Disclaimer: This is my first smartphone review (and I don’t even know whether I will write further such reviews, which obviously means I am not a professional in writing reviews so don’t expect some professional views about the phone from me here (especially coming to the display, the cameras and sound).
This review is solely and entirely my personal view on the Pixel 5 from a common / daily usage perspective. Also, don’t expect me to compare this phone with others in current day competition as I haven’t lived with them. Though, I will use smartphones that my family uses for comparison and yes, even my previous Oneplus 3T.
TL; DR: This review is entirely based on real world usage of the Pixel 5 for the last 3 months. Hope all to have a good read!
The Pixel 5 is Google’s next iteration of phone which is definitely not up there with the flagships as we hoped for. That’s because Google is clearly not running after that high end segment and has now resided to cater to the mid-premium smartphone market where it offers the best of both worlds.
This could be Google’s great move to not compete with the big guns like Apples and Galaxies because we all know how the Pixel 4XL ended up. It’s just that Google can’t offer what people have come to expect from a $900 – $1000 phone and this is where Pixel 5 comes into the play – Above average specs with a slight inferior flagship chipset.
Read on to know more how well the Pixel 5 stacks up after using it for a couple of months. One of a kind review of Pixel 5 in India!
Design and Build
Okay, the day the phone came home, everyone including me were like, “Woah! This phone is so lightweight!” It’s light like a plastic toy and still felt premium at the same time! The model I have is the Just Black variant (I personally wanted the Sage Green one but it wasn’t available). But, once the phone was with me I had no regrets having it. This phone feels grippy in the hand and the back feels like a combination of both matte and a very subtle sandpaper applied to it. (the folks at Google call it a ‘bio-resin’ coating). Also, the phone is not plastic but is made of aluminium originally with this bio-resin coating on top. All in all, coming from the Oneplus 3T for 3.5 years and sometimes using a iPhone SE 2020, Pixel 5 really feels fresh in the hand (at least to me) when holding it! Certainly one of the best compact smartphones out there.
Also, the fingerprint reader placement is perfect given the size of the phone, though it took me a while to get used it (since, 3T had it on the front), I believe this approach feels more natural and also the fingerprint reader is reliable as always, no detection failures noted as such while usage!
Size comparison for perspective
Hmm…Handy! 
Bio-resin
Display
at 100% in brightness in bright sunlight 
at 40% (approx) in brightness in bright sunlight 
at the minimum brightness in the dark
Pixel 5’s display is a 6 inch 1080p LED panel, and yes I have to tell this – it’s an edge to edge flat display, perfectly symmetrical from all sides of the corners (tell me which phone has this perfect symmetry!?). Again, everyone knows that Samsung makes the best smartphone display panels in the industry, but I don’t know what exactly that means because I’m not a smartphone reviewer and in real world use it doesn’t even matter! Both, my (previous) 3T and Pixel 5 have a 1080p OLED panel, and yes, when I turned on the Pixel 5, the difference in the panels was striking (obviously because 3T is a 4 yr old phone now!). As far as I am concerned, IMO the display panel is pretty good. It gets bright in the daylight, get very dim during the night and during normal usage when I am not outdoors I keep it around 75-80% brightness level and everything seemed fine. No issues with the display.
The display also supports 90Hz refresh rate and can be turned on from the Settings (off by default). while Google calls it adaptive, I personally experienced that it was always at 90Hz and never saw it dropping to 60Hz anytime. (Battery life with 90Hz turned on discussed later).
Performance
This is the part where the Pixel 5 was under controversy. It has a Snapdragon 765G processor and an (of course) Adreno 620 GPU. Google stepped back here as compared to the Pixel 4 making this the first flagship Pixel not hosting a flagship processor. Of course, Google really messed up with the Pixel 4 series last year (Another controversial phone with compelling features but a flawed battery life), but this year Google seemed to play very safe with its Pixel line up this year not taking much risks.
Anyway, even I was disappointed when I first got to know that it hosts a Snapdragon 765G, but my thirst for buying a Pixel was way more than that drawback. Now that I have this thing in hand let me tell you, I have absolutely no issues using this phone. My usage mostly includes calling, daily using, some YouTube, 15-20 min of gaming (I play only one game – “Pico tanks”), some social media, etc. In these 3 months, one thing I can tell that there hasn’t been any instance where I felt that there is any slowness or lag anywhere. I guess offering 8GB of RAM alongside this Snapdragon 765G seems to have done the trick here! Also, I don’t play PUBG Mobile or COD Mobile and haven’t played any heavy duty games really since the last 1/1.5 yrs, hence, can’t comment on gaming but yes, I’ve played Asphalt 9 for maybe a week on this phone and it was absolutely fine. No lags or performance drops at all!
Software
Well, this piece is that special perk which comes with every Pixel, the software experience. Really, navigating through this phone is a joy! Triggering the Google Assistant, opening apps, using Gestures to navigate here and there, opening closing apps – all makes the experience very inclusive and natural! Also, I really even enjoy the set of wallpapers that are present on the Pixel 5, while I agree APKs are available for everyone on XDA to try those for everyone (even I’ve done that on my 3T, but the responsiveness of those wallpapers is just isn’t that great as it is on the Pixel
I’ve even flashed and tried the Pixel experience ROM on my 3T, but again, those ROMs lack the ‘Googliness’ that is offered in actually using the Pixel!
Pixels even come loaded with features such as text / image selection on any screen of the phone (A feature which I end up using almost every hour!), now playing (will subtly display what song is being played on your lock screen), Universal Live caption (trust me, this thing is highly under-rated), “Hold for me”- When waiting to talk to someone on the other side of the phone (eg: a waiting queue for talking to customer support) (Though, it’s a bummer that this feature does not work in India L)
Well, how can I forget one thing – Day 0 software updates! No need to wander everytime as to when your device will be getting an update, no regional restrictions, nothing of this sort! That’s a big relief for me!
I remember usually reading articles on the web to know when will my 3T receive Android N, O, P (several times) and also that I lately didn’t like OnePlus’s implementation of android at many places (the animations were too fast, improper UI at places, and of course – bugs!) and plus I don’t know why battery life considerably degraded after the Android Oreo update after which I decided to flash ROMs on this thing! No need to worry about all this on the Pixel for the next 3 years at least!
revamped power menu with options that can be aadded 
Flip to Shhh….(the haaptics when it moves to DNDduring thiss are a thing to experience) 
Some Pixel wallpapers! 
This feature is so freaking handy!
Battery
My phone usage is a mixed one which includes mostly calls, social media, some gaming (only Pico Tanks!), web surfing, messaging, tinkering, etc. My verdict on the battery is just that it literally sips power (like a drinking juice with a straw!). Every single day in the last 2.5 months, I always failed to kill this thing in a day! Based on my mixed usage as described above, the phone always lasted 1.5 days on a single charge (even 2 on some days!) and even on excessive usage, it lasted a full day! Though, with 90Hz on, the battery drained a bit quickly but it manages to survive one day easily. I am really pleased with the battery life on this phone. By the way this phone has a 4080mAH battery and comes with an 18-watt charger. While the charger does not at all match the current industry standards where we are seeing 40W, 65W, 120W charging speeds, this phone charges from 0 to 100 in 1h 15 min (this is similar to the charging speeds of Oneplus 3T – and I was very satisfied with it, hence I am satisfied even now!).
The phone has this adaptive charging feature too where it will charge the phone at slow speeds if you plug it in the night and it will get fully charged till your next morning alarm! This prevents over-charging your phone while plugged in at night. So thoughtful and neat!
Camera
Pixels are known for their cameras and again, while I’ve not used the S21 / S21 Ultra or the iPhone 12 / 12 Pro, the photos from this Pixel are pretty sharp and crisp and also Google’s Super Res Zoom too works perfectly (though only at 2x zoom). I personally am not a fan of night sight photos (as in I don’t like making Night Shots bright – which is exactly the thing that Google does with Night Sight). I personally like keeping the scenery as it is and (and dark night shots are beautiful than Bright Night Sight shots anytime! If y’all are expecting me to use camera jargons such as dynamic range, exposure, saturation and all, then please, I don’t have any prowess in this field (while I can simply Google their meaning, I won’t!). I even tried capturing photos using the Astrophotography mode and it didn’t work (There are seldom any stars visible from my place here…So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, there is a 1/2 second delay in saving when shooting HDR photos, because Pixel 5 does not have the dedicated Pixel Visual Core chip that was present in earlier Pixels. This delay is not noticeable in most cases but it’s there.
Below are some photo samples. I leave everything for y’all to judge.
To view the full image please press and hold the image and select Open image in new tab (on PC right click on the image and do so)
Without the flash, it was completely dark out here, Nothing was visible to me. Google’s Night Sight accurately predicted the colors in the dark (and really, this Night Sight shot is dope IMO!)
Pun intended! 
At least I tried to capture the moon!
(some already taken camera samples)
Speakers and Haptics
Pixel 5 comes with dual speakers, one is the firing grill at the bottom and the other is an in-display one at the top portion of the display! I won’t go into technicals and all I have to say is both speakers are individually excellent. Let me explain – while listening to music, viewing videos, etc. the bottom speaker gets really very loud (but again it gets easily covered while gaming especially – a de-faacto problem with bottom firing grills) and the in-display one at the top is barely audible while playing such media. This in-display speaker though does a great job at the time of calls, call quality is really excellent here (I sometimes have to move my phone away from my ear while talking. It’s that good!)
Bottom speaker 
A speaker is here inside behind the top portion of the screeen
I saw many people complain about the haptics on this phone being bad. I realised that since they had used the Pixel 4 earlier that’s why they were complaining! The haptics of Pixel 4 really competed with the ones found on the iPhones (and no other phone has done that till date!).
Coming to the Pixel 5, since, I haven’t used the Pixel 4, I personally liked the haptics on this one and had no complaints, they seemed fine to me when using the phone (Of course, if Pixel 4 haptics were really good, then I don’t know because it requires first hand experience!). Again, that’s the same me who turns off all vibrations and haptics while setting up a new phone and I did the same thing on Pixel 5 too after a week!
Final words
As the title says, this phone is perfect but the price is not, this thing costs $699, while the phone is obviously cheaper than its predecessors, comparing to the competition, the price it still steep (especially for the Indian market). This is probably the reason why Pixel 5 was not launched in India Also, given that the Pixel 4a 5G is also available at $499 which has similar specs but excludes the IP68 rating, 90Hz panel, wireless charging, 2GB less RAM and a plastic body instead of the aluminium one. If one is happy with these trade-offs, then certainly 4a 5G is the clear choice here. Further, considering the Indian market, you can get far more competitive phones at cheaper rates ranging from as low as Rs. 15,000 such as Realmes & Redmis which clearly shows Pixels aren’t meant for the Indian market (atleast right now!)
So, why I bought this? Well, I really needed a new phone and always had a desire to buy the Pixel and ended up getting the top model. Well that’s it!
I hope you all liked reading this non-technical review of mine.
Really thanks to Ramneek for allowing me to write the review here!
Lastly, some self promotion – I have my own blog called appsaware.in (started in March 2020 only!) where I critically review various apps that are underrated, unexplored, and those which are feature-worthy! Do visit my blog and any feedback is always welcome. You can reach out to me here too:
stay aware, stay appy!
Do let us know in the comments section your thoughts on the above review and the Pixel 5 too in general!
