Google Pixel review: best premium Android phone, worth buying just for the impressive Assistant, but not water resistant
The new Pixel is a classy home for the new Assistant — At long last, almost 8 years to the day the first Android phone went on sale, Google is launching a smartphone …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google is entering hardware almost eight years after the first Android phone went on sale, and The Verge's verdict is that the Pixel earns its premium price on software alone: the new Assistant is impressive enough to justify the purchase. A companion verdict the same day doubles down on the strengths — fast performance, long battery life, a great camera — while flagging the missing optical image stabilization and unpolished software in the fuller Pixel review.
The durability gap is the tell: reviewers fault the Pixel for lacking water resistance at a premium price point. That flaw becomes the measuring stick for every later Pixel, from the $449 Pixel 5a shipping with IP67 to the Pixel 9a's IP68 rating, making this first model the baseline the line spends years correcting.
First-order effects
- Premium Android buyers face a straight trade-off: buy the Pixel for the Assistant and accept no water resistance, or stay with rival flagships where sealing is standard.
- Google's Assistant gets its first dedicated showcase device, tying the software's fate directly to Pixel sales rather than to whatever handset Android users already own.
Second-order effects
- Water resistance shifts from a differentiator Google lacks to a checklist item its own successors must match — the 5a and 9a reviews treat IP ratings as expected, not notable.
- With design called dull and software needing polish, the camera becomes the durable hardware story: by the Pixel 3, 'the best camera gets a better phone' frames the line's identity around imaging rather than the Assistant.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Google's phone business migrates from a premium Assistant showcase toward a midrange-anchored lineup — the 7a is named best midrange Android and the 9a carries IP68 — where each generation closes the previous flagship's spec gaps while software remains the differentiator.
The trend: The Pixel line is evolving from an Assistant-first premium bet into a camera- and durability-driven franchise whose midrange models inherit flagship fixes within a few generations.