Google Pixel 4 hands-on video confirms Ambient EQ, Screen Attention, Pixel Themes, and Recorder app

The leaks are getting ridiculous, but there's still more to learn

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In case you haven’t gotten the memo yet, the Google Pixel 4 is definitely a thing. The 2019 Pixel smartphones have leaked so much in the past week that we’ve grown exhausted of looking over every leak because they’re all starting to blend together. The non-XL and XL models have shown up in blurry photos, sketchy Weibo posts, code references, and high-quality hands-on videos enough times that it’s not even worth showing you a new leak if all it shows is the design. However, that’s not the case here. A new hands-on video by a Vietnamese YouTube channel has shown off some software aspects of the 2019 Pixels that we haven’t seen before.

First shared by YouTuber AnhEm TV (h/t Max J.), the video shows off Pixel Themes, Screen Attention, and Ambient EQ.

Pixel Themes, Screen Attention, and Ambient EQ

As you can see in the screenshot below, the Display settings has added a new “Styles & wallpapers” link above the Dark mode toggle in Android 10. This will likely open the Pixel Themes app for customizing the accent colors, font, icon shape, and more on the Pixel 4. Next, we can see a Screen attention setting. We covered this before, but it’s basically like Samsung’s Smart Stay feature in that it keeps your phone awake while you’re looking at it. Lastly, we can see the Ambient EQ setting, which is for the automatic white balance adjustment based on lighting conditions feature as found on the Google Nest Hub. (In case you aren’t familiar with Ambient EQ on the Nest Hub, think of Apple’s True Tone display feature on the iPhone.)

Built-in Recorder App

The YouTuber briefly shows the apps installed on their device, including a Recorder app. He doesn’t open the Recorder app so we don’t know what it can do, but it’ll likely help you record audio through your microphone for lectures, meetings, etc. It might even support screen recording with internal audio if we’re lucky. This Recorder app showed up in an earlier leak, but it’s still not clear if it will be a release feature.

More Smooth Display Confirmation

Lastly, here’s our best look yet at the Smooth Display/90Hz mode feature. This has been confirmed as a Pixel 4 feature plenty of times already, so there’s not much to say here. The text does confirm that Smooth Display will support dynamic adjustment of the refresh rate, which we believe applies to video playback.

Join our Pixel 4 forums to stay up-to-date on the latest news regarding Google’s upcoming late 2019 devices.

Google Pixel 4 Forums ||| Google Pixel 4 XL Forums

Check out the full video below in case you want to see the Pixel 4 in 4K resolution. At the 2:30 mark, you can also see the new camera UI that we spotted earlier. This new Google Camera UI hides the top bar until you tap the dropdown, redesigns the zoom slider to make it smooth and show the current zoom level, and move the shutter button/camera switch/gallery icon to be above the camera modes.



Featured image is a still from AnhEm TV’s video.