Remember the days when using a smartphone outdoors in direct sunlight was impossible. That's a worry of the past, as today's flagship smartphone displays often exceed 1,000 nits, and in my review of the Google Pixel 8 Pro, I explained how impressed I was with all of the AI-assisted features on Google's latest device, but I was most impressed with its vastly improved display surprised me the most.

Having spent a fair amount of time with the Pixel 7 Pro, I noticed that it underperformed in a number of key areas, especially the display. This is especially true of the display: according to Tom's Guide benchmark tests, the model had a peak brightness of 927 nits. In comparison, the similarly sized Galaxy S23 Plus had 1,345 nits in our tests.

Google definitely needed to remedy this problem, so when Google raved about the Pixel 8 Pro's Super Actua Display at the Made By Google event, I was a bit skeptical that it would be a significant improvement from the Pixel 7 Pro's pathetic marks I'm not one to jump to conclusions. I'm not one to jump to conclusions, but Google's HDR brightness rating of 1,600 nits and peak brightness of 2,400 nits seems overly ambitious. Usually, display improvements are iterative, but rarely do they lead to big leaps forward.

Now, it turns out that we don't need to put the Pixel 8 Pro through the usual barrage of display tests to see exactly how this upgraded display holds up; to compare the Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel 7 Pro, we ran both models through the movie I was able to load the trailer and witness a night and day difference just by quickly reading my article using Chrome; I can't say enough about how much brighter the Pixel 8 Pro's new display is compared to the previous model.

The Pixel 8 Pro passed Tom's Guide's display benchmark test, further confirming that the display is much improved, with a peak brightness output of 1,526 nits. This turns out to be a 64% improvement over the Pixel 7 Pro, which is remarkable since displays rarely achieve such a leap. Usually, such improvements take at least a couple of generations.

Against other rivals such as the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Galaxy S23 Ultra, the Pixel 8 Pro's SuperActual display is a marked improvement. While it falls just short of the 1,550 nits produced by Apple's flagship Super Retina XDR display, it beats the 1,225 nits reached by Samsung's champion.

The standard Pixel 8 also registers impressive brightness on the smaller 6.2-inch Actua Display, so its improvement should not be overlooked: in Tom's Guide testing, peak brightness reached 1,349 nits, a 45% improvement from the Pixel 7's 926 nits

This is a good thing.

This is a satisfying win for Google, and while the Pixel 8 Pro has not reached the ratings that Google claims (to be fair, few phones have), it is an important upgrade that makes the Pixel 8 Pro a more resounding contender in the best smartphone conversation. It remains an upgrade. Coupled with improvements in battery and camera, the Pixel 8 Pro is definitely one of the best Android phones.