Pixel Phone by Google - Initial Impressions

I have finally received my Google Pixel! After a couple of weeks with stock issues I have got my hands on a Very Silver Pixel with 128GB of onboard storage. In this post I will go through my initial impressions of the device after 24 hours of having it.

The OS
The new Pixel Launcher on the Pixel is incredibly good looking with the circle icons and refreshed navigation buttons. Gliding through Android 7.1.1 on this phone is incredibly smooth with no lag whatsoever. Split-screen has also been surprisingly useful when I want to watch a YouTube video while scrolling through my Twitter feed for example.

Hardware
This handset is incredibly solid with the metal being more grippy than some other aluminium phones that I have held. I am also a fan if the glass panel on the back and in some respects I prefer it to a full metal back as it just makes the phone stand out a little bit more. One of my slight concerns was the positioning of the Pixel Imprint sensor on the back but after using this position makes so much more sense than having it on the bottom chin. The swipe down gesture for the notifications tray is also really useful. The speaker are probably above average at best but who actually wants to fill a room with the speakers on their phone anyway?

Google Assistant
I still need time to really figure out what Google Assistant offers that Google Now did not. The conversational style is very good but in terms of added functionality I have yet to find this.

Camera
I have yet to fully explore the camera but I will be doing a camera test post in the near future.

These are my initial opinions of using the phone for the last 24 hours. I will be following up this post with a series of posts on the individual aspects of this phone.