Google Pixel 8 Pro Review

Google’s Pixel 8 Pro is a solid flagship phone that delivers on its promises. Its camera is a joy, with accurate exposures and colors that strike just the right balance between vibrant and natural.

Its design is a refinement of the previous generation with a horizontal camera strip on the back that makes it clear this isn’t a Galaxy or iPhone.

Camera

As the name suggests, Pixel 8 Pro is a high-end phone that offers top-of-the-line photography features. It boasts a powerful processor, an all-day battery, and the best Pixel camera yet.

During our lab tests, it produced images with impressive skin-tone accuracy and fine detail in bright light. Its main and ultra-wide cameras also delivered very good image quality, while its 5x zoom performed well too.

Pixel 8 Pro’s bokeh mode generated images with strong blur and good subject separation, but it suffered from subject segmentation artifacts on fine details such as hair. That resulted in a slightly unnatural rendering of the scene.

Pixel 8 Pro also scored top marks in our low-light photo ranking, with accurate exposure and good noise control. Its performance in this category was only surpassed by the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Huawei P60 Pro.

Display

The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are the latest premium phones to join Google’s Pixel family. These Android smartphones look similar to their predecessors, but they offer several upgrades including a brighter display and more camera modes. They’re also the best options for those who want a fast and reliable smartphone.

The main difference between the Pixel 8 and the Pixel 8 Pro is the latter’s 6.7-inch Super Actua display. It’s capable of displaying HDR content and has a maximum brightness of 1600 nits with a peak of 2400 nits. It also offers a 120Hz refresh rate and excellent color reproduction, with an average Delta-E accuracy of 0.23.

But the most important upgrade is Google’s promise of seven years of security updates and Android software upgrades for this phone. It’s a commitment that rivals Apple’s support for iPhones. It’s not a reason to buy the Pixel 8 Pro over the Pixel 8, but it does give this phone a significant advantage when compared to other smartphones. And it helps make this the best value in premium phones today.

Performance

The Pixel 8 Pro’s camera focuses quickly and accurately. It delivers high-quality image results, a good dynamic range and natural color rendering in our test scenes. However, it falls short of the best competitors when recording backlit scenes, causing noticeable stepping and less-than-smooth exposure transitions.

The 6.7-inch OLED display offers vibrant and punchy colors, a crisp 120Hz refresh rate, and super-deep blacks. This screen is also one of the few to feature Google’s new “Super Actua” technology, which makes the screen more comfortable by reducing error and glare when using it in direct sunlight.

The Pixel 8 Pro’s powerful processor and ample storage deliver solid performance. It easily runs demanding apps and games, and handles multiple streaming services with no problem. All-day battery life is impressive, too.

Design

Like its predecessors, the Pixel 8 Pro carries Google’s design language well. The signature camera strip at the back makes it clear that this isn’t a Samsung or an iPhone. The 3.5mm headphone port and USB-C port remain in the same place as last year, while the power button now sits on top of the volume rocker. This might require some getting used to if you’re switching from a different phone, but it’s easy enough once you figure out the ergonomics.

Another year-over-year refinement is the inclusion of a black oval around the cameras. This helps tame the light flare and improves the look of photos. Google’s also been busy adding new features to its software, including a handy photo editing app called Best Take and the ability to select which photos an app can access (rather than the previous all-or-nothing approach). These improvements come in addition to Android 14’s solid performance and the Pixel 8 Pro’s promise of seven years of major operating system upgrades, security updates, and Pixel feature drops – something no other Android phone has ever offered before.

The Pixel series has never been about just making a great phone, it’s always been about providing a unique smartphone experience and this year the company really leaned into AI to make the Pixel 8 Pro stand out. First and foremost, the camera is solid with impressive skin-tone accuracy in low light, good fine detail, and a good eye for keeping things in focus.

The cameras are backed by a new Tensor G3 chip designed to run Google’s on-device machine learning algorithms, including the text-to-speech models used by the company in its data centers. That translates to very fast and accurate photo processing with minimal delay between when you press the shutter button and when the image appears in your camera app.

But the AI doesn’t stop with the cameras, the device is loaded with features like Magic Editor (which uses generative AI to remove objects in photos), Audio Eraser, which eliminates wind noise from recorded audio, and the ability to automatically summarize and transcribe voice recordings. Combine all that with a bright display that can deliver stunning HDR content and 7 years of software updates and the Pixel 8 Pro has a lot going for it.