Introduction

Given support for Pixel 5 was about to end, it was once again time to buy another phone. Importantly, something that isn't overly expensive, provides a long support cycle, doesn't run some weird Android flavour and most importantly, gets regular updates.

Unfortunately, relentless inflation did its bit here, so this phone was definitely not cheap. Yes, it is a bit over half the price of Apple and Samsung flagship devices, so from that point of view one may say it's affordable. And Google decided to support it for 7 years this time, which is more than twice of what Pixel 5 (5) got. So, looks like a decent value for money on paper.

First impressions

This phone is slightly bigger than 5 and also a bit heavier. The protruding camera block makes the phone somewhat weird. I guess that's the new way these days. Or something...

Apart from that, the phone is actually rather similar in the way it behaves and feels. Of course, the rear mounted fingerprint scanner is gone and that's now underneath the screen. It is nowhere near as good as the rear mounted one in terms of actually detecting fingerprints. Which is probably why there is now also a face unlock. Mildly annoying, to be honest.

The screen itself is OLED like on 5 and is quite nice. I cannot really tell whether it's better, but definitely not worse.

Battery life is worse than 5 in daily use. It can almost never be pushed to two days, unlike 5, which could do this with my use pattern quite often. Not great. I thought that new phones were supposed to be more power efficient. Pretty sure that's not the case here.

Functionality

I use pretty much the same selection of software on this phone, as I did on the previous one, so for most of this, just read about Pixel 5.

What works better is at a glance. Weather is now more informative and leads to a nicer summary page. I had Android 14 on 5, but it did not work that way there.

Speed improvements are marginal with the software I use. The most visible is with Fairemail and processing of plain text emails.

Updates

The phone came with Android 14. There were multiple Google Play system updates since, but no significanly visible changes.

29 Oct 2023: Google Play system update 1 Oct 2023.

8 Nov 2023: Security update 5 Nov 2023, 31.71 MB.

13 Nov 2023: It seems that the quality of screen protector is pretty important for better functioning of fingerprint scanner. I recently switched to Spigen one and fingerprint accuracy improved somewhat. It is still not as good as it was on 5, but definitely less annoying.

29 Nov 2023: Google Play system update 1 Oct 2023, one more time, 1.6 MB.

5 Dec 2023: Google Play system update 1 Nov 2023.

13 Dec 2023: Security update and feature drop, 5 Dec 2023. 347 MB.

6 Jan 2024: Security update 5 Jan 2024. 26.58 MB.

17 Jan 2024: Google Play system update 1 Nov 2023, one more time.

6 Feb 2024: Security update 5 Feb 2024. 26.27 MB.

9 Feb 2024: Google Play system update 1 Jan 2024, 80 MB.

21 Feb 2024: Google Play system update 1 Jan 2024, once more today and a few days ago.

29 Feb 2024: Google Play system update 1 Jan 2024, twice, requiring two additional reboots.

5 Mar 2024: Security update and feature drop 5 Mar 2024, 742 MB.

8 Mar 2024: Google Play system update 1 Jan 2024, once again.

12 Mar 2024: Google Play system update 1 Feb 2024, 74 MB.

13 Mar 2024: Google Play system update 1 Feb 2024, one more time. 2.7 MB this time.

14 Mar 2024: Google Play system update 1 Feb 2024, one more time. 9.3 MB this time.

27 Mar 2024: Google Play system update 1 Mar 2024.

3 Apr 2024: Security update 5 Apr 2024, 29.84 MB. Followed by another Google Play system update for 1 Mar 2024, only a few MB.

10 Apr 2024: Google Play system update 1 Mar 2024 once again, 15 MB this time.

23 Apr 2024: Google Play system update 1 Apr 2024.

30 Apr 2024: Google Play system update 1 Apr 2024, 15 MB this time. There was likely another one a few days ago that installed on its own.

8 May 2024: Security update 5 May 2024, 9.53 MB. Followed by another Google Play system update for 1 Apr 2024, only a few MB. Two reboots required.

17 May 2024: Google Play system update 1 Apr 2024, twice, with the latter being 16 MB.

22 May 2024: Google Play system update 1 May 2024, 71 MB.

12 Jun 2024: Google Play system update 1 May 2024, 1.6 MB. Security and feature update, 5 Jun 2024, 0.95 GB.

3 Jul 2024: Security update 5 Jul 2024, 28.84 MB.

9 Jul 2024: Google Play system update 1 May 2024, 15 MB.

9 Jul 2024: Google Play system update 1 Jun 2024, 61 MB.

16 Jul 2024: Google Play system update 1 Jun 2024, one more time, 1.6 MB.

25 Jul 2024: Google Play system update 1 Jun 2024, again, 8.5 MB this time.

30 Jul 2024: Google Play system update 1 Jul 2024, 28 MB.

7 Aug 2024: Security update 5 Aug 2024, 31.04 MB.

10 Aug 2024: Google Play system update 1 Jul 2024, one more time.

20 Aug 2024: Android 15, beta 4.2. It seems that Google are near the end of the development cycle for this release, so time to try things out. Download of AP31.240617.015 was 2.64 GB. Everything looks very, very similar to Android 14 and a quick flick through different apps did not uncover any bad surprises (yet).

4 Sep 2024: Google Play system update 1 Jul 2024, only 6.5 kB this time. The phone is now stuck on the beta until the release of Android 15 proper.

4 Sep 2024: Google Play system update 1 Aug 2024, later on the same day, about 64 MB.

7 Sep 2024: Google Play system update 1 Aug 2024, this time 17 MB, containing security fixes.

17 Sep 2024: Google Play system update 1 Aug 2024, one more time.

26 Sep 2024: Google Play system update 1 Aug 2024, twice today. The first time 13 MB, the second time 12 MB.

9 Oct 2024: Google Play system update 1 Sep 2024, 61 MB.

15 Oct 2024: Google Play system update 1 Sep 2024, once again.

16 Oct 2024: Android 15, which includes 5 Oct 2024 security update. I downloaded the full image and did an adb sideload.

29 Oct 2024: Google Play system update 1 Oct 2024, 56 MB.

5 Nov 2024: The new Pixel Weather app has now been on this phone for a week or so. Looks nice and works well.

7 Nov 2024: Security update 5 Nov 2024, just under 37 MB.

13 Nov 2024: Google Play system update 1 Oct 2024, one more time.

Conclusion

Disappointing when it comes to battery life and fingerprint scanner. Otherwise, looks OK, although probably overpriced. Let's see how Google go with the promised support over the years.

Copyright © 2023 Bojan Smojver.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the licence is here.