Google - Pixel 6 Pro 128GB (Unlocked) - Stormy Black

Best Android phone ever made. Yes it’s big a bit shy under 7 inches. But why you would buy it if you didn’t want a big phone I don’t know. The phone is not as heavy as I thought it would be and is lighter then the best IPhone. People have wanted more battery life and the companies are giving us that, but that means a little more weight. I’m getting 2 ½ days of battery life. The Picture and video capabilities are amazing. I absolutely love the look of it. Definitely the best looking phone on the market. I’ve had no problem with the fingerprint sensor. Most of my complaints are nitpicks. (I don’t like the data/wifi toggle tied together.) And the power button on any large phone she be below the volume button. Great phone all around. But you might want to go to BB and hold it in your hand and make sure you want a big phone, there not for everyone.

I traded my iPhone 13 Pro Max for this phone because I hated iOS. I was very happy to get back to Android. I've used the phone for about a year now and have been happy with it except for a few things. The first thing I noticed is that the Smooth Motion display absolutely destroys the battery life. When it's turned on I barely have enough battery to get through the day. When smooth motion is off I can go nearly three days on a single charge. Second, the beveled screen is really annoying. I don't know why anyone would want the edges of their video to curve off the screen, and it makes the phone difficult to handle without inadvertently touching a button or swiping the screen. It has also made it very difficult to find a screen protector, which unfortunately is necessary. The scratch resistance of the glass is good, but I quickly found out it's not perfect. There are no good glass screen protectors that work with the curved screen and I've had to settle for a clear vinyl. And finally, the reason for the three star review, after less than a year I have water damage. I have been reasonably careful with the phone, but water resistance was a major reason I bought it. I was recently taking pictures of some fish in a pond, holding the phone about 6 inches underwater. The phone is rated for 30 minutes at 1 meter, not 3 minutes at 6 inches. But the next day I noticed condensation in the lens and the touchscreen is acting up. It's been 4 days of drying out, but there's still moisture inside and I'm going to have to pay for repairs because water damage isn't covered in the 1-year warranty. It's too bad because with the exception of some minor annoyances, this has been a great phone.

This is legit the best phone I've had. I have been a galaxy gal long as I can remember, till I saw the camera on my sister's phone, test drove a pixel 5G when it came out & fell in love. This pixel 6 pro is the shizz, can't wait to see what Google does next

I've run this phone both rooted on a custom OS (via xda-devs) and using the stock OS, both of which work wonderfully. Display is vibrant and sharp, and nearly uses the entirety of the screen's surface area. Works great on Google Fi network. Geekbench 5 results attached for your review.

I had the standard Pixel 6 for around a year when I saw a deal on Best Buy's webite: an unlocked, open box 6 Pro for $480. I traded in an old iPhone that wasnt getting any usage and got this phone. Absolutely loving it. The only complaints I have are middling data connections and battery life, but none of these are dealbreakers. The Pixel 7 line is MUCH better, but if you can find a 6 or 6 Pro for cheap, go for it.

Where do I start? I guess let go with this is my first PIXEL. I do come from another ANDROID platform. So the transition wasn't bad. Just had to adjust to a few navigational changes. And the race was on!! You can go grab all the specs yourself. I have the PRO model. As for size, it is a big phone. I have pretty big hands and can't really one hand this without shuffling up and down. Although the swipe navigation provides some advantages. Otherwise, it has your typical build profile. The cameras do stick out and could be exposed to scratches if you don't utilize a case of some sort. This is both my personal and work phone - so lots of apps. Constantly running in the background. I get a full day's usage from the battery and that is under a heavy workload. If I stay off social media, I would say the battery would last a good 2 days on standby. As for charging, I use my 20W and it charges quickly till the last 30% and it then trickles. I typically charge to 100% overnight so I don't utilize quick charges often. This phone is supposed to operate up to 30W but no wall block is included in the box. This is a Google phone, so it's all about search. In the app sub menu, this works great for finding apps. I do wish I could group apps like on the home screen. But the search function goes beyond just the apps and searches for contacts/Settings/Tips/etc This phone has a front glass fingerprint scanner. I have read reports of this being slow. And maybe it is compared to my other phone. But honestly, it hasn't been a factor. I do LOVE how they illuminate the scanner area. I sometimes miss the mark with my paw and have to adjust! Overall, works well, and I've mapped both thumbs for easy access. I had some trouble with my tempered glass protector but found that was the tempered glass and not the scanner. The display was good - this particular supports up to 120Hz refresh, defaulting to 90Hz. This isn't really a factor for me except for reading work emails and documents. I don't really watch any media on my phone. But I did a test and it looks clean, crisp, and smooth motion. I did find the screen to lean to a dimmer option(maybe to save battery) but you can easily increase this with the pull-down system menu. So something new to this phone that I wasn't aware of was "calling assistance" options. This was a great time saver. The ability to see business wait times for call-in support. This can help level out the support queue and provide a better experience. In my testing, this worked for 800 but not an 855 number to my phone carrier! But the best feature here is the annotation of the automated phone selection menu. It transcribes this and puts it on your screen!! How many times did you forget what option #2 was and had to listen to them all over again! Simple but effective! A feature built into the phone is translate. This function works with both messaging and Pictures/Video!! It can detect the original language and translate it to your preferred output. I didn't really use a lot with messaging but we do use it a lot at the grocery store!! My kids are into anime and currently anything Japanese, so we had a good time deciphering the text on the snacks we bought! No more guessing what we are eating! Hahaha A neat feature you may have noticed using Google Mail is the notification of upcoming calendar events. This information is now displayed on the home page to keep you informed of the events. This can range from weather/alerts/flights/calendar events/etc. This feature pulls my work calendar and prompts me for upcoming calls I need to join! I no longer have to jump into the mail to see when my next meeting is! Great feature! Let's talk about the camera - the large protruding feature on the back! So it works like most every other Android phone camera. I do like that the onscreen adjustments color temperature, brightness, and exposure are there for an immediate adjustment. You don't need to snap, edit, save as anymore. Make those on the fly!!! Get Photobombed! No problem!! Magic eraser works so well and you simply circle the undesired object in the picture and it does the rest. This worked so well it was MAGIC!! Overall, really been enjoying the device. Not a major adjustment from my previous one. Really like the contour and the new features. The price is cheaper than my previous one and the device has all the bells and whistles. GREAT BUY!!

Happy with phone. The build is solid and updates are priority for pixel phones.

~TL;DR version~ Pros: • Extremely fast processor and ample RAM • Latest security updates and Android versions • Camera opens fast and shoots quickly, taking great shots in most conditions • Camera features like Magic Eraser, Motion Modes, and Face Unblur, and Speech Enhancement are useful and market-leading • AI voice typing and language translation features make this phone the most interesting piece of computing hardware on the market Cons: • Camera processing software needs to be tweaked to take better portrait shots and improve low-light performance • Telephoto lens is hard to switch to; subjects must be at least 4 feet away; no macro mode • Under-screen fingerprint reader can be difficult to work with and projects a bright light under the sensor that can be blinding • Lack of face unlock and Active Edge is disappointing, particularly considering how good Pixel 4 XL's face unlock was • Curved screen is pretty annoying to use and can warp images on the edge • User experience problems were introduced with Android 12 as Google removed or changed the UI for the worse ~Long version~ Let me begin by saying I'm an Android aficionado and a Pixel lover. It's because of that love that I might sometimes overlook the amazing, wonderful, awesome things about the phone that I take for granted, and spend too much attention to the little bugs and nitpicks that affect my experience as someone who's basically going to stick with a Pixel, no matter what. If you have never owned a Pixel phone before, there have always been several extremely great things about them that you should know, in order of importance: • The best camera processing software of any phone, period • Always get the latest security updates before any other phone • Google's vision for Android as the default, with lots of options available for tweaks and settings changes • Features like call screening, spam call and text message detection, "hold for me," which can help you avoid listening to annoying hold music • With the exception of Pixel 4 XL, have always used mid-range hardware and been sold at mid-range pricing, but generally perform well above the level of other phones in their price range. Some of the best things about the Pixels of the past are also true about the Pixel 6 Pro. It gets the latest security updates and uses Google's vision for Android. Some things are new. The Pixel 6 Pro is using new camera hardware for the first time since 2016, and it can take some really amazing shots. It has a new design, a totally new, Google-designed SoC (system on a chip; the main processor of the phone) called "Tensor" that can match and in some cases exceed the absolute best SoCs on the market at raw processing power. The Pixel 6 Pro uses this chip to do a ton of very complicated AI processing directly on the phone, without breaking a sweat. The AI processing is impressive, allowing the Pixel 6 to translate live speech on the fly, take dictation as well as enterprise-level software solutions that cost thousands of dollars, and process live video through HDR algorithms while the camera is recording. In almost all cases, the Pixel 6 Pro is the fastest phone I've ever used. In addition to the expected good things about Pixel phones, the Pixel 6 in particular does an incredible job of processing important software features on the phone. The new motion photo modes, 4k HDR video, and things like Face Unblur and Magic Eraser are great benefits, and the Pixel 6 Pro handles them effortlessly. I've also been very impressed with how the Pixel handles open apps. My Pixel 4 XL is starting to show its age and shutting open background apps down after I take a picture, or switch to just a couple more active apps. The Pixel 6 Pro with its 12 gigs of RAM completely eliminates this problem, keeping power-hungry apps like Pokemon Go open in the background for hours, even after taking pictures and using many other apps. The final thing I'll mention as a big positive is battery life. It took over a week for Android's Adaptive Battery to work well for me, but now that it is, I regularly get 5+ hours of screen-on time with more than 25% battery left at the end of the day. I anticipate this phone will be a battery champ for many years to come, and I appreciate that. ~Complaint department~ Unfortunately, there are also some drawbacks to the changes. The new camera hardware is impressive, but it seems like the software team needs some more time to make the processing work better. Particularly in portrait mode, the camera has trouble with edge detection, sometimes leaving chunks of the background adjacent to the subject un-blurred and looking janky. This usually occurs with flyaway hairs and fuzzy sweaters, and can lead to what should be a very nice shot looking very cheaply processed. Also, the phone's performance in low light doesn't match up to previous Pixels. Shots I took on Halloween as the sunlight was fading ended up looking either too blurry or too artificially sharpened, with only a very few looking great like Night Sight photos on other Pixels. The new under-screen fingerprint reader hasn't been much of a trouble, but other reviewers have said it doesn't work well for them, especially with a screen protector. I've had some issues where the reader requires me to re-apply my finger or run it a few times, but for the most part it works great. One thing I'll say is that the under-screen sensor creates a little hollow area, and the phone has a different sound to it because of that. Kind of a hollow "thunk" as compared to phones without the under-screen reader. My biggest complaint about it is that it shines a very bright light onto the reader, making it difficult to use in a darkened room without blasting yourself in the face with bright light. Make sure your finger is covering the sensor or look away! I'm hopeful that Google will find a way to add face unlock to this phone through software updates. It's a feature I wasn't in love with when I first used my Pixel 4 XL, and certainly isn't perfect in today's world where I'm wearing a mask half the time, but I miss it greatly. Face unlock on the 4 XL is fast, secure, and incredibly intuitive. As a final complaint about the hardware, I'll say that I really don't like the curved screen. The curve causes some content to bend and become distorted. In my case, that means memes and webcomics on Facebook and Patreon, which present images across the full width of the viewport. Oftentimes small text at the edges of the screen is hard to read because of the curved edge. If the Pixel 6 would've come with 12 gigs of RAM, I would have gotten it instead, to get the flat screen. Another big list of drawbacks is the many changes that were made to the user interface in Android 12. For the most part, the changes have to do with design—and they're fine. System icons are bigger and can be customized to automatically match your phone's background, typefaces are generally larger and more spaced out, and new widgets bring these design touches to your homescreen in interesting ways. But frustrating changes have occurred in the User Interface that have negative effects on the usability of the phone. For example, the quick settings button that turns wi-fi on and off has now been moved to a new "Internet" quick setting button. Where once you could swipe down from the top of the screen and turn wi-fi off with a tap, you now have to swipe, tap, tap, and then tap again to exit a popup menu. Another annoying UX blunder is the removal of home controls and Google Pay from the long-press power menu. This was an incredible feature of Android 11, and allowed users to activate important functions without looking at the phone first. Physical buttons are ALWAYS better than on-screen buttons to do simple routine tasks, and Google took it away. My final complaint about Android 12 has to do with how it handles links and saved passwords. In the past, it was a trivial thing to tell Google that you wanted to open certain links in certain apps. Now, some links open in the browser no matter how many times you tell Android to open them in an app instead. In my case, links to Reddit now open in the browser. I've gone into app settings to tell Android to open all Reddit links in the app, but after several hours, they revert. Saved passwords for apps are also a problem. In Android 12, users must enter and save their password in the app. Any saved passwords from the web version of the app do not automatically transfer, and the Autofill functionality that helps users to easily search for saved passwords is broken. Instead, the user has to exit the app, navigate to passwords.google.com, find the saved password, provide their device unlock (PIN, password or biometrics), copy the password, then go back to the app and enter it. Once the password is entered and saved, it works, but the process to set this up is unnecessarily cumbersome. ~The final word on Pixel 6 Pro~ Google Pixel phones have often had initial periods of hiccups and bugs right after launch, and though Google aficionados hoped this time would be different, it's clear that isn't the case. Many of the problems I mentioned above can be fixed with changes to software, and I hope the passion and time many of us are putting into telling Google how we feel will result in changes that benefit all users as time goes by. The indisputable thing is that, despite some minor quibbles about the fingerprint sensor and the curved screen, this phone is an incredible piece of hardware. I anticipate using this phone for years to come, and I am really looking forward to seeing how the Pixel and Android teams can adjust things to make the phone's user experience match the incredible hardware package they're working with.