The Google Pixel 11 Pro XL can rightly hold its place among other flagship smartphone offerings in the market. It offers great performance, excellent AI companion with Google Gemini, a stunning camera system and outstanding and helpful new features.
- Design
The Google Pixel 11 Pro XL has lifted the bar with new features and new colours to take its place among the impressive flagship smartphones now available to customers.
The Pixel smartphones have always had a dedicated fan base and loyal return customers and the Pixel 11 Pro XL has every reason to keep them onboard.
The Google Pixel 11 Pro XL is available now and is priced at $2,099 (256GB), $2,299 (512GB) and $2,649 (1TB).
DESIGN
The Google Pixel 11 Pro XL hasn’t departed too far from last year’s aluminium and glass design with the same flat edges.
Google has also introduced some interesting new colours – Canyon, Olive, Fog, and Obsidian.
For our review we received the Obsidian Google Pixel 11 Pro XL which has a matte finish on the edges and rear panel.
The camera bar has had a slight makeover. It’s slightly higher and the camera lenses are slightly further apart with the black panel now spanning the entire width of the bump.
What you will see is an LED on right that can now be customised using the new HiLight feature.
This is a new way of receiving personalised notifications where you set specific colours for different contacts. When they call you, the colour you chose will flash so you can tell who’s calling you without even needing to look at the screen.
We couldn’t find any other use for this apart from contact notifications but it would be good if it could be expanded to cover other notifications on the device.
The new Pixel 11 Pro XL is also built tough with improved resistance against drops, scratches and splashes with an IP68 rating.
DISPLAY
The Google Pixel 11 Pro XL has a 6.8-inch QHD+ Super Actua display with up to 3600 nits of brightness.
That’s an improvement on last year’s Pixel 10 Pro XL screen, which had a peak brightness of 3,300 nits.
The device’s screen is stunning and bright so your websites, apps, photos, and videos all look amazing.
PERFORMANCE
The device is powered by Google’s new Tensor G6 chip which offers remarkable performance for your day-to-day tasks.
Apps open instantly and switching between them is just as fast with everything running super smoothly and quickly.
But Google has given with one hand and taken with another.
The new base level storage is now 256 GB – up from last year’s 128GB entry capacity with the Pixel 10 Pro XL.
There is less RAM – 12GB down from the 16GB offered with the Pixel 10 Pro.
We couldn’t see any noticeable performance degradation so this isn’t really a deal breaker.
The device is running Android 17 and offers a clean user interface.
That’s one thing that draws customers back to the Pixel – its uncluttered operating system and user interface.
Unlike other Android smartphone there are no other software layer which means you’re not getting doubled up apps and other clutter.
FEATURES
Naturally Google Gemini is ever-present and even more deeply integrated into the device.
Magic Cue is there to help whether it’s on messages and email or within other apps. suggestions on how you can reply and what you can do next.
Google Gemini can delve deeper because it knows all your messages, emails and your calendar and can offer help when trying to find information and organising yourself and your availability.
The way we interact with the device has improved with a new feature called Rambler.
This is a new dictation tool that allows you to speak naturally, including ums and ahs, and it will still know what you’re trying to say or what you’re asking for.
CAMERA
On the camera side the Google Pixel 11 Pro XL has a 50MP wide, 48MP ultra-wide, and 48MP telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom on the rear and a 42MP selfie camera with a wider field of view.
These are precisely the same resolution as last year’s cameras but they do offer larger sensors, which means increased light sensitivity.
The Pixel has always boasted solid camera systems over the years and this year is no exception it has all your photography needs covered.
The main sensors do a terrific job capturing accurate colour and stunning detail.
When you need to get close, the telephoto camera can step in with some amazing portraits and impressive background blur.
You can also take your selfie game up another notch thanks to the 42MP front-facing camera, which also does a great job in capturing the finer detail.
One handy new feature was Magic Capture which allows users to shoot video while also capturing individual frames.
This means the user doesn’t have to decide whether they’re going to shoot video or take photos because this allows them to do both at once.
Another create video feature is the built in teleprompter. No you can type out your script and read it ad you are filming yourself through the selfie camera.
BATTERY
The battery capacity on the Google Pixel 11 Pro XL is 5,115 mAh – that’s lower than the 5,200 mAh we had on the Pixel 10 Pro XL.
But despite the slightly lower capacity the device, thanks to the power efficiency created by the Tensor G6 chip, was able to easily run throughout the day and into the next.
When it comes to charging the Pixel 11 Pro XL can support up to 45W wired charging and 25W wirelessly.
VERDICT
The Google Pixel 11 Pro XL can rightly hold its place among other flagship smartphone offerings in the market. It offers great performance, excellent AI companion with Google Gemini, a stunning camera system and outstanding and helpful new features.
