on this camera. The Night sight feature works good on still objects, but not of moving ones. As a consumer, you miss out on telephoto and ultra-wide lenses, but looking at the price you can get it at the cameras are better than I ever imagined I would get from a budget Android phone.  

Software is another strong point for this phone. It comes with next to no bloatware and the Pixel launcher. The Pixel launcher is one of the cleanest, most complete, launchers that helps the user see google’s vision for Android. It also comes with the latest Android 10 release, it also gets timely updates whereas your regular bargain Android phone seldom updates on time.  Battery life gets me through the day but I use my phone differently from most people.  It depends on what you do with your phone that will determine the battery life it gets, with the smaller Pixel 2 I've had to charge it at about 8.pm sometimes.  Bottom line: battery life is fine but if your truly worried about battery life get the Pixel 2 XL you'll be happier.  Haptic feedback on this phone is also great.

Summary

Overall, these phones can punch way above their pay grade considering you can usually find them at a bargain price. It packs the balance of specs, software, camera, and design. I, for one, am someone coming from a Moto G5+,this Pixel 2 is the most premium phone I’ve ever owned. Most budget phones sacrifice small things such as haptic feedback to achieve price points.  Being able to buy at the budget price point really makes it a unique phone in 2020.