There have been a lot of Android phones made by a lot of manufacturers but never one made by Google until now this is the pixel and I’m just gonna say it right at the top it is the best Android phone that has ever been made okay but what does it mean that Google is making a phone now well it means that we finally get to see what Google wants when it makes some hardware and what does Google want it wants to make a phone that’s really simple and approachable every phone these days is made of just metal and glass but Google’s take is really simple in utilitarian it comes in two sizes five inches and 5.5 inches and they feel pretty good to use even though they’re a little bit thicker than you might expect there’s also this glass shade on the back which I don’t know is there for maybe antenna reception and to help you know which way is up it’s fine there’s also a fingerprint sensor on the back which is where I prefer a fingerprint sensor to be it’s way more comfortable to use except when it’s sitting on a table now there’s only one speaker but it’s really loud it’s here on the bottom and also on the bottom of course you’ll find a USBC jack and of course there’s a headphone jack on the top overall the pixel just doesn’t feel techy like a Samsung phone it just feels like a smart phone and it feels a lot like that smart phone the iPhone like I said Google wants the pixel to feel familiar inside it’s powerful Google really wanted this thing to be a top-tier phone so there’s a fast Snapdragon 820 one processor four gigs of ram and two storage options 32 or 128 gigs and I love the screens they’re OLED which means they have really good color and super deep blacks they look stupid endows and the pixels are faster and way more responsive than any Android phone I’ve ever used I also really like that the small one is just as powerful as the big one now because Google can control both the hardware and the software it can optimize a bunch of stuff like battery life the battery life is stupendous I’m getting about two hours more on the pixel than I ever got on an iPhone or a nexus phone but you pay for all that power and design it starts at for the small one and it goes all the way up to 869 for the pixel XL with 128 gigs but my main takeaway for this is that it is a top-tier phone but it’s not like some precious piece of jewelry it’s a phone and you’re meant to use it so Google made it feel normal really my only problem with the hardware is that it’s not waterproof the other super important reason that Google had for wanting to make its own phone was being able to fully control the integration between the hardware and the software and there’s no more important piece of software on this phone than the Google assistant the idea is simple like Siri on the iPhone you hold your finger down on the home button and you start talking and it looks like a chat interface because Google wants it to be a conversation you can ask it all the usual stuff whether you can set text you can make appointments and so on but it’s smarter about follow-up questions it remembers what you’re talking about when do the Vikings play next the Minnesota Vikings will play the Philadelphia Eagles on October 23rd at p.m. who is their quarterback Teddy Bridgewater Sam Bradford and others are quarterbacks for the Minnesota Vikings it even knows what you have on the screen who’s the cast for this TV show the cast of ultra catch fire includes Lee pace Lincoln show me pictures of him check out these pictures of Lee face it can open some apps like Spotify an open table but it doesn’t work with a lot yet that’s not coming until later this year and like all assistants this assistant sometimes is kind of dumb when is the next presidential debate the third presidential debate is on Wednesday October night put that on my calendar when is the event when you just told me sorry what’s the day and time you’re not very smart are you the assistant still has a ways to go but it’s probably the best that’s out there right now that just doesn’t mean that it’s amazing there are some other custom software bits to talk about the launcher is new it’s got round icons and you swipe up to see your apps like this you can also long press on icons for shortcuts like this and it comes with 24/7 phone or chat support including screen sharing if you need extra help but the clearest example of software integration is actually in the camera google says that this is the best camera ever put in a smartphone and it’s really good but I’m about the best there is a lot of Technology in here though it’s a 12 megapixel shooter on the back and the pixels are really big for good low-light images and there’s also phased detect automatically so one thing it doesn’t have is optical image stabilization which for people like me with really shaky hands is kind of a bummer but the proof is in the pictures and I got to say I’m pretty impressed first of all this camera is really really fast it shoots an HDR auto mode by default and usually that slows a camera down on Android but here it’s fine and the pictures that come out are pretty good they’re ready to post they’re not quite as true to life as the iPhone 7 but you know what maybe that’s okay at this point it’s more about your photographic preferences than it is about any one camera being the best this camera is in the same ballpark as the galaxy s7 and the iPhone 7 and that’s really impressive oh and one more thing the video camera has electronic stabilization because it’s tied to the gyroscope so if I’m shooting a video and kind of shaking the end-result still is pretty stable but maybe the best part is that everything that you shoot on the pixel gets stored in the cloud for free at full resolution forever ok so this is what it means that Google is finally making its first ever phone good hardware a pretty smart assistant and a really good camera it means that this is the best Android phone that you can buy period but what it really means is that Google is getting in the ring they’re ready to fight hell this thing is going to be sold in Verizon stores and they’re going to market the hell out of it we’ve never seen Google take on Apple this directly before and they’re going toe to toe Google will tell you that this is going to be a really long fight and it’s only the first round and they’re right there’s no knockout punch here but not on either side the pixel goes head-to-head with the iPhone and doesn’t fall down and for a first try that’s really exciting now Google it uh look you now because given you