This is important because, as previously mentioned, this phone feels small: despite having a 6-inch display, the all-in-one metal body and minimal bezel mean the phone feels more compact – and at 8mm thick, it’s also one of the thinner phones on the market. Both the S20 FE and iPhone 12 Mini support Wi-Fi 6 too, the newest Wi-Fi standard. Should I buy it? The Pixel 5 takes great photos, but it doesn't have the most advanced suite of lenses. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant. There's 5G support, water resistance, NFC, and wireless charging, plus you get three years of security and Android version upgrades. Its texture feels interesting but not exactly appealing, though one thing is for sure: it allowed us to get a more solid grip on the phone. And at 5.7 by 2.8 by 0.3 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.3 ounces, it’s almost the same size and weight as the $349 Pixel 4a. We spent over an hour playing Alto’s Odyssey and Mini Metro on the Pixel 5, and the games loaded quickly and played without any dropped frames or lag. But phone-makers like Apple and Samsung have realized that most people don't want to pay $1,000 for a new phone. Before we dive into lens testing, the biggest change we noticed from the Pixel 4 is Google’s color science. The Pixel 5 has a great 6-inch screen, but it's easily dwarfed by bigger phones like the similarly-priced Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition and the 6.55-inch OnePlus 8T, or at a higher price, the 6.7-inch Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus. In terms of design, the Pixel 5 looks similar to the $499 Pixel 4a 5G. Google's Pixel 5 is a great smartphone with an attractive, ergonomic design, class-leading cameras, solid battery life and a clean Android interface. Before joining PCMag as a mobile analyst, he covered mobile and wearable tech at Digital Trends. This comes in cheaper than the Pixel 4, which started at $799 / £669 / AU$1,049; although, as we've mentioned, that cost does come with a few compromises. The benchmarks are another story: with a Geekbench 5 score of 1617, the Pixel 5's specs perform worse than the comparably-priced Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition (2928), which is powered by a Snapdragon 865 chipset. It's still a damn good camera. While the phone sports stereo speakers, their positioning and balance create an uneven soundstage. And instead of a secondary zoom lens, you now get a 16-megapixel ultrawide, a lens setup that matches the similarly priced iPhone 12. If you're a hard-core gamer looking for sheer horsepower, the Galaxy S20 FE is a better option. Water resistance and three years of Android security and version updates round out the feature list. Really nice screen, great battery life (finally), and good performance. The display of third-party trademarks and trade names on this site does not necessarily indicate any affiliation or the endorsement of PCMag. The latter phone is very similar to the Pixel 5, except it's bigger, has a 60-Hz screen, comes with no wireless charging or water resistance, and is made of plastic. By skipping all the quirky, Google-ly features of previous Pixels, the company's latest phone is its most boring—and its best. It's super lightweight, and I can wrap my entire palm around it. We didn’t experience any egregious slowdown, although after playing a few rounds of Call of Duty: Mobile, we did see some animations hitch (not mid-game, thankfully). The front-facing top speaker maxes out at 78dB, while the bottom-firing speakers have a maximum volume of 94dB. Where it shines is at night. The Google Pixel 5 price is $699 / £599 / AU$999, and it only comes in one configuration, with 8GB of RAM and 128GB storage. The Galaxy S20 FE's 4,500mAh battery lasted for 13 hours and 31 minutes of video playback at 75 percent brightness, which should translate to similar battery life overall. And, of course, returning staples like Now Playing, which identifies songs playing around you, or Call Screen, which monitors and automatically declines robocalls. But it’s the uniqueness that we miss, too: fans of the Google Pixel 4’s Soli depth sensor, which enabled in-air gestures, will be sad to see it gone. Not every aspect of the small format is perfectly designed: the metal lock button and volume rocker on the right side of the phone barely protrude from the body of the phone and have more resistance than you’d expect, making them a bit tough to press. That said, we always recommend a sturdy case for additional protection. TechRadar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Receive mail from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors? An 8MP selfie camera with an f/2.0 aperture hides in the small hole at the top of the display. That's another long-running complaint Google addressed here. This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. There’s a SIM tray on the left side, although there’s no microSD slot for expanding the storage, sadly. The aluminum back panel feels more premium than the plastic back on the Pixel 4a 5G, with a slightly textured finish that includes a debossed Google logo in metal. Right now the feature only works in English. Wired may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. I'd love to see more phone-makers ditch breakable glass for this approach. Score another for the utility of ultra-wide. Sign up for What's New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning. 5x zoom is strong as well, though there's some loss of fine detail when reviewing images at full size. On Geekbench 5, a suite of tests that measure raw performance, the Pixel 5 earned scores of 587 single-core (SC) and 1,604 multi-core. The only other things I could have asked for would have been a headphone jack and a MicroSD card slot so you can expand on the 128 gigabytes of storage, but I think those particular ships have long since sailed. The processor is paired with 8GB of RAM, and the Pixel 5 breezes through tasks from browsing the web to gaming and playing media. It's smart. She likes it a lot. The Snapdragon 765G chipset is not as top-tier as the Snapdragon 865 powering 2020’s leading Android phones, like the Samsung Galaxy S20 line or Snapdragon 865 Plus in the new OnePlus 8T, for instance, but it serves well enough.