If all Google wanted to do was to create something far better than iPhone 7, they’ve already achieved that goal with the Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL. What remains now is for more and more consumers to realize that the undoubtedly iconic iPhone 7 is not the be all and end all of smartphones. But before all you Apple-lovers start to jump on my case, let me explain.
I love Apple. My work laptop is a MacBook Pro and it’s far better than the crappy but long-lived HP I had before this one, I’ve used nearly every iPhone since the really great iPhone 3GS came out back in the day and I’m a big fan of Apple’s design philosophy. But ever since I saw the Google Pixel…scratch that…ever since I started using a Google Pixel, my views have threatened to do a 180 on me.
The first thing that caught my eye was not the design of the phone. From that perspective I think Apple nailed it even with the iPhone 6 and 6S. What really struck me first was the brightness, clarity and sharpness of the AMOLED screen on the Pixel. Apple, as you know, went with LCD technology on iPhone 7 as well as previous models, and it’s only on iPhone 8 (what everyone is calling the 2017 iPhone for lack of a better name) that we’ll hopefully see OLED.
The second thing I noticed was the speed of the phone, and it’s not just because of the Snapdragon 821 processor from Qualcomm either. I know the A10 Fusion on the iPhone is pretty speedy, but I can’t help feeling that the Google Pixel has an ever-so-slight edge over the iPhone 7 in that regard. That might be barely perceptible to some, but it makes a huge difference for me, though, because I’m a pretty fast tapper – and impatient to boot.
The big difference here is that I have full control over animation, a feature Google first brought to Android 5.0 Lollipop. Not so with iOS, as you obviously know. Apple is very zealous about its animation. In fact, Apple tells its developers – “Throughout iOS, people—not apps—are in control”, but fails to tell us that it is iOS – not the user – that’s really in control.
The third trump card held by Google Pixel is, of course, Android 7.1 Nougat. Apple fans will argue that iOS is far more polished and advanced than Android, and there are features in each of them that support both sides of the argument. But the Nougat is truly different even though it leans heavily on Marshmallow capabilities. That’s the reason they’ve reserved it for themselves rather than their OEMs.
And the clincher – the fourth and biggest ace up Google Pixel’s sleeve – is unlimited photo and video storage. Seriously, they had me at “unlimited”! With my kind of collection – about 22,000 images and nearly 600 video clips, movies and other video content – no phone could ever satisfy my hunger for storage space. Finally, I found the one phone that gave me as much free cloud storage as I could handle.
Of course, I will be the first to acknowledge that choosing a smartphone is a personal decision, and not even unlimited storage can swing everyone. But dollar for dollar, pixel for pixel and gram for gram, the Google Pixel is undoubtedly more advanced than iPhone 7.
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