Google Pixel 7 review: cracking camera at a good price - The Guardian

Google appears to person triumphed again. The caller Pixel 7 offers the aforesaid the top-flight software, camera and astute AI systems that person made its phones winners, but astatine a knockdown terms that importantly undercuts rivals.

Costing £599 ($899/A$1,299) it sits successful betwixt the apical £849 Pixel 7 Pro and the fund £399 Pixel 6a, competing precise favourably connected terms and specs with rivals from Samsung, Apple and others that are typically successful the £700-800 range.

The caller telephone looks similar a smaller, simplified mentation of the Pixel 7 Pro. It has a flat, 6.3in OLED surface that’s agleam and bully looking. The surface is beauteous good. It has a 90Hz refresh complaint to support things flowing smoothly. But it doesn’t scope the heady highest of 120Hz oregon dynamically set to prevention artillery arsenic is communal connected Android rivals.

The Pixel 7 (left) is smaller and easier to clasp than the Pixel 7 Pro (right). Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

The Pixel 7 is shorter, narrower and lighter than its larger sibling and past year’s Pixel 6, which is simply a bully thing. It makes the Pixel 7 a bully equilibrium betwixt surface size and instrumentality size, akin to Apple’s iPhone 14.

The backmost of the telephone has Google’s camera barroom design, which blends into the brushed aluminium sides. It looks and feels much premium than past year’s model.

Inside, the Pixel 7 has the aforesaid Google Tensor G2 spot arsenic its larger sibling and performs similarly, with peculiarly accelerated AI systems specified arsenic substance to speech.

Battery beingness is akin to Google’s different phones lasting astir 35 hours betwixt charges with the surface actively utilized for 5 hours. That’s bully capable for a time of dense usage but down the competition, immoderate of which past astir 2 days.

The Pixel 7 takes astir 113 minutes to afloat charge, hitting 50% successful 35 minutes utilizing a 30W USB-C powerfulness adaptor (not included), which is not overly speedy compared with rivals. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

Specifications

• Screen: 6.3in 90Hz FHD+ OLED (416ppi)

• Processor: Google Tensor G2

• RAM: 8GB

• Storage: 128 oregon 256GB

• Operating system: Android 13

• Camera: 50MP + 12MP ultrawide, 10.8MP selfie

• Connectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 6E, UWB, NFC, Bluetooth 5.2 and GNSS

• Water resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)

• Dimensions: 155.6 x 73.2 x 8.7mm

• Weight: 197g

Sustainability

Google does not supply an expected lifespan for the artillery but it should past successful excess of 500 afloat complaint cycles with astatine slightest 80% of its archetypal capacity. The telephone is repairable by Google and third-party shops with genuine replacement parts disposable nonstop from iFixit. Out-of-warranty surface repairs by Google volition outgo akin to its predecessor astatine astir £140 and artillery replacements astir £100.

The Pixel 7 is made with 100% recycled aluminium, accounting for astir 19% of the telephone by weight. The institution publishes environmental interaction reports for immoderate of its products. Google volition recycle aged devices escaped of charge.

Android 13

New for this twelvemonth is camera-based look designation and a faster in-screen fingerprint sensor for unlocking the phone. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

The Pixel 7 runs the aforesaid mentation of Android 13 as the Pixel 7 Pro and Google’s different smartphones, with a fewer exclusive features including the quality to unblur faces and objects utilizing AI successful the Google Photos app.

Google volition supply at slightest 5 years of bundle and information updates including astatine slightest 3 large Android versions. Samsung supports galore of its phones for 5 years, portion Fairphone is aiming for six years and Apple supports its iPhone for up to 7 years.

Camera

The Google Camera app has respective utile tools for framing your photos, including an automatic level indicator and object-tracking auto-focus. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

The Pixel 7 has 2 cameras connected the back, including a 50-megapixel main and 12MP ultrawide, lacking the 5x telephoto of the Pixel 7 Pro.

The 12MP ultrawide camera produces bully images with precise small distortion, adjacent astir the edges. But its 0.7x magnification isn’t rather arsenic wide arsenic the 0.5x of the 7 Pro oregon rivals, truthful you won’t beryllium capable to acceptable rather arsenic overmuch in. It besides lacks the quality to enactment arsenic a macro camera arsenic connected the 7 Pro, which is nary large loss.

The main 50MP camera is the aforesaid arsenic the 7 Pro and is simply brilliant, capturing a tremendous magnitude of item crossed a wide scope of lighting conditions, producing images astatine 12.5MP. It tin besides “zoom” to 2x optical magnification, which works amazingly good matching what you’d typically get from a 2x optical zoom connected rivals. Digital zoom takes implicit from determination with tenable results astatine 4x but brushed connected item afterwards.

Google’s low-light nighttime show mode is faster and amended than ever, creating great-looking and mostly crisp images successful adjacent darkness. With the telephone connected a tripod oregon propped up you tin adjacent instrumentality stunning photos of the stars with a peculiar extended shot.

The selfie camera shoots fantabulous 10MP images successful a assortment of lighting conditions.Video seizure has been improved each circular astatine up to 4K astatine 60 frames a 2nd successful HDR, catching up to rivals.

Overall the Pixel 7 has a truly fantabulous camera for the money, lone truly missing an extended zoom.

Price

The Google Pixel 7 costs from £599 ($599/A$999) with 128GB of storage.

For comparison, the Pixel 7 Pro costs £849, the Pixel 6a costs £399, the Samsung Galaxy S22 costs £769 and the iPhone 14 costs £849.

Verdict

The Pixel 7 is simply a cracking top-end Android telephone astatine a large price.

It offers astir of what makes the Pixel 7 Pro 1 of the champion smartphones of the year, with a fewer corners chopped to beryllium nether £600 astatine a clip erstwhile exertion is getting much expensive, not less.

You get a good-looking, well-performing instrumentality with plentifulness of astute features and bully bundle with astatine slightest 5 years of support. You’ll conflict to find arsenic bully a camera for the price. The 6.3in surface is simply a bully size, if not the astir advanced, and the artillery beingness is coagulated if a spot abbreviated of the best.

With rivals costing northbound of £750, the Pixel 7’s biggest occupation is that Google’s different much affordable phone, the Pixel 6a, offers 70% of the show of the caller telephone for astir £400.

Pros: large camera, bully screen, bully performance, coagulated battery, look and fingerprint unlock, Android 13 with 5 years of information updates, thoroughly undercuts contention connected price.

Cons: constricted zoom, look unlock enactment not arsenic unafraid arsenic immoderate rivals, artillery beingness abbreviated of best-in-class, reasonably dilatory charging, nary large leap successful performance.

The camera barroom connected the Pixel 7 is brushed aluminium and stands retired from an mean smartphone. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian