It worked relatively well on the shot of the river above — the moving water has indeed been blurred. The leaves that overlap the water from the camera’s perspective were even preserved pretty well. But the second photo had people walking through the frame, and it sort of made them look like ghosts. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; real long exposures would behave the same way. But it’s something to look out for. We can at least be relieved that Google likely won’t repeat the mistake of hobbling its new phones with inadequate battery life. The Google Pixel 6 has a 4,614mAh capacity, up from the 4,080mAh of 2020’s Pixel 5, and far above the measly 2,800mAh in the Pixel 4.

Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro colours: Here are all your options Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro colours: Here are all your options

There's some minor loss of fine detail with the ultrawide lens, but no noticeable distortion (Photo: Steven Winkelman) What's most impressive about the Pixel 6's modem, however, is its connectivity. We tested it in dozens of urban and rural locations across two states never encountered a poor signal. It consistently reached higher speeds than the iPhone 13 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra we tested in the same locations. However, where it excels is for watching media – and listening to it. We loved the Pixel 4’s speakers, and we’re continued fans of the Pixel 6’s audio, which sounds evenly balanced among highs and lows. Other handsets have uneven splits between their dual speakers (typically around the earpiece and next to the power port), with treble or bass favoring one or the other; but the Pixel 6 feels much more even, with its two speakers delivering a more even mix. The increased weight and less cutesy design help to create the more mature aesthetic Google is apparently aiming for with the Pixel 6, helping it look and feel like a real premium contender. There’s glass at the front and rear, which is quite a departure from the recent plastic-bodied Pixel phones, and both panels are constructed from Corning’s toughest phone glass yet: Gorilla Glass Victus. There’s also IP68 dust and water resistance, as well as an optical under-screen fingerprint reader in a change from the rear-mounted fingerprint sensor of recent Pixels.

Display: Don’t go chasing waterfalls

Face Unblur can remove the blur from a face in motion if the camera can recognize the face and it isn't too blurred . Again, it can't work miracles. The selfie camera is on par with the 11.1MP lens on the more expensive Pro model (Photo: Steven Winkelman) Magic Eraser, Real Tone, and Face Unblur are a few of the new camera features that the Tensor SoC makes possible. Except for Real Tone, which uses inclusive color science for more accurate representations of BIPOC people, none will fix a photo that's seriously messed up. The Pixel 6 also gets a significant leg up when it comes to gaming. In the GFXBench onscreen Manhattan 3 test, the Pixel 6 achieved an average frame rate of 79fps, which, if you take a look at the graph below, is almost three times faster than last year’s phone. Blimey. The Pixel 6’s other key specs are respectable, with 8GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of storage. As noted before, it’s only the 128GB model that comes in the Kind Coral hue.

Pixel 6 5G (Sorta Seafoam, 8GB RAM, 128GB Storage) Google Pixel 6 5G (Sorta Seafoam, 8GB RAM, 128GB Storage)

There’s no optical zoom available here then, as there is on the Pro model, but the Pixel 6’s ‘Super Res Zoom’ does deliver a 7x digital zoom. What I can test, however, is whether the Pixel 6 lives up to Google’s lofty performance claims. Running the Geekbench 5 test, which scores both single- and multicore CPU performance, the Pixel 6 scored 1,031 and 2,843 respectively. Compare those figures to the Pixel 5 and we’re looking at a roughly 75% increase in raw speeds.

The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are the first phones to ship with the Google Tensor SoC. Designed by Google specifically for the Pixel lineup, its processors, coprocessors, instruction sets, and other software are all in harmony to create a heterogeneous computing experience. On the other hand, battery life isn’t the Pixel 6’s strong suit. Lasting just a bit longer than the Pixel 6 Pro, the regular model topped out at just 18hrs 34mins in our video-rundown test, which represents a stamina decrease of 19% compared to 2020’s Pixel 5 (22hrs 54mins). You’ll be charging the phone more often, which is a shame. The most important thing to note is that the Pixel 6 is the very first handset to be powered by Google’s in-house Tensor chipset. Ditching Qualcomm and avoiding Exynos and Kirin, Tensor promises a handful of performance and efficiency improvements over last year’s mid-range Snapdragon 765G, and it represents a bold new future for Google.

Pixel 6- Dual SIM (e-sim) 128 GB, 8GB RAM, 5G Sorta Google Pixel 6- Dual SIM (e-sim) 128 GB, 8GB RAM, 5G Sorta

Still, at this price and with a main camera this good, I can’t be too dejected about ultrawide performance; that that camera is here at all feels like icing on the cake. What I am dejected about is the absence of a telephoto shooter. We tested the Pixel 6 on Verizon’s 5G network in Chicago and recorded admirable speeds, averaging 168Mbps down and 78Mbps up. With just over 24 hours to go before Google launches the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, we wouldn’t discount yet more leaks ahead of the keynote. Let us know what you think of this very brief Sorta Seafoam Pixel 6 unboxing video down in the comments section below. More on Google Pixel 6: The display does tend towards a more vibrant mix of colors than handsets such as the iPhone 12 Pro –and that isn’t only in the overall palette, either. The Pixel 6’s OLED screen displayed greater contrast in adjacent colors, going from brighter to darker hues; side-by-side evaluation of contrast saw the iPhone 12 Pro’s display flatten more of the color together. Google’s new flagship boasts a 50MP primary camera sensor, complete with OIS, EIS, LDAF, and an ƒ/1.85 aperture. There’s also a secondary 12MP ultrawide sensor with a 114-degree field of view. However, the standard Pixel 6 misses out on the Pixel 6 Pro’s 48MP telephoto lens.

Performance: Tensor (mostly) holds up

Benchmarks were impressive but, again, not the best indicator of day-to-day performance. On Geekbench 5, a suite of tests that quantifies raw performance, the Pixel 6 easily beat similarly priced competitors. It scored 1,021 single-core (SC) and 2,813 multi-core (MC). For comparison, the Pixel 5a scored 680 SC and 1,952 MC, while the Galaxy A52 managed 645 SC and 1,945 MC on the same test. Android 12 and Future Support The Samsung Galaxy S22 is the highest profile Android alternative to the Pixel 6, since it's the bottom entry in Samsung's latest flagship line. It costs a little more and is more powerful, but the Pixel's software has it beat, and Google's phone has a more distinctive design. The Full HD Plus 2400 x 1080 resolution here (so not QHD) equates to 441 pixels per inch, which is on a par with other phones around the price (and even with some pricier options such as the Samsung Galaxy S21). The Pixel 6’s 6.4-inch OLED display is the biggest screen included on a Pixel phone, with the exception of the Pixel 6 Pro with its 6.7-inch screen, topping even the 6.3-inch Google Pixel 4 XL from 2019. The Google Pixel 6 was unveiled on October 19, 2021 alongside the Google Pixel 6 Pro, and each of these smartphones were released on October 25.

Pixel 6 in Sorta Seafoam color gets early unboxing video Pixel 6 in Sorta Seafoam color gets early unboxing video

The OnePlus 9 is slightly older than the Pixel 6, but there's no OnePlus 10 (just a Pro model) so it's the closest OnePlus alternative. It's a similar price and has slightly more power, but its cameras aren't a match for the Pixel's.This all happens on the phone itself; it’s not sending your dictation to a server. It’s pretty wild stuff, and as smartphones as a product category continue to mature, this sort of edgewise, incremental software improvement is going to be the path forward. But in side-by-side comparisons between the Pixel 6 and its pricier Pixel 6 Pro sibling – which does have a QHD (3120 x 1440) display – we couldn’t really determine much difference in detail watching identical media (a 4K YouTube video scaled to each phone’s respective resolution). In fact, it wasn’t until we got within inches of both phones that we could discern any difference, and even then, it was very minimal. We noticed blooming and some loss of fine detail in our low-light camera tests (Photo: Steven Winnkelman) There's been a long history of celebrated white phones - and Clearly White was a colour that Google used on the Pixel 2, Pixel 3 and Pixel 4 models. But here it's not clearly white, because that Cloudy White bring in some warmth, with the top section slightly darker, like a cloud grey. The frame here is silver, so it looks great. According to Google, Tensor delivers “up to 80% more performance than Pixel 5”, which runs on a Snapdragon 765G. In typical Google fashion, the search giant says its AI features enable better performance across a slew of machine-learning-specific tasks.