Apple's iPhone X vs. Google's Pixel 2 XL review[english]popular

Now that the new 2017 flagship smartphones from both Google and Apple are available and in the hands of consumers, we thought we'd compare Apple's iPhone X with the Google Pixel 2 XL to see how these two devices measure up. 

The phones’ screens differ. The Pixel 2 sports a 5-inch screen with a crisp, organic light emitting diode display, or OLED. Apple’s iPhone 8 has a slightly smaller 4.7-inch screen with a less efficient liquid crystal display, or LCD.

The difference is palpable: Google’s new model has better image resolution by about two orders of magnitude, the company claims.

The Pixel 2 XL screen is bigger than the others’ screens. This model boasts a 6-inch screen with a thinner and more flexible plastic, rather than glass, OLED display. The Pixel 2 XL also has a higher screen resolution: 538 pixels per inch, a finer contrast ratio than either the Pixel 2 (441 pixels per inch) or the iPhone 8 (326 pixels per inch).

The prices of the low-end phone models from Google and Apple are similar. The Pixel 2 starts at $649 while the iPhone 8 starts a little costlier at $699 (both base models have 64 Gigabytes of memory). The Pixel 2 XL starts at $849 for the base 64 GB model.

The Pixel XL is impressive for the first Google branded phone but is it good enough to give the iPhone 7 Plus problems? Read on.

I switched, as an experiment, from the iPhone 7 Plus to the Pixel XL. This is my take after more than a month. What follows is meant to wrap up, as briefly as possible, earlier takes.

Note that I did not -- and will not -- ditch my iPhone 7 Plus. It's still sitting right next to the Pixel XL on my desk.

And note that reportedly, with Pixel devices accounting for 12.3 percent of phone activations with Verizon, according to Bloomberg. Some stores didn't have enough inventory to meet demand, the report said -- which I can confirm, after canvassing local Los Angeles Verizon stores.