The 6.2-inch Pixel 8 and 6.7-inch Pixel 8 Pro are Google’s newest attempts to persuade you that the creator of Android is the best smartphone maker.

Photos and videos are a top priority and a competitive strong suit for for Google’s phones. This closeup of the “obsidian” colored Google Pixel 8 Pro shows its larger new 48-megapixel ultrawide camera at left, its updated 50-megapixel main camera in the center and 48-megapixel 5x telephoto camera at right.

Google’s Pixel 8 smartphone has a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera at left in a pill-shaped area of the camera bar. Toward the center is the same 50-megapixel main camera as in the higher-end Pixel 8 Pro. It’s got better light-gathering abilities than the Pixel 7 models, plus “Dual Exposure” technology to boost shadow detail in videos.

The Google Pixel 8 Pro introduces a new “bay” blue color. Inside is Google’s new Tensor G3 processor.

The Pixel 8 (left) and Pixel 8 Pro include Google’s in-house version of the Android operating system software.

Flagship smartphone manufacturers have embraced bulging cameras as a signature design element. This shows the Google Pixel 8 Pro’s thick “camera bar” that houses its cameras. Larger image sensors can capture higher-quality imagery, but they require physically wider and longer lenses that protrude from the rest of the phone body.

The Google Pixel 8 Pro weighs 7.5 ounces (213g) and gets a new matte-finish glass back cover.

The Pixel 8 Pro has a temperature sensor that can measure how hot or cold beverages and other materials are. 

To use the Pixel 8 Pro’s Thermometer app, you have to tell the phone which material you’re measuring.

The Google Pixel 8 Pro’s camera bar houses in its oval “pill”: a 48-megapixel ultrawide angle camera (left) with an f1.95 lens, the main 50-megapixel wide-angle camera with an f1.68 lens (center) and the 48-megapixel telephoto camera with an f2.8 lens (right).

If you look closely, you can see the lens elements for the Google Pixel 8 Pro’s central main camera.

New colors in 2023 include “bay” blue for the Google Pixel 8 Pro and “rose,” a pale pinkish orange, for the Pixel 8.