The display has a 120Hz refresh rate, which means the picture on the screen will refresh twice as quickly as on handsets with a ‘standard’ 60Hz screen for a smoother experience when gaming or scrolling social media feeds. Previously, he was Senior Phones Editor for TechRadar, and he has covered smartphones and the mobile space for the best part of a decade bringing you news on all the big announcements from top manufacturers making mobile phones and other portable gadgets. The biggest issue we encountered in testing is lens flare: Pixels have long handled difficult lighting situations well, but with the 6 Pro, you'll see more blooming around bright points in mostly dark scenes.

Google’s display technology here is particularly impressive, and we guarantee that this will be one of the best smartphone displays you’ve ever used. You can use the settings below to accept all cookies (which we recommend to give you the best experience) or to enable specific categories of cookies as explained below. This isn’t the sort of phone that is going to last you multiple days, unless you’re a particularly light user. When we ran speed tests while doing our camera evaluations in densely wooded areas, the Pixel 6 Pro always had a solid signal; in comparison, the iPhone defaulted to LTE and the Galaxy S21 Ultra simply had no signal.We’ll start by talking about the camera tech, but the software here is another highlight, and something you won’t experience on any other current phones – although we might see Google roll some of these features out to older Pixel phones, while we might see other brands imitate them on future devices. Google has also confirmed that the phone will receive three full software updates, so you should expect this handset to continue being supported through the Android 13, Android 14 and Android 15 upgrades - and that it will get those updates more or less immediately after the software launches. The Pixel 6 Pro has a Quad HD+ resolution at 3120 x 1440 pixels, offering a pixel density of 512ppi, and there is a variable refresh rate between 10Hz and 120Hz. The display of third-party trademarks and trade names on this site does not necessarily indicate any affiliation or the endorsement of PCMag.

Another Pro phone, the iPhone uses iOS instead of Android, but in other departments is quite similar. It’s a touch gimmicky, but it’s the sort of upgrade that enables you to customize your smartphone in a distinct way for a more personalized experience. It offers great picture quality, the brightness levels are consistently impressive, and it’s huge at 6. Its curved edges ensure the phone sits comfortably in your hand, although some may find it a touch slippery to hold – we found that a case mitigated that issue.

As you step up in the Pixel 6 models, you step up in certain features, like screen size and refresh rate, camera capabilities, RAM and storage and battery capacities. The telephoto camera is capable of up to 4x optical zoom, and in testing we found that it produced detailed images of distant subjects. For example, your Quick Settings at the top of the phone will take on a yellow shade that’s in your wallpaper. Both devices have a flat display and they both offer a Full HD+ resolution at 2400 x 1080 pixels, which delivers a pixel density of 411ppi on the Pixel 6 and 429ppi on the Pixel 6a. as real users, posing a threat to a site’s security, so the site sometimes runs random security checks.

A separate Context Hub coprocessor sits on the SoC for things like contextual reminders and the always-on display.

Uswitch Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) under firm reference number 312850. The phone’s zoom features aren’t as high spec as far as some other top-end smartphones, but we found the Pixel 6 Pro’s zoom features were suitable for most tasks you’ll want the rear camera for. It’s the most remarkable element of the design, and it’s an acquired taste, and something that’s certain to divide opinion. The Tensor processor allows Google to focus exclusively on the features and experiences it believes Pixel owners want.