[Alacart]

My experience with my own pixel 7 pro and a pixel 5 has been that these devices are an order of magnitude lower in build quality than Samsung or iPhones. I really, really wanted to be happy with them but they've been a never ending source of frustration.

My pixel 5 just stopped turning on one day about 2 years in, and my pixel 7 pro had the volume and power buttons fall out about 3 weeks in (not due to a drop, after googling it's apparently a very widely seen issue).

The service with iFixit was unhelpful, they told me "We keep seeing this and Google says this is wear and tear. We can't submit it for a warranty repair, and if we try we end up eating the cost". After finally complaining on twitter I was contacted by some support person who said to give iFixit this email and they would fix it. They still refused, and after a few more rounds of interactions like that I eventually bought some replacement buttons on Amazon, popped them in, and put a case that covers them on it. I'm fully expecting this to randomly die some time before 2 years is up.

Combine that with Google's extremely strong tendency to abandon everything, promises like these seem well, worthless.

Meanwhile my daughter is using my wife's old iPhone from 8 years ago. My Samsung note 3 and my s8 still boot up and work just fine (though I cracked the screen on one about 5 years ago). It's just so obvious that these phones are very low priority to Google, while other companies base their business around their phones.

[thefz]

> My experience with my own pixel 7 pro and a pixel 5 has been that these devices are an order of magnitude lower in build quality than Samsung or iPhones.

Subjective, I am at my third Pixel phone in six years and I never had an issue.

[vetinari]

> I am at my third Pixel phone in six years and I never had an issue.

Don't you think that three phones in six years is the issue?

I'm still on 2019 Galaxy S10, i.e. fourth year, single phone. The hardware is still in great condition, no malfunction of anything.

[thefz]

> Don't you think that three phones in six years is the issue?

One (P3) ended with me having it in the back pocket of my jeans and literally jumping in the backseat... yeah, not smart.

Another (P4a), I tried to open to swap a new battery in and it did not end well. I'd still happily be with the 4a if it was not for my dumb self. It's perfectly working and I use it to listen to some music while biking or at the gym. I just did not reattach the speaker cable.

[kelnos]

Would you still be with it, though? Someone upthread claims the phones just don't last. Maybe if you hadn't broken your phones, they still wouldn't've lasted much longer anyway.

Having said that, I'm still using my 4-year-old Pixel 4, and it's in great shape. I'll probably get a new phone this year since it's no longer receiving security updates. Which is stupid, because I'm otherwise perfectly happy with the phone. And hate that they get physically larger every year.

[rtkwe]

I find people have wildly differing opinions on what normal wear and tear on phone is so it's hard to judge from anecdotes if it's a build quality issue or if they're rough on their phones or on the other side if I'm personally very delicate with my phones.

For my contribution to this anecdata the only Pixel phone I've had die is my Pixel 3 XL that started having weird charging issues and refuses to turn on and charge unless I let it completely passively drain then recharge it after that it only works for a bit, that happened after about 2 years maybe. Tried having it looked at by uBreakIFix and they had nothing. Other than that my Pixel 6 is doing great but I keep it in a case 99% of the time and don't abuse it.

[thefz]

Idea was to stretch the P4a until the end of security updates.

The reason is that it is much, much more compact and it's perfect to carry around when on the bike as it does not wedge into my quad when pedaling. And it's easier to hold with my gloves on. Well, it's living a second life full of music and OsmAnd maps.

[rezonant]

For fun today I booted up my Pixel 3 XL and it works just fine. It was slow at first, probably as it synced a bunch of stuff, but after that it was about as snappy and useful as I remember it. Everything still works. I used that for 3 years before the Pixel 6 Pro. Before that I had a Pixel XL for 3 years. I still have that phone too in my device collection.

But the lack of security updates makes the XL and the 3XL, though still functioning as expected, not acceptable. This thing has far too much access to my life to actively use it on the Internet every day.

I'm getting the Pixel 8 not because the 6 Pro has any problems (personally I've had none), but rather because I have a bit more disposable income to spend on my tech enthusiasm and I'm excited about a phone with a 7 year software support window (with incidental coverage to support 5 years of accidental damage). If all goes well, I hope to take advantage of more than 3 years of that, assuming some insane new development doesn't happen in the interim.

[linsomniac]

I can't say about the 7 (the upthread you are referring to), but my Pixel 3 XL is my daughter's daily driver now, replacing the hand-me-down Pixel first gen that just didn't have enough memory to live up to today's requirements 6 years later. My current 6 Pro has been a champ, I'm seriously conflicted about upgrading. The 6 is perfectly fine, but I'd enjoy an upgrade, and look to be able to sell the 6 pro for $350 if I wanted to go that route.

[walteweiss]

Have you considered flashing something like LineageOS? The Pixel line is well supported.

[eptcyka]

My Galaxy S10's bluetooth modem just said no 3 months in. My pixels have only failed me by losing support from Google prematurely. This is all anecdata.

[SketchySeaBeast]

But now you're stuck with no more security updates, but Samsung has gotten much better at that as well recently.

[vetinari]

I don't really mind; it concerns only updates of core system, not apps. Apps are still updated, so I get updated browser, mail and other apps, that could be attacked; they are not locked to the system. It makes the attack surface vastly smaller.

[what_ever]

They may be confusing Android updates with iOS updates where browser update comes with the OS update and not separately as an app update.

[lolinder]

There are risks to leaving an Android OS out of date, too. That can be mitigated somewhat by keeping Bluetooth and Wi-Fi off when away from home, but it's not foolproof.

[SketchySeaBeast]

I'm not, it's two different types of problems. Just because Chrome is updated it's not safe to keep using Windows XP.

[jmilloy]

I'd guess you aren't seeing the build quality issues as frequently because you replace your phone more often. Three phones on six years sounds like a lot to me

[thefz]

See above comment as to why.

[lolinder]

Why doesn't really matter for OP's observation, the point is that your phones don't last long enough to manifest the possible problems. It'd be like if you were in the habit of totaling each car you own at about 50k miles. You might have really enjoyed it for those 50k miles, but you're not qualified to comment on how durable the car is in the long run.

[deprecative]

At the same time if you're keeping a car going for several hundred thousand miles and experience issues you're also not to be counted.

Get a new phone every handful of years. Stop being surprised when old hardware starts to fail.

[zolbrek]

I didn't have any problems with my 4a or 5, but my 6 is only about a year old and I no longer can use the USB-C port. I have to charge it wirelessly. The battery life is crap as well.

[buerkle]

I'm still on my same iPhone for almost 4 years. Getting a new phone every two years doesn't scream quality to me.

[buttersbrian]

I am biased, as I've had every pro/xl but the Pixel6 and the google nexus phone's prior to that.

With that being said i've only had questionable build quality on 2 occasions. The Huawei 6p which was covered under a recall, and the Panda Pixel 2XL where there was some lamination issues.

That being said, the build quality and materials (mostly) really stepped up initially in the Pixel 4, and then noticeably again in the P7. They are quite nice. I don't really find them lacking in quality, fit, or finish these days.

[thefz]

Neither does your case, honestly.

My GF is still using a Pixel 3 pro every day.

[hn_throwaway_99]

I'm a Pixel owner, and the phone quality has been stellar IMO, but I would never use any phone that couldn't get security updates - zero days, and sometimes zero days that require no or very little user action, are too common with cell phones. Which is why I think the 7 year support announcement is great news.

[disgruntledphd2]

This is why I upgraded from 3->6. I guess I'll need to go to 9 or 10 once the updates run out.

[shopvaccer]

I have had a pretty similarly bad experience repairing my pixel 4a the other month. Purchased a new screen and kit from ifixit for 1/3 the cost of buying a new phone, even had to get a heat gun to unglue the old screen, and guess what? she dies a week later anyways due to some other issue.

The problem with all these phones is that they're kind of built to be disposable. They're just glued together plastic. And even if you can repair the phone or it survives 5 years or so, the vendor is just going to stop supporting the chipset anyways.

Just got a fairphone 4, optimistic but the build quality is shit and they're already rolling out a fairphone 5 now... whatever, I use AOSP. I can't stand samsung anyways with all the crapware they put on stock android.

[matheusmoreira]

Yeah. I didn't want to buy a Google phone but they're the only ones supported by GrapheneOS. From what I've read they've got pretty good reasons for supporting them too. Why can't Samsung step up and offer the same security features and firmware update schedules? I'm using a Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and it's been excellent for many years but it doesn't matter if it doesn't run the software I want.

[shopvaccer]

With respect to grapheneOS on samsung, I don't think it's about security. It's about openness, there is already samsung knox (or whatever it is called, samsung dex?) so clearly they know how to make a secure enclave it's just that samsung wants to keep their stuff proprietary.

In general samsung and others (huawei, etc.) are trying to get a grip on android, and open-source seems to oppose that.

I don't know what motivates google to lean in so hard with open-source ( maybe trying to prevent fragmentation or avoid future antitrust or set a "clean" example standard for stock android with their pixel brand ), but we do currently enjoy its fruits.

[matheusmoreira]

You're right about that. Google seems to be a lot more open with its hardware compared to other manufacturers. This attitude apparently even extends towards their laptops. It's certainly something I've come to appreciate about Google.

[hparadiz]

Why does no one ever consider Sony? They let you unlock the bootloader and the hardware is excellent.

[izacus]

I stopped when they started permanently breaking camera procesing on bootloader unlock.

[hparadiz]

I thought they stopped doing that in 2019?

[matheusmoreira]

It seems their chipset doesn't have the security features required by the GrapheneOS project such as hardware resistance to brute force attacks.

[PennRobotics]

Bare minimum support horizon (no, a self-compile repo doesn't count) combined with small but numerous hardware demerits:

flashlight, overheating, extremely slippery which mandates a case, small chance of screen lines, no personal need for SD, weird camera choices e.g. focal length of telephoto, notification LED, waterproof but unusable in the rain, I think one vendor sells a screen protector that isn't total garbage, no personal need for Qi charging, basic photography mode has always been awful, antenna/battery/amp/side sense/night mode is nothing special, previous gen microphone config had echo and/or gain problems on Signal calls, and the list goes on and on...

Biggest selling point: photography, right? Sony continues to develop amazing hardware and then takes the most leisurely and conservative approach toward camera firmware/software. Both auto modes on an a6000 are head-and-shoulders above this year's Xperia auto mode, despite being nearly a decade older. The fanboys continue to defend manual mode photography as if every serious picture taker wants to dial in focus, white balance, shutter speed, etc. all on a touchscreen while their toddler hangs from a branch for his/her first time; as if every photo should go straight into Lightroom Mobile before getting sent to grandma or the friend group or onto social media.

Beyond that, the update schedule is suboptimal (Hello, Pro-I!?) and so fast-paced, you're always hoping the next generation or surprise mid-year model fixes most of the details you dislike.

The 5 V comes out and totally eliminates the telephoto which you loved and frequently used. Not only that, everyone compares it to the 5 IV (60 mm) when Gen. II had a 70 mm shooter and Gen. III had a 70--105 mm (which, as most non-prime lenses, was quite soft at the longer range). "You get literally the same detail because 52 MP!" Sure, dude. Now explain why every comparison review of the 5 V telephoto has significantly less detail than even a lowly 3x zoom, even factoring in how 1/9th of 52 is 5.8 MP? (Notebookcheck.net supposedly lets you downscale its comparisons to 2 MP and 4 MP, and the closest-to-Xperia-quality but still better shot belongs to the 3x Galaxy S23.)

You remember being disappointed when the 1 V bundle was WH-1000XM5 and you already owned well-worn WH-1000XM3s. You're even more disappointed when the new 5 bundles inferior cans rather than buds or something wired from Sony's Pro Audio division. The 5 price is always the same as the 1 price when the 5 drops in September, so you wonder why not get the 1, which is superior in nearly every way?

Oh, right, because you know it only gets one more OS upgrade (Material You: Yuck!) and you probably won't get whatever new APK comes standard in the next gen's Xperia 1, plus you've already missed your chance to order and resell the bundled headphones, so the now-300-off price of the 1 is just the same that you would've paid by selling the bundle plus a little depreciation.

Also, where the hell IS this Pro-I successor? Is _that_ going to have a real telephoto and less of Xperia 5's wacky design changes and 4 to 7 years of software support and a screen bright enough to use as a flashlight because, let's face it, Sony will close its mobile division before letting its users put more current through the rear LED. Plus, who knows, maybe next year they finally release crimson or that same sweet shade of orange that sits at the base of their true flagship full-frame mirrorless??

-----

Cost, within reason, is not an issue for me. I would get another Xperia---any model---if it ticked most boxes. My main reason for ignoring Sony as a serious contender? Sony continues to nerf two peripherals or APKs for every one feature they improve, and then I continue to wait for actual improvement while my Zenfone 8 and a6400 slowly age. Every few months, I wonder what phone I would get if I needed a replacement today, and Xperia drops further down the list.

[freedomben]

Same, in fact it's the reason I buy and continue to buy their products. I continually hope that doesn't change

[zdragnar]

My wife and I have apparently been lucky enough to buy the 6 variant then- we've had nothing but good luck with ours, and we haven't been babying them either.

I miss some of the nice touches LG added on top of stock Android, but the hardware has met all expectations so far.

[bloopernova]

I miss the LG V series of phones. I really liked the better DAC they had, along with the headphone jack of course.

[HardlyCurious]

I must be lucky. I'm still rocking a pixel 3. It's got multiple breaks in the screen, the back of the phone is pretty cracked, the camera cover is completed smashed out. Hey somehow this thing still works and takes ok pictures.

[samplatt]

I got rid of my Pixel 3 because I wanted the new-sexy... I wish like hell I'd stayed. Best phone I've owned since the dumbphone days. I hate pressing my thumb to the print reader on a screen; feels so wrong compared to the little divot on the back.

[UberFly]

I'm still rockin a 3a. It marches on like the day I bought it.

[gureddio]

I agree with you about the build quality, but also from a software perspective.

I've been a long time Pixel user, and have had the Pixel, Pixel 4 XL, and currently have the Pixel 6 Pro.

On every device, there has been one or several glaring software bugs that haven't been fixed for months, or have required a really, really nasty workaround.

A good example was the bluetooth stack on the Pixel 4 XL. We got a security software update one day, applied it, and then found that the bluetooth connection to loads of devices was suddenly broken. Google took months to get the issue fixed, despite a few hundred pages of complaints on their forums. Instead someone (not from Google) worked out that if you went into developer mode, you could swap out the bluetooth stack for a previous version, and it might work again.

Is this sort of blasé approach to quality assurance and lack of urgency around fixing user reported bugs that really, really irritates me about Google's hardware devices.

The 6 Pro is an ok phone but also has it's problems (painfully slow and somewhat unreliable fingerprint unlock). I think I've had enough and I'll probably give a Samsung device a try.

[delfinom]

>My pixel 5 just stopped turning on one day about 2 years in

My Pixel 3 stopped working because Google fucked up it's kernel boot and mechanical design. They placed a laser focus IC, that's a bare die mounted on a tiny FR4 shim to get it closer to the backpanel, on top of the main PCB. When this tiny laser focus IC inevitably breaks off or loses contact with the pads due to mechanical forces on the back panel, the Pixel 3 linux kernel ends up panicking during boot because the driver can't communicate with it.

I could see this because I had the bootloader unlocked before it bricked and could get the boot logs coming out. In fact it could boot into recovery just fine too but what a PITA to fix this at that point.

[andrewprock]

I had one Pixel 2 that lasted five years. I had another that lasted only six months before the screen just stopped working at all. We'll see how long my current Pixel 5a lasts.

[duffyjp]

My wife's 5a was bit by a common "screen" completely dies for no reason bug. It's more like the phone is stone dead, but that's how Google describes it. Even though she was well past the 1 year warranty they replaced it free under a special warranty program due to how common it is.

And by replaced it, I mean they sent a different phone that had lots of wear and she lost all her non-cloud data.

[sct202]

The 5A's have some kind of mass motherboard defect and the warranty was quietly increased to 2 years. I know 2 people who recently went thru a bunch of hurdles (must go to Asurion/ubreakifix to get special request submitted) and got replacement phones sent outside of the extended warranty, because both the phones failed days after the 2 year mark.

[virtualwhys]

My 5a's camera routinely crashes the phone and reboots when attempting to take a photo in bright light conditions (e.g. in broad daylight) -- it's infuriating, google says the phone is out of warranty so apparently I'm SOL.

With Asahi Linux I'm now considering going back to all-Apple hardware after 12 years away.

[mda]

If anecdotes matter, my family use 5 pixel 6/7/7a phones and I have never seen a single build issue.

[deprecative]

I've used a majority of the Nexus/Pixel line and have never had an issue either. Anecdotal+1.

[retinaros]

the nexus one was a beautifully engineered phone after that they moved to plastic and everything went down

[vetinari]

Galaxy nexus, while plastic, was still very nice phone.

Nexus 5 had already quality issues. Pixels went downhill completely, while simultaneously bumping up the price.

[skavi]

The Nexus One was built by HTC. The Galaxy Nexus was built by Samsung. The Nexus 5 was built by LG. Pixel is in house, of course, but IIRC, Google bought a fragment of HTC some time ago.

[kenhwang]

My friends regularly have to have their Pixels replaced/retired due to hardware failures around the 2 year mark. The 7 years of support is nice, but these phones don't last anywhere near that long.

[hef19898]

I had a Pixel 2 XL that was replaced this year not because it was broken, well the screen was bit that's hardly the phones fault, but because my carrier had an offer on a Pixel 7 that was too good to be true. The Pixel 2 is still working so, even if there are no more OS updates anymore.

[trey-jones]

All anecdotal but I would still be using my Pixel 1 if there was software support. 4a5g still going strong for both my wife and me.

[distances]

4a 5G was my favourite phone since Nokia N9. Fast and lightweight, great photos, fingerprint reader in the back.

I switched to Pixel 7 so that my partner can get the 4a 5G to replace their aging device. But this 7 is clearly heavier and while a good device, I just don't like it quite as much.

[trey-jones]

I'll be really disappointed when I have to abandon the backside fingerprint reader. I've gotten really used to it.