The Google Pixel 8 is the smaller of their two newest Pixel phones. I was shocked at how small this phone really is. While it has a screen size of 6.2 inches (measured diagonally), the physical size of the phone is actually quite small visually, and when you hold it. It’s narrower than some others on the market at under 3 inches wide. Right off the bat, I’ll say if you have large hands or prefer larger screens, this won’t be for you (check the Pixel 8 PRO for a larger screen). If you ARE a fan of smaller phones, you may well like this one compared to others. The 1080p screen does have some advancements over previous models, though – such as being much brighter if needed for outdoors use, a variable 60-120hz refresh rate for smoother scrolling, and it’s OLED ... MoreThe Google Pixel 8 is the smaller of their two newest Pixel phones. I was shocked at how small this phone really is. While it has a screen size of 6.2 inches (measured diagonally), the physical size of the phone is actually quite small visually, and when you hold it. It’s narrower than some others on the market at under 3 inches wide. Right off the bat, I’ll say if you have large hands or prefer larger screens, this won’t be for you (check the Pixel 8 PRO for a larger screen). If you ARE a fan of smaller phones, you may well like this one compared to others. The 1080p screen does have some advancements over previous models, though – such as being much brighter if needed for outdoors use, a variable 60-120hz refresh rate for smoother scrolling, and it’s OLED technology which makes colors and blacks stand out. Other than the narrowness which makes it so small (to me), I like the screen. The body of mine, is a glossy black (Obsidian Black) which does hold on to fingerprints, but I figure most of us will be using a case so that isn’t an issue – it is a little slippery, so yes, I would say a case and screen protector is suggested.The Pixel 8’s overall specs are bumped up with 8 gigs of RAM and their new “Tensor G3” chip, which is faster and supposedly cooler running than their last G2 chip. Mine has 128 gigs of built-in storage, and you can also get one with 256 gigs of storage. Choose carefully as to what your needs are, as there is NOT a microSD card slot, so you cannot add additional storage as you can some other Android phones. Android 14 comes installed with the phone, but you should run any new updates to the operation system as soon as you get set up. Be warned, even though the update may not be huge in file size, it did take an awkward amount of time to install. Updating your pre-installed apps as well will make sure every current fix and changes are installed before you start using your phone. Things seem speedy so far, and I haven’t experienced any processor hiccups or stall-outs, though there’s some heat involved when you do your initial setup (expected) or when using the phone continuously (not quite so expected as it happens even with simple apps or tasks like phone calls). I briefly had a Pixel 7 a while back, and the 8 doesn’t heat up quite as much as the 7 did, but, it does get moderately warm fairly quickly under certain conditions – more than some other phones I’ve used, less than others.An under-the-screen fingerprint sensor works fine. I’ve seen faster but also much slower. It’s convenient once you get it set up. The front selfie camera can also be used to unlock the phone via facial recognition and you can also choose to use a password. Going from standby to opening is speedy enough and I’ve only had the fingerprint sensor ask me to redo it once. It’s an improvement over past attempts but still not quite perfect.Battery life so far is what I’d call average. Charging speed will depend a on the charging cube (you have to provide this) that you use with the included USB-C cable. While using the phone for a variety of tasks, I haven’t noticed any weirdness from the battery, however, trying out a long phone call at an hour and 15 minutes, the battery drained 21% during that one call. I would call this, “not great”, to be honest. I had transferred my Google Fi phone service (which uses T-Mobile towers and WiFi) to the Pixel 8. On my older phone (Pixel 5a) I would as a guess, drop about 10-12% of my battery on such a long call, and this was roughly twice as much on the Pixel 8. On some social media apps it handles battery life ok, and others that are more battery draining, you do notice it dropping pretty quickly while in use. I have also noticed the battery dropping some while just sitting in standby mode over a few hours even with unnecessary background processes disabled, and even when in airplane mode. So far, I would again rate battery life on the 8 as average at best, again having seen worse on other phones, but also much better.The microphone and speakers are also another average. After multiple calls so far, every person I’ve talked to has said I sound a bit “muffled” on speakerphone. They say I’m loud enough, but it just seems like there’s too much bass and not enough treble in the voice on their end. Likewise, their voices on the speaker are loud enough and still clear overall, but do sound a little muffled as well. When holding the phone to my ear, voices are more muffled, though the sound is definitely loud enough. Antenna strength seems fine – I haven’t dropped any calls, though there have been a few garbled moments during some; this could be the antennas, or the Google Fi service as it’s hard to say. I haven’t seen the WiFi drop when using apps around the house and yard, but have seen Fi switch between WiFi and 5G when on a call.Built-in Pixel features include the ability to screen calls, where the phone answers calls for you and posts what the other person is saying on the screen in real time, allowing you to answer the call or not, with adjustable levels of intervention. There’s a live translate mode so you can have basic conversations with someone who speaks another language, allow the Pixel to hold for you on hold calls and tells you when someone picks up, voice typing, and more. These ARE very convenient features though you need to do some looking up on how to use them all… they are numerous.Of course, the main reason people aim for a Pixel phone is their cameras being so good. The Pixel 8 is no different. The updated 50 megapixel main camera and 12 megapixel wide cameras are overall, excellent, and take clear, bright, photos – probably among the best or the best on a phone out there. They’ve been updated to handle lower light situations better (not a huge improvement over past models, but still overall excellent). There are a few artifact bugs in certain textures (leaves, etc) when zoomed in, but hopefully this will be cleared up in software updates. A 10.5 megapixel selfie camera on the front is good overall. The number of new AI-ish processing features built in to the phone now is amazing. Macro (closeup) is better. Tones and skin tones are better. And now you can take a series of pics of a person or group, and choose which faces aren’t blinking or looking away and replace those faces of each person onto one shot – it actually works, called Best Take. The person I tested it on didn’t want a pic of them online, but I did test this out several times and it replaced a previous shot’s face with a newer one and you can’t tell. Neat! Magic Editor allows you to remove an object from a photo, or “move/slide” an object over. These are not perfect and you may have to redo it once or twice to get it perfect, but they do work very well overall and help with goofs or to rearrange a photo without having to retake it; you also have to be using Google Photos to back up your pics before the phone will allow you to use these features (awkward). Video can be taken up to 4K, 60 frames per second – It’s good, but not perfect, as I do notice a few times when a frame can skip. A new feature called Audio Magic Eraser will allow you to reduce or in some cases remove background noises from video, focusing on what you’re aiming it. You can zoom in from wide to around 8 times on the Pixel 8 and the photos still look very good. Beyond that and you see digital zoom artifacts start to creep in the more you go.So, overall, I have mixed feelings about the Pixel 8. I’m giving this 3 stars, and say it’s above average, but not stellar. On the plus side, I of course love the camera and it’s overall great photos, as well as the new post-processing tricks they’ve added. I like Google’s promise of giving 7 years of operating system and security updates for the 8 and 8 Pro. I also like the call screening, translate, and other phone features Pixel phones have, including the improvements to them in the Pixel 8. If these and an excellent camera are your goals, I say without hesitation to get this phone. However, I’m disappointed a bit with the battery life, microphone and speaker quality on calls, how the phone gets quite warm when doing some basic tasks long enough (random), and how small the phone feels due to how narrow the body is. The placement of the volume keys is awkward sitting right where your thumb sits if you’re right-handed, and, while the cameras are overall great, there’s a few glitches in their processing. If you love small phones (by today’s standards), and can handle the Pixel 8’s quirks, you’ll love this one, if not, aim for the Pixel 8 Pro with it’s larger screen and larger battery. So I’d say I recommend this phone for some, and with reservations for others.

We needed a smaller replacement phone and decided to grab the new Pixel 8 that just came out.Unboxing and setting up;The phone comes in a Pixel logoed box, nicely cradled inside and along with a USB C power cord, USB A to C converter, sim extractor and pamphlet. Power adapters not being included is pretty much the norm, but you can use your old one or buy one during purchase.The phone itself is compact compared to either the Flip4 or the S23 Ultra we already have, and it’s much easier to hold onto compared to the Ultra “major winner there”. So, size and portability, if that’s important to you then this is about the sweet spot for a phone size. The build is nice and solid, with the back and front being covered with Gorilla Glass Victus “I still put a screen ... MoreWe needed a smaller replacement phone and decided to grab the new Pixel 8 that just came out.Unboxing and setting up;The phone comes in a Pixel logoed box, nicely cradled inside and along with a USB C power cord, USB A to C converter, sim extractor and pamphlet. Power adapters not being included is pretty much the norm, but you can use your old one or buy one during purchase.The phone itself is compact compared to either the Flip4 or the S23 Ultra we already have, and it’s much easier to hold onto compared to the Ultra “major winner there”. So, size and portability, if that’s important to you then this is about the sweet spot for a phone size. The build is nice and solid, with the back and front being covered with Gorilla Glass Victus “I still put a screen protector and case on”. The back is gloss black on this one, looks really classy but does fingerprint up a lot, then again I put my phones in a case on day one.Setting up is simple and if you have another Android phone transferring/copying everything over is super simple and either done by cable “Phone to Phone” or over Wi-Fi while connected to the same network. We use T-Mobile as our wireless carrier as I’ve found them to have the best coverage “and price” for our area. Other than that, and charging. Setting up is simple, I didn’t use face unlock but do set up the fingerprint reader which is accurate most of the time and is backlit so you can see it light up the tip of your finger when reading.Using:With 128gb on this model that’s plenty of storage room for me, even having around 500 mp3s on it didn’t make that big of a difference. I also download offline maps from Google Maps, so I don’t have to be connected to my carrier to have the maps updated, and I still have plenty of room for a lot more music and pictures/videos. I really don’t play games on phones so I won’t be benchmarking the gaming performance.I had no issues with signal strength at all and tested speeds against the S23 Ultra in many locations, and every test was close enough to not really matter, both are fast and almost exact in speeds on 5G.The cameras are pretty impressive, the S23U still “in my opinion takes better pictures but that phone is almost double the price so that’s not a fair comparison. Next to the Flip4, the Pixel 8 takes much better pictures. I tried out the night shot and that worked out really well. There’s a spot I go by during my evening neighborhood walks that is a large very dark unlit corner of the community. It’s so dark you can barely make out the large tree at night which is about 75’ away. The night shot picture of that corner easily shows the tree “amazing” and a lot of detail of the gravel drainage area around it. You can even see a few of my shadows being cast from the porch lights of the houses across the street “pretty amazing”.I also tried out the new Unblur function as I had taken a picture of a large Colorado River Toad that happen to be in the path. I was disappointed that it came out a little blurry “enough to where I didn’t want to share the picture. After using the unblur function in the photo editor it completely took away the blur and made the picture perfectly clear, “simply amazing it could do that”.Conclusion:The new Pixel 8 is a typical Pixel phone, it’s well built, plenty fast with Googles new processor, and just the right size for anyone looking for a more compact phone that’s not “too” small. The screen is very bright and easy to read in sunlight with very accurate colors from what we could tell. The cameras are a nice surprise and the unblurring function works better than I thought it would. The GPS accuracy really surprised me, it was averaging 5’ in accuracy compared to 12’ of the S23U, it didn’t see more satellites the S23U did, but it used more for its triangulation calculations apparently.The battery life was spectacular “for what we used it for”, a few calls, mapping, texts and mainly taking photos and the battery lasted 3 days without turning it off at all, Impressive. I used my multifunction charging station and it was pulling 12w from it, so not too bad for wireless charging, leaving it on there overnight will easily give it a full charge by morning.In all, if you are looking for a quality phone that is in a lower price bracket that doesn’t break the bank then the new Pixel 8 is one to take a good look at.

I'm reviewing the Pixel 8 as a previous Pixel 7 owner. First thing first, the Pixel 8(6.2 inch screen) is actually 0.1 inch smaller than the Pixel 7. For me this is a good thing as I want a smaller phone, which is why I have a Pixel 8 and not a Pixel 8 Pro. On the plus side, the refresh rate is now 120hz versus the 90hz on the Pixel 7. So scrolling and touch operations feel slightly smoother. Other than that you have the expected processor upgrade (Google Tensor G3) though the battery is thankfully slightly upgraded too (4575 mAh versus the Pixel 7's 4355 mAh). Do note you get seven years of software upgrade with the Pixel 8.Regarding the camera, the hardware is just about the same. I myself don't take too many pictures, but there are some nifty upgrades on the ... MoreI'm reviewing the Pixel 8 as a previous Pixel 7 owner. First thing first, the Pixel 8(6.2 inch screen) is actually 0.1 inch smaller than the Pixel 7. For me this is a good thing as I want a smaller phone, which is why I have a Pixel 8 and not a Pixel 8 Pro. On the plus side, the refresh rate is now 120hz versus the 90hz on the Pixel 7. So scrolling and touch operations feel slightly smoother. Other than that you have the expected processor upgrade (Google Tensor G3) though the battery is thankfully slightly upgraded too (4575 mAh versus the Pixel 7's 4355 mAh). Do note you get seven years of software upgrade with the Pixel 8.Regarding the camera, the hardware is just about the same. I myself don't take too many pictures, but there are some nifty upgrades on the software side. The Macro Focus lets you take photos of tiny objects with better clarity. Real Tone for video recordings captures skin tone more accurately. Best Take lets you splice similar photos together so if let someone blinks during a picture, you can replace his face from another photo taken in succession. Magic Editor uses A.I. to help you make edits to your photos.A lot of other features are brought over as expected such as the Call Assist and Live Translate. One new standout feature though is AI Wallpaper(Android 14 feature). You basically pick a category and then wallpaper images will be auto generated as you change the word prompts that are given to you.Call quality is good on the Pixel 8 much like the Pixel 7. There seems to be some algorithm at work that helps cut down on the amount of background noise on the person you're talking to. This is an important to me because at the end of the day a smartphone needs to have good call quality to facilitate phone conversations.At $699, the Pixel 8 is one of the more affordable flagship phones compared to other companies like Samsung, Apple, or Sony. If you're buying a Pixel phone for the first time and want a smaller phone(compared to the Pro) as well as a pure Android experience with less bloat, I can strongly recommend the Pixel 8. Though if you're upgrading from the Pixel 7, you have to see if some of the new features are worth upgrading to. That said if you can get a good trade deal, I would say to go for it.