Hands-on: Google Pixel 11 series makes small but meaningful improvements

Google has some new phones coming out, and we've been busy testing them all.

Let's talk about them.

As part of its annual Made by Google event earlier this month, Google lifted the veil off the entire Pixel 11 series.

While we don't quite have full reviews ready for each phone just yet, we wanted to share our first impressions of the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, and Pixel 11 Pro XL. (You can read our full review of the Pixel 11 Pro Fold .) In general, this is another year of incremental improvements for the Pixel family, but there are some noteworthy changes to talk about.

Let's dig in.

The base Pixel 11 camera bar is much thinner Slimmed down.

Credit: Rene Ramos / Mashable One thing that becomes very apparent right away when putting your hands on the base model Pixel 11 is that its physical profile has been trimmed down to an extent.

However, Google didn't do that by changing the phone's dimensions; those are exactly the same as last year.

So, what did Google do to achieve a thinner silhouette (while shaving 0.3 oz off the weight) for its cheapest Pixel 11? It noticeably reduced the size of the camera bar this time around.

It's not quite the same as what Google did to the Pixel 10a , which basically doesn't have a camera bar at all, allowing the phone to lie completely flat on a table.

But the end result is close enough, as this is, as far as I can tell, the thinnest camera bar Google has put on a Pixel in a long, long time.

It's barely noticeable when viewed from the side, and the phone is close enough to being flat on any given surface that it's functionally pretty similar to the Pixel 10a in design.

You can also basically make the phone completely flat on its backside by putting a case on the Pixel 11.

This isn't a monumental change or anything, and it only applies to the base model, but still, it's pretty nice.