Beebom
Rating8
Pixel 11 Pro XL is a polished flagship that gets the basics right with its excellent cameras, stunning display, smooth everyday performance and genuinely useful AI features, making it a joy to live with. However, the Tensor G6 falls short for serious gaming, and charging speeds are terribly slow. At Rs 1,34,999, it remains a compelling choice for Pixel newcomers but a less convincing upgrade for Pixel 10 Pro XL owners
Pros
- Fantastic OLED panel
- Excellent and consistent camera system
- Genuinely useful AI features
- Reliable battery life
- Clean Android 17 experience
Cons
- Not the best for gaming
- Charging is painfully slow
- HiLight feels gimmicky than useful
When I was going hands-on with the Pixel 11 series a week ago at the Google office in Gurgaon, I couldn’t keep my hands off the Pixel 11 Pro XL’s all-matte Obsidian colourway. Well, the phone did land on my lap a little later for some detailed testing, and after spending about a week with it, I have realised that this stunning colourway is not the only impressive thing about the phone. Here’s all you need to know about those silent upgrades and beyond in this detailed Pixel 11 Pro XL review.
Pixel 11 Pro XL Unboxing
In classic Google fashion, you don’t really get anything extraordinary in the Pixel 11 Pro XL box. Here’s the starter kit:
- Google Pixel 11 Pro XL smartphone
- USB-C to USB-C cable
- SIM ejector tool
- Paperwork
For charging, I’m using the Portronics 65W Adapto 65M GaN charger (priced at Rs 1,099 on Amazon, more on the speeds later).
With that out of the way, let’s take a quick look at its specifications:
Google Pixel 11 Pro XL Key Details
Note: Our testing, opinion, and rating for this review are based on the phone's launch price. We recommend checking the current price before making a purchase decision.
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Design and Build
On pure aesthetics, I love the Pixel 11 Pro XL’s Canyon colourway. However, the in-hand feel you get with the Obsidian is unparalleled, thanks to that matte frame. For context, the other colour options only get the matte back panel and a glossy frame.
I couldn’t get enough of the all-matte feel and would consider it criminal to put a case on this bad boy. Moreover, because of this, my sweaty hands failed to leave any imprint on the phone. It’s an unexplainable relief not to wipe my phone every 5 minutes.
The phone itself is still a big boy, though. The 6.8-inch display and substantial frame make one-handed use a stretch, especially when I am trying to reach the top-left corner of the screen. I usually find myself shifting the Pixel 11 Pro XL around in my palm rather than attempting to operate it with one hand. If you prefer smaller phones, this Pro XL size may not be for you.
That said, I found the weight and overall balance of the Pixel 11 Pro XL quite comfortable. The camera bar does make the Pixel instantly recognisable, but it doesn't make the phone feel awkward in the hand. More importantly, the camera bar sits nicely when the phone is placed on a desk.
Google has also introduced HiLight, an RGB LED system integrated into the camera bar. It can light up in different colours for certain notifications and when Gemini is active. It looks undeniably cool, especially in a dark room.
But after a week, I am still not sure how often I would actually rely on it. I would have liked more control over what triggers which colour because that's what could turn it from a visual gimmick into a genuinely useful notification system.
The Pixel 11 Pro XL also retains its premium build and IP68 rating, so I have no major concerns about carrying it around without constantly babying it.
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Display and Speakers
The 6.8-inch Super Actua LTPO OLED 120 Hz display is exactly what I want from a phone this expensive. It gets bright enough that I don't find myself shielding the screen with my hand outdoors. Our Luxmeter recorded a peak of 3,200 nits.
But I noticed the superior quality of this panel most while watching movies. I watched Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire on Netflix during my testing, and the large screen immediately made the Pixel 11 Pro XL feel more like a tiny entertainment tablet than a phone.
The dark scenes had the deep blacks I expect from an OLED panel, while the bright explosions and neon-heavy sequences had plenty of punch without washing out the rest of the scene.
The stereo speakers complement the display well. They get pretty loud for casual Netflix and YouTube sessions, and dialogue remains clear. The speakers also bring a lot of richness to the table, and there's this satisfying balance in the highs, lows and mids, which made me play some music in the morning straight from the speakers.
The audio separation is also quite good, and it was never awkward to watch content in landscape mode. These are easily one of the best speaker outputs I've experienced on a smartphone to date.
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Performance Tested
This is perhaps the easiest section of the Pixel 11 Pro XL to overthink. Google's Tensor G6 isn't designed to win benchmark wars against Qualcomm's top Snapdragon chips. Here's a rundown of the tests:
However, honestly, after using the phone for a week, I don't care very much, as it handled my everyday workload beyond seamlessly.
Here's what my day-to-day usually looks like: Chrome with far too many tabs open, Gmail, WhatsApp, Slack, YouTube, Google Photos and constantly jumping between apps. The Pixel 11 Pro XL has felt properly flagship-grade, with apps opening quickly, animations being smooth and switching between recently used apps not feeling like a chore.
I also noticed how the RAM management is not as aggressive here, and out of the 30 or so apps I had running in the background, most would resume from right where I left them.
Gaming is where I would still hesitate to call this an outright performance champion. The Tensor G6 is perfectly capable of handling casual and moderately demanding gaming, like BGMI and CoD Mobile. However, Google isn't targeting gamers with this phone, and that becomes clearer when playing Genshin Impact.
Since the game's developers dropped support for PowerVR architecture and the Tensor G6 uses a PowerVR GPU, there are horrible optimisation problems, with pink screen issues and horrible stuttering. It's unplayable, basically.
And that is fine provided you understand what you're buying. For me, as someone who doesn't exactly game as actively on his phone as he once used to, the Pixel 11 Pro XL is a fast everyday phone rather than a performance monster. For the majority of people, I suspect that's the distinction that actually matters.
Software and Updates
This is where the Pixel 11 Pro XL starts making a much stronger case for itself.
Android 17 is clean, familiar and pleasantly uncluttered. I don't have to spend the first hour deleting duplicate apps or turning off notifications from services I never intend to use. Everything feels like it is where I expect it to be.
But the bigger story this year is AI. I have become increasingly sceptical of smartphone AI features, but, thankfully, several of Google's additions here feel much more practical.
Rambler is probably my favourite. I frequently use voice typing when I'm trying to get something written quickly, but normal voice dictation has always produced something that sounds exactly like spoken language. I end up going back and correcting punctuation, removing filler words and fixing sentences.
Rambler takes care of much of that automatically. It can understand natural speech, clean it up and produce something that reads far more like something I actually intended to type.
Pixel Search, which I tested recently, is also awesome and brings the iPhone's Spotlight-like feature to the Pixel 11 series. This global search expands across the entire Pixel UI and helps you locate files across your Google services and accounts, settings, and more.
Gemini's Proactive Assistance is another interesting addition. The idea is that the phone can understand the context of what I'm doing and surface relevant actions. For example, if I'm discussing plans in Messages, it can pull up relevant calendar information.
Google's seven years of Android and security updates are also worth mentioning. At this price, I expect long-term support, and Google delivers exactly that. It also makes the Pixel 11 Pro XL easier to recommend to someone who plans to keep their phone for four or five years.
Cameras Reviewed
Pixel cameras have always had a reputation for being reliable rather than simply impressive on a specification sheet, and the Pixel 11 Pro XL continues that approach.
The 50 MP main camera remains the workhorse and delivers the familiar Pixel look with strong detail, reliable HDR and Google's characteristic processing. I also appreciate how quickly it captures a frame, which becomes particularly useful with moving subjects. However, I did notice how the main camera struggled with focusing on subjects at times.
For example, if you zoom in on shots of the red hibiscus, you will notice that it's not exactly in focus. I had quite a bit of trouble focusing on it too for some reason. However, at other times, the focusing would be on point. It's highly likely that it's a glitch, and Google will fix it with updates.
The 48 MP ultrawide is where I would have liked a little more consistency. It is useful for architecture, landscapes and squeezing a group into the frame, but I still prefer the main camera whenever I have enough room to step back. The colour and exposure generally stay close to the primary camera, which is important because nothing ruins a multi-camera system faster than noticeably different processing between lenses.
Then there's the 48 MP 5X telephoto, and this is the camera I found myself reaching for more often than expected. The native 5X perspective is genuinely useful for portraits and distant subjects, while Google's processing keeps the image looking detailed as you move into higher zoom levels. ProRes Zoom pushing to 120X is impressive as a demonstration of Google's computational photography.
Google has also made Night Sight considerably faster, which is a more meaningful upgrade than it sounds. Spending less time holding the phone perfectly still means I can actually photograph people at night without worrying that they'll move before the exposure finishes.
The night shots themselves turn out great with a good amount of detail. There's some noise for sure, but it's very minimal. Light sources are also handled very well, and as a result, ambient occlusion is kept in check nicely.
Portrait mode is better at handling difficult edges, particularly hair, while Magic Capture is designed for those moments when pressing the shutter at exactly the right time is asking too much.
The phone is also capable of producing amazing selfies, and I could instantly post them to the gram without having to make any edits. Skin tones look natural, light is handled all too well, and there are amazing details upon zooming in. Portrait selfies are spot-on as well, with solid background separation and edge detection. Not to mention that you can also capture either 0.7x or 1x selfies, making it all the more versatile.
The phone can record at up to 8K @ 30 FPS from the rear camera and up to 4K @ 60 FPS through the front camera.
Battery and Charging
The Pixel 11 Pro XL packs a 5,115mAh battery, and in my experience, it's super reliable. My typical day involves a mix of social media, messaging, Chrome, photography, YouTube and having a 5G/Wi-Fi mix at all times.
With Always-On turned off, I was able to squeeze about 7 hours of screen-on time, while turning it on gave me around 4 hours and 45 minutes.
However, charging was super slow and took me about 2 hours to charge from 5–100%.
Pixel 11 Pro XL Review Verdict: Should You Buy It?
The Pixel 11 Pro XL is a refined flagship that offers excellent cameras, a fantastic display, smooth software and genuinely useful AI features.
However, at a starting price of Rs 1,34,999, it feels more like a polished Pixel 10 Pro XL than a must-have upgrade, especially with gaming performance and battery life still trailing some rivals.
If you’re coming from an older phone and value Google's camera and software experience, it is easy to recommend, especially considering the worsening RAM crisis. Pixel 10 Pro XL owners, however, can comfortably wait another generation.
