Android

Bootloader unlocked, while persevering access to hardware security features by 3rd party operating systems like GrapheneOS.

They also provide 5 years of security updates for new devices.

Nothing else competes.

I moved from HTC to Nexus, and stuck with Nexus until it died, then picked up a pixel and never looked back. Pixel is what I buy/use, and it's not been an issue for me, which is why I keep going back.

From Nexus: I owned the Nexus 4, 5, 6 (I still have this one), 7 LTE tablet, and 5X. On the pixel line, the pixel "1", 4, and now 7. Haven't owned a pixel "a" series. I skipped the pixel 5, since the processor was significantly less powerful than the 4, despite being a newer chip, and I skipped the 6, because it was the first gen tensor, and I wanted it to prove itself. Early pixel days didn't see a lot of improvement IMO between pixel 1/2/3, so I stuck with the 1, mainly because of the RAM: pixel 4 was the first pixel to have more than 4GB RAM.... (It had 6). I would have jumped from the P4 about a year after getting it, simply due to it not having a fingerprint reader, and the pandemic (specifically masks) making it impossible to use the face id or whatever they called it, but I didn't want to lose performance with the lower powered chip in the 5, and my 4 was good enough to not wager on whether the first tensor had any major hardware defects... So I'm on the 7 now, and I'm pretty happy.

I miss the fingerprint reader being on the back. I've found ways around the headphone jack problem: I have two devices for this.... A combo headphone jack/changing cable dongle, and a fiio BTR 5 (though other BTR units from fiio will work similarly), which allows me to use wired headphones over bt, while charging my phone and Bluetooth device (fiio), allowing for a near infinite amount of time where I can use my phone with headphones if I choose.

I'm not big on the optical fingerprint reader, but it's better than the face id stuff on the 4, so I guess I'm happier overall.

My key factors for using and keeping with pixel are pretty basic: prior to me going Nexus/pixel, to remove the bs added to my phone (like it shipping with FB apps), I would need to load custom ROMs which was a massive pita. I enjoyed the custom ROMs, mainly the AOSP versions. I wanted clean, no frills android with Google services (which I use extensively). Everything else I could obtain from the Android app store, aka the play store. For the most part, the Nexus/pixel was the only device I could get that kind of thing going right out of the box, pretty much everything else would require a custom ROM. That's the root of why I switched and what keeps me on pixel. I know others have stepped up in this regard, but not many. I've already had success with pixel and to me, the historical experience with pixel keeps me coming back because so far, they've had what I want and nothing that I don't want. If that changes, I'll probably start considering other options.

As long as Google is using the pixel as a dev platform, bringing new features to pixel first, and eventually allowing third parties to use those features, I'm ok with what they're doing. Some get abandoned long before they get that far, and I understand that, but there's now a short list of features that the pixel has that other phones may never get where those features seem to be pixel exclusive, which is where my support of Google on this, starts to waiver.

Tensor had proven itself to be a decent platform, and the features of tensor, which are above and beyond the base RISC instructions, should be made available in some way to other manufacturing partners. Like having a tensor specific processing core that can be paired with a different ARM CPU to provide similar functionality to the full tensor CPU.... Like a coprocessor. The AI benefits to the Google camera, et al, being made available to third parties.

Instead of going with the Microsoft model, offering first party devices, but continuing to support all features on all devices, they're trending more towards the Apple model, where you use our hardware, or get fucked. Which, I'm not a fan of.... Many industries are taking that page from Apple and honestly IMO, it's anti-consumer activity. John Deere comes to mind....

I don't think Google is too far gone in this respect, not yet, they can choose to open things up for third parties as time goes on.

Build quality, at least on the devices I've owned has been good. Not excellent but good. Few, if any issues, and support is generally good. I'm happy for the most part. I don't subscribe to the brand wars, and I'll happily jump ship if that changes. For now, I don't have significant cause for concern.

I'll continue with pixel for a while and see how it goes. I'm constantly evaluating my stance to see if there's sufficient reason to consider other options. I almost got to that point over the headphone jack, but everyone else seemingly followed suit, and once I found a workable solution, I didn't really care anymore. Bluntly, with the headphone issue, unless a device can charge, and allow the phone to charge, while you're actively using it, it's not a solution; having to stop listening/enjoying content while waiting for your pixel buds (or airpods, or whatever) to charge in their case.... that's not a replacement for a headphone jack, since you can enjoy content with a headphone jack indefinitely while charging your phone. So unless it can satisfy the original use case, it's not a good solution. I have the wired charge/listen dongle for any situation where bt isn't viable (like a high RF noise environment, or any time bt needs to be off, like a plane, though many allow bt to be on now), and the fiio for everything else. If I have to choose either headphones or charging, I'm going to find another way.

I have bt headphones that won't play and charge, but I almost always have either the fiio or dongle with a set of IEMs as a backup. I use my phone for entertainment often enough that this can be a deal breaker for me.

That's just me POV. I like the line, for now, and if things change, that may change. I don't have any negative feelings towards new features being pixel only while they're still being tested and proven, as long as they eventually end up in everyone's hands in whatever form that takes.

I have a pixel 6 and generally like it. Googles stock rom is where my issues with the pixel come up. Generally its not spookier than any other googled android phone. The rom looks good when the device is knew but from what I've seen online it tends to get slower after 2 years. This is nor an issue for me however since I moved over the graphineOS.

I've always been a Stock Android fanboy, so I loved the Pixel phones. However, for reasons, I got myself a Galaxy Fold 4 last year, which I fell in love with. I can't see myself going back to a regular phone now, and for me to get a Pixel Fold, Google would really have to improve Android's multitasking capabilities. On my Galaxy Fold for instance, I can have three tiled windows in a split-screen layout, or can have several floating windows of regular apps, which can be minimized into floating chatheads. With these floating windows, I can freely resize them, hide the header and even change their transparency levels. Which is great if you want to keep an eye out on some chat or Uber Eats or something whilst you are reading a book in full-screen. Having gotten used to these multitasking features, I can't see myself going back to stock Android, until these are implemented.

I had Nexus and Pixel phones.and absolutely adored them through my Pixel 4a. Then one day, I was using my 4a, the screen turned off and never turned on again, ever. It just stopped working on its own suddenly, for no reason. Reached out to Google Support and had zero recourse because I had had it for a bit over a year. Now I'm never trusting Google devices again.

I spent quite a while in the Nexus/Pixel line, mostly on the "a" series once they started with those, and I was always very happy with them. I didn't encounter any significant issues over the years, so I can't speak to any of the troubles others have had; if I hadn't decided to try a foldable when the Galaxy Fold 4 came out, I'd probably still be on the Pixel train.

I love my Pixel 6 Pro! I run a De-Googled ROM (CalyxOS) on mine, but even with that, basically every Pixel feature still works as expected. Google Camera is fantastic (doubly so on CalyxOS since I can firewall it from the internet), the AI features in the photos app works exactly as expected (and firewalled too), the camera itself is fantastic as well. Beautiful screen, great speakers, absolutely wonderful and beautiful form factor for a phone.

Only real complaint is battery life isn't the best it could be, compared to the top-tier iphones or Samsung Galaxy devices, but it's hardly "terrible" either, as some have made it out to seem. It does seem like running a De-Googled ROM may help that some (and I've had fewer bug issues than it seems stock Pixel Android users have dealt with, which is weird given CalyxOS is built on AOSP).

Overall though, I love my Pixel 6 Pro and absolutely intend to stick with it well into the future, and likely consider another Pixel when the time comes.

I absolutely loved the Nexus line, but I'm on my third Pixel and they've been mostly excellent aside from a couple of nitpicks. I had the 2XL, 4a5g & 6 Pro so far. I will likely get the Pixel 8 Pro after that's released. Aside from the name (why!?!?!!?), the 4a5g was just about perfect.

My 6 Pro has been mostly great, but a little sensitive to overheating in direct sunlight and it chews through battery on 5g. Hopefully the 8 improves on those two things. And has a flat screen, as is rumored.

• Stock Android missing so many apps because Google killed them for no reason

• Google gets to shove gapps directly into your throat making you forget what android used to be

• Partially responsible for ruining the android market and causing companies like HTC to drop out

• Partially responsible for getting rid of android version names

• Early models kinda sucked

Pretty much summed up all of my core issues already in your post lol.

Modern android sucks because of google

I pre-ordered the first Pixel and loved it. I then had the Pixel 2xl and 3xl and absolutely loved them. I didn't like what I saw with the 4 and 5 and went to Samsung. I tried the 6a and 7xl as both had terrible battery life and call reception issues. Staying with Samsung and I am done it looks like with Pixel . I love my Samsung S23 Ultra.

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 had the original Pixel, the Pixel 4a 5G, and the Pixel 7a.

The only reason I ditched my 4a 5G was because my cell service seemed to be degrading (which was odd, because it was 5g).

Now that I have the 7a, I can honestly say I'm disappointed in its battery life. My 4a 5G could last 36 hours on a charge, even 3 years into ownership. My 7a seems to get down to 15% consistently by the time I get to bed each day.

I would very much like to own one because of the form factor and the ironic fact that they're one of the few phones that you can still run a proper custom rom and de-google.

Unfortunately the specs and battery life are not even in the ballpark of what I find to be acceptable. Pixels are a giant compromise.

Recently upgraded to a Pixel Fold from Microsoft Surface Duo 2. There is no way I am ever going back to a single screen phone

My OP3 was dying and I needed a new poo phone, I can't afford buying things whenever I want so that's extra incentive to hold on to my devices, so after 5 years of use (the OP3 was second hand) I finally got the opportunity to switch phones and I got the pixel 6a (second hand as well)

Honestly I love it, it's basically the same size and almost the same dimensions as my previous phone but with a bigger screen, the OS has some very cool and intuitive options here and there, the camera is better back and front, the battery is great for my use case, I appreciate having a new phone again that will still have decent software support.

And all of this for around 200€, the same price I got my OP3 5 years ago, I'm really glad I could find such a good phone for this price.

I used to mod a lot back in the day, installing custom roms, custom kernels, all kinds of apps, but that changed and I just use a DNS and ublock on Firefox, I'm not even planning to unlock the bootloader and root this one, I'm happy with stock, it has everything I need at this point in life.

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.

Great idea, meh execution

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

Curious what device are you using right now op?

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.

I like the timely updates and I very much like the UI. Not just the Material You color scheme (which I initially thought was a useless gimmick but have come to really like) but the look in general. Everything is just so pleasantly designed. I know that people around here hate too much padding but I think that's what makes the Pixel UI look so good. On other phones I always have the feeling that the padding isn't right; for example, on many phones (especially Samsung) the text in the status bar isn't center-aligned vertically and it drives me nuts. Or the text is squeezed into the corners.

On top of that there are useful features like Call Screening or Live Transcribe. And the voice typing is phenomenal.

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.

Typing this on my CalyxOS pixel 3. I like this phone just fine, camera works great, apps I don't trust get installed in my "work" profile which I just got a toggle on and all those apps are forcibly paused. Battery life is basically all day based on how much I turn the screen on.

Life's good when your phone works the way you want without advertising at you, and operates reliably.

Made the switch from a series of galaxies to the 6 pro. And boy do I regret it. It's given me nothing but problems. Most recently the backlight partially failed and low light settings cause it to flash or be completely unreadable at night. I'll be going back to Galaxy asap

I've been happy with the Pixel 6 Pro, which is still going strong with good battery life and continuing software updates after almost two years. Much nicer UI than the Samsungs I have had. The only thing I don't like is that it's Google spying on my entire life.

I've owned various Pixels since the first one.

Pixel XL > Pixel 3XL > Pixel 6 Pro

One could say I've had 3 of the worst Pixels.

They would be right in a sense. But I've used each of these for about 2-3 years (The 6 Pro will be 2 soon).

Really like the user experience and the software but the hardware really starts to show their age after about a year and a half in. With slowdowns and stuttering

The 6 Pro is the only one I haven't had any problems with.

I love the cameras on all of them and I can only say good things about them. The unlimited storage of the Pixel 3 lasting only until recently was a bummer. But now I've been backing them up on my local server at home.

Galaxy Nexus to Pixel 6a (current) user. I did not have a pixel 1 or 2, but have had the rest. That Nexus 5x hung on for a while, as it should, being one of the best phones of all time, helping me skip right into pixel 3.

Side note: Nexus 7 was the greatest tablet of all time.

Out of any android, I preferred the nexus (now pixel) for it's simplicity. It's the way android was meant to be. Every other OEM is just someone copying the smart kids homework and making up random bullshit to call it their own.

Custom ROMs are great though.

I can't speak about the hardware because I have never had one, but I can about the software because I am a custom ROM user and I come from MIUI, I won't say MIUI sucks, although it does in some aspects when I first got my first AOSP based ROM I was amazed with how fast it was, but it only got better for me because of the introduction of Monet icons and Material You since A12, since that moment I barely ever got back to MIUI.

For me AOSP is a true beauty and works pretty well, although it can be lacking features (which A14 seems aiming to "fix") I enjoy using it a lot, and if I ever get a Google Pixel I would feel at home no doubt about it.

I had the original pixel XL then switch to samsung s21 and now im on a pixel 7 and I can say with out doubt the the pixel 7 is way more responsive and feels so much faster then any samsung phone I have ever used. Samsung puts a lot of spyware bloatware crap on there phones. if you hook a samsung up to adb and have a look at the list of apps that are spying on you its insane, all the apps listed in the settings on the phone are not all the apps installed. lots of hidden apps running in the background. Something that would piss me off was every update installed a bunch of apps i never wanted and had removed previously. I have recently installed grapheneos and its amazing and seem less, I could install it on my moms phone and it would not be a problem. works just like any other android phone except google play is locked in a cage and can only do what you allow it to. I have google play services installed but basically took all its permissions away, so that the camera app and the few other apps that look for it are not bothering me about it. google play services never connects to the internet on my phone.

I will never go back to a samsung phone, I love the stock android experience its simple and no fluff.

3rd pixel, and each one has had persistent problems. Not ready for primetime. Currently have the 6P and with the heat issues it has just been OK.

They still have yet to make a fully fleshed out product.

Got a Pixel 6. Still loving the design, software and (reasonably) quick updates.