As best as I can recall, the most money I’ve ever spent on a cellphone would be somewhere around the $400 mark. That’s how much I paid, I think, for an unlocked Samsung D900. This was a cool slider phone, well before the dawn of smartphones. From what I remember, I also paid about the same for Nokia E71. But you see this new Google Pixel 3 XL? It’s over $1,100 outright. That’s a lot of Bison Bucks!

In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t actually buy the Google Pixel 3 XL. It was a “gift” from Google for the purposes of writing up a review. That’ll show up on MEGATechNews soon, hopefully later this week if I can. If you have any specific questions or things you want me to test, hit me up on social media or via the comments below.

Curiously, as far as I can gather, the last time I did a smartphone unboxing video in this space was with the LG G5 from 2016. That was the “modular” smartphone, a paradigm that has since been picked up with Moto Mods and the various accessories for the Asus ROG Phone, among others.

As a flagship device, the new Google Pixel 3 XL is supposed to showcase all the latest and greatest from Google and Android. If you’ve been following along on social media, then you’ll know that I’ve been actively testing out portrait mode and the “color pop” feature. I really wanted to test “Night Sight,” but I don’t see that as an option in the camera app yet.

If you want to get a sense of where we’re coming from, here’s my Pixel 2 XL review from around this time last year. Aesthetically, I’d say the Pixel 3 XL is a huge improvement, even if it means we’ve now got to tolerate a massive notch. And it’s got wireless charging this time!