-
The Pixel 4 XL.
Ron Amadeo -
The many sensors in the Pixel 4’s top bezel.
Ron Amadeo / Google -
In the right lighting conditions, you can begin to make out the components hidden in here. Most cutouts are for the 3D face unlock system.
Ron Amadeo -
We have the white version, which looks great with the contrasting black accents.
Ron Amadeo -
The top of the phone. There is a lot of bezel here.
Ron Amadeo -
Does the display look… kinda pink? That’s the ambient EQ display mode in action.
Ron Amadeo -
Google camera block has two cameras: a 12MP main camera and a 16MP telephoto.
Ron Amadeo -
In the right lighting, the camera block looks like a surprised robot. The two eyes are cameras, the mouth is the LED flash, and a microphone is a small beauty mark on the right. See the sensor on the robot’s forehead? Let’s zoom in…
Ron Amadeo -
It’s a color sensor! Neat.
Ron Amadeo -
The back has a soft-touch coating everywhere but on this “G” logo. You can catch a fingernail on the edge of it.
Ron Amadeo -
We get a neon orange power button, and in this shot you can see the camera bump.
Ron Amadeo -
There’s just a USB-C port, a speaker, and a microphone on the bottom. The slots are just for symmetry.
Ron Amadeo -
There’s just a microphone on top.
Ron Amadeo -
The black sides are metal with a heavy coat of paint on top, and there are actually plastic bumpers where the metal meets the two glass panels.
Ron Amadeo
Google is shipping Android’s April security patch this week, and with it comes a fix for a long-standing issue with the Pixel 4’s face unlock feature. The Pixel 4’s face unlock system is finally getting an alertness check, almost a whopping six months after launch.
Google went all-in on a face unlock system for the Pixel 4, removing the fingerprint reader that had been on previous models and using and IR-backed, 3D face scanner as the only biometric system. The Pixel 4 sported a big, lopsided top bezel with all the requisite hardware to build a FaceID-like system, but Google’s software left a bit to be desired. The face-scanning system worked even when the user’s eyes were closed, so it would be possible to point the phone at the sleeping owner and unlock the phone without their consent. With the new eyes-open check, there’s more of a consent factor built into the biometrics.
The fact that the Pixel 4 didn’t launch with this feature is kind of baffling. The system is, after all, a copy of Apple’s Face ID system that debuted on the iPhone X and that has an eyes-open check was built into the original release. Even Google’s previous version of face unlock—a camera-based system that was built into Android 4.1 Jelly Bean back in 2012—could ask the user to blink to verify that they were a living, breathing, alert person.
The April Android security patch is rolling out now, but it may take weeks to hit the entire population.
Listing image by Ron Amadeo
