Short review of Google Pixel 4 XL I bought a few days ago.
Things that I haven't seen most reviewers talking about.
It's 90Hz, but not really.
It switches to 60Hz via various triggers. Lowering brightness below 75% in a dark room will switch it to 60. Turning on the lights and scrolling can bring it back to 90. After some testing I can't say I know exactly how it works, but it's tied to screen brightness and the light sensor. Key takeaway: it's not 90Hz all the time.
But one thing for certain: 90Hz with low brightness will give you green tint on the screen. Google couldn't really perfectly calibrate the display for 90Hz, probably. Everything is a bit greener. That's alone enough reason to not use "Force 90Hz" that's available through Developer Options.
Comparison picture to illustrate the green tint problem (appears only with low screen brightness):
Conclusion: either you're okay with switching to 60Hz from time to time, or you're okay with a green tint from time to time. Trade offs either way.
Doesn't work in my country, but I played with it in Germany. It's basically flawless. Worked 95% of the time, and when it didn't, I knew it's my fault and I just barely moved my hand. It also works with variety of different types of swiping gestures. Flat hand? Only fingers movement? All worked like a charm. You just have to swipe above the screen and intent to swipe away the song. Like you'd wave at someone to move away. It was very natural and easy to use. My girlfriend had a very different style of swiping, mostly flat hand, palm facing the screen. Still worked all the time. Was fun while I was in Germany.
Conclusion: fun feature, much more polished than people are saying, sadly doesn't work in every country.
A lot of people are complaining for the lack of ultrawide, citing how useless the telephoto camera usually is.
I say, people just don't understand what Google has done. People assume telephoto is just a 2x. People assume Super Res Zoom is just for 8x. In reality Google made something much better, and it's the ability to choose anything between 1x and 8x while keeping much better detail than a crop would do.
Why is it important? Because composition is important, and cropping is important for a good photo. I had cheaper phones before, and I often wanted to crop the picture I've taken for better composition/crop/framing. I think you know what a phone picture looks like after you crop it. It looks like shit. Because the detail and resolution aren't there anymore.
Pixel 4 makes it possible to use basically any crop you'd like while retaining really good detail and quality. It makes framing and composition so much easier.
I've been in Germany for 2 days, using both Pixel 4 XL and LG G6+ with an ultrawide. I've had to reach for LG a few times, yes. Not every scene can be taken by Pixel. But I've used zoom on the Pixel a lot more than the ultrawide. Ultrawide is for special shots, while zooming can be used for almost any kind of shot to make it much better.
Oh, and you can use a panorama mode while holding your phone in portrait to essentially take an ultrawide picture. Try it.
Examples of using zoom for composition in my photos (I know I'm not a pro photographer):
I didn't edit the photos in any way, you're seeing them exactly how Pixel camera spit it out.
Conclusion: people underestimate the importance of Super Res Zoom and overestimate the ultrawide. But the phone would definitely be better with an ultrawide, we can just hope Google adds it for the Pixel 5.
Yes, you don't get unlimited storage in original quality. You get unlimited storage in high quality. And I dare you to guess which photo is the original one: https://puu.sh/Ey1BH/130bf5f0c9.jpg or https://puu.sh/Ey1C9/0ca9e5340f.jpg
These are two different photos. One copied from Pixel 4, one downloaded from Google Photos. One is 4.6Mb, one is 2.6Mb. I can't see the difference at all. I'm fine with unlimited high quality photos, and you should be too.
There's a ligitimate downside, though. Videos are downscaled to 1080p and RAW photos are converted to JPEG. If you care about backing these up, copy them to your PC or something, or use paid original quality backup.
Conclusion: for photos, high quality is basically the same as original. 4K videos and RAW pics will suffer, though.
Very good stereo sound through speakers. Pretty great battery life on the XL. Best Android ROM there is. Face unlock is actually fast and more convenient than a fingerprint for me. Most banking apps don't support it yet though. The phone itself is very fast, everything is smooth and snappy.