Google - Pixel 8 Pro 128GB (Unlocked) - Obsidian

I originally bought this phone and returned it because I thought the battery life was terrible. This is not an iPhone, so the user has to remember, there are multiple settings such as brightness and battery settings that you can do to improve your experience. I ended up returning the phone. I read more and more about the phone and ending up buying it AGAIN for the purposes of testing the battery, and the AI features, including some of the photo editing tools. The good: Battery life wasn't so bad, but I was aware of how bright the screen could be and turned out the battery saver settings. The camera was good, and generally took better pictures at full zoom than my iPhone 14 pro. The bad: I was really looking forward to the ability to use voice recognition for communicating across all platforms and I found it to be just as restrictive as iPhone. For instance, I thought this would work with Slack such as "Hey Google, send Slack message to Robert". It won't do that. (Neither will Siri by the way.) I routinely asked the Google Assistant to send a message and the assistant would come up and display the text from one particular request hours ago. Never figured this out. Some will say "the next update will fix that". I see- it's coming back to me now from my previous experience with Pixel: Everything gets fixed in a future update. I need it to work now however, more polished like iPhone. It really struggled for the Google Assistant to work properly one day, perhaps something wrong with the January update, who knows- but this is when I made the decision to return it. Understanding what I speak and then processing it... in some way, this phone should be the best at picking up your voice commands, and just all of a sudden in failed miserably. Also- the thumbprint scanner is just "okay". It did struggle somewhat, so I went ahead and registered additional entries for my thumbs, but I wanted to do both index fingers as well (imagine your phone laying down on your desk), but it was limited to 4 fingerprints! The face scanner is adequate, but it was significantly slower than iOS, doesn't appear to work in dimly lit situations, and may open your phone if your dog is in front of the screen. It seemed "gimmicky" and not really ready for prime time to be honest. For work: I loved the ability to have a separate "work profile" for apps, and the ability to Pause and Unpause that. However, when work profiles are "Unpaused" the darn phone will not do screenshots, I assume that is prohibited by my work policy.... But why is one able to do in on an iPhone with the same profiles installed? There was probably a "work-around"... but I'm just not into a place at work and home where I can spend time finding the "work-arounds". One thing that annoyed me- in my town of 17,000 there are no cases for this phone! Maybe the T-Mobile or Verizon stores that are managed by third party; but even the Verizon store in the nearest metro area only had maybe one of each kind of case available- 1 otterbox defender, 1 Google branded case. Best Buy had maybe only 1 available, Target oddly enough had 2 available. If you are heavy into Magsafe accessories- you will be disappointed at the offering available. Let's talk about the AI for a moment. In most of the native apps- Gmail, messages, for instance- you will get AI suggestions on how to reword your sentences in normal communication. I actually liked that for my communication for more formal purposes. As I recall, I do not think that existed for Facebook messenger or Slack messaging for instance. Lastly, let's talk about the camera experience. For full zoom- this camera outperformed my iPhone 14 Pro. For portrait photos, normal photos- it was on par, it was good. Let's have a real discussion on the likelihood you are going to use the "Best Take" AI feature where you are going to be given some alternative facial expressions to use for that one person in the group whose eyes are closed or looking down.... that feature is NOT READY for prime-time folks. The “magic eraser"... same, it just isn't all that great. It will show weird blobs of things in an area where you removed someone’s drink or something from their hand. It's just not ready. Another strange disappointment in the two phones that I set up were that it didn't transfer ANY of the messages from my iPhone. I did everything right, including chatting with a support rep on my second attempt. Google Support typed something to the effect of "it was only going to transfer 25mb anyway". Wow- okay. Bummer. I think I could have worked on this a little more with Verizon and they could have come up with a solution, but to transfer your phone through the exact process identified (and twice) and it not work for messages only was a little disheartening. Let's chat about messaging for a moment- there is some good news about how in 2024 the experience between IOS and android messaging will improve. Apple will make some concessions and embrace RCS- you can read more about that if you google those search terms. For now, there have been some improvements with how the pixel user can see how an iPhone user reacts to your message "the heart, thumbs up, thumbs down, 'ha-ha'," that sort of thing- and vice versa. I paid two restocking fees to return this phone, I tried to have my first one refunded, and a BEST BUY rep said it would be, but I don't think it was. I wanted this to work. It my work for you. If you are someone who isn't tied to IOS, you like a lot of feature rich options (that may not work as you intended until the next update), and lastly- if you can get over the fact that you will probably always live with sales reps at stores telling you this phone is a poor choice (seriously)- then this is for you! One thing everyone agrees on- the full price for this phone is too high. Make sure you are saving at least 20% off the normal price. If you are coming from another Pixel- you will love this phone.

I've been an Android user since the very beginning, so I have a lot of experience with various manufacturers and how they modify Android. Up until this point, I was primarily a Samsung user and I was a bit sick of One UI; I really wanted to experience stock Android, and so I chose to finally get a phone made by the people who made Android. This is an amazing phone. The camera is breathtaking, the battery life is *beyond* amazing, and additionally, beyond the fancy features Google provides, they are supporting this platform for another seven years, and it is completely hackable! This is the perfect phone for the long term user, and even after Google EOLs it, they'll make it easy to build new ROMs manually even after the end of support.

Preordered the Pixel 8 Pro and it has been awesome since day 1. - the phone is big but doesn't feel too heavy in the hand - the porcelain color is so soothing to the eyes - camera is amazing: took better low light photos that an iPhone - performance is smooth - battery is great Not specific to the 8 pro, but the Pixel's "At a glance" feature is very useful to see weather forecast or upcoming events on the home screen and the lock screen in one line. I don't need a calendar and a weather widget for this. Saves lot of screen space. Also useful are the call screening features again not specific to the 8 pro. With the new Gemini AI assistant deployed it's even better and easier to search and find answers. Overall a great phone. I have used Pixel 6a, 7 and 7 pro and they had one or other issue. But the 8 pro has been stellar so far!