Google Pixel 5
Price: £599 (inc VAT) from fave.co/2SYhfnc
Hot on the heels of the Pixel 4a, Google has expanded its 2020 mobile portfolio yet further to now include the Pixel 4a 5G and the long-rumoured Google Pixel 5.
On the surface, the Pixel 5 serves to right the wrongs made by last year’s erroneous Pixel 4; namely by dropping the experimental Motion Sense gesture tech, trading its secondary telephoto camera in for an ultra-wide sensor and almost doubling battery capacity so that the phone actually lasts beyond a few hours at a time. While these changes may seem obvious, the Pixel 5 – and where it sits in the wider smartphone landscape – is indicative of a shift in Google’s smartphone strategy and points to a very different future to the one that older Pixel phones were designed for.
DESIGN
The most striking thing about the Pixel 5 isn’t its camera tech or how well the Google Assistant is integrated into its software experience, it’s its design and that’s thanks to two main factors: its size and its finish.
It’s fair to say that there just haven’t really been any good small Android phones in recent years, with a few exceptions that barely scrape by. Most manufacturers have pushed for bigger displays in order to show off their multimedia capabilities but in most cases, that’s been at the expense of portability, weight, ease-of-use and comfort in the hand.
The Pixel 5, with its 6in display, definitely cements its place on our Best Small Phones list (see fave.co/2SWdNcO) because of its diminutive footprint, paired with a comfortable hand feel that’s wholly unique to this device.
It has a beautifully balanced design, being the only phone with what appears to be equally-sized bezels along all four edges of the screen (most usually have a
