Few smartphone manufacturers seem to think deeply about the "Phone" part of their product names. Google, however, is not such a smartphone manufacturer, and the newly released Pixel 6 is further proof of that.

In recent Pixel releases, Google Assistant has been active in taking appointments, answering robocalls, and handling hold times, and Pixel 6 does this trick by telling you how long it would take to talk to a live person and navigating through your phone book added to the bag of tricks.

Both features are powered by Tensor, a Google-designed processor that debuted in the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. One of Google's main motivations for switching to its own silicon was to push machine learning and artificial intelligence to the forefront of more experiences. That is exactly what is happening with the new phone features.

In the course of reviewing the Google Pixel 6, we tested both calling features. Here we take a closer look at how it works and some of the quirks we experienced with this powerful addition to the Pixel's feature set.

Before we can reap the benefits of the Pixel 6's new phone features (called "Wait Times" and "Direct My Call"), we need to enable at least one of them in the Pixel's phone app settings. In an ideal world, these features would be automatically turned on instead of forcing you to explore the settings, but my guess is that Google is treating this feature as opt-in for privacy reasons.

These are three vertical buttons on the right side of the search bar at the top of the phone app. Tap "Settings" from the drop-down menu that appears.

Direct My Call will appear in the Assistance section of the menu, along with Hold, Junk Mail, and Call Screen. Tap Direct My Call to activate it, another way for Google to save you time and effort when making a call.

In the unlikely event that Direct My Call does not appear in the Assistance menu, you may need a software update for your phone app: long-press the Play Store icon and select "My Apps" from the Action menu. You will see available updates on the Manage tab.

Wait Times is a fairly simple feature added to the Phone app that does exactly what it says on the label. Enter a toll-free number into the dialer and immediately after the last digit is displayed, a chart will appear showing the expected wait time for the current day. The current time is highlighted and the current wait time is displayed just below the chart. To make sure you don't miss this information, the wait time is also displayed on the green "call" button on the phone dialer.

If today's wait time seems long, you can switch to another day of the week to see if there is a better time to call.

Note that you can only enter toll-free numbers to call Wait Times. Local phone numbers will not work. For example, last week there was a power outage where I live, and I could not dial the local power company to see the wait times.

Nor can I tap the number on a recent call to see the wait time. You have to enter the number into the dialer. This seems to be one area where Call Times could definitely be expanded.

Direct My Call would be welcomed by anyone who has ever listened to a menu of options on an automated call and forgotten what happens when they press any number before the robot voice finishes lining up the menu. Instead, Direct My Call transcribes what the voice is saying and highlights the options in a text block for easy reference. There is also a convenient column of numbers at the bottom of the screen that can be tapped when the correct option is heard or read.

It is impressive that Google's Tensor chip can do such transcription on the fly and is smart enough to isolate the various menu options.

However, transcription is not always perfect. The section that tells you what to do if you want a menu to be read out loud in Spanish (which it usually is) always falls into a loop when Google Assistant tries to transcribe a call. Automated systems that respond to voice rather than touch-tone input can also confuse Direct My Call.

However, menu items can often be transcribed accurately. In addition, a block of text appears next to the assigned phone number, making it easy to see the options for navigating the phone network.

Hold for Me was first introduced in last year's Pixel 5 and is back in the Pixel 6. As before, when you are put on hold, Google Assistant pops up and offers to wait on hold while you do something else. When the hold time expires, the Assistant can alert you with a sound, vibration, or prompt.

Google has also expanded caller ID for businesses to share information about the type of business that called. That information will help Google better identify incoming calls.

Call Screen was available in Japan, Canada, and the U.S. and expanded to the U.K., France, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Italy, and Spain in October Call Screen allows an assistant to answer a call from an unknown party and transcribe the Call Screen allows an assistant to answer a call from an unknown caller and transcribe the content of the call. According to Google, the transcripts are more accurate thanks to the Tensor chip.

Like Direct My Call, Hold for Me and Spam and Call Screen must be enabled in the phone app settings.

No one would argue that the phone feature Google added to the Pixel 6 is an essential feature of the device. However, the phone feature will show off Tensor's capabilities and will make calling on Google's new phone more efficient.