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The Pixel 11 Pro XL gets criticised a lot for being ‘underpowered’, and for a flagship device, it’s true when it comes to gaming. Graphics-wise, its 3DMark scores are lower than competing devices from Apple, and especially Samsung with its powerhouse Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

Although you won’t have any problems running games on the Tensor G6 is still not going to generate as many frames per second.

Another criticism is HiLight. As of now it’s got limited functionality because you can only use HiLight for Gemini and custom colors for contacts, but if I want to use it as a camera flash, or more importantly as a torch, it just isn’t as bright. In fact it’s about one stop dimmer than the iPhone’s back LED.

For now, those are the main complaints, but truth be told, as someone coming from the iPhone who doesn’t do mobile gaming, the Pixel 11 Pro XL has been pretty great so far. And I’m going to tell you why.

Build quality and thermals

The Pixel 11 Pro XL feels great as a device because it’s very well built, solid, sturdy, the closest to an iPhone. Thermals are great. It still heats up when shooting video, and if I put it through some intense graphics processing like 3DMark’s wildlife extreme test, it will still get warm pretty quick, but everything else feels fine, even under the sun.

Brightness

The screen’s very sharp, bright and vivid, no problems viewing under sunlight. I’ve seen some comments in forums that it’s not so color accurate, but I found that to not be the case in my daily use. It seems to be as accurate as any top end display I’ve seen.

Sound Quality

And the 11 Pro XL has some of the best speakers in a phone, very loud and crisp, and it even has stereo separation when held in landscape more. My only complaint is that its midrange sounds a bit too hot and sizzly compared to what I came from, which is the iPhone.

And it would be better if there was a way to tweak its speakers. Beyond that, no complaints about its speakers’ sound quality.

👉🏻 Listen to the sound quality samples

Cameras

Shooting photos with its camera is awesome. I noticed that it shares pretty much the same characteristics as the 11 Pro Fold, in that pictures look contrasty, great dynamic range, and highlights are well under control so the pictures seem to have some depth.

Colors are very close to what I’m seeing in real life, not 100% accurate, but not exaggerated in any way. So if the trees are a certain shade of green, or the sky is a certain shade of blue or grey, it’s not going to make the colors look brighter or darker than it needs to be. Of course, 120x super res zoom is what everyone’s talking about.

It’s not so good with faces at that distance, but it’s great if you’re shooting scenes or objects.

The Pixel does its own AI processing which cleans those pics up. And note that these pictures were taken in low light, which is even more impressive. Common criticism is that these are actually more like AI generated pictures, but it does allow more versatility of range.

I’m seeing a similar color science for videos shot in 4K without video boost, very natural looking, and not over-sharpened. If you’re patient enough to endure that loooong video-boost processing, video quality jumps.

4K Resolution upscales to 8K, any artifacts get smoothed over. In fact, the quality is so good that the guys at DXOMark gave it top scores! However it doesn’t do as well if you’re walking and shooting at the same time. Its stabilization’s still not that great, you can see jitter, and if you’re zoomed in, the jitter’s even more obvious. So when possible, shoot stationary.

👉🏻 Watch the video samples

Conclusion

In short, the Pixel 11 Pro XL should be getting more love. If top tier graphics processing isn’t that important to you, this is the definitive Android experience. No bloatware, first to get Android updates, one of the best cameras on a phone and great speakers.

If I wasn’t so stuck in the iOS ecosystem, I’ll be totally fine switching to this Pixel. Too bad my entire family’s using iPhone. But if you’re not as stuck as me, and you want to check its latest price in case it’s on promo, click on the Amazon links below.

Check latest prices:

Pixel 11 Pro XL - https://amzn.to/3V3RvZP
Samsung S26 Ultra - https://amzn.to/4x3qjbc

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