Google - Pixel 2 XL 64GB - Just Black (Verizon)

I got my Pixel 2 XL with a $400 discount. With that being said, I feel like I certainly got my money's worth. If I had paid full price, however, I would be disappointed. What's great about this phone is the camera and the sheer speed of the processor. It opens apps and jumps to web pages in an instant. It blows my old Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge away in that regard. I also love the Google assistant features. I can even ask Google to take a photo for me. Then, it will give me a 3 second countdown before it takes a photo. I'm having a blast with the augmented reality features on the camera. You put the camera in video mode, select the augmented reality options from the camera menu, and then shoot a video with Star Wars characters, Strangers Things, or dancing cartoon and food creatures. This is sort of the icing on the cake when it comes to this camera. This camera takes beautiful pictures without me having to adjust settings manually or use a filter. It's just a wonderful camera. There are manual options in there, but if you don't want to bother with those, you can still get great photos without worrying about them. I love the motion capability. If you leave it turned out, it gives you the ability to turn your still photos into gifs. I love the gboard keyboard that is pre-installed on the phone as well. It has a variety of stickers and emoticons that you can use across your various apps. I can't say enough about how much I've enjoyed these little extras. The keyboard also is easy to use whether you're a traditional typist or someone who prefers to swype through words. My calls have been clean and clear on both my end and the receiver's end. I like the two speaker's on the front of the phone. They are great for listening to video clips, podcasts, or audiobooks. If you're looking for speakers to listening to music with heavy bass, you're better off using headphones. These speakers are loud, but they won't give you the highs and lows that you could get with a good pair of headphones. The phone is heavy in my hands. That's something I didn't expect. I knew I found it a bit hard to hold when I got it, but I had trouble figuring out why. Finally, it occurred to me. This phone is heavy for me to hold. I do have some trouble with my hands from time to time so this weight may be bothersome for me at some point. For now, I'm just assuming that I'll get use to the weight. That being said, I might have been better off if I hadn't gotten the XL edition, however. I'm just use to having a larger phone. I know there have been some complaints about the screen on this device. Personally, I'm very pleased with the screen. One of the first things that I did when I got it was to boost the color of the display to saturated. Once I did that, this screen was much sharper to my eyes than my previous phone. I've tried a few games like Temple Run and they have all worked beautifully. That being said, I'm not big on playing graphic intensive games on my phone. This phone charges incredibly fast. I thought my old phone was fast, but this one leaves it in the dust. Now, here are the little things that I don't like. This phone is Google's idealized version of Android. That means they didn't incorporate lots of extra fun features into the phone. The good thing about that is that the phone runs so quickly. The downside is that you may miss those goofy little extra features that you'd find on something like a new Samsung phone. For example, I can't create folders in my app drawer. That blew my mind when I first got this phone. Now, I could install a launcher and get that capability back, but that would defeat the purpose of having a pure Android phone. Likewise, the background of the text messages is completely plain. I can't find a way to add colors or backgrounds there. (It's possible that I just haven't figured out a way to do that.) What I'm trying to say is that I miss those goofy little customization options. I'm just use to having them because my last two phones have been from Samsung. I'll adjust. If I don't, I'll install a launcher later. Problem solved. Those minor gripes aside, this is a wonderful device. I feel like I got a premium phone for a mid-range price. In all honesty, that is exactly what I wanted. I have no intentions of paying $800-$1,000 for a phone when I know that I'll want a new one in 2 years. I believe I paid $550 for this phone with a Verizon contract and 128 GB of memory. I didn't have to trade my old phone in either. I feel good about this purchase.

Hello! So, I bought this phone on 3/22/19. I am writing this review on 3/25/19. I figured a few days would be long enough to give me a great consensus on how about I feel about the phone. Before I start, I just want to give some background info, and I promise I will be quick. My previous phone was the original Google Pixel (128GB unlocked). Before that, I had been an Apple loyalist, with varying models. My current work phone is an iPhone 8+. The original Google Pixel is what finally turned me on to Android! Speaking of which, on to this beautiful phone! I have been wanting to upgrade my phone since last year. I loved my original Pixel, however, the battery wasn't doing as well, and it was showing its age. However, with the pricing of new phones so high, I kept telling myself to hold-out for the Pixel 3, or even the 4 on a good sale. Well, I am glad I held-out, because Best Buy had the Google Pixel 2 XL on sale! A massive sale (with tax, I paid $430, with a protection plan)! Pretty impressive, right? Anyway...about this phone. I LOVE IT! The Google Pixel 2 XL is a fantastic phone! From the moment I took it out of the box, and powered it on, I was impressed with how it felt in my hand! It didn't slip, or made my hand feel cramped! It just fit perfectly into my hand. Setting the phone up was a breeze, since I was coming from another Google device, it was easy to transfer stuff via the cloud. I use Google Fi as my wireless carrier, so all I had to do was pop in the SIM card I already had (that's right, folks...despite being advertised as a "Verizon" phone, it's an unlocked device, that just happens to come with a Verizon SIM card pre-installed). The phone did it's updates (that took a while, cause there were a LOT OF UPDATES), but once it was finished with that, I got into downloading all my apps, pictures, etc. That was a breeze. This phone is super fast. I have played some heavy games on it, and it never lags! Not one bit! Switching in and out of an app is snappy. The software is great. It's as close to pure Android as you can get. I never noticed any overheating while playing with it or even charging, but I will let you know over time if I do. Call quality is amazing. I didn't notice any static when on calls. Audio has been crystal clear. Easy to hear. The speakers are LOUD! Which, for me, is a great thing, cause I love music. The fingerprint sensor, in my opinion, is the best one on a mobile phone right now. Apple and Samsung could really learn a thing or two from Google in that department. Charging is super fast, thanks to rapid charging. I think it only took about 45-50 minutes to fully charge. Speaking of the charge, my battery lasts all day, with lite to moderate usage, with about 25-35% when I get home after a long day of work and classes. The camera is absolutely superb! Pictures always come out gorgeous. I think the camera is the true shining star on this phone. It just cannot be beaten, in my opinion. I definitely recommend getting a screen protector for this phone. I got mine off Amazon for like $7. Not those cheap-feeling ones either, it's a really strong one. Case is optional, but I highly recommend it, especially a clear case to show off the phone. I also recommend getting the Geek Squad protection. Phones are expensive, and it's worth protecting your investment. It's nice that Best Buy has the much cheaper option to pay for protection on a monthly basis. I really do not have any complaints about this device. I think it's the best phone out there (I'm sure the Google Pixel 3 is better, but for now, I love this one). I haven't had any of the issues some of the 1-star reviews complain about. If I do, I will update my review. I highly recommend this phone! PROS: EVERYTHING! CONS: NOTHING YET!

I really wanted to like this phone but it has got to be defective. I will say that yes the camera and video is really very good, which is great because as the mom of a cute kid that's always doing funny things, I take a lot of pictures and video...but that's my only positive experience so far unfortunately. Half the time when I try to make a call, it will hang up as soon as it connects to the other party and go back to the home screen, and sometimes it just goes back to the home screen before I can even finish getting the number typed in. This has repeated up to...I'd say 6 to 8 times in a row with me trying to get a word in to the person on the other end before it disconnects me, and then we play phone tag for a while so it can hang up on them too...and it just goes on and on until I get tired of it and decide that I just don't need to talk to them ever again. When the call does connect, half of the time as soon as it starts dialing, the screen goes black and there's no amount of pushing any combination of buttons or the touch screen that will get it to come back... so if it's an automated call where you have to type in a # selection, or you get someone's voicemail, there's nothing you can do until the call disconnects itself and sometimes that can take quite a while if there's not another live person on the other end. Try having that little issue when your kiddo seems to have disappeared from her school campus and after 10 minutes of searching, you're frantically trying to call her phone or a family member to check if someone else picked her up,....but your phone has decided to go black on you and either it goes black and you can't get it to do anything or it just goes dead from lack of a successful charge. Lots of fun. Oh did I mention that sometimes it seems to not want to charge up either?? I've had random things open up when I haven't pressed anything at all also, because it seems to just have a mind of its own. I would have taken it back to Best buy immediately but I misplaced my receipt for a bit.. aaand I found it right after the return window had passed. I haven't contacted Google yet because I'm pretty sure they would just want to send me a refurbished phone if anything and I don't want that. I don't think its reasonable that anyone should pay hundreds of dollars for what's supposed to be a brand new, top of the line phone only to have some kind of problem with it that needs a resolution, which is bad enough...only to then be sent a used refurb, which you are still required to pay for as if it is a brand new phone....and it's a refurb in the first place because it was sent back with problems!!! On top of all that, design-wise all 3 buttons being on the same side of the phone so close together is a headache when you're having to figure out the exact placement of the one you're trying to press. Even looking right at it sometimes you can't see the distinction between the three because of its pitch black side. I did a Google search (ironically enough) for tips on how to fix any of these issues (the screen going black is apparently a known and frequent issue with these phones by the way) and followed instructions to do a hard reset, to power down the phone when the screen was black, to clear the cache, to put it to put it back to factory settings, etc etc, but nothing has worked. So yeah, it's been just a pain from jump. Sorry Google I like you guys but the Pixel 2 XL has just not worked out for me at all. I wish I would have waited a few more weeks on the 3, maybe I would have had better luck. Now I feel like I'm stuck with this, and I can't afford to buy something else :(

I won’t bore anyone with all the details that led me up to buying this phone. All I’ll say is that I have been a diehard fan of Samsung phones (ever since the GALAXY SIII), and I was an iPhone user before that. Now I’m a fan of the Google Pixel 2 XL. Why? It’s pure Android, fast and smooth; no bloatware installed/running. I believe that this phone might not have been so good if it were not for Android Oreo 8.0. It just feels like they just work very well together. This phone is being slammed hard for its LG manufactured pOLED screen, but I have not experienced the problems with it like others are saying. Ok… yes, if you tilt the phone to an extreme angle and look at the screen, it does have a blue tint. Who uses a smartphone like that though? I love where the fingerprint sensor is on this phone. It is very natural and practical, not to mention extremely fast and accurate. The accuracy, and speed of this authentication works very well for Android Pay. What really makes this phone shine in my opinion though is the battery life. The charge lasts me from morning (when I get up), until I go to bed (where I’ll usually fiddle with the phone another hour or two). The bottom line is, using this phone a month in - I never had to worry about running out of power. That includes when I use the Google maps app (which sucked-up enormous power on my previous phones). I’m not camera-crazy, and I feel that cameras on most of all the flagship phones are just fine. The pictures look great for sure though, and Google’s almost unlimited picture storage is a big plus. I also like having O/S upgrades for 3 years instead of 2. If I had to come up with something I don’t like about this phone, then I’d have to say it’s the charging. I don’t think the actual fast-charging times are as fast as Google advertises – although it’s possible that this could be fixed in a future update of some kind. I also miss the wireless charging capabilities of my Sammy. The lack of wireless charging is not a show-stopper for me though, and besides… there are addon kits available if I want to do that. My definition of a perfect (5-star) phone is pretty strict, but if any phone can come close to that criteria… it’s this one.

I HAVE HAD MY PIXEL 2XL NOW FOR A LITTLE OVER 6 WEEKS. MY 2 PREVIOUS PHONES WERE LG PHONES, AND I REALLY LIKED THEM, BUT MY LAST ONE GOT TO WHERE THE BATTERY WOULD NOT HOLD A CHARGE MORE THAN A FEW HOURS. I WAS DEBATING BETWEEN THE PIXEL 2XL, THE SAMSUNG 8 PLUS OR 9 PLUS, ANOTHER LG, OR THE ONEPLUS 6T. I DON'T THINK I COULD HAVE GONE WRONG WITH ANY OF THOSE CHOICES, BUT DECIDED TO GET THE PIXEL 2XL FOR SEVERAL REASONS. I DO A LOT OF RESEARCH, TO THE POINT THAT I END UP MORE CONFUSED THAN WHEN I STARTED SOMETIMES ;-). THE REVIEWS FOR ALL THE PHONES I HAD NARROWED DOWN WERE ALL VERY GOOD, BUT I KEPT GOING BACK TO THE PIXEL BECAUSE OF THE CAMERA PRIMARILY, ALONG WITH THE GOOGLE PHOTO STORAGE AND 2 YEAR MANUFACTURE WARRANTY. ALSO WHEN I WAS READY TO PURCHASE BEST BUY HAD A GREAT PRICE FOR VERIZON'S MONTHLY PLAN. WHILE IT IS A VERY NICE PHONE I STILL NEED TO SPEND SOME TIME LEARNING SOME THINGS ABOUT IT, ESPECIALLY THE PHOTO STORAGE. I HAVE BEEN USED TO A "GALLERY" THAT PICS WENT IN TO AND WAS EASY TO NAVIGATE. THE PIXEL DOES NOT HAVE A GALLERY SEPARATE FROM GOOGLE PHOTOS, EVERY PICTURE YOU TAKE GOES THERE. ACTUALLY IF YOU HAVE HAD A GOOGLE ACCOUNT YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT, EVERY PICTURE I'VE TAKEN EVER SINCE I HAD SMART PHONE HAS BEEN SAVED IN MY GOOGLE PHOTOS. BUT I FIND IT IS NOT AS EASY TO NAVIGATE AND DO THINGS AS QUICKLY AS I COULD THROUGH THE "GALLERY" THAT WAS IN MY PREVIOUS SMART PHONES. THAT BEING SAID I'M SURE I CAN PROBABLY FIND A GALLERY-TYPE APP TO DOWNLOAD THAT MAY BE EASIER TO USE. I GET THAT I JUST NEED TO PLAY AROUND WITH MY PIXEL TO LEARN SHORTCUTS AND SUCH, SO I DEFINITELY WOULD STILL RECOMMEND THIS PHONE BECAUSE OVERALL IT SEEMS TO BE A GREAT PHONE. SO FAR I'M IMPRESSED WITH THE BATTERY LIFE, BUT TIME WILL TELL. THIS PHONE DOESN'T HAVE A REPLACEABLE BATTERY, AND WHILE YOU TUBE VIDEOS CAN BE FOUND ON REPLACING THE BATTERY, I'M SURE YOU WOULD VOID THE WARRANTY BY DOING THIS. THE DISPLAY IS AWESOME, YES A HINT OF COLOR CHANGE WHEN YOU TILT THE PHONE BUT ABSOLUTELY NOT A BIG DEAL. THERE IS A BIT OF A BEZEL, ESPECIALLY TOP AND BOTTOM, BUT STILL AN OVERALL BIGGER DISPLAY IN THE SAME SIZE PHONE AS MY LAST LG(V10). I'M SURE AS I LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW TO USE DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS OF MY PHONE I WILL BE EVEN MORE PLEASED WITH IT.

I've been a Google Nexus user since the Samsung Google Nexus S (which I bought at Best Buy many years ago). Since then I've only used Nexus devices because of the purity of the Android UI (user interface). I've had a NEXUS 6P for a couple of years and loved the phone itself, but the battery and the bootloop issues started to take its toll so I bought an LG V35 thinking it would jive with my Google Fi service as it was sold by Google Fi for use on Google Fi. Apparently, LG has its own take on the Android UI and it wasn't pretty. In fact, it was awful. Needless to say, I got rid of the LG immediately and picked up the Pixel 2 XL on close-out from Verizon. The transition was smooth as silk. EVERYTHING from my old phone was transferred including texts, settings, wi-fi passwords, etc. Of course the last update on my Nexus 6P was Android 8.1 Oreo, so moving to the Pixel I am now running the latest Android 9.0 Pie, which is awesome. The biggest upgrade for me is the camera. It really is pretty amazing what they've been able to accomplish with such a tiny lens & sensor. The battery is a big jump from the Nexus 6P, too. My Pixel 2XL lasts all-day and I have yet to have to top-off the battery once I'm home from work. This one truly is an all-day battery. My only beef is the lack of a 3.5 mm headphone jack. It does include a usb-c adapter, but I'm just old-skool like that. I being able to just use my existing headphones without an adapter. One other thing, the speakers are not as good as the Nexus 6P. Part of that I attribute to the fact that the Nexus 6P was not IP rated water resistant. I really don't use the speakers much anyway, but the sound is more claustrophobic and not quite as loud. Other than those little quibbles, I'm VERY happy with my Pixel experience thus far - especially for the $$ I paid.

I've been using the Pixel 2 XL Unlocked (from Project Fi) for a couple days shy of 6 months and it's probably been the best phone I've ever owned. I never bought a case for it as they were too expensive and simply threw it into the middle slot in my clutch everyday. I just cleaned the screen and there zero blemishes, with some very minor scratches on one edge of the rear glass. Waterproofing is excellent (I've done quite a bit of photography during thunderstorms) as is the camera for virtually anything i'd need to shoot shy not requiring a DSLR. The operating system has been updated three times to Android P Beta 3 and all versions have simply flown. I've tried most of the features excepting some of the less-secure smart unlock features. My only complaint is that the screen reader is all but worthless unless you're legit blind and have used multiple Android phones previously. Compared to the iPhone's screen reader, which i've used every night for the past five years to turn fanfics into audiobooks, Android's screen reader may as well be bloatware. Speaking of bloatware, there isn't any and nearly every app i've ever installed has run smooth as butter. I have tried installing 3rd party launchers and at least the Windows Phone launcher works well for what it is, though i can't imagine a need for them. Just now my phone rang and it recognized it as a suspected spam caller and didn't alert me. Battery life is really quite excellent if you follow the battery-saving steps recommended in the settings. Today i shot and then edited about 10 photos in Snapseed and uploaded them and had only lost about 8% power when I was done. Under normal/standby usage i usually get four-five days. Under heavy usage, about three. The always-on screen is terrific and well-designed to be read in any light. The Now Playing feature that Google used to advertise this phone works maybe 5% of the time? The concept needs work and the offline micro-database powering it is too small to be useful for any style of music. The biometric sensors are terrific and if you take your phone with you everywhere you'll never have to "start a workout" and still have excellent statistics (I recommend exporting them to Exist.io as the Google Fit app is designed for the lowest common denominator with little functionality). I have no use for VR and haven't used any of those features, but there are so many crammed in that this phone would be an excellent choice if you needed to. Occasionally for some reason i manage to accidentally switch on speakerphone and i'm not sure why but i doubt it's a real bug. 100% recommended. I can't imagine what Google would have to do to top this.

I needed a new phone after my Moto Z Droid started to experience extreme battery drain (judging by the forums, this seems to be a glitch when running Android 8 on the Lenovo-based hardware). I had been looking for phones to come on sale on both Best Buy and Verizon wireless sites. The only inexpensive options were entry level Samsung and moto phones. I was ready to buy this phone at $16/month when the price dropped to $8.33/month for a 48 hour period last week. I am thrilled so far with the performance of the phone and even more so when factoring in the price that I paid. Yes, the blue shift when viewed at an angle is a bit off putting but the display is otherwise excellent. The battery life has been consistent and charges rapidly. I have found the calls to be clear. The camera is outstanding and Google Lens is pretty sweet. It is an appropriately sized phone for one hand use and the finger print sensor is really responsive and in a perfect location. I actually enjoy using the active edge function to access google assistant which I use all of the time. I also feel secure with the extended 2 year warranty that google put on the phone after the screen issues in late 2017. This should be standard in my opinion as almost every phone is now sold on a 24 month installment plan. As I said in the beginning, my old phone started having serious issues during month number 21, leaving me completely out of luck. I will re-post should I have any issues moving forward but as of now I am very happy with my purchase!