Google’s Pixel phones have always been excellent value, and the new Pixel 7 Pro is no different. It offers a superb camera with impressive 5x zoom capabilities, a fast and secure under-display fingerprint reader, and an incredibly smooth and clean version of Android.
Its large 6.7-inch display features a 120Hz refresh rate, and it supports Qi wireless charging at up to 23w. It also features a high-quality stereo speaker setup.
Camera
Google’s camera software makes it easy to take beautiful pictures, even in challenging lighting conditions. The Pixel 7 Pro also captures incredible detail and offers stunning colours, making it one of the best camera phones in its price range.
The Pixel 7 Pro’s primary camera performs exceptionally well, delivering good exposure in all lighting conditions and a notable dynamic range, particularly on bright, sunny days. The camera excels in face detection and autofocus tracking, producing images with excellent sharpness and contrast, including well-preserved facial details in group shots.
Its telephoto camera is a bit weaker, however. At a native 5x zoom magnification, the lens doesn’t deliver as much crispness and fine detail in a test scene, and it doesn’t handle noise quite as well. Its colour rendition is also slightly different from that of the primary camera, with a more pronounced primary greenish tint.
The Pixel 7 Pro’s front-facing camera also performs well in most conditions. Its simulated bokeh effect is effective in most scenes, with practical subject segmentation and a nice blur gradient on the foreground and background. Video recording is also impressive, with a 460fps capability, featuring excellent video quality, and an exceptional mode that utilizes the wide-angle camera to capture close-up shots in various conditions. Various options perform well in terms of autofocus tracking in video and are capable of stabilizing footage effectively.
Performance
The Pixel 7 Pro is a speedy phone with plenty of power under the hood. It doesn’t suffer from the same sort of performance hiccups that plague some other flagships, and its camera is one of the best on the market, even when competing directly with the iPhone 14 Pro.
Like all Pixels, it’s running Google’s clean version of Android, offering a smooth experience with no bloatware or unnecessary apps. With a commitment to five years of security updates, it’s also guaranteed to remain secure for the long term.
Except for a slightly larger battery, the Pixel 7 Pro looks almost identical to its predecessor. It features the same 6.7-inch LTPO OLED display, which gets very bright and supports a variable refresh rate. It still features Google’s Titan M2 security coprocessor.
In our benchmark tests, the Pixel 7 Pro outperformed the Galaxy Note 9 and the iPhone 14. It’s also the only phone we’ve tested with an effective zero shutter lag implementation, which enables it to capture images as soon as the button is pressed. It boasts a battery life that will suffice for most people to get through two busy days on a single charge. But the big selling point of the Pixel line is its software features. Some, like the Recorder app’s spookily good voice transcription or Magic Eraser’s automatic photo unblurring, are exclusive to Pixel phones.
Battery
The Pixel 7 Pro boasts decent battery life, which improves significantly when you utilize the phone’s power-saving modes. That said, it’s still not as great as other flagship phones.
Its battery score is in the bottom half of our database, primarily due to its low charging and efficiency results. It does have excellent autonomy performance, though.
When we tested it, the Pixel 7 Pro took a considerable amount of time to recharge fully. We also found that it gets hot during charging, which is detrimental to the longevity of its lithium-ion battery.
It also doesn’t support fast charging. That’s a shame because it could have been Google’s answer to the OnePlus 6T and other super-fast charging phones. It tops out at 23w, but you’ll need to purchase a charger, as one isn’t included in the box.
A good way to extend battery life on the Pixel 7 Pro is to switch to dark theme in the settings menu. It’ll use less power than the default light theme, which uses brighter pixels on the OLED display. And if you’re running out of juice, the ExtremeLow on battery saver mode will shut down most features and apps to give you up to 72 hours of power. That’s useful if you need to get through a day on the road without having access to a charger.
Design
Google’s Pixel lineup has been a standout in the flagship phone world, thanks to its stock Android interface, capable cameras, and competitive prices. This year, the Pixel 7 Pro represents a significant step up, boasting a notable camera, forward-looking enhancements, and the second generation of its G2 chin housing. It looks great with its polished aluminium frame and three colour options: snow, obsidian, and a brand-new hazel shade. The best design change is that the Pixel 7 Pro eliminates the plastic frame on its top edge, replacing it with a rounded, colour-matched cutout that occupies approximately 40% of the screen’s length. This is significantly more aesthetically pleasing than last year’s Pixel 6 Pro, and it should be less prone to cracking over time.
Like the Pixel 6, the Pixel 7 Pro features stereo speakers that deliver crisp and clear sound, although they do experience some issues when playing music in loud mode. It also features a built-in VPN to safeguard your data and a Titan M2 security chip to protect your privacy.
The Pixel 7 Pro runs on the latest version of Android 13, which is fast, innovative, and incredibly customizable. It lets you recolour app icons and allows you to change your wallpaper, for instance, and it can automatically set font colours in your apps to match those of the picture on your home screen.
