Google’s embargo on reviews for the Pixel 4 smartphone line-up lifted on Monday night (Oct 21), and with it arrived a deluge of written and filmed evaluations about the tech giant’s latest and greatest. 

The general sentiment seems to be that the device is still one of the best ways to enjoy a true, clean Android experience — but Google still has some ways to go when it comes to hardware. In other words, the standard verdict every single time a Pixel phone comes out. 

Me, I’m still in the midst of using it. My judgement will only go out after a little more than a week using a Pixel 4 XL as a daily driver, so the full review will be published a bit later on. 

But that’s just me. In an office evenly split between iOS and Android users, what do my AsiaOne colleagues think of the Pixel 4? Here're their first impressions, ahead of the phone's launch on Oct 24. 

On Google Assistant (Harrison Tan, Video Production intern) 

"As someone who has never used Google Assistant before, I think it's very convenient and it's something to keep you company when you're feeling bored. It's useful to have it on your phone too when you want to find places to eat or just play games on the go."

On the Recorder app (Thiam Peng Tan, Lead Content Strategist)

"Most impressive! Other automatic transcribers I've used before tend to only understand American accents. I used those online services where you just throw your audio clips in — once a Singaporean speaks, the transcription goes crazy. I've transcribed clips of myself talking to someone with an American accent, and most times it'll get all my spoken parts wrong. I'm clearly not speaking in the Queen's English but the words this is capturing are quite good. Quite accurate, I must say."

On the Pokemon Wave Hello demo game (Loo Le En, Digital Video Producer) 

"If you're a Pokemon fan, you have to try this out. It's so cute! Oh, I think the motion sensor thing's pretty ingenious but I think I'd rather tap the screen though."

On the Motion Sense gestures (JayJay Lin, Social Media Manager)

(After failing several times to change tracks on Spotify using Motion Sense) "It kinda feels like it's not market-ready yet. It's an interesting feature for fun, but why not just use 'Ok, Google'? In the future, I guess there'll be more applications for it, but right now I don't feel like it's in a really usable stage yet. It's nothing new. I remember a few other brands tried to do the same thing before."

On the Camera (Rainer Cheung, Editorial Assistant)

"The quality is super nice but the functions are quite limited. I mean, I generally use Android phones and I'm quite used to having manual functions when it comes to the camera — but that just might be because I'm used to manual functions on a DSLR. I'm not a fan of fully automated cameras but it's ideal for people who are looking to get that instant depth of field."

On Portrait mode + Selfie (Melissa Goh, Lifestyle Content Strategist)

"I think the Portrait Mode's not bad — quite clear, quite sharp. Even the bokeh effect didn't distort the objects. Usability-wise, it's quite decent, I just need to point and shoot. It was a bit weird when I did selfie portraits because it chopped off my hair and it looked a bit spiky. Of course, it's way better than my current iPhone 8 plus."

ilyas@asiaone.com

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