Welcome to another entry of the First 48. You may have seen a few of these around the site here and there, but now it will become a little more official. The First 48 is a quick mini review of devices prior to their more fully reviews later on. As to truly decide if we like a product we may need a little more time, but usually within that first 48 hours we can tell you if we like it and a few reasons why. For this entry, I’ll be talking about the new Google Pixel 2 XL. I don’t review a lot of phones, I typically leave that to the rest of the staff. But when it comes to Google, I like to get very hands on. Some of my last were the Nexus 5X, 6P, the first Pixel XL and now I’m ready to talk about the Pixel 2 XL. So let’s get straight to it.
First Glance
I really must say, I really enjoy the look of the new Pixel 2 XL! Like many phones now a days, the front is all screen. The Front screen is larger than the Pixel XL and this time around on the corners it is a curved taper off instead of a hard square edge. There are still bezels but this time they are thinner than the Pixel XL. The bezel their however do come with the counter balance of at least bringing back dual front facing speakers at the top and bottom. Along the sides the thinner bezel comes just close to edge to edge screen. It won’t match the Samsung Galaxy S8 but it is definitely enough to be appealing!
On the back it looks very much like the Pixel XL, but this time around the back glass area is smaller than the previous one. I have the Just Black color and it is a much deeper black than the Quite Black of the Pixel XL. All in all, the Pixel 2 XL is a good-looking phone with a great screen (yes all these complains of the screen being bad is a little over the top!)
Two Days as My Primary
When I really truly want to review a phone, there is no way for me to do that but to make it my primary phone. But using a phone as my primary is sometimes a lengthy process as I do so much with my devices. From running a site like G Style Magazine, to family items, and others areas that I don’t make switching phones a regular occurrence. This is why I tend to limit my phone reviewing. However I like to say that the process of switching from Android phone to Android phone has gotten so much better, especially from Pixel XL to Pixel 2 XL! Connected both ends of the phones together, inputted a few items and the copy process was buttery smooth! Right down to placing every icon I had on my screen in the same location as the former phone. This right here was amazing!
After that was done, using the Pixel 2 XL has been amazing! I’m getting amazing battery life from the device, lasting me a whole day (and I have a very early start to my day) and the experience has been exceptional. The screen is great. I know there has been a lot recently said about the screen display not being good and I disagree. It is just different from what many are probably used to. Instead of the display looking like how it is when you walk in Best Buy and all the TVs are turned up to their max setting to make it colors look vibrant and appealing; Google has decide to flatten the colors out some and went with color accuracy. I honestly think it looks very good. It does a day or two to get use to, but after that this is a non-issue. Here is a comparison from the Pixel XL to the Pixel 2 XL below
Some of the features I’m really enjoying is the front facing speakers, I loved those. I’m not sure why anyone would introduce that and then take it away. Glad to have it again. And the squeeze to launch Google Assistant is interesting. I’ve use it a couple of times but we’ll see how I feel about it after I’ve spent more time with the phone. And finally the camera. I’ve taken a few pictures (will show those in the full review), and so far I’m impressed. I’m not a big picture taker, but the ones I have taken especially with that portrait mode have looked really good!
Definitely stay tuned for the full review for more and we’ll see if any of my opinions end up changed by then!
