Pixel 11 Series is More of the Same But is That Bad? - DTNS 5336

**Jason Howell** (0:08)
This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, August 20th, 2026 We tell you what you need to know, give you the important context, and help each other understand.

**Jenn Cutter** (0:16)
Today, science communicator Bobby Frankenberger tells us what's holding back using ocean waves as an energy source, and the Pixel 11 reviews are in.

**Jason Howell** (0:27)
That's right, I've got one of them. I've got thoughts, though I don't have a full review, but we'll talk about the reviews. I'm Jason Howell.

**Jenn Cutter** (0:33)
I'm Jenn Cutter.

**Jason Howell** (0:34)
Let's start with what you need to know with the big story.
Yes, the Pixel 11 reviews are out. So you got the 11, the 11 Pro, the 11 Pro XL. You know, you've also got the Pixel full. Actually, now that I think about it, I don't know that I saw the full reviews, but I wasn't really paying close attention to those because I've been using the Pixel 11 Pro personally, and so I've been very curious to kind of see what reviewers are saying about it, as far as does it kind of line up with my own personal kind of perspective and experience. Though I'm not ready for a full review, I'm probably going to be delivering that, or almost certainly delivering that next Tuesday on Android Faithful with the crew.
But I thought we'd do a little bit of a round up to kind of let you know, like, is this a phone that you might actually want to get for yourself? Well, there's a bit of perspective here. Seems like a resounding yes on the feature that is also my favorite feature called Rambler. Rambler is this AI infused voice chat essentially. So instead of me just using my voice and saying a bunch of things and it does it in real time exactly as I said it, it kind of cleans it up. So if you say a bunch of things and maybe you mess up or maybe you change your mind and you say something else or whatever, what it does is it sends that to an LLM, cleans it up by keeping it to your voice and then giving you the output in the text box. I was worried that it was not going to sound like me when I use that, but I use it all the time. I absolutely love it. So it seems like everybody is loving Rambler, one of the AI features. Another AI feature is something called camera looks, which essentially means you can assign a default camera setting to, it's like a template to all of your photos. So essentially, and I'm curious to know what you think about this, Jenn, because the idea is, at least if I was to interpret it, Google might not like this, but it's like adding a filter that you might add in like Instagram or whatever, like a photo changing filter or whatever, just like color and contrast and that stuff. But doing it as a setting in your camera instead of applying it after the fact. So everything follows that look. Does that sound useful to you? Because I'm like, I don't know why I need that.

**Jenn Cutter** (2:51)
It is aimed at a very specific market because probably not a group of people you follow on photo-based social media, but the aesthetics people, if you remember when flat lays were the big thing, this saves them a step. They can set their preset, shoot and go.
I do know some people who use this kind of thing. For iOS, when you can have those settings, and for people who have other saved stuff in Snapseed, where they just auto run it through, they have a shortcut going, this takes out that step.

**Jason Howell** (3:22)
I suppose so. But you're kind of making the decision.
I guess in my mind, it's like, but that's destructive. Maybe I don't, maybe I like that picture, but I wish I didn't shoot it like that.

**Jenn Cutter** (3:33)
I mean, I have everything off, and then so all my terrible pictures I own is my terrible pictures. Yes, exactly, it's my fault. Because from there, I can take the extra time to do the thing, but I'm not, that's not my job. I'm not doing this in a hurry. I'm not working for any brand where I have to have a preset set. And who knows for some of these brand deals, if they want a very specific, hyper specific look for their products, and then say, we want these settings and don't change them.

**Jason Howell** (4:03)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm clearly in the minority on this one, because I'm still scratching my head, but apparently most of the reviewers are like, this is pretty awesome. And I guess I can kind of tell, it allows you to apply basically like a signature to your camera look on your phone, so that every picture you take kind of falls inside of that signature. So I get it, that does sound kind of appealing. I just don't know that I need it for me. There's also a feature that everybody seems to like, myself included, called Magic Capture, a pretty universal standout. This is the idea that when you hit the shutter in Magic Capture mode, it's captured up like a couple of hundred frames before and after the shutter, and then it goes through with AI and pulls out the best frame from there. So if you're trying to get something that's fast moving or whatever, you're always trying to time the shutter. This way, it captures all of them and it says, oh, well, here was the best frame and you can kind of select and everything. I've used it a couple of times, been pretty impressed with what it pulls out. So I'll be curious to use it more when I go to my kids' sporting events and stuff.