I don’t swap phones as often as I used to and had not really anticipated wanting to grab myself a Pixel 4. However, I watched the stream of the recent Made by Google ’19 event from New York and decided it was time to let my Pixel 2 go. It’s been only a week since the event and I have been waiting all day for my FedEx package to arrive.

Now that it’s here what do I think? The setup was typical of those pretty heavy in the Android/Google ecosystem and super quick. The phone itself is a pretty standard black and the screen, of course, is beautiful compared with the smaller Pixel 2 display. It was the demonstration of the phone and the audio recording that really encouraged me to order this phone. I really need to be taking and sharing more pictures and the Pixel 4 seems to have a pretty amazing set of photo features that I am looking forward to digging into more.

The voice transcription simply blows me away. Real-time audio recording AND transcription that has been 100% accurate in my few tests. I have literally hundreds of random thoughts a week, especially related to ideas for games, and the ability to both record them and get the text is incredibly useful to me.

Much has been made of the face unlock and it is really as fast as they showed pretty much unlocking instantly. I did notice that if I have the phone on the table and look down at it the unlock doesn’t trigger. It might be an angle thing but it would be useful if it did. The issue people have reported of the unlock working with eyes closed also does seem to be an issue.

The most notable difference to me thus far though has been how much more the Pixel 4 XL (193 grams) weighs than the Pixel 2 (143 grams). I expected the size difference but didn’t quite expect the weight so that will take some getting used to. I didn’t order a case but clearly that is something I will need to do. Shame that so few people make cases for these phones.

Overall, it is an impressive device with great speed and usability thus far. I can’t wait to start recording my thoughts and seeing if that helps me remember some of the details instead of just vague memories of those ideas.