Moto G Power 5G (2024): A Great Budget Option

Introduction

The Google Pixel 8 is a great phone that offers a premium Android flagship experience and excellent bang for your money expenses. Google slightly redesigned the new Pixel, giving it a smaller display, rounded corners, a thinner bezel and a narrower profile with useful AI features. The Pixel 8 is the first Android smartphone guaranteed to receive software updates until late 2030.

It has a brighter display with a higher refresh rate. The new model still has a nearly bezel-free, 6.2″ OLED display with 1080×2400 [20:9 ratio] resolution, 91.1 cm2 (~85.5% screen-to-body ratio) and 428 ppi display density; with deep blacks and excellent contrast and it still has a reliable optical fingerprint scanner under the screen. But scrolling is smoother, and gaming is now faster on the Pixel 8’s screen with its variable refresh rate, which ranges from 60 Hz to 120 Hz, an improvement over the Pixel 7’s 90 Hz display. Google has also boosted the maximum outdoor brightness to up to 2,000 nits for an ideal brightness level in almost any situation. (A nit is the unit of measurement that describes the brightness of a screen—the higher the number of nits, the brighter the display.) The screen is slightly smaller, shrinking from 6.3 inches to 6.2 inches, but with the phone’s smaller bezel, flat screen, and narrower frame, the difference is barely noticeable. Glass Front (Gorilla Glass Victus), Glass Back (Gorilla Glass Victus), Aluminum Frame; Body Weight 187 g, Body Dimensions 150.5 x 70.8 x 8.9 mm (5.93 x 2.79 x 0.35 inches). It has IP68 Dust/Water Resistant (up to 1.5m for 30 min).

A new chip enables AI features that we really like. The Tensor G3 chipset (4 nm), CPU-Nona-core (1×3.0 GHz Cortex-X3 & 4×2.45 GHz Cortex-A715 & 4×2.15 GHz Cortex-A510), GPU-Immortalis-G715s MC10; these are powerful enough to handle gaming, image processing, speech recognition, multitasking, and Google Assistant features; coupled with 8GB of RAM. The phone did still get slightly warm to the touch when we were gaming or using apps like Zoom or Google Maps over an extended period of time.

But the new chip also powers a cool new feature called Audio Magic Eraser, which lives up to its name by cutting out unwanted noise in your videos, as long as they’re at least one second long and under two minutes. The processor scans the video and separates the audio by noise, wind, nature, or speech, after which the Pixel 8 gives you the option to reduce or remove audio as desired. However, if the video has an equal amount of background and foreground noise, the feature doesn’t work as well.

The Pixel lineup gives the best version of Android 14. Google’s latest OS offers more lock-screen customizations and monochromatic theme options; in addition, the Recorder app now supports switching through multiple languages, and the At A Glance widget adds travel updates and event tickets. The Call Screen feature, which monitors unknown calls for spam, now sounds more human and conversational instead of like a bot. The improved Clear Calling feature blocks out more background noise on your caller’s end to make phone conversations more clear. Google Assistant can now summarize content or read websites aloud to you on command. The Personal Safety app adds a Safety Check feature, which allows you to set a timer for your phone to confirm that you are safe when traveling, and it shares your location with your emergency contacts if you don’t respond.

Camera System

The latest Pixel lineup takes the best photos. The Pixel 8 keeps the Pixel 7’s 50-megapixel main camera, but it now captures more light and it has an upgraded 12-megapixel ultrawide camera too; Secondary/Front Camera is 10.5 MP; Camera Features – Dual-LED Flash, Pixel Shift, Panorama, Best Take, Ultra-HDR; video capacity is 4K@24/30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/120/240fps. The Pixel line’s cameras remain our favorite phone cameras in terms of color temperature, reliability, polish, and ease of use. Thanks to the main camera’s lower aperture, photos captured on the Pixel 8 are as colorful and sharp as ever. Night Sight continues to give Pixel phones the advantage in low-light photos with sharp and visible images, though the competition is slowly catching up. The new ultrawide camera adds autofocus, so the Pixel 8 can capture tack-sharp macro photos.

New photo features such as Best Take are especially useful. The Pixel 8 uses AI to take multiple photos and stitch together the best possible result. If someone blinks, looks away, or makes an inappropriate face or gesture, for example, the feature creates a composite, blending the faces from similar photos into one. For this feature to work, you need to take multiple photos with at least two people in your shot. We found that it works extremely well.

Google also introduced the Magic Editor feature, which lets you move subjects around an image or change the background. You can make the edits yourself in Google Photos, or the software can offer suggestions on how to improve the photo. In our tests, it worked well, but at times it could take up to several seconds to generate a set of results.

For individuals who are blind or have low vision, a photography feature called Guided Frame, which helps you frame your shots with your voice, has gained support for both the front and rear cameras and can now detect food and pets along with faces. A Magnifier app uses the camera to enhance small text or object details or to zoom in to make text and objects more visible. The photography features aren’t exclusive to the Pixel 8, however—other Android phones and older Pixel phones will get them too.

Connectivity and Battery Life

With 5G (SA/NSA/Sub6, Nano-SIM and eSIM) Cellular Technology; Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6e/7, tri-band, Wi-Fi Direct; USB Type-C 3.2; the battery life is still solid and the Pixel 8 charges faster. The Pixel 8 has a marginally larger 4,575 mAh; non-removable Li-Ion battery, a boost over the Pixel 7’s 4,355 mAh pack. The new battery supports the brighter and faster display yet still offers all-day battery life. The last year’s model, the Pixel 7 charges up to 50% in 30 minutes, but only when you use a 30 W charger. The Pixel 8 charges slightly faster than the Pixel 7, reaching charging speeds up to 27 W (wired, PD3.0, PPS, 50% in 30 min [advertised]); as opposed to the previous model’s 20 W speeds on a 30 W charging brick. It supports 18W Wireless and reverse wireless charging.

Drawbacks

It flaws but not dealbreakers for being more expensive. The Pixel lineup used to be affordable in comparison with Apple and Samsung flagship phones, but Google has hiked the prices of the Pixel 8 lineup, making these models $100 more than last year’s phones. The $700 Pixel 8 is now just $100 less than the base-model Apple iPhone 15 and Samsung Galaxy S24, so it’s no longer the steal it once was. On the other hand, its videos leave something to be desired. Though you’ll see good color reproduction; the results can often look grainy.

Conclusion