4 causes the Google Pixel 4 is an Android basic

The Pixel 4 and 4 XL not too long ago turned 5 years previous. Google’s fourth-generation Pixel telephones are remembered at present for his or her awkward, who-asked-for-this air gesture controls, however there was much more to them than that. The 2019 Pixel lineup was forward-looking in a means not many telephones are anymore. It will not be as consequential because the very first Pixel, or the Pixel 6 that debuted Google’s in-house Tensor chips, however I feel the Pixel 4 is a bona fide Android basic, and set the tone for Google’s later telephones in an enormous means.

1

The Pixel 4 was an early 90Hz adopter

Excessive-refresh price cellphone shows are absolutely mainstream at present, with the base-model iPhone 16 the final notable 60Hz holdout. Again in 2019, although, the Pixel 4 was comparatively distinctive within the US market with its 90Hz panel — a primary for the Pixel sequence. The OnePlus 7 Professional did beat Google to the punch by a couple of months, however Samsung’s first cellphone with a high-refresh price show did not come till months later within the Galaxy S20; Apple did not hop on the bandwagon till 2021’s iPhone 13 Professional.

To their credit score, Apple and Samsung got here out swinging with 120Hz shows, one-upping Google on pace. However the Pixel 4 and 4 XL set a precedent in Google’s cellphone lineup: all of Google’s telephones at present have high-refresh price shows. The Pixel 9a is definitely Google’s solely current-gen system nonetheless rocking a 90Hz panel — the bottom Pixel 9 graduated to 120Hz this 12 months.

2

The primary dual-camera Pixel cellphone did it proper

Google was comparatively late to undertake twin rear cameras on its telephones. Android telephones experimented with a number of rear cameras in by hook or by crook way back to the HTC Evo 3D in 2011, and the iPhone 7 Plus launched with a regular and ultrawide shooter in 2017. By late 2019, a smartphone with a number of rear cameras wasn’t precisely progressive.

However the way in which the Pixel 4 adopted twin rear cameras was experimental. Fairly than the now-common twin digicam setup of a regular and an ultrawide digicam, the Pixel 4 had a 12.2MP customary shooter paired with a 16MP 2x telephoto. I am completely within the minority right here, however I feel a telephoto digicam makes infinitely extra sense than an ultrawide as a secondary rear digicam. Customary cellphone cameras are already very vast, and after I shoot with my cellphone, I zoom in means extra typically than I need to zoom out. I am tapping the 2x zoom button nearly on daily basis.

Except for the unconventional {hardware}, the cameras had been noteworthy for Google in one other means: the Pixel 4 and the Pixel 4 XL shared the identical rear digicam {hardware}. They really have that in frequent with all of the Pixel telephones that got here earlier than, however digicam parity between sizes would not make a comeback till this 12 months’s Pixel 9 Professional and Pixel 9 Professional XL.

3

Now-signature Pixel options premiered

Google’s tackle Android is outlined by thought of software program options that change the way in which you work together along with your cellphone, and the Pixel 4 premiered a few options die-hards nonetheless do not need to stay with out. Google’s Recorder app debuted on Pixel 4, full with computerized transcriptions. Google’s nonetheless placing its full weight behind Recorder, with common app updates and even a Put on OS model that debuted on the Pixel Watch 3.

The Pixel 4 was additionally Google’s first cellphone to characteristic the Now Taking part in characteristic, which robotically identifies and logs songs taking part in round you — certainly one of a handful of Pixel options I miss any time I am utilizing a cellphone from one other producer. On the time, Google billed these options as powered by on-device AI — a bellweather of the following half-decade of smartphone software program improvement and advertising, and never simply from Google.

4

Safe face unlock on Android

The Pixel 4’s taken loads of flak for its Venture Soli gesture management {hardware}, and rightfully so — radar-based gesture detection does not make a lot sense in a tool you are meant to hold round. (It will definitely discovered buy within the current Nest Studying Thermostat, the place it handles proximity sensing.) However packed away within the sensor cluster that enabled Soli performance had been two front-facing infrared cameras and an IR flood illuminator that enabled safe face unlock.

Apple took IR facial recognition mainstream with 2017’s iPhone X, however exterior diversions like Samsung’s experiments with iris scanning, fingerprint authentication has at all times been the secret on Android. The Pixel 4 ditched fingerprint sensors completely, providing as a substitute safe facial recognition that labored in the dead of night. Individuals miss older Pixel telephones’ rear-mounted fingerprint scanners to today, however I am very pro-face unlock — I adore it on the Pixel 9 Professional, however it’s restricted there by means of the usual RGB front-facing digicam. It solely works in good gentle.

Based on leaks, infrared-based face unlock may make a comeback in 2026’s Pixel 11 — utilizing under-display IR cameras. Face unlock would possibly simply dethrone fingerprint scanners within the Android world over the following few years, and if it does, we’ll have the Pixel 4 to thank (a minimum of partly).

The Pixel 4 was a basic

I favored the Pixel 9 Professional sufficient to purchase one, and the Pixel 5 might be my all-time favourite Google cellphone — however the small Pixel 4 (truly small at 5.7 inches!) will at all times maintain a spot in my Android nerd coronary heart. It may not have been the primary cellphone to do any of the issues it did, however it provided a bizarre, fascinating hodge-podge of concepts that felt distinctive within the 2019 panorama, and a variety of the options it adopted knowledgeable the Pixel sequence evolution in main methods. It additionally got here in a killer orange-and-black colorway (that AP Telephones Editor Will inexplicably hates).

Venture Soli was misguided and, on stability, the one most fascinating factor concerning the Pixel 4, however I do not assume it ought to be the cellphone’s total legacy. As a complete, the Pixel 4 was a reasonably nice little cellphone — and at present, it is a basic.