A Few Days with Google Pixel 4 XL

On September 30, 2020, Google announced this year’s new phone, the Pixel 5.

But a month before that event, I picked up Google’s previous-year flagship, a Pixel 4 XL 128GB.

There was a reason for that: the Pixel 5 is just that bad. Hole-punch screen, downgraded processor, squeeze sensor gone, IR gone, radar gone — by any measure it’s a piece of junk at the level of a thousand-yuan phone, the kind that competes with Xiaomi’s Redmi over here.

Google’s explanation is that this time they used a bigger battery and a 5G-capable chip, so the overall experience hasn’t been downgraded.

Oh my god, don’t you know Redmi has supported 5G for ages? Big battery, you say? Hell, which domestic thousand-yuan phone has a smaller battery than yours?

Google proudly announced a price of $699.

Bear in mind that buying a domestic phone (one that can be bootloader-unlocked) only costs me around 2000 RMB.

Only an idiot would buy your Pixel 5. It’s not a flagship at all.

The real flagship is naturally last year’s Pixel 4 XL, and this phone got slammed left and right. A while back all sorts of engineering prototypes were being sold off, and prices straight-up collapsed. Of course I wasn’t going to buy an engineering prototype. I camped out on eBay for a few weeks and finally got a Pixel 4 XL 128GB in black advertised as 90% new for 3500.

I really wanted white, but at this price only black was available. For a “past-its-prime flagship” I didn’t want to spend much anyway — and the bigger reason is I’m just too poor.

After it arrived I checked it over and confirmed it was indeed a V-version unlocked unit. Battery capacity looked good, and the exterior condition looked fine too. Apart from a bit of glue on one side — either the battery was replaced, or a bump pushed a little of the rubber shell in — I was basically satisfied.

It came with a screen protector already on, so no scratches were visible. But I bought my own protector, peeled the old one off, and sure enough there were plenty of fine scratches underneath. A screen with scratches like that really can’t be called 90% new.

I feel I was lied to about the condition, but thinking about the price, I guess I’ll accept it. Replacing the screen myself isn’t expensive anyway. After using it for a while I’ll swap the screen and battery together, and maybe even change the back panel to turn it into an orange one.

Once it arrived I flashed it and started using it. Honestly it’s not much different from using the Pixel 3 XL — it just has a big forehead instead of a tooth-notch. I’ve been using it for over two months now, so I’ll write down my experience and impressions. Reviews of this phone are everywhere online; go read those for everything else.

The main reason many people praise the Pixel 4 XL is that it doesn’t have a “notch.” But to me this generation’s design feels kind of irresponsible.

Yes, the Pixel 4 XL has no notch and no hole-punch, but it has a huge forehead. That forehead is enormous. And although many people think a “forehead” is better than a “notch” plus a “big chin,” flip the phone upside down and you’ll see the bezels didn’t actually get any narrower. The old chin became the notch. The old notch design could fill the screen at the top; now the bottom can’t be narrowed either, so screen-to-body ratio actually went down.

On top of that, the Pixel 4 XL got longer, heavier, and bigger. It feels like a total loss.

Many say the big forehead is because of the IR face recognition and the Soli radar, but the iPhone does something similar and it’s only a “notch” — it still uses the space on both sides to show signal and battery, so not much screen space is wasted. The Pixel 4 XL’s big forehead goes all the way: it just gives up that whole strip. I think if the Pixel 4 XL had narrowed the sides of that forehead a bit to make a “notch,” the whole phone would be better. Ignore the people who trash notches — compared to this big forehead, I’d rather have a notch and more screen-to-body ratio.

Lots of people online complain that the Pixel 4 XL has terrible battery life, that the Soli radar is useless, that the camera is mediocre, and so on…

I haven’t felt much of that, honestly. Battery life is OK, more or less the same as the Pixel 3 XL. The Soli radar’s gesture controls are useless, but waving a hand to check the time, or the alarm automatically lowering the volume in the morning, are genuinely handy. As for the camera being mediocre, I don’t know what to say. Sure, there’s no ultrawide… but ultrawide isn’t a must for me, so whatever.

The two big reasons I switched to the Pixel 4 XL were that the old Pixel 3 XL had too little RAM, and it had no face recognition — just a big fingerprint sensor on the back, which made it feel like there was a gap on the back once I put a case on, and it looked ugly. I also prefer face recognition. This year is really awkward though, with masks everywhere making face unlock hard; most of the time I’m still using pattern unlock. But when I’m not wearing a mask, face unlock is fast — at least faster than the iPhone 12, I feel.

As for the RAM, I haven’t noticed 6GB being that much better. WeChat doesn’t reload any less… it’s better than nothing, I guess.

All in all I’m fairly satisfied with this upgrade. At least I got 6GB of RAM and face unlock, plus… a back camera module that looks more premium.