Google Pixel 4 review: not competitive, as $800 is pricey for 64GB, Motion Sense is fiddly, no expandable storage or fingerprint reader, battery life is weak
Kellen / Droid Life : Tweets: @whatthebit and @iamkellex Tweets: Stefan Constantine / @whatthebit : How much more would people love the Pixel 4 if the small one was $599 and the big one was $699? https://twitter.com/... Kellen / @iamkellex : never fun to say, but there are too many issues here. if you really want a new pixel phone, get the 4 XL. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Droid Life's verdict on the Pixel 4 lands six months after the Pixel 3a XL showed Google could sell the same camera recipe far cheaper, and the review reads as the mirror image of that playbook: $800 buys just 64GB of storage, no expandable slot, no fingerprint reader, fiddly Motion Sense, and weak battery life.
The specific complaints here are precisely what Google's own follow-up addressed — the [[a:956402|Pixel 4A arrived at $349 with 128GB, decent battery life, and the same flagship-tier photo quality]], making this review an early marker of where the lineup actually needed to go.
First-order effects
- Buyers eyeing a new Pixel are pointed straight upmarket within the same family — reviewer Kellen recommends only the larger, pricier 4 XL if you want one at all.
- At $800 for 64GB, the small Pixel 4 competes against rivals offering double the storage and features it omits, putting its price-to-spec ratio on the wrong side of the comparison.
Second-order effects
- Google's answer came from below rather than above: the a-series (4A, then the Pixel 4a 5G) absorbed the demand the flagship mispriced, effectively cannibalizing the premium tier Google itself set at $800.
- Motion Sense's fiddliness in reviews weakened the case for radar-based gesture control as a differentiator, leaving camera software as the lone feature carrying the brand.
Third-order effects
- The pattern holds across the corpus: by the time of the Pixel 11 in 2026, reviewers still cite few gen-to-gen hardware gains at high prices ($899), suggesting the flagship tier never fully recovered the value argument lost here while the a-series became the line's dependable core.
The trend: Google's Pixel line has drifted into a two-track structure where the midrange a-series delivers the value reviewers want and the expensive flagships lean on cameras and design rather than spec competitiveness.