[Google Pixel 4 XL Guides, News, & Discussion] jimv1983:
This is going to be long but you asked so here you go.

I'll start with the biggest thing...the battery. 3700mAh is WAY too small. I have a Pixel 2 XL so I'll use that as a basis of comparison. Compared to the Pixel 2 XL the Pixel 4 XL has a 5% bigger screen, 5% more total pixels, 50% more RAM, a screen that refreshes 50% more often(when it's actually enabled which is another point I'll get to), a radar sensor and an IR camera system for the face unlock. All of those things add to the battery drain especially the screen stuff. As a result it has a much bigger battery drain than the Pixel 2 XL and the battery is only 5% bigger. The only thing that helps the battery life of the Pixel 4 XL over the Pixel 2 XL is the SD 855 instead of the SD 835 but the processor doesn't even impact the battery life that much. So what you get is a phone that has worse battery life than the Pixel 2 XL and the Pixel 2 XL battery life was already mediocre at best even brand new. The Pixel 4 XL should have had a 4200mAh battery at a MINIMUM. I don't want to have to carry a portable battery and charging cable in my pocket ever again. Since I have to do that with my Pixel 2 XL sometimes I'd definitely have to do it with a Pixel 4 XL.

Now for the other things.

No fingerprint sensor. Google could have added an ultrasonic in the screen fingerprint sensor either instead of the face unlock or in addition to face unlock. Face ID on the iPhone is well known to have issues with sunglasses, hats in some cases, direct sunlight (it works by mapping your face with IR light and the sun is a big ball of IR light). The Pixel 4 XL uses the exact same technology as Face ID on the iPhone so common sense says it will experience the same issues.

Face unlock can't be used to authenticate within apps. So my Bank of America app, Workday app and Lexus remote app would all require me to type in account info every time. That's a big deal to me.

Unless you force the 90hz display in developer options the screen will likely never run at 90hz since it's stuck at 60hz below 75% brightness. Unless I'm in direct sunlight I never have my brightness that high. So I'd have to have forced 90hz which loses the benefit of dropping down to 60hz when 90hz won't give you any benefit. That means either turning off the 90hz completely or having a major hit to already poor battery life by forcing it on in developer options.

They didn't even include the option to record 4k @ 60fps. Their excuse is that it takes up too much storage (which goes to my next point) which is a fair point but it's easy to off load to somewhere else to clear up storage. Google should have at least given the option.

It only has an option of 64GB or 128GB of storage while similarly priced phones have double that.

The video recording quality is pretty poor compared to all other major competitors.

Google didn't include an ultra wide camera which pretty much all the competition is doing now. Especially at that price.

Google got rid of the free unlimited photo storage at original quality. That's one of the things that at least helped justify the price

Motion Sense is basically a gimmick at this point. Oh boy, I can swipe to change songs in a few apps but none that I actually use. I am excited to see what the Soli technology could bring in the future but based on what it does now with no official word of any other functionality coming any time soon it's basically worthless.

One that really boggles my mind is that the new improved Google Assistant can't be used with the old 3 button navigation which means it's basically useless to me since I can't stand gesture navigation.

And finally there is the price. Google wants $1,000 for a Pixel 4 XL with an acceptable amount of storage. At that price there are just too many compromises that have to be made.

As much as I am a huge fan of Google's software the Pixel 4 XL is just too big of a disappointment overall.