Customer Ratings & Reviews

The Pixel 8 brings some slight improvements over the previous generation. Instead of getting features and fixes I’ve been hoping would come for years, I mostly got bad gimmicks that I wouldn’t miss if they disappeared. Still, I see this as a good phone I’d recommend to a friend. I tend to hang onto and continue to use technology for a long time, so I greatly appreciate Google pushing the bar with seven years of updates for this model. If the first-generation Pixel had that level of support, it would just be running out of time as this model releases. Once a phone stops receiving support and updates, I immediately consider it e-waste, since having unpatched vulnerabilities opens the phone up to active exploitation which can cause *major* problems. This promise is backed by Google maintaining a stock of replacement parts for the same duration, though I find this part a little more sketchy. I once took a warranty-covered Pixel 4a to an authorized repair center where apparently they weren’t able to acquire a replacement screen. So mileage may vary on this part. Other noticeable benefits I appreciate include: - Increase in High Brightness Mode from 1,000 to 1,400 nits, and peak brightness from 1,400 to 2,000 nits. - ‘Smooth Display’ provides up to 120 Hz refresh rate “for some content”. Especially great for people consuming a lot of visual content daily. - A slight improvement in the audio quality of the built-in speakers. - ‘Audio Magic Eraser’, one of the new AI-powered features, is actually somewhat useful. It can tone down background music (though it doesn’t seem to eliminate it altogether) and some kinds of background noise. However, it fails miserably when it comes to speech, such as from talking heads on the news coming through a TV in the background, which doesn’t seem to be detected as something that can be adjusted. - Reorganization of the camera app into separate photo and video sections, making it significantly easier to navigate. Though this applies to previous models getting Android 14 as well. Most of the AI-powered features feel incredibly gimmicky to me, like something that would be more at place in a child’s toy than a flagship phone. The results are inconsistent, and on average I would say pretty bad. - ‘Face Swap’ works better than most other AI-powered features, because it works by analyzing multiple pictures of the same scene within a tight time frame, allowing you to choose faces from multiple pictures to create a new composite picture. The more stationary the subjects, the better. But even slight head tilts and rotations can significantly throw off the quality of the result. And what might look passable at first glance on a phone, might look glaringly bad on a desktop monitor where finer detail is more abundantly clear. - The ‘Magic Edtior’ allows moving, resizing, eliminating, and replacing objects in an image. The problem comes with trying to fill in any gaps made during the process, as it does *not* have the option to learn from other similar photos, unlike Face Swap. The results are usually quite unpleasant. Trying to remove a car, for example, might give you an alternate (though probably horribly distorted) car, or might smudge the area into a nonsensical blur, or try to fill in based on the surrounding background (with most attempts being noticeably bad). Multiple options are provided to choose from, but I found it difficult to find even one that seemed remotely passable across multiple re-rolls. Trying to delete an entire ground surface has similar oddities. In one case, it tried inserting a tree that didn’t even remotely look like it belonged there and was distorted into an unnatural ball shape. Replacing the sky works best, but not without problems. - The Google Assistant’s new ability to summarize web pages would be great if it actually worked, but for me it was pretty bad. The web is flooded with articles that stretch two to four useful sentences into many paraphs, all for the sake of inserting superfluous advertising and inflating page view times. As an example, in the summarization for an article about how to access the legacy version of CS:GO on Steam, it created three bullet points: one rewording the article’s title (useless), one semi-useful tidbit stating that you needed Counter-Strike 2 in your library for this to work, and completely whiffed on the third point. Completing missing were the instructions for actually accessing the legacy game, which is almost certainly what the visitor actually wanted from this article. The speech-to-text was said to be improved on the Pixel 8. I’ve noticed some steady improvements over time on older Pixel models as Google has improved on this feature behind the scenes, but I’ve noticed no improvement on the Pixel 8 compared to my Pixel 7 Pro. The assistant still creates run-on sentences for me with a marked allergy to commas despite my very deliberate pauses (one of the supposed fixes), among other issues. Some other observations: - Having been spoiled with the 6 Pro and 7 Pro, it’s hard to say if the main camera sensor has had any improvements. That’s because with image stacking across the main sensor, a much better wide-angle lens, and a telephoto lens, the Pro phones can manage to pick up *much* more detail in a single photo at any zoom level–including non-zoomed–than the Pixel 8 can. There seems to be a difference in the default color balance and contrast levels, but nothing that actually seems significant. - The battery is tough to test thoroughly in the short timeframe I was given before my review, but the active usage time seems on par with the previous two generations. There does seem to be an improvement however in the standby time (the time the battery charge will last when the phone is not actively being used) from the start. With the Pixel 6 Pro and 7 Pro, the standby time started out really bad, and took longer to reach the point that my Pixel 8 is at now. Not a perfect unit comparison, but it’s what I have to go on. - I was a bit surprised by Google’s choice to reserve the manual exposure controls (shutter speed, ISO, and white balance) exclusively for the Pro model. This strikes me as a sleazy and manipulative business tactic, and I don’t think it necessarily serves Google’s business model well. - Pixel 8 and 8 Pro get ‘improved’ facial recognition that also works for app unlocks and payments. Unfortunately, I don’t trust facial recognition to be a single point of failure in the security model. I think we need more customizable authentication options. For example, I’d be good with authenticating either with fingerprint, or with facial recognition *combined with* a PIN or pattern match. This currently doesn’t seem possible.

The best Android phone so far! I migrated from the annoying iPhone, feels way better! Camera, Magic editing Software, 4G, ease of use, flexibility

Great phone size. Not to big and not to small. Just Right. It runs smooth and takes great pictures. You can see the display very clear in the sun.

The Google Pixel 8 is another great phone from Google. This isn’t my first Pixel phone, and it certainly won’t be my last. Pros: Build quality is great. The user experience is awesome. The phone is full of great features like wireless charging and an in-screen fingerprint reader. Lots of power and built-in storage Works seamlessly on Mint Mobile Cons: It doesn’t come with a charger (just a cable) The phone feels a little thick Battery life is “meh” Setting up this phone was a breeze. I managed to migrate all of my apps, wallpapers, contacts, and settings from my old Pixel phone to this one. The only hiccup I experienced was with my SIM card. The bracket for the Sim was rather tight. And the way it’s positioned, you have to press down firmly on the gold contacts of the SIM to get it to sit properly (a techy “no no” - you’re never supposed to touch the gold contacts on any RAM sticks, hard drives, or other electronic devices). Still, my SIM seems to function just fine after installation. Call quality is great. Both sides of the conversation were crystal clear. Speaker quality in general is pretty good. Listening to music on this phone is a joy. The phone handles casual gaming without any issues, and my handful of productivity apps work just fine on it. The phone feels quick and responsive no matter what the workload. Battery life wasn’t terrific. I was shocked to burn through 50% of my battery during setup. Since then it hasn’t discharged nearly as quickly, but it’s not terrific in terms of battery life. You’ll definitely be charging this phone nightly. Camera quality is superb. I really love the rear camera on this phone. The front facing camera isn’t quite as good, but it’s certainly not bad. Screen quality is good, but I did notice that the phone seems a little quirky when registering some gestures. This is particularly true of gestures at the bottom of the screen (swiping up to switch apps or go home takes a couple tries), and the side-to-side gestures are perhaps a mite too sensitive (accidentally swiping back to the previous page in the browser). I didn’t have these issues with my previous phone. I like this phone a lot, and I strongly recommend it for anyone looking for a solid, stock android experience.

The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are the best cell phones on the planet right now. Hands down. I decided on the smaller Pixel 8 and I'm glad I did. I'm giving up a couple of features, but I'm loving the smaller size. So, why should you get it? For starters the new G3 Tensor chip enables advanced AI and amazing photo and video editing features. Don't like something/someone in your picture...use Magic Erasure to get rid of the offending item. You can move things around in the photo using Magic Editor. Audio Magic Eraser lets you remove sounds from wind, cars, even voices from your videos. All on the phone! One of my favorite features, however, is the call screening feature. Google Assistant helps filter out spam calls by screening your calls. You'll know who's calling and why so you can decide if you want to answer the call or not. I get a lot of spam calls, so this feature has been a huge help. Battery life is phenomenal. I can get around 2.5 days with it, using it moderately, but 2 full days with fairly heavy usage. Besides what you can do with photos and video after you take them, the camera is, in my opinion, the best camera available on a cell phone besides the Pixel 8 Pro. At 50MP you can capture tons of detail, even when cropping. This is a fantastic phone. I've been completely happy with it and highly recommend it.

Best Android experience and even tho it has a Google processing chip instead of a Qualcomm. It works really good with the software and everything runs smooth. Highlights -amazing camera -great display with 120hz refresh rate -good battery with light use of apps. - easy to use software -build quality -7 years of software updates

Google has been going all in on AI and the Pixel 8 is no exception. From the enhancements to the photo app to the continued improvements on live translate, the Pixel 8 wants to be your one stop for all things digital. And as someone who grew up later in life using Photoshop, CorelDraw, and other photo editing software, I'm all for the change. For your average person who want to do basic edits such as hue and sharpness, all the way to AI removals of things you don't want in your photo, this is going to be for you. I won't say the results are perfect, but they're getting scary close to what most desktop apps can do. If I were a traveling blogger, I could probably travel with this, a battery pack, and an internet connection. But all things aren't great in the AI world. Auto translate still has issues that need to be worked out and it doesn't seem like big strides have been made in the years since its initial release. It's inconsistent enough that I still leave this setting off when watching anything online, though it works well enough when translating text in a picture. As for gaming, I haven't seen much improvement over past generations of the Pixel series. Battery life is better, but performance has stayed about the same. If you can play it on a 2 year old phone, the results will be similar. All in all, it's a good phone, but if you have something within 2 generations of this, maybe hold off one more year before you upgrade.

Upgraded from Pixel 4 and I don't see much of difference between the 2 phones other than the long battery life for the new phone. I liked my pixel 4 so overall this phone is solid for the $549 price.

I've had a few pixels over the years and iPhones as well. Got the pixel 8 since I got a good trade in for my previous phone. So far the phone has been great. Good battery, good screen, good fingerprint scanner. Overall I am very satisfied with this phone. Highly recommend.

This is my second Pixel and I'm a fan of the Google integration across its platform. Easy enough to use if you're used to an Android. Sharp pictures, speedy system. The only thing I'm not a fan of is the Google Photo Album app itself, but I just download an alternate one and have no problem backing it up to my cloud.

This is a replacement for my Pixel 4a 5G. I was completely happy with that phone but after reading the reviews and my ending security updates, I decided to make the move. The transfer to the Pixel 8 was incredibly simple and quick! I was blown away. Then came the incredible speed and new features of the phone. With each use, a new or updated functionality was revealed. I love this phone. Thanks Google for a solid product with a long commitment to provides software and security updates. The other cell phone provides could learn a lot from your example. I plan on being a life long customer.

Upgraded from iphone 11. - Hardware wise there is little to fault except facelock (that doesn't work in low light or sometimes fingerprint scanner needs 2 presses). premium quality fit and finish, smooth performance and display - Software wise I think its primarily ios vs android differences. I have come to realise that ioS apps fit and finish is simply superior to andriod and thats the true ios advantage thats most user perceptible. Thats most likely due to the vertically intergrated nature of apple offerings (chip to software all tightly managed by single vendor). How much dos it matter - it depends. Its not a deal breaker per se.

The ai features are great. So is the camera with enough light. I don't think the battery life is good. And it also heats up considerably sometimes.

I recently purchased the Pixel from Best Buy, and I must say, it has exceeded all my expectations. From its sleek design to its exceptional performance, this phone truly stands out in the crowded smartphone market. One of the standout features of the Pixel is its camera. The picture quality is absolutely stunning, capturing every detail with remarkable clarity. Whether I'm taking photos in low light or shooting videos in 4K, the Pixel consistently delivers outstanding results.

I bought the phone from Google cause the trade in was better but I'll still share my thoughts. It's a great compact phone the can still perform with the big dogs on a camera level. The RAM can be an issue if you even think you need more go with the pro. The only major complaint is the AI functionality isn't phenomenal yet. A few days in and the AI wallpaper generator crashes on every use. I would add a pic but it's hard to take a pic of the camera you are using. I have charcoal black though!

I upgraded to this device from the pixel 4. I wanted another phone with an excellent camera and it did not disappoint. It came with the amazing pixel Ear buds with customizable sound and control settings. I usually don't like in-ear earbuds, but the active noise cancelling on these makes a pleasant audio experience. This phone has a lot of customizable settings and it's a great weight - a little heavier than my old phone. I would recommend this to any one who wants to use the camera to make quality content.

Bought this after I completely broke the screen on my old phone. I ordered it at night and was able to pick it up the following morning. The phone works great.

Perfect, I loved it, the screen size is perfect to me, the camera one of the best

Great phone, smooth display, good size, solid storage.

Good product, camera is awesome! Battery life is great!