Google Pixel smartphone

[thetapeworm]

knk said:

Mine arrived yesterday.
It is nice. Solid, well built, good screen, fast. Everything just works.
Nothing stand out when compared to my 5X.

Sorry to bump a relatively old one but I'm in the market for a new phone (currently on a HTC M9 that I haven't been thrilled with) and went to buy an XL 128gb today but the shop had no stock of the phone or any accessories.

I was curious how yours is holding up to general use - is the finish resistant to bumps and gentle scratch threats?

I can't say there is anything about the Pixel that's really drawing me to it but it seems like the best option for me at the present time.

Any feedback on ownership or general input people might have would be appreciated.

[pmanson]

I've had mine since Black Friday. 32gb standard pixel to replace my note 3 which i'd lost.

£30 upfront and £35.99 P/mth (unlimited everything with 5gb data).

Very happy with it. Nice and fast and great to be able to use some new features such as finger print to unlock, Android Pay etc.

Battery life, it will last a day with fairly heavy use.

Overall I'm not convinced the software has moved on that much but pleased with the phone

[Funk]

thetapeworm said:

knk said:

Mine arrived yesterday.
It is nice. Solid, well built, good screen, fast. Everything just works.
Nothing stand out when compared to my 5X.

Sorry to bump a relatively old one but I'm in the market for a new phone (currently on a HTC M9 that I haven't been thrilled with) and went to buy an XL 128gb today but the shop had no stock of the phone or any accessories.

I was curious how yours is holding up to general use - is the finish resistant to bumps and gentle scratch threats?

I can't say there is anything about the Pixel that's really drawing me to it but it seems like the best option for me at the present time.

Any feedback on ownership or general input people might have would be appreciated.

If you can hold fire a few months the Samsung S8 is rumoured to be coming March/April with some 'next-gen' features.

I'm a Nexus fan (currently running a 6P) but think the Pixel is overpriced and underspec'd given the asking.

[AJB88]

Funk said:

I'm a Nexus fan (currently running a 6P) but think the Pixel is overpriced and underspec'd given the asking.

Exactly the same as me, but I also couldn't go back to a non-vanilla Android.

[thetapeworm]

I found myself getting really annoyed last night over them not including Tango in their flagship phone, I also can't see much in the way of progress over the 2 year old phone I don't like so much - so I'm going to hang on and see what else appears.

I've been on HTC devices for the past 8 years now I think and I promised myself an escape this time, then the Pixel wooed me and I was all set to be back with HTC again, I'm sure it's a perfectly acceptable phone but I want progress when I upgrade not just a bigger screen.

The Lenovo Phab 2 Pro isn't exactly setting the world alight from a reviews point of view so patience could be the way forward, if the S8 has Tango support then I think it's a done deal for me.

[Funk]

AJB88 said:

Funk said:

I'm a Nexus fan (currently running a 6P) but think the Pixel is overpriced and underspec'd given the asking.

Exactly the same as me, but I also couldn't go back to a non-vanilla Android.

That is a consideration but Samsung seem to have dialed back the crap they install and actually have some neat features vanilla Android doesn't.

I think I could live with it, I'll see what the S8 offers. I'm not spending £820 on a jumped-up Nexus though.

[Altrezia]

I have one at the moment.. I'm a picky st when it comes to phones.. but this thing is ace. Feels nice to hold, works without stutters, camera is brilliant.. good effort. Only thing I don't like is OLED but that's a personal hangup rather than anything else.

That said, I still prefer my iPhone (habit I think).

[ZesPak]

Altrezia said:

Only thing I don't like is OLED but that's a personal hangup rather than anything else.

What's your particular issue with OLED?
On all the phones I always found it far superior over IPS. SGS4 vs iPhone 5, Nexus 5 vs Nexus 6P,...
I thought the only reason a lot of phones had IPS was because of lower production cost?

[Altrezia]

I don't like burn in and un-even displays. I RMA'd my 6P for burn-in and this pixel has a gradient across it whenever looking at Greys. I am very sensitive to it - my wife calls me a moron for caring.
Edit: No doubt that colours really "pop" with OLED though - they certainly look amazing for watching media and viewing photos etc.

Edited by Altrezia on Tuesday 3rd January 13:31

[ZesPak]

Thx, a 6P, that means burn in occured really fast!
Never noticed the uneven-ness, but when watching movies at night the backlight on black on my iPhone and Nexus 5 really bothered me compared to the AMOLED displays. It's the blacks that sell it for me .

[Altrezia]

Yeah, if you check reddit you'll see loads of pixels being RMA'd because of burn in already too. Stupid AMOLED

I am sure 99.9% of people wouldn't even notice it - but to me it's obvious for some reason.

Other than that, pixel is a properly good phone!!

[AJB88]

Funk said:

That is a consideration but Samsung seem to have dialed back the crap they install and actually have some neat features vanilla Android doesn't.

I think I could live with it, I'll see what the S8 offers. I'm not spending £820 on a jumped-up Nexus though.

Nah the GF has had all of the Samsungs and I still hate them.

I stopped buying Samsungs after the galaxy s4.

[MrJuice]

Black 128gb in 5" has been out of stock for weeks, everywhere. What has the world come to when you can't give anyone £699 for a new phone?!

I know I am a fanboy by giving google another chance. My 5x was stter than a st thing on a st day. It fking broke in my hand while I was using the phone all by itself. Well known soldering issue. Thank God for nationwide phone insurance. This happened twice.

But what makes me want pixel is the vanilla android which is so clean and pure. I had an s7 edge briefly which was so st it had to be sold at a big loss within days of buying it.

[Alex]

My Nexus 6P is the best phone I have owned, and the Pixel (especially at the price) has not tempted me to upgrade.

[KarlMac]

Had mine a while now but only just noticed this thread. Overall I've been really happy with the phone. I'm not a heavy user of the phone (having a separate phone supplied by work). I love the fact there is minimal bloatware on there, all the apps function really well, the menus are intuitive and I'm not spammed with endless notifications from Sony What's New or Samsung hub.

Camera is much better than I'll ever need from a smart phone. Who really needs to record in anything better than 4k on a smart phone? The only issue I can foresee is lack of memory but I back all of my files to Google drive on a regular basis. All my other info (contacts / log ins etc) are linked to my Google account anyway. And binning all my mini-usb chargers was a pain in the arse!

Have any users found any interesting features or tips for the device?

[MrJuice]

Alex said:

My Nexus 6P is the best phone I have owned, and the Pixel (especially at the price) has not tempted me to upgrade.

When I bought my st build quality 5x (did I mention the build quality on the 5x is st? FFS!), I opted for 5x and not 6P because of cost. I believe 6P was towards £600 at the time? So pixel is hardly wildly overpriced compared to what you have already shelled out in the past....?

[ManOpener]

MrJuice said:

Alex said:

My Nexus 6P is the best phone I have owned, and the Pixel (especially at the price) has not tempted me to upgrade.

When I bought my st build quality 5x (did I mention the build quality on the 5x is st? FFS!), I opted for 5x and not 6P because of cost. I believe 6P was towards £600 at the time? So pixel is hardly wildly overpriced compared to what you have already shelled out in the past....?

The 6P was £449 in 32GB and about £540 in 128GB at release. I don't think many people actually paid that though. I got my 32GB one for £379.
I've tried both the Pixel and XL, but neither seems to do anything I care about that my 6P doesn't already do.

Oh, and a 128GB Pixel XL retails at something like £800, doesn't it? So much more expensive than the 6P at release.

[MrJuice]

ManOpener said:

The 6P was £449 in 32GB and about £540 in 128GB at release. I don't think many people actually paid that though. I got my 32GB one for £379.
I've tried both the Pixel and XL, but neither seems to do anything I care about that my 6P doesn't already do.

Oh, and a 128GB Pixel XL retails at something like £800, doesn't it? So much more expensive than the 6P at release.

£699 for the 128gb. But you can't get it anywhere! Even google don't have stock (in black)

[jamoor]

I managed to get one of these, the camera is indeed excellent however the 5x and 6p are better (I think the hardware lens is better)

[jamoor]

ManOpener said:

The 6P was £449 in 32GB and about £540 in 128GB at release. I don't think many people actually paid that though. I got my 32GB one for £379.
I've tried both the Pixel and XL, but neither seems to do anything I care about that my 6P doesn't already do.

Oh, and a 128GB Pixel XL retails at something like £800, doesn't it? So much more expensive than the 6P at release.

The battery life and build quality is much better on the pixel than the nexus devices.

The camera is also lightening fast, which is a major problem with the 6p, excellent camera but its laggy performance made it useless unless you had lots of time to take a picture.