Since there's no self posts here yet, I thought I'd bring up a question for those that decided to settle into Lemmy. Welcome to those here so far!
There's a ton of reasons to choose the a Pixel, but what's one or two major points that keep you hooked?
For me, I'm in love with the speed of the UI, and of course the ability to sideload apps if I want. Being in control of a device you spend a lot of money on makes a lot of sense.
Every other phone is full of garbage bloatware that is not easily uninstalled from the worse companies, like Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft.
Other companies promise updates, but you're waiting months if not years (or even never) for them.
and most importantly, every other phone I have used is super laggy or stuttery. Even though the Pixel 6/7 have lesser specs than the S22 Ultra, the S22 Ultra performed terribly compared to my 6 Pro (I now have a 7 Pro).
I posted a comment on Lemmy about my experience with my S22 Ultra and how it was filled with ads, despite it costing $2000 CAD ($700 MORE than the Pixel 6/7 Pro) and being an unlocked model.
Updates straight away instead of waiting 6 months, and stock android seems to work fairly decent for me. Also very good cameras! Overall one of the better phones I've owned, just wish it had a little bit better battery (Pixel 7 Pro)
Yeah battery is one of my complaints as well. It can't really handle heavy use, but if you're doing medium amounts of messaging or calling through the day it'll get you from 8 am to 11pm easy, maybe 20% left by then.
Camera on this phone is absolutely god tier though.
I've loved clean Android since the Nexus 5 days, so the Pixel line was the natural place for me to end up. The cameras have been a nice bonus, and the call filtering alone would be enough to keep me in the Pixel camp.
They're just fluid and uncluttered, plus they can be tinkered with without voiding the warranty (unlike the Motorola I owned a while back). Helps that there's always great ROM support as well once they fall off of official support.
For me, I love Android and to me Pixel is the "iPhone" of the Android world. I prefer software to hardware as well and I think they get the combo right.
Pixel 7 pro here, got it about a month ago. I got it for a few reasons:
The speed and ease of use of the UI.
The camera and photo editing options are awesome.
It can do everything the S23 Ultra can do, for a fraction of the price.
Came with really no bloat-ware (I think there was like 10 apps built into the phone when i turned it on. They were all Google apps and a couple from my service provider that i would've dl on my own anyway).
First dibs at all new Android features.
I've always been a Samsung guy, but so far I'm really loving this phone. My only real complaint is that not all of the functions of my Galaxy Watch 4 work on a non-samsung phone (stupid Samsung proprietary apps).
Wife wanted a decent camera, and I wanted to switch to Google Fi, so she got the 6 Pro. I really hate the curved edges and all the problems with screen protectors that go along with it, as putting those on falls to me. She seems to love everything else about it.
The curved edges on the 6/7 pro is so bad. I bought a 3 pack of glass screen protectors for my 6 pro, and not only did they take a *long *time to install, but they cost me $50.
For reference, I got 3 glass screen protectors for my 4 XL for $12, and they take about 60 seconds to install.
I just decided to go naked with my 7 Pro, despite me not having a lot of money to replace it if it breaks. I just cannot justify $50 screen protectors that need UV glue to install them.
I couldn't get the glass to work. Totally failed. Then went with the flexible "self healing" skin protector. Got it on perfectly, but it's like soft rubber, kinda grippy when you try to slide your finger across it.
At this point I didn't give a shit if the fingerprint worked or not lol. Haven't tested, she don't care.
I like the experience. I typically like the hardware too.
It doesn't run stock Android, it runs a Google-ified version of stock, and I like the features they add.
For example on my Pixel 6, being able to do instant live translate with my Brazilian friend on Instagram chat, is amazing. I write in Portuguese via GBoard's built in Translate option, and when he replies it is automatically translated back to English.
I literally bought it just to install GrapheneOS because I was tired of Apple's ecosystem. I have no idea what the experience on a stock Pixel is like.
I have no love for Google either, but at least they give me freedom over my phone OS and the Graphene team offers security updates for five years from release. Not as long a support window as Apple, but the experience on Graphene is better. This is mainly due to having sandboxed Google Play and Fdroid access.
For the last decade or so I always used cheap Samsung or Xiaomi phones and modded them to think they are top of the line Nexus/Pixel devices.
I like the clean look and the no bullshit approach when it comes to functionality. No preinstalled bloat, just a phone that works.
So when the time came to move on from my Poco X3 NFC, it was clear that I would go out and by the latest flagship from Google and it has yet to dissappoint me. Feels amazing to use (the haptics are on a whole other level compared to my previous phones) and I love the camera array.
I had a Galaxy S7 years ago and really disliked the phone, so changed over to a Pixel 2XL as my first Google phone. I absolutely loved the 2XL, and still would be using that phone to this day, but end of support and security updates caused me to move to the Pixel 6. I would have attempted to go to another OS with the 2XL, but... Verizon bootloader lock. The 6 I bought direct from Google so I will no longer have that problem.
The call filtering and overall experience with the 2XL is what kept me in the Pixel line. After experiencing the Pixel 6, I am still partially liking that 2XL better some. I take photos of equipment labels and motor data plates for work and the fonts are pretty small and the 2XL camera did a way better and consistent job of being able to focus on the text than this Pixel 6. The 2XL also never had Bluetooth connection issues and random disconnects like this Pixel 6, or the random reboots. And then there was the awesome rear fingerprint reader on the 2XL. I still miss that phone sometimes.
I've always been an android user since the very early days. In the last few years I switched away to iOS. Then came along the Pixel 7 series and it was time to renew my contract. What appealed to me was the live translate feature and good cameras. My partner is not a native English speaker so live translate has been a god send in communication.
Aside from that I really enjoy the newer android experience my last was the Samsung S8. It feels less bloated compared to other manufacturers and the cameras are excellent.