Sorry for the delay for the weekly. Server’s not that stable right now, maybe we should start the thread on Sundays instead.
I always like to switch things up once in a while because it’s fun. So, let’s get back to the brand discussion this week for the Google Pixel. We’ll do a discussion on repairability next week. Again, ideas are always welcome here.
I’ve never used a Pixel, but people around here should know that I’ve been very critical of Google’s product decisions over the years, and the Pixel is no exception. In my point of view, discontinuing the Nexus series, buying out the talents from the remains of HTC and starting an official “made by Google” phone is the equivalent of reddit buying out Alien Blue to make the official reddit app. I think it’s the event that scared big Android manufacturers like Samsung enough to start making their own ecosystem away from Google, as they are concerned that Google may start locking software features to their own phones instead of improving Android overall (rightfully so, I might add).
It really makes no business sense at all to turn your manufacturing partners into your competitors, but then again, it’s Google.
With that being said, the first years of the Pixels has been marred with growing pains. Whereas the Nexus line has always been barebones, no frills development devices, it seemed to me that the people who made Pixels don’t even use Android and are insistent on turning Pixel into iPhones, removing the headphone jack on the Pixel 2 despite the antagonistic ad from the original Pixel, Pixel exclusive software features like Google camera that necessitating the need of rom mods, as well as the quality issues that seems to be inherited from the Nexus days just really soured me from considering Pixels, as I think it’s against the spirit of openness that made Android great.
But it seems like in recent years, they finally figured out that a large percentage of people who bought Androids not because they can’t afford iPhones, but because they like Android, and I see the introduction of the “a” series as progress. The recent Pixel ad campaign also made me think that they finally figuring it out: people want different things, trying to turn Android into worse versions of iPhones was not going to work, so they should be trying to make the best Android for Android users instead.
(It’s also the reason I think all the previous reddit clones failed, but Lemmy will be the one that finally succeeds.)
Just got the Pixel 6a when it was super cheap for Prime Day because my Note 9 was acting up even after a factory reset and wouldn’t hold a charge for the day. I love it. It does everything I need a phone to do and is zippy fast. I don’t see myself every spending a lot of money on a phone again unless it has some revolutionary new feature… but I think those days are over. If this line stays affordable and high quality, I’ll probably go for another with my next phone too
My recent upgrade path was Pixel 2 -> OnePlus 7 Pro -> Pixel 7. Previously I used Nexus phones as well.
All of Google’s phones seem to have at least one glaring issue. In the case of the Pixel 2, it was the skimpy RAM and low max brightness.
With the Pixel 7, it’s the crappy fingerprint scanner, poor GPU/CPU performance, and surprisingly, the UI. I used to favor Google phones specifically because they had clean UIs with no bullshit, but holy moly, Google went off the deep end with Android 13. The wasted space everywhere is absurd. You can’t even read text in the quick settings because they have such enormous empty borders on all sides. They literally use marquee scrolling, like it’s a 1990s GeoCities page. I had to change my screen DIP settings in developer options to make it tolerable.
The nav bar is stupidly large. Even the gesture bar is stupidly large, sitting permanently at the bottom of my screen while doing absolutely nothing.
The performance is noticeably worse than my last phone. I was not expecting a speed demon, but I was certainly expecting an upgrade over a 3-year-old phone. Gaming performance is bad, and made even worse by the fact that Google only allows 90fps on specific hard-coded games, with no way for the user to override it. Games that run smoothly at 90fps on my old OnePlus 7 Pro stutter at 60fps on the Pixel 7.
Aside from that, it’s a great phone. Battery life is fine. Screen brightness is good. GPS and 5G performance is good. I can still recommend it as a phone for casual use — you can’t beat the price for what you get. But it’s definitely not a phone for power users.
My next phone will likely not be a Pixel. It’s been a while, so I might give Samsung another shot next time. If I catch a good sale on an S23 Ultra I might even upgrade this year.
Haha I’ve had the pixel 7 for a while now and never even noticed the gesture bar at the bottom doing nothing there. First time ever using it after reading your post
I’m on my first non Google phone, starting with the Nexus 5. I currently have the Z Fold 3, bought used for about half MSRP. It has so many good things that Google failed to do, while also missing a lot of things I loved about the Google phones. The Pixel folder may bring me back if it gets cheap enough.
I was SO happy with my OnePlus 5T but AT&T network changes forced my phone to be obsolete. Otherwise I’d still be rocking that phone. I currently have this ultra crappy Samsung Galaxy A32 that was given to me by AT&T as a consolation prize.
Now I’m torn between a Google Pixel or a newer OnePlus.
I dislike the new one plus software. It got too close to oppo. That said, while I like my pixel 7 pro, it never felt like a great phone, just a really good one. This can be both a pro and a con. Nothing annoys me about it, but nothing wows me either.
Love them!! I’m still on pixel 4a and been a fan since the nexus era and I have decided to make it my main flagship forever. unless something changed. the only company piquing my eye right now is the “nothing” company but not switching
I tried HTC and Samsung in the past and hated them. I started with the Nexus 5 and never looked back. I’ve had a few cheap Android phones through work and they have all been crap.
Not to say Pixles don’t have flaws. They often have annoying bugs that Google seems to take their time fixing.
I’ve been using a Pixel 3 for about 5 years and I love it. I actually got a pixel 7 for work earlier this year and honestly prefer the pixel 3 lol. I’ve had some charging issues because lint gets stuck in the charge port, but I’ve been able to mostly solve those by cleaning out the port with a toothpick.
I’ve been using Android phones for a decade now. My Pixel 6 is the best experience I’ve had with Android in those 10 years. I’ve had an OG Moto X, a Galaxy S9, a Pixel 3a, and now this 6. (I also had a brief stint with an iPhone in 2016)
The 6 and 3a have been the only ones that I’ve had without a manufacturer skin or carrier bloatware and it’s been pretty great. The Pixel 6 is the only phone I’ve had matches that iPhone I had in terms of polish and reliability.
I like the custom operating systems that are available for it, however to my knowledge none of the phone networks in Poland have it for sale so the only option would be to import the phone wich would cost about the monthly minimum wage. So i will stick with my old Sony xperia M5 until it breaks and then il think about what phone to buy.
Same. No better alternative with a balance of features and privacy/security. So pretty much locked into Pixels. Progression for me was nexus (stock) to 1+ (close to stock) to pixel (graphene).
I’ve been with Pixel since it started, Nexus before that, and a Palm Pre before that.
There is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS some random hardware bug with Pixels that most people seem to not have but if you have it, it absolutely sucks. The speaker buzz. The display gap. The fingerprint sensor. The camera glass shattering for no reason at all. I’ve had them all and I finally went to Sammy with an S22, which I hate.
I wish Google had never bought HTC and brought hardware in house. I think they would be much better able to strongarm hardware partners if they weren’t competing against them with their own hardware.
I only had Nexus or Pixel (Nexus 2, Nexus 5x, Pixel 2, Pixel 4) phones for about 10 years. The clean interface, and supreme photo quality was great, but they always seemed to have some sort of hardware error and shitty battery life. I switched to a GalaxyS20FE and realized bloatware (at least in the samsung case) is minimal and easy to hide. My next phone will either be a samsung or pixel. It depends on price and reviews.
I got a pixel 6a recently and within 1 month my back camera quit working. Open camera app and it says something went wrong. Tried everything but it’s fried apparently. Selfie camera still works but I can’t take normal pictures. Otherwise I love the phone.
They used to be fantastic, but for various reasons Google have been reducing the quality of their products for some time.
The android 12 update really hurt the UI/UX by limiting customization, adding big obnoxious qs tiles that obstruct notifications for no reason (that I am constantly activating by accident), removing the wifi toggle and wasting home screen real estate with an ‘at a glance’ widget that isn’t useful (it’s like a wish.com version of Google now), you need a custom default program manager to let it open search results in browser without pushing shit apps (like reddit official). Also wasn’t the point of pure android to avoid bloatware? Why am I carrying google TV, YouTube, wallet, Google money, fit, Google one, gpay, spy assistant, lens, meet etc?
As bad as the recent software direction is, the hardware is worse. My pixel 7 pro new has worse battery life than my pixel 5 had after 2 years of constant use, it overheats and throttles doing basic tasks (like maps), the glass back is among the most slippery things I’ve ever touched, the curved screen has an infuriating glare persistent no matter how you hold it, the fingerprint sensor is unreliable and in an awkward place, there’s no capacitive gesture to drop notifications shade and “double tap” gesture meant to replace it flat out doesn’t work. The charging is super slow, the curved screen follows the curved screen trend of breaking easily, all phones in the current line up are too large to use comfortably with one hand, they deleted the headphone jack to sell shit earbuds (yes that was ages ago but it’s still stupid).
All in, I’d trade my pixel 7 pro in for a gen 5 model or earlier in a heartbeat. Been a long time Google/nexus user but however good the old phones were, my next phone won’t have a tensor!
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Just got the Pixel 6a when it was super cheap for Prime Day because my Note 9 was acting up even after a factory reset and wouldn’t hold a charge for the day. I love it. It does everything I need a phone to do and is zippy fast. I don’t see myself every spending a lot of money on a phone again unless it has some revolutionary new feature… but I think those days are over. If this line stays affordable and high quality, I’ll probably go for another with my next phone too
My recent upgrade path was Pixel 2 -> OnePlus 7 Pro -> Pixel 7. Previously I used Nexus phones as well.
All of Google’s phones seem to have at least one glaring issue. In the case of the Pixel 2, it was the skimpy RAM and low max brightness.
With the Pixel 7, it’s the crappy fingerprint scanner, poor GPU/CPU performance, and surprisingly, the UI. I used to favor Google phones specifically because they had clean UIs with no bullshit, but holy moly, Google went off the deep end with Android 13. The wasted space everywhere is absurd. You can’t even read text in the quick settings because they have such enormous empty borders on all sides. They literally use marquee scrolling, like it’s a 1990s GeoCities page. I had to change my screen DIP settings in developer options to make it tolerable.
The nav bar is stupidly large. Even the gesture bar is stupidly large, sitting permanently at the bottom of my screen while doing absolutely nothing.
The performance is noticeably worse than my last phone. I was not expecting a speed demon, but I was certainly expecting an upgrade over a 3-year-old phone. Gaming performance is bad, and made even worse by the fact that Google only allows 90fps on specific hard-coded games, with no way for the user to override it. Games that run smoothly at 90fps on my old OnePlus 7 Pro stutter at 60fps on the Pixel 7.
Aside from that, it’s a great phone. Battery life is fine. Screen brightness is good. GPS and 5G performance is good. I can still recommend it as a phone for casual use — you can’t beat the price for what you get. But it’s definitely not a phone for power users.
My next phone will likely not be a Pixel. It’s been a while, so I might give Samsung another shot next time. If I catch a good sale on an S23 Ultra I might even upgrade this year.
Haha I’ve had the pixel 7 for a while now and never even noticed the gesture bar at the bottom doing nothing there. First time ever using it after reading your post
I’m on my first non Google phone, starting with the Nexus 5. I currently have the Z Fold 3, bought used for about half MSRP. It has so many good things that Google failed to do, while also missing a lot of things I loved about the Google phones. The Pixel folder may bring me back if it gets cheap enough.
I was SO happy with my OnePlus 5T but AT&T network changes forced my phone to be obsolete. Otherwise I’d still be rocking that phone. I currently have this ultra crappy Samsung Galaxy A32 that was given to me by AT&T as a consolation prize.
Now I’m torn between a Google Pixel or a newer OnePlus.
I dislike the new one plus software. It got too close to oppo. That said, while I like my pixel 7 pro, it never felt like a great phone, just a really good one. This can be both a pro and a con. Nothing annoys me about it, but nothing wows me either.
Oh really? That sucks! Because the OxygenOS on my OnePlus 5T was phenomenal and I really miss its intuitiveness.
Love them!! I’m still on pixel 4a and been a fan since the nexus era and I have decided to make it my main flagship forever. unless something changed. the only company piquing my eye right now is the “nothing” company but not switching
The only Android phone I’ll buy tbh.
I tried HTC and Samsung in the past and hated them. I started with the Nexus 5 and never looked back. I’ve had a few cheap Android phones through work and they have all been crap.
Not to say Pixles don’t have flaws. They often have annoying bugs that Google seems to take their time fixing.
I’ve been using a Pixel 3 for about 5 years and I love it. I actually got a pixel 7 for work earlier this year and honestly prefer the pixel 3 lol. I’ve had some charging issues because lint gets stuck in the charge port, but I’ve been able to mostly solve those by cleaning out the port with a toothpick.
I’ve been using Android phones for a decade now. My Pixel 6 is the best experience I’ve had with Android in those 10 years. I’ve had an OG Moto X, a Galaxy S9, a Pixel 3a, and now this 6. (I also had a brief stint with an iPhone in 2016)
The 6 and 3a have been the only ones that I’ve had without a manufacturer skin or carrier bloatware and it’s been pretty great. The Pixel 6 is the only phone I’ve had matches that iPhone I had in terms of polish and reliability.
I like the custom operating systems that are available for it, however to my knowledge none of the phone networks in Poland have it for sale so the only option would be to import the phone wich would cost about the monthly minimum wage. So i will stick with my old Sony xperia M5 until it breaks and then il think about what phone to buy.
They are awesome because you can get graphene or calyx on them!
I have one with grapheneos for privacy, and it’s good.
Same. No better alternative with a balance of features and privacy/security. So pretty much locked into Pixels. Progression for me was nexus (stock) to 1+ (close to stock) to pixel (graphene).
I’ve had a couple Samsungs but I think my next phone will be a Pixel for exactly this reason. Installing GrapheneOS is exactly what I need
I’ve been with Pixel since it started, Nexus before that, and a Palm Pre before that.
There is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS some random hardware bug with Pixels that most people seem to not have but if you have it, it absolutely sucks. The speaker buzz. The display gap. The fingerprint sensor. The camera glass shattering for no reason at all. I’ve had them all and I finally went to Sammy with an S22, which I hate.
I wish Google had never bought HTC and brought hardware in house. I think they would be much better able to strongarm hardware partners if they weren’t competing against them with their own hardware.
I only had Nexus or Pixel (Nexus 2, Nexus 5x, Pixel 2, Pixel 4) phones for about 10 years. The clean interface, and supreme photo quality was great, but they always seemed to have some sort of hardware error and shitty battery life. I switched to a GalaxyS20FE and realized bloatware (at least in the samsung case) is minimal and easy to hide. My next phone will either be a samsung or pixel. It depends on price and reviews.
I got a pixel 6a recently and within 1 month my back camera quit working. Open camera app and it says something went wrong. Tried everything but it’s fried apparently. Selfie camera still works but I can’t take normal pictures. Otherwise I love the phone.
They used to be fantastic, but for various reasons Google have been reducing the quality of their products for some time.
The android 12 update really hurt the UI/UX by limiting customization, adding big obnoxious qs tiles that obstruct notifications for no reason (that I am constantly activating by accident), removing the wifi toggle and wasting home screen real estate with an ‘at a glance’ widget that isn’t useful (it’s like a wish.com version of Google now), you need a custom default program manager to let it open search results in browser without pushing shit apps (like reddit official). Also wasn’t the point of pure android to avoid bloatware? Why am I carrying google TV, YouTube, wallet, Google money, fit, Google one, gpay,
spyassistant, lens, meet etc?As bad as the recent software direction is, the hardware is worse. My pixel 7 pro new has worse battery life than my pixel 5 had after 2 years of constant use, it overheats and throttles doing basic tasks (like maps), the glass back is among the most slippery things I’ve ever touched, the curved screen has an infuriating glare persistent no matter how you hold it, the fingerprint sensor is unreliable and in an awkward place, there’s no capacitive gesture to drop notifications shade and “double tap” gesture meant to replace it flat out doesn’t work. The charging is super slow, the curved screen follows the curved screen trend of breaking easily, all phones in the current line up are too large to use comfortably with one hand, they deleted the headphone jack to sell shit earbuds (yes that was ages ago but it’s still stupid).
All in, I’d trade my pixel 7 pro in for a gen 5 model or earlier in a heartbeat. Been a long time Google/nexus user but however good the old phones were, my next phone won’t have a tensor!
Tbh stop buying phones if you dont really need it. My Redmi phone hasn’t given me a signal issue in the past 6 years. Still going strong.