Google Pixel 8 Pro: everything you need to know about this new smartphone

My opinion

The Google Pixel 8 Pro is looking to make its mark in the high-end smartphone sector, where the competition is fierce. With its design, its magic rubber and its photography, it could be an ally of choice. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement in terms of performance. But the overall quality of the phone is excellent, and I can't recommend it enough at this stage.

The design of the Google Pixel 8 pro

The Google Pixel 8 pro stands out from the competition with a design all its own. As with the 6 and 7, there's a large strip at the back. It houses all the photo modules, the flash, the temperature sensor and so on. On the back, we also have a beautiful matte material that doesn't leave marks on the fingers and is very soft to the touch. The rounded edges are fairly standard. But they are metallic, which is rather premium.

There are three colours: azure blue, porcelain and black.

And finally, in terms of weight, 213 grams is very light given the size of the phone.

Ultra-efficient screen

The Google Pixel 8 Pro has a 6.17" screen. There's also an adaptive 1.85 hertz display, which means you'll be able to move around more fluidly. There's also a gain in battery life, which is rather interesting. Apple and Samsung also offer this option on their top-of-the-range models.

As for brightness, you can see very well in daylight. There's a slight downside to the adaptive brightness, though: when you go from a dark place to a bright one, it sometimes takes a little while to switch on. Otherwise, colours in general are very, very good and the overall rendering of the screen is excellent.

Photos of the Google Pixel 8 Pro

There are 3 huge modules integrated into the rear: a 50-megapixel wide-angle module, a 48-megapixel ultra-wide-angle module and a 48-megapixel telephoto zoom. The Google Pixel 8 Pro also features a 30x digital zoom, laser autofocus and wide-angle and telephoto stabilisation.

Overall, photos are excellent on all sensors. There's plenty of precision, natural colours, good light management and the occasional annoying ray of light is clearly eliminated. Google has done a lot of work with these lenses, and that's one of the big plus points of this smartphone.

As for night mode, there's nothing in particular to say: the photos are excellent. Even in a very dark room, the photos are almost as good as daylight. The 30x digital zoom is amazing, and there's also a very good portrait mode. It lets you blur the background when you're taking a selfie, and it's great for videos with your family or even when you're on video for work.

Built-in artificial intelligence

One of the coolest and most impressive additions to the Google Pixel 8 pro is the Magic Eraser. It will allow you to take a photo and remove the elements in the background. As for the magic audio eraser, it will allow you to record something and remove certain parts of the audio: for example, remove the voices and keep just the music from a recording.

Finally, Google has thought of everything and, with the 'best shot' feature, lets you take several photos and select the face you look best in.

Pixel 8 Pro performance

The Google Pixel 8 Pro has 12 gigs of RAM. The processor, however, lags a little behind its competitors. So that leaves us with some good prospects for the future with Google.

Storage: 128GB, 256GB or 512GB. Autonomy: 5500 mA, which is enormous and will last all day in normal use. Be careful, though, as the smartphone uses a lot of power when playing video games and running large applications.

It will also take more than an hour to charge to 100%. That's a lot longer than the competition (30 minutes for some).

On the plus side, the phone's customisation and menus are very fluid. There's also the sound, which is very good in stereo.