Top Best 50 Google Smart Home Devices in December 2021

Easy to setup. Awesome connection and very user friendly.

Easy to setup. Awesome connection and very user friendly.

Bought 3 of these to replace a very old smoke detectors that were built-in to our very old alarm system. Very easy to install & set-up (already had a Nest account). So far they are great. I like how they are both smoke & carbon monoxide detectors. I like how they are motion sensitive & can work as night lights. But best of all I like how they all work together & are connected to your smart phone app. Totally worth the price for feeling safe.

Nest Protect is one of the most comprehensive, of the smart smoke detectors I've ever purchased. Not only does it pick up several types of fires, as well as carbon monoxide, but it also does the best job at alerting you of the danger. It also works with a wide range of smart-home products. I've set my Philips Hue lights to turn on automatically when the Nest Protect goes off. Pretty cool!

This is my 2nd one in 5 years. I like that it send me alerts to my phone fast. Batteries last about a year.

I'm a big NEST customer. This smoke/carbon monoxide detector is a top notch item. Read the specifications it's all true. Works from phone thru NEST app. Speaks to you before actual loud beep. I can go on. Won't be disappointed.

Definitely pleased with purchase, will be adding more units to this system. Worth the Money to me personally for your peace of mind for the security of your family, pets, property, etc. on a 10 yr. investment it comes out to less than .85 cents a month. This unit is well built, Smoke and Carbon Monoxide, and it works well with the app so far.

Nest Protect Smart Smoke/Carbon Monoxide Alarm provides the ultimate protection & peace of mind. The intelligent alerts discriminate between steam and smoke. A clear "Heads Up!" pre-alert gently cautions you in situations when close proximity to steam or a little smoke in the kitchen, for example, is about to trigger an alert. You can silence a false alarm using your phone. Multiple units share alerts to all rooms & to your NEST App on your phone, tablet & computer - so you are protected throughout your home!

The "Promise" is a ring of green light that illuminates nightly to let you know everything is good. Walk under NEST at night & the ring glows white, forming a pathlight. During Heads Up, it glows yellow. During an emergency, it glows red.

NEST Protect self-tests, alerting you first by the phone app that it will sound. Everything is tested: sensors / voice / siren. Tests are dated & are sent to your app. A monthly summary even shows the exact date & time of each test.

This is the premiere smoke detector, able to detect CO2 (even produces a completely different sound, for instant identification). NEST Protect senses both fast and slow burning fires.

NO CHIRPS!! This advanced Smoke Alarm eliminates all of the hassles of pesky chirps from low batteries, with super long lasting Lithium Batteries included that last years. Battery alerts are through your App & by voice on the Alarm.

To set-up, simply scan the QR Code on the back of the NEST & follow the voice instructions. Easiest set-up ever!

NEST Protect earns my highest recommendation - no other Smoke / CO2 Alarm even comes close!

Are you kidding me?! Replaced the batteries but still bad sensor. Dusted it as recommended (although not dusty) and still beeps saying I need to replace it. Why would I get another one when this one took a crap so soon. And back cover over batteries will not stay closed. No earthquakes where I live so not sure why covet won’t close or why it stopped. Made in China most likely reason. And now not returnable—of course.

These detectors are awesome, in some rooms I have them set up in another language and others in English. Love the night light feature! Great and easy to install, find location and follow instructions on the app

This is the "apple" of digital thermostats and it's made by google (Nest's parent company).

It looks great on the wall. Has a solid feel to it and comes across as very well crafted. It would've been nice to have been able to compare out old thermostat to this one to see exactly how much we're saving on our oil bill but we're definitely going through less oil than we used to.

Installation was a breeze. I actually opened a chat with one of their reps to ask them a quick question about the unit and they pretty much insisted that they would stay connected with me until I completed the setup and tested everything out.

The configuration is a breeze too - at least it was for our heat-only system.

The major shortcoming is the software. There are some things that are just not intuitive like the eco settings and some things that just leave you scratching your head wondering what they were thinking when they wrote the code, like displaying what the target temp is more prominently than the current temp - there's a feature called farsight that will show you the current temp for a moment but then it goes back to the normal display.

The usage history is capped to ten days. Seriously. Like how much memory would it take to give us a month or even a year, it's just some raw data that shouldn't take up much space at all on the device.

The home/away feature works when it wants to. There have been times I've been like, "why is it freezing in here?" and opened the app to find the nest thinks I'm away from home and times when I've been out for hours and opened the app just for the heck of it to see if the furnace is running and it thinks I'm home and the heat's cranking.

We've had two of these installed for a little over a month and it still hasn't learned our schedule. It might have something to do with not knowing whether we're home or away, lollll, but either of these features should be pretty easy to make work any number of ways and have them work well but they just don't.

The app and web interface are nicely laid out and easy to use for the most part and from my experience with them, they seem to give you access to most of the controls and features that you'd have using the wheel on the thermostat itself, without having to stand there and scroll through everything with the notable exception of the farsight setting.

From what I can tell, you can't link two nests in different zones and get them to act smarter together, for instance to say hey the furnace is running for zone two, why not heat up zone one for a little bit too while you're at it. Maybe I'm missing something and by all means tell me if I am, but that seems like it'd be a nice feature to have.

It just feels really limited with what you can do with it and they've been out now for long enough where you think they'd have this thing feature packed with the ability to customize it a little more than what you get out of the box with this 3rd gen model.

I feel like the ecobee is probably a more robust option but just barely. That being said we did get two of these and I'm pretty happy with them ..... I'm just not satisfied if that makes sense. There's just a lot more I'd like to see these things be able to do that hopefully will be added via firmware or software updates as more people install them and clamor for more features.

So I knew very little about this product when I decided to purchase my 1st one but what I did know was my home as many homes come with these absolutely inefficient thermostats so I bought this nest smart thermostat & absolutely love it

Benefits: affordable & really smart as it learns how hot or cold a person likes their home

Knows when you are coming home as registered by cell phone location unless you tell it not to

Custom daily down to 1/2 hour custom temp daily weekly schedule

Rebate of $75 from srp off your electric bill after 2 months so think about what you paid -$75. How cool is that!

I bought my parents this gold one & installed it at their home. Almost immediately I could tell home cooling way more efficiently

This product is amazing. I would recommend to everyone

So, recently moved into a new to me home, and had a Nest in our previous home- LOVE IT.

Although we didn’t install the first one, we thought that it would be pretty easy.

To be honest, I think it would have been if I knew exactly what we had as far as HVAC system … we have an electric system with a heat pump… haven’t had one of those before buuuuttt the app walks you through everything…

The app told me once that it was unable to determine if we could install the nest and once that it was not compatible. As I was getting ready to return the thermostat (so dismal), I decided to contact google nest support and WOW, they were so awesome. They determined that our system was compatible and sent me an email of how I should wire the thermostat. It would pretty well, no complaints so far! Love it!

I purchased the Next gen 3 thermostat on a Sunday morning from Best Buy and it was delivered THE SAME DAY for free! Wow! Installation was super simple. Luckily I had an extra "C" wire not being used so I was able to attach that to the thermostat and on the furnace board to power the unit. Setup was easy and I loved how the screwdriver even had a magnet end to hold the screws a bit. App setup was smooth. No issues connecting to our wireless. Only thing that hung me up for a couple minutes was not knowing how to "select" the options one the screen. Turning the dial was ok, but I learned from a video online that to select you press around the sides of the display. Ah!!! That could have been better communicated maybe with a sticker on the device. System is so smart. It can run the fan a bit after the AC turns off to help push out remaining cool air. Doing the schedules on the app is pretty straightforward. It can give alerts if temp is too high or low and change the temps accordingly. This is going to be awesome.

this was my first time installing a thermostat at home on my own. i followed the instructions and when I noticed my very old Thermostat has so much more wires than what nest takes I contacted Nest customer support online using my cell phone and they helped my for about an hour untill Nest was installed and working.

They asked me for a picture of the old thermostat wiring and a picture for the wiring that was coming out of my HVAC room, and then sent me a diagram to my email address explaining which wires I should connect where. the whole process was a breeze and customer support person was great, professional, and patient.

the experience of installing this while someone who has the knowledge is with you along the way and holding your hand exceeded all my expectations.

The nest performance is very satisfying and accurate. you have modes for home, and away which can be easily set to save energy.

I couldn't be happier.

So far working great with my furnace. I have a two wire hook up and this thermostat uses power from the furnace to keep the battery charged with no extra wires needed. The app interface is good. Installation was easy with plenty of support if needed. Now I’ll know for sure that the temperature in my house is good when I travel during the winter. Has some other good bells and whistles but that was low on my priority scale.

Everything on the Nest from the install to the scheduling is easy to do and most of the features are pretty nice. There are two issues I have with the Nest. The first is you can't change the frequency in which the fan cycles on. It only gives you the option to come on every hour. You can select run time for 15,30,45 minutes up to 1 hour but that's it. It would be nice to be able to select every 1,2,3, or 4 hours just so the fan isn't coming on all the time. I'm sure this can be fixed with a software update. The second issue and this is a big problem is that the current room temperature is inaccurate. The Nest reads 2-3°F above actual room temp. I am currently on my 3rd Nest (Generation 3) in a 20 day period. The 1st read 75°F for over 24 hours even though there was no way it was 75° so I exchanged it. I installed the 2nd Nest and after having it for a day I noticed that it felt a little chilly in my house. I looked at the screen and it read 71° but it seemed cooler. So I put two of my previous thermostats (a Honeywell VisionPRO 8000, and a Comcast digital) and a digital food thermometer next to the Nest to compare the readings and all 3 read 68°F. (I'm no pro but I think if 3 thermometers read the same then I would say they are accurate) I called Nest and the technician said it can take up to 14 days to "learn" the temp so I waited to see if it would correctly calibrate. It didn't, and I exchanged it for my 3rd Nest hoping the other two were defective. It's been 2 days and no luck. This one is reading 2-3°F high as well. The tech also told me that the Nest's are programmed to have a 2° range. I understand this when heating and cooling so you're furnace or A/C isn't tuning on and off every 5 minutes however there should be no range on the accuracy of the actual room temp. It's either accurate or it's not. I'll give this a few more days and call Nest and see if they have a software update to accurately calibrate it. They say this has 12 sensors. How is it that 12 sensors are less accurate then a cheap $50 thermostat with 1? I don't understand.. I've included some pictures showing the temp differences. My Nest reads "current temp" 71°F and the other 3 thermometers read current room temp as 68°F. That is unacceptable.

This is the best thermostat I have used, and had purchased one 6 years ago for another home I used to live it and worked great. I had gotten this one for my in-law because it works with older heating and cooling units. I had tried the cheaper Google Nest Smart version and it didn't work because you needed to run a constant power wire.

First let me start by saying I highly recommend this product. Long story short I had a fire in my home. The nest worked and alerted me while I was away from home. I called the fire department when I noticed the temperature on my nest thermostat rising. We lost everything inside mostly due to smoke and water damage. The fire chief said had we called any later the whole house would have been gone. I will be buying these again.

Tldr buy one you won't regret it, and do not ignore the alerts.

I am sold on these. We had one at our old house and had to get them in or new house. These are easy to set up and manage through the Nest app. They are not to sensitive which helps to eliminate false alarms, and when an alarm goes off the notification is sent. One of the great additional features is the lighted ring that illuminates when you walk past. We have these set up in hallways and it's nice to have a little light at night when hall lights are off.

I would highly recommend to anyone looking to looking for a smoke/Carbon Monoxide detector in a smart home setting.

It's a great product. If it does alarm it tells you which one is alarming (if you have more than one). They talk to each other on their own secret network, so they work even if your internet goes down. And the wired unit has a battery backup if the power goes out. It even does self checks. Oh, and it's a night light.

My family already had one in our main level and wanted to add two more so each level is protected. They installed easily and connected quickly to the Nest app. This product does a great job at keeping us protected. I highly recommend these over your traditional fire alarms.

This has been a great new smart product for my home. I live the fact that I can get alerts on my phone when updates are happening or when the alarm is running a test alert. Would recommend to anyone for a house or apartment.

If you have any other Google integrated products, this is a must. Not only is it a factor of safety & security but it looks like. The operation is fantastic. In my home of six of these. If one goes off in any room. The other ones will tell me which one is going off & why. The Google/Nest app is great as well.

I love the Nest protect, the Gen 2 is fantastic. I have several and they just work, make my life easier and I don’t worry about replacing the battery. Provide a night light and check it’s status via the app.

Great product, easy setup through the Nest app and easy installation. Great safety features and Nest integration. Will definitely be upgrading other detectors throughout the house.

Thank you google for making a power cord this long. The power cable is very well built and it looks like it will survive the outdoor elements.

Google power cable works great. The power cable allows the camera to function constantly and responds immediately to any motion as programmed to detect. Although the battery mode is functional and does not require any physical connection, there is a slight lag in recording in battery mode.

Cable has great length, at 33ft, should have plenty of cable to mount your camera anywhere you'd like and still power with this cable. Overall feel is very nice, cable is soft touch and very pliable, not rigid at all, so easy to snake around corners and tuck away into spots and not have rigid, kinked cable to deal with. Weatherproof covering is ok, but if you snake it through anything sort of rough, it very easily can scuff or come off. Plug could be a little more solid, but not bad. And the round shape and size of the plug might make it a nuisance for some outdoor outlets.

The cord was super long. I wish they included this in the box. But, we all know they are getting chearper. But, buy this and it will make the nest cameras a lot easier and you don't have to charge them.

If you have a Google Nest cam (battery powered) and want it wired, buy this cord and steer clear of eBay and Amazon knock-offs. (trust me)

Perfect to plug the nest camera outdoor. Long enough to mount the camera on the wall out of reach.

Great cable, made my life so much easier with the extra length. More flexibility positioning u to our camera

A little pricy but I had no problems setting it up. I did not know it came with clips with nails in them to attach it to the ceiling!

I was using my Pixelbook laptop 45 watt brick usb & cable to charge up my newly purchased pixel 6 phone. I must say that while it charged my P 6 while phone notified me that it was charging rapidly it really wasn't. As soon as I received my 30watt USB I could immediately observe the difference. This Google branded (G) usb is what you need for your P 6 phone thundering fast & just precise for a P 6 phone. Oh & 25.00 $ way more cost saving than most other brands 30watt versions

Great price on a good charger needed to my hubby's new Pixel 6! My 5a came with one but not the 6 ... works well~ charges fast and BB service for pickup was great!

This review is just to offset people complaining about the Pixel not coming with a wall plug. News flash: Apple and Samsung don't include chargers, either. If you don't like it, go back to a flip phone.

If you own a Pixel 6, this block is a must buy. Charges the phone in under 2 hours, much faster than standard charging block

It does charge my devices quick. Color matches the charging cable that came with my phone

Works great to charge my new Pixel 6 phone. Nothing to complain about here.

Does its intended purpose and is very durable. Very easy to carry as well.

Charges fast, just how it is supposed to do. No complaints about it.

I've only had these for less than a week, but I am so glad I purchased these. They were refurbished but looked new and came in the original packaging. Using the Google Home App, they were super easy to install . My house is about 3200 sqf. with two floors (main and second level) My modem (xfinity) is up stairs. I no longer have any slow wifi anywhere in the house. Most noticible is I have wifi signal on my porch, which I did not before.

These units look and operate like new units. I only had one problem getting them joined to my existing network. Because they were "refurbished" units, they had already connected to a network and did not want to join mine. I eventually got help from Google online chat support. They helped me find the hidden master reset button to wipe the old network from each device. After that, everything is on and working well. The 30% discount from new price was worth the extra effort.

Great Wifi nest system. Installation was not straight forward as I needed to rest the routers for the Google home app to recognize the devices. Other than that, the wireless connection is fast and stable. Plus, great coverage no hidden WiFi spots in the house.

No longer have internet issues at home. These pods blanket the home with Wi-Fi so there are no dead zones.

Looks like new and Works well everything is good recommended

---- Summary ----

Verdict:

The phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” certainly applies to the Nest Hub. Not much has changed from its predecessor, and that’s a good thing, but the sleep tracking, better audio, and edgeless glass display are welcome additions. For Google Assistant fans such as myself, owning a Nest Hub is a no-brainer. If you’re new to smart displays, this one won’t disappoint.

Pros:

- Compact design

- Edgeless glass display

- Easy to set up and use

- Quick responses from Google Assitant

- Controls smart home devices

- Better audio than first-generation

- Tracks sleep without a camera or wearable

- Great digital photo frame

Cons:

- Quick Gestures don’t always work

- Audio quality isn’t great

---- Review ----

Setup:

Whether you’re new to the Nest Hub or adding another one to your home (like myself), the setup experience is simple and quick. After plugging it in, downloading and/or opening the Google Home app on your phone, and tapping the add button you’ll be presented with on-screen easy-to-follow instructions with animations. It makes the setup process a breeze, so I was done within a few minutes.

Design:

Not much has changed from the first-generation Nest Hub, and I think that’s a good thing. I like the modern, compact design with its fabric-covered base that is angled in a way that makes it seem as if the display is floating. It looks great on my nightstand and doesn’t take up much space. One notable change to the second-generation Nest Hub’s design is the new edgeless glass display. It looks better and is easier to clean than the framed display of its predecessor.

Audio:

Don’t expect to be blown away by the audio quality. Although it has 50% more bass than the first-generation Nest Hub (which is a noticeable improvement), the audio is still just okay. This isn’t a significant drawback in my opinion because the audio quality isn’t the focus of the Nest Hub. If audio quality is more important to you than a display, I recommend checking out the Nest Audio. That said, the Nest Hub produces clear audio that fills a small room, so I’d consider it adequate.

Sleep Sensing:

I was excited to try out the new Sleep Sensing feature. The idea of sleep tracking without a wearable device sounded outlandish to me, so I had my skepticism, but it seems to work very well. Using Soli radar technology, the Nest Hub can detect movement and breathing. For privacy reasons, I appreciate that there’s no camera involved. Disturbances like snoring and coughing or light and temperature changes in the room are also detected. With privacy in mind, the audio data is processed on the Nest Hub, not sent to Google’s servers. Additionally, the Sleep Sensing feature is completely optional, so you can always disable it. Checking my sleep summary has become part of my daily routine, and I have been surprised by how in-depth and accurate it is. There are many metrics like when you fell asleep and woke up, how long you snored, how many times you coughed, and even your respiratory rate. I’ve used wearable sleep tracking devices in the past, and I think the Nest Hub is just as good, if not better.

Other Features:

Having a Nest Hub adds convenience to my life at home and as an added bonus, it works well as a digital photo frame. I could go on and on about the many things it’s capable of, but I’ll just highlight some of my favorites. The Nest Hub connects to and lets me control all my smart home devices. Adjusting the thermostat, turning the lights on/off, or even starting my robot vacuum can all be done by simply asking Google. If family members are in a different room that has a Nest speaker, I use the broadcast feature so that I don’t have to yell in order to share a message with them. It’s also my source for weather, news, or quick answers. New to the second-generation Nest Hub is Quick Gestures, which allow you to pause/play music or video with a tap of the air in front of the display, or you can snooze an alarm with a wave of your hand. However, in my experience with this feature, it doesn’t always respond to my gestures on the first try, so hopefully, there will be an update to improve it. After experiencing the many features and hands-free help Nest provides, I don’t think I could ever go back to not having one in my home. This Nest Hub becomes the center of whatever room it’s in.

I own quite a few Nest Devices (4 Nest Protects, 2nd Gen Nest Thermostat, 2 Indoor Nest Cameras). And now a 2nd Gen Nest Hub. I'm quite happy with this little device. I was surprised at how small it was. But the size does make it very convenient to be used in many locations. If fits perfectly on my night stand next to my bed. The packaging is quite simple. The display and a power cord... and that's it!

The Good:

The setup is as expected for any current generation tech device. Everything is setup through your mobile phone (requires the Good Home app). There a handful of setup screens to navigate through. But once you're done with that, there isn't much else needed.

The display itself is very nice and quite responsive to touch gestures.

It's also an Always-On display. When it doesn't detect any motion the clock is displayed. If it detects you've turned out the lights to go to sleep, it switches to a very dim clock display that eventually turns off. Waking up automatically when it detects motion.

The audio is surprisingly good as well. Deep bass and great highs. It even has an equalizer so you can adjust the intensity of Base/Treble. The volume does go up quite loud. But doesn't go low enough for my bed time music tastes. I still have to use my phone (with the volume on 1) for my ambient music at bed time.

Now for the best feature. Sleep Sensing. The Nest Hub will monitor you while you sleep. Recording 2 types of events. Audio and Motion. It will notate each time a Cough, Snore or Wake event occurs. My first night using this I was quite surprised at how much it says I snore. Nearly 6 hours of snoring! :( The data is displayed in a very easy to understand 3 bar graph (each category gets its own bar graph). It also shows you how early/late you went to bed and woke up (based on your sleep schedule). There is a physical switch on the back side of the device for turning the microphone on and off. A nice gesture from Google that they have privacy in mind.

Controls are pretty easy to use. It has voice control: "Hey Google, how did I sleep last night?". "Hey Google, play me some ambient bed time sounds", It also supports hand gestures. And as I said above, the touch screen is responsive. Swiping from Left to Right returns you to the previous screen. Swiping up show the settings app tray (settings, turning sleep sensing on/of/etc). Swiping down shows the other apps (media, audio/video/games/etc)

The Bad:

Some settings seem too difficult to access. I remember setting up my bed time schedule. I wanted to change it, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I think consolidating or displaying all of the various settings from the main settings window would be useful.

I'm not sure if I like or dislike that it doesn't have it's own internal power source. If you unplug it, the device turns off. And plugging it back in requires you to wait until it boots up again. I suppose this help keeps the cost down. And this device isn't meant to be mobile (it's permanently affixed to it's base).

Overall:

I really like this device. It streams Netflix, it tells me how I'm sleeping, it's small and light weight. I can see get another one of these for the kitchen. If you own a bunch of Nest devices, you definitely need to get one of these (they're pretty cheap too!). If you don't have any Nest devices, this would be a great way to get into the Nest family.

The Nest Hub 2 has all the usual features found on a sophisticated smart display. The only missing feature is a built-in camera which I am actually glad it does not have, especially for a device used in the bedroom and facing my bed. With the mic enabled, the wake phrase “hey google” allows voice commands for a wide range of options and smart home integrated controls. The 7-inch color touchscreen display also adds the benefit of touch sensitive controls if direct input is preferred. The sense feature also allows the use of touchless hand gestures to control media and silence alarms or the Google Assistant. Setup and operation are both straightforward but as always, I suggest thoroughly reading through the terms rather than merely accepting without reading. I opted out of binding arbitration after reading some parts of the language I wasn’t comfortable with. The on-screen menu system is intuitive and easy to navigate and the floating design display is responsive, vivid and bright. Backlight level can be set manually or set to dynamically change with lighting conditions. The display can be used primarily as a clock, information hub or even a digital photo frame while in standby. It can also play streaming media on demand. Sound isn’t bad for the size. Video and music quality both sound good and volume is sufficiently loud for small areas like a bedroom or den.

The sleep sensing is the standout feature of the Nest Hub 2. It works reliably and seems accurate. After a brief calibration it will track sleep automatically and can tell when you fall asleep versus merely laying in the bed. The Soli sensor uses radar and other sensors to monitor movements and record breathing and sounds like coughs and snoring. All recorded sounds are stored on the device and are not uploaded to the cloud. Sleep data is uploaded to the cloud and can be viewed on either the device touchscreen or in the Google Fit app. The Fit app is easier to navigate, feels more user friendly and provides more in-depth sleep data. Sleep reports share info such as total time asleep, the amount of time it took to fall asleep, respiratory rate and environmental conditions like temperature, humidity and light levels. I included screenshots of a report that includes a couple hours spent awake in the pre-dawn hours before going back to sleep. Past and present sleep data can be accessed in the Fit app. Sleep data can also be accessed on the device but is more limited than using the app and some sleep features require mandatory enrollment in voice match to access from the device. Sounds and sleep data can be deleted at any time.

Sound recording is useful for monitoring snoring and coughs to determine whether either poses a problem to restful sleep but also seems a bit creepy and invasive, especially if sharing a bed. I disabled it after realizing it had recorded my wife’s coughs and mistakenly attributed them to me. It felt somewhat invasive of her personal space and the idea of having all bedroom sounds recorded nonstop throughout the night seems a bit unsettling. Another thing that feels mildly disturbing is nonstop beaming of radio waves towards my head. For these reasons I only activate sleep sensing when I’m literally ready to fall asleep. I also only use sound recording if I have a specific concern about snoring. Otherwise, I keep it disabled most nights. Perhaps I’m overly paranoid and all of this is unnecessary but it makes me feel more at ease.

Sleep sensing is currently being offered as a free preview for the next year at no charge. No credit card is required to activate the preview. Once the preview is over, a paid subscription will be required. The subscription rate is not yet available but I’m debating whether I will be willing to incur the expense of another subscription service after the preview. The fact that I already own a wearable that can track my sleep with no subscription required makes a paid subscription less appealing. It will all come down to the eventual price.

The Nest Hub 2 is an excellent smart display that puts a wealth of features at my fingertips or a voice command away. The sleep sensing feature is reliable and seems to work well but I have to make myself feel more comfortable with the way it works. The hub provides quick access to my other smart devices like my Hue lights, Sonos speakers and more. The 7” size is perfect as a bedside clock and photo frame.

I’ve been using voice-controlled hubs for a long time, but I am late to the smart display experience. To start, the Nest Hub 2 looks genuinely pleasant and classy. The light green textured base has some weight that allows decent stability. The glass-covered display is flushed with the bezels, which personally I think are on the thick side. On the “forehead,” you’ll see some sensors. There is also a volume rocker and a mic mute slider on the back.

Setting it up requires a bit of know-how, but the device will walk you through every step. Keep in mind that you will need your phone or tablet (with a recent version OS). I did run into a few snags but once it was working, it’s smooth sailing.

The 7-inch screen is flushed and is bright enough in a well-lit room. Although the resolution is low (1024X600), it is clear and has enough contrast to be appreciated. I watched a few videos, and it did the job well, although I would not go watching movies all day on it though. When not in use, the Nest doubles as a picture frame that you can set to display whatever album you choose. For music, podcasts, and audiobooks, there are plenty of options to choose from.

The sound coming out of this small 1.7” speaker is rather full and natural. The bass does have some impact -even at high volumes, although it may not blow away any bass-heads out there. The midrange is well represented and clear, adding transparency to speech and most rhythm-based instruments. The treble is a bit soft but still is high enough to add clarity. The nest covers my small bedroom nicely, but some bass may get lost in a bigger space. Also, at above 80% volume (4), I did notice a bit of muddiness -especially in heavy rock and classical orchestra genres. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to my podcasts and audiobooks as vocals are clear and natural.

As a voice assistant, Google is usually on top of things. I noticed that it does have some difficulty with nuanced questions. The good thing is that the screen gives you options when a straight answer cannot be given. Coming from a voice-only assistant device, that’s a huge upgrade. As far as voice recognition, the Hub understood almost everything -even from across the room. Speaking of commands, it is nice to control any device connected to the Google Home ecosystem. I have a kitchen lamp, a speaker, and a Chromecast-enabled TV, and all worked as expected. You can always turn off the mic if the always-listening mode bugs you.

I tried calling some people with Google Duo and it worked nicely, Unfortunately, the Nest Hub does not have a camera so video conferencing is not available for the other party, but you will be able to still see them. This may be a bummer for some, but in my case, since I use the Nest in my bedroom, I’d rather have it that way.

Alarms work well with a few nifty options such as ambient sounds and lighting for both going to sleep and waking up. The alarm can be “shooshed” by waving your hand by the screen, which beats reaching for the snooze or telling it to shut up.

The main feature that other smart displays do not have is Sleep Sensing, which basically tracks your sleeping patterns. Using a radar-like technology, the device can tell when you get to bed, go to sleep, how much you move, and if you snore. It also detects ambient light and room temperature. Setting it up can be a bit tricky or inconvenient if your nightstand is too high or low, as placement must be precise. I have a low-altitude bed and my stand is well above, so I had to do some rearranging to make this work. Once calibration is done, I found the app to be mostly in the ballpark in accuracy. There were a couple of nights that registered my partner in bed instead and gave the wrong reading. It can also register anyone’s snoring, but luckily, I am the only one who does that. Afterward, the app tells you how you slept, and in a few days, it gives you “advice” on how to sleep better. It may not be as accurate as wearing a smart wristwatch, but it is interesting to see. I must mention that this is being offered for free at the moment, and Google says that it may become subscription-based later, which makes me question how much value this may bring to the table.

In the end, the Sleep Sensing technology may be a bit gimmicky and is perhaps in its infancy, and hopefully will get better with updates. I am not sure if a subscription may change my view on it, but I found it interesting since I do not like wearing a smartwatch to bed. Still, I find the device useful and charming. Sure, it almost seems like a glorified digital picture frame, but it does bring some new features, good sound, and functionality.

I'm happy i bought this google nest hub and got it with promotional price. Very useful, with just a voice command, i can play music, weather update, time, set an alarm, direction and so on..

excellent product meets expectations and works very well for lights and everything to do with smart home

If you don't want to spend a lot for the Hub Max, this is plenty good enough! Controls my Lights, Wifi, Cameras, and provides Music and Recipes while in the Kitchen.

The screen and speakers are high quality, nice addition for gaming setups and students :)

I'm not a techie. I have purchased two Max Hubs. One I use in the kitchen and one in my bathroom. The one in the bathroom I like to watch YouTubeTv on in the morning when I'm getting ready for work. The one in the kitchen is my go-to hub for setting up reminders, controlling the temp in the house, talking to my kids on Duo, turn lights off and on, viewing recipes, checking the weather, listening to my favorite "oldies" when I'm cleaning house, and just in general the little conveinences it offers. Also find it fun to ask it questions. Do you know all the state capitols? I think I do now.

Amazing device! I’ve had Amazon devices in the past but always had problems so I switched to google and I’m glad I did. My favorite feature is the built in security camera, so when I’m away I can go into the app and look at a live feed of what’s going on at home! Does everything I wanted it to and more with much more ease than Amazon devices.

This one by far! I think everyone in the whole family uses. My seven year old asks nature questions, my 13 yr old daughter plays music, I look up recipes and my husband looks up news. I couldn’t be more happy with the options and functionality this product provides. Plus it’s great design looks amazing in our kitchen. It bring the family together!

Awesome in home product integration as long as Nest products. Well worth the price as the display is awesome, sound is great and the ability to just call out google to do something is mind-blowing technology.

Let me start with I love this for dancing in the kitchen the speaker is great. I love the Duo connection with family. What I didn’t like when purchasing was the fact the representative in the store told me it was the newest model that had just dropped...not...I will purchase the 10 version/series that actually rotates with your movement. This is a great purchase for my house connectivity and everything in between.

My wife is in love with this thing. I knew she could like it. She says it’s the best gift she got for Christmas. There is so much you can do with this thing. We keep learning daily. Thank you for a great device.

Awsome Google Nest Max. Highly recommend. My second Google Nest purchase. This one is on my kitchen counter next to my Amazon Alexa Show 10. The best of both worlds.

This works great with my nest doorbell,I can see and speak to anyone at my door without opening the door. I have serveral around my home.

If you are looking for a video doorbell, this is the one you need to get. I have used other video doorbells and the NEST HELLO is by far the best one I have ever seen.

Installation is extremely easy. Nest Hello needs to be wired in order to stay powered on to deliver 24/7 streaming, so if you don’t have a current wired doorbell, you would have to have the wiring installed by an electrician first. If you have a wired doorbell, chances are it would be compatible with Nest Hello, but the first thing you need to do is make sure. On the Nest website, they have a great compatibility checker and instructions to help you find out if the Hello will work for you. Nest Hello needs to be powered by wires delivering 16- 24 VAC, and at least 10 VA. Once you have confirmed that Hello will work with your wiring, they give you everything in the box to get up and running. If you don’t feel comfortable installing yourself, you can hire a Nest Pro through their website, but honestly installation can be done by anyone that can follow step by step instructions and operate a screwdriver and drill. Nest gives you all the instructions you need, in both a YouTube video and the Nest App. So even if you’re not “handy”, trust me you can install this.

The area where my doorbell is, it sits on a piece of trim that’s very narrow and is right next to brick. Nest includes a 15-degree wedge piece that helps mount the doorbell in tight spots and helps improve the camera angle/view when right next to obstructions. The Hello is much narrower than competing doorbells, so you should have an easy time mounting it just about anywhere. I had the doorbell unboxed and installed in about 45 mins. A lot of that time was spent trying to find the breaker the doorbell wiring was on.

I also have the Nest Outdoor cam, so I already have the Nest app and account. If you don’t, you need to sign up for a Nest account through the Nest app. It’s super fast and easy. In my app I just needed to click “Add Product” and the app did the rest. Walked me through all the installation instructions, and once it recognized the doorbell, it automatically assigned all my Wi-Fi settings to it. I can’t emphasize how simply it was to install.

The video quality is amazing. The video is up to 1600 x 1200 @ 30fps (you can set the video quality to Low/Med/High depending on your preference and bandwidth) and is 4:3 aspect. It is H.264 encoded and has HDR, and has 160 degree field of view. The 4:3 aspect was interesting. I’m used to viewing video through my other cameras at 16:9, but having the 4:3 on the doorbell is perfect. You can see everything. This aspect ratio is perfect for a doorbell camera. I was super impressed with the overall quality of the video. Crystal clear and full of color and sharpness. The night vision is the best I’ve seen on any outdoor camera. The audio is also very clear and bright, and the two way talk works incredibly well.

Notifications are instantaneous when someone pushed the button, and if they don’t and only trigger the motion sensor, the notification still comes to the phone super fast, much faster than I’ve experienced with other doorbells and even some outdoor stand alone wifi cameras. And like with their other cameras, the Hello can be configured with trigger zones of activity in front and around the camera field of view, so you can fine tune when you get notified of activity.

Familiar faces is a game changer. The doorbell will zoom in on the person’s face ringing your doorbell, and then ask you through the app if you recognize them or not. If you do, you can save that face (the doorbell takes a series of facial images in a burst) and name it, so that the next time that same person comes to the door, the app will let you know who is at the door. It is amazing. And if you have Google smart home products like the Google Home, it will announce who is at the door alongside your doorbell chime.

I had been waiting for this doorbell since Google and Nest announced it, and it has not disappointed. It is by far the best video doorbell on the market in my opinion.

I upgraded our home security cameras in 2018 from Drop Cam Pro to Nest Indoor IQ & Outdoor IQ Cameras with Facial Recognition & Familiar Face Alerts. I was thrilled to learn about "Hello", a smart doorbell with the same features when Nest announced it last Fall. It is even better than I had hoped!

THE GREAT:

1- Ridiculously SHARP Image! Show this to your friends who own the "other" smart doorbell - and catch their mouth - open disbelief when they see the clear image without the delay! I attached an image captured from my front porch.

2- Facial Recognition works!

3- Familiar Face Alert works!

4- Beautiful integration with Google Home. When anyone presses the doorbell button, all Google Home devices announce "Someone is at the front door!", at the same time their photo appears on your cellphone. Once you enter the guest's name as a Familiar Face on the app, the doorbell will announce them by name at the door! "Hello" even announces the names of multiple guests.

5- Perfect Nest integration with all Nest Cameras. Even shares the Familiar Faces with the master library that includes all Nest IQ Outdoor & Indoor Cameras & pulls faces from that established library & vice versa.

6- Optional Aluminum 15 degree angled wedge allows you to point doorbell away from a wall. See my photos showing this in use & showing the resulting image.

7- Microphone is very sensitive & picks up whispers!

8- Best looking Smart Doorbell on the market.

9- Includes push-on quick connects to simplify installation.

10- Video compression is selectable with 4) settings, 800 to 2,000 Kbps of upload bandwidth. This is a huge benefit: select the highest quality / lowest compression for the best quality image if your WiFi can support the bandwidth. On the other extreme, select the low end (800 Kbps) to use less WiFi bandwidth - or 2 levels in between. Nest IQ Cameras share this great benefit.

11- Easy installation with YouTube Video & photos make this a fun and quick install, whether you have ever installed a doorbell before.

12- Masonry drill bit is included if you need to drill into brick or stone.

13- 1600 X 1200 DPI HD UXGA image, up to 30 Frames / Second, H.264 encoding & HDR.

14- Ultra wide 160 Degree diagonal field of view. Very wide, very high floor to ceiling to see packages on the porch, all clear with an 8X zoom.

15- Speaker quality is sharp and clear. It does not sound like a tin horn.

16- Narrower than most smart doorbells allows placement in tight quarters. Dimensions: 4.6" Tall X 1.7" W X 1.0" Deep. The 1.7" width was a big help for me. See my photos of the installation.

17- Works with any doorbell transformer measuring 10V to 24 V.

18- Brightest IR for Night Vision that really lights up a large area without the extreme red IR used by lesser cameras. These are 850nm infrared LED's, same as on Nest IQ Cameras. 850nm LEDs produce a very slight red glow when operating, which is visible to the human eye.

19- Other Nest products set up "Hello" doorbell for you! They literally do all of the Wi-Fi settings, even the password. It took about 30 seconds for another Nest product to set everything up!

20- The delay that has been an issue with other doorbells can be greatly reduced or even eliminated on "Hello". See point # 10 "Video Compression" in this review. The 4) selectable quality settings can be used to reduce bandwidth requirement, which greatly reduces the "spinning wheel" & makes the visitor pop up faster after a guest rings the doorbell.

THE LESS THAN GREAT:

Absolutely NONE!! Hello is a Great security & convenience appliance.

CONCLUSION:

Nest "Hello" raises the bar for Smart Doorbells to a level unattainable by any competitor today & earns my HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION!!

As seen in the photographs the installation location for this doorbell is exposed to outside weather (a row home with an uncovered/unprotected entrance) and I'm not sure how long this item will last as its IPX 4 weather resistance rating isn't very high. I will raise my rating to 5 stars if it survives a full winter when it will be hit with ice and snow.

Since installation I am being very careful when cleaning the camera after pollen and rain. I did add an aftermarket vinyl protector and it seems to help.

As far as any negative things so far:

- The microphone picks up way to much wind noise.

- I do wish I could angle the camera down a small amount but in all fairness no video doorbell manufacturer makes such an adapter. I know some folks have used a washer on the top screw to achieve this but as my installation is fully exposed to weather I didn't feel comfortable with this approach.

I tried a couple other doorbell systems before, but Nest Hello just blew my mind! They really fixed a lot of problems other door bells have.

Let's start with installation:

Nest web site does have a quick compatibility check tool that you should use to verify your existing door bell is compatible.

Nest tells you in the manual that you have to install the supplied "power pack" or "chime connector" next to your chime, however if you have 2 indoor chimes - you'll need to find your door bell transformer and install the connector there. Just make sure you have both wires going to your chimes connected to the "chime connector" as Nest recommends - red wires from the chimes to the dark wire on the connector and white wires from the chimes to the white wire on the "connector", then the other two wires on the connector (transformer side with 2 push-in couplings), red wire to the transformer, white wire to the white wire going to the door bell button, red wire from the door bell button to the other tap of the transformer.

Pay attention to the transformer you have, if it's only a 10VA one - I strongly recommend getting 30VA version, it's inexpensive but will guarantee plenty of power for your door bell system even if you have 2 chimes.

When it came to the actual physical installation of the door bell - I found that my existing holes I had for the standard NuTone button did actually match Nest Hello's mounting holes perfectly so I did not had to drill into the brick. That was a major install time saving!

Can you install Nest Hello if you don't currently have a wired chime? Sure - if you can run a wire to it! Just don't hookup anything to the "chime" side of the "chime connector" and make sure to insulate the leads.

Once physical install is complete - follow directions in the app to setup your account, name the door bell, etc.

What happens when someone comes to your door?

First of all - Nest Hello has a white ring around the button that starts glowing - indicating that person's presense has been noticed and prompting them to push the button. Once the button is pressed - chimes sound instantly in the house (unlike the other door bell system I tried that had a second delay), and within 1-2 seconds you'll get a push notification on your phone/watch/tablet - every device you've got setup for that.

There is where the main difference comes into play - push notification from Nest would actually have a short 2 second clip in it clearly showing you the person! (It's not like you have to open up the app and wait 4-5 seconds for the video to come up and by that time they are gone like with the other door bells I had). You would also be given 3 choices of pre-recorded phrases: "We'll be right there", "You can leave it" and "No one can come to the door right now, but we are notified of your visit".

If you happen to have a Google Home in your house - it could also announce that "Someone is at the door" or even mention person's name if Nest Hello recognized the person as "familiar face".

You still get notified if visitor did not push the button and just walked away as well.

Nest Hello does work with the 3rd party apps but would just show up as a regular Nest camera.

Overall - it's a very positive experience and I'm finally feel like I have a smart door bell, not something I have to wait 10-15 seconds just to show me my empty porch.

Nest Hello's picture quality is very nice and night vision works perfect. With plenty of installation options and a very good app response time - this makes Nest Hello the best door bell system on the market at this time!

My house has a massive screen door on it that blocks the use of the peep hole, so a doorbell like this was more for security reasons and less for smart home functionality. However, this is a great option for a smart door bell.

Pros:

1. Clean audio and crisp HD video. The most important feature of a smart doorbell is the camera and audio, the wide angle of this camera helps pick up the entire entry way to my house as well as the door so you can see as people enter/exit. Great!

2. Customizability: probably a feature of all smart doorbells, but you can actually turn the chime off and just receive notifications on your phone! huge bonus when we just had a newborn that we don't want to disturb!

3. Google. i'm a huge google fan and being the largest ecosystem of products just means your future-proofing yourself as the smart home universe evolves

4. Design: obviously a subjective metric, but i love the style of this. i also paired it with an elago Wall Plate for even cleaner look

5. Easy-ish install. if you've ever replaced a light switch in your house, this is pretty much as easy as that. Figure out what fuse your bell is on, locate the transformer, and you're good to go. Google also has a great video on the YT

6. "Plug and Play" Packaging: the system comes with a drill bit, screws, and wall anchors for mounting the doorbell.

Cons:

1. Sloppy-ish Install: living in arizona, our homes are textured stucco on the outside. the non-flat surface makes mounting this somewhat difficult. also, the hole pattern for the bell is only slightly larger than the diameter of the standard round doorbell that comes on every house. This meant the wall anchors did not grip well. also the bell was too narrow to cover the hole left behind the original doorbell. i opted for lag bolts and the above mentioned elango Wall Plate. If you already have the bolts, the wall plate is less than $15 and makes for a much more professional install.

2. Still too soon integration: yes, you're future-proofing yourself by going with google, but the Nest Hello is still not fully integrated with the Google Home app, which seems to be the main hub app for Google going forward. This means there's not too much integration with the rest of your smart home. However, this will probably not be in issue in 5 years. let's face it, this is a set it and forget it type of product

3. Runs a little hot: can't compare with other bells, because i did not try any, but it will be a little warm to touch. not that it's a risk to you but if you have anything you don't want heating up, keep it a little clear. Also concerned how this will fare in the AZ summer, so we'll see

4. Responsiveness of alerts: with any doorbell system there is going to be a slight delay between a live action at the front door and the system notifying you. Same goes for you speaking to the visitors if you use that feature from your phone. This can be annoying to some people but comes with the territory

All in all, great device, well worth it, wouldn't replace it.

I like this brand more the ring because the video recording its continue and you can see everything all the time

the only problem its the cloud fees

you have to pay 5 for 5 days and 10 for 10 days and 30 for 30 days of video cloud

with ring cameras just 10 dollars for all cameras

The Nest Hello doorbell is very similar to compete video doorbells on the market. In order to really be a factor for consumers, its going to have to be clearly better than anything else out there.

This is clearly better than anything out there. First of all, it looks great. I love how much it looks like a doorbell, and not a giant camera mounted where your doorbell should be. The lines are very clean.

The camera itself produces higher quality video than any of the competitors at more than 1080/FHD. It shows to as the images that it provides are crystal clear. It also performs exceptionally well in low light conditions. I can see 30 - 50 feet away from the door using only the IR lights and all the way to the street with my main door lights on (they're about 20 feet away from the entryway I mounted the doorbell).

If you haven't used a Nest product before, know that the Nest ecosystem is amazing. Nest is by far the best Android app I've seen as far as design and "just working" I have had issues in the past with the Nest website on a computer but the Android app is amazing, and this product features even greater customization than the Nest cameras if you're familiar with those.

The Google Assistance integration is nice, I like that every Google Assistance device can be an additional door chime for me.

Where things get cool is with the integrated facial recognition technology, so you can start your own database of known faces and let your doorbell announce for you who is waiting. I personally didn't opt to use the feature, but I can see how useful it would be. And if you have the Aware account to store video its included as part of that.

The one relatively minor complaint I had is that the doorbell does not include a mounting bracket adapter for installation against vinyl siding. As a result I have about a 10 degree tilt to the doorbell, which looks a little funny since I do have the 15 degree swivel mounted so the video feed is centered in the portico. I will plan on placing a block cut-out in the siding and remounting in the spring.

I found the installation pretty straightforward. The additional component that installs to the chime was a little bit of a hindrance, but no big deal overall.

I love it because I can stay in the Google family. Be sure you double check if you need an extender I had to get one but once I got it I love the angles that I am able to capture.

This works fantastic no need to pay you cable provider for an extra box. You can use your phone or tablet to broadcast videos or other content.

The product is real nice and is what it advertised. Easy to work and runs very good. I love it and enjoy using it. Definitely worth the buy from what I can see.

So this little device works great on my older sony non smart tv. Thx.

I now have one of these on each of my TVs.

I can stream music, movies, YouTube, etc.

If you don't have a smart TV, you should buy one.

What a handy little gadget for those of us who are looking to dabble our toes in the smart world without getting drenched! This was the greatest thing about upgrading to a flat screen TV!! We are a Google house so this was certainly a MUST HAVE!! Simply plug it in and follow the prompts and within minutes you are watching your Google photos on the BIG SCREEN! We love to watch movies and shows thru various TV apps, and you can control it thru your Google Home with your voice. For those of us that don't want to get bogged down with too much tech in our homes... this is the answer!!!

this little gadget does its job

adding more smart at home

It converted my non smart TV into smart TV. I like it very much.

Have had trouble setting these guys up, must be technologically inclined! I’m sure if I could get it to work I’d love it and would prob recommend it to others. Unfortunately haven’t had the chance.

I've been a heavy user of Amazon Alexa products for the past several years, but I'm also deep into the Google and Nest ecosystem. So I ordered this new Google Nest Mini with an open mind, hoping it would be a decent companion for my Nest thermostats and Wemo smart plugs. Surprisingly, the switch to Google Assistant was quite seamless and I'm very impressed with the sound quality and versatility of this little hockey puck-sized device.

PROS:

- Incredibly simple setup, even for iPhone users. Just download the Google Home app, sign in with your Google account, and the app will walk you through the rest.

- Small size, but substantial weight and build quality. Compared to my first generation Echo Dot, the Nest Mini appears to have much better craftsmanship and is made of very nice materials. The mesh fabric nicely blends in to home decor and doesn't look like a traditional speaker. There's even a built-in screw cutout on the back of the device for wall mounting.

- The Nest Mini uses a proprietary power connector rather than microUSB or USB-C, but luckily the plug is compact and rounded, so it won't take up much space on your surge protector or wall outlet.

- The sound quality of the Nest Mini blows the original Echo Dot out of the water. Bass is noticeably stronger and surprisingly deep for such a small device. Audio can get quite loud with very minimal distortion at higher volumes.

- Voice detection is also excellent. Even with music playing at high volumes, the Nest Mini responds instantly to my voice. Google has supposedly added a machine learning chip to the Nest Mini which learns your voice and makes the Assistant faster over time. The responsiveness is absolutely noticeable, and the Assistant's answers are surprisingly detailed and useful.

- The Google Assistant is compatible with an incredible amount of smart home devices and partners, including Wemo, Harmony, and obviously Nest devices. If you have Nest thermostats, camera, and a security system like I do, you will appreciate the seamless integration. You can also connect to almost every music service like Spotify, SiriusXM, and Pandora to stream music directly from the Nest Mini.

CONS:

- Other than the nice improvement to audio quality, there are really no major improvements to the Nest Mini compared to the original Google Home Mini. If you have a Home Mini, I see no reason to upgrade right now.

- There is no 3.5 mm audio jack for connecting/streaming music to external speakers.

OVERALL:

This is the best compact smart speaker that I've used and it offers an incredible amount of value for its affordable price. If you use other Google products or services with any frequency, this is probably the speaker for you. The Nest Mini is a great-sounding compact speaker that is also stylish, durable, and incredibly versatile. Highly recommended!

This is the first time that I have used a Google smart speaker extensively, (I spent a couple minutes with my aunt’s Google home, the original one) and after a few days of having this little guy, I must say I am impressed.

The packaging was simple and straight to the point. Inside came the speaker, a round power cable and a quick start guide. I really like the look and feel of the device. The speaker is round, and the cover looks and feels like a cloth-like material and I would be surprised if it really wasn’t cloth. On the bottom of the speaker there is a small notch that allows you to mount the Nest mini onto a wall, this is a great addition to have as you’re now not limited to place it on your desk or counter. Also, there is a physical switch that allows you to turn off the microphone. I also appreciate that it has touch controls on the top underneath the cloth. It allows you to play/pause in the center while on either end a tap will allow you to set the volume to your preference, with the LED lights on top indicating the volume level

.

When it comes to audio, this little guy puts out much more sound than I thought it would, to be specific, I mean it got much louder than I thought it would. Also, the bass feedback is pretty good especially when your place it against an appropriate surface. Loudest is not the only thing though, the sound comes through clearly and there is very little distortion at high volumes. I threw various genres at it, and all sounded reasonably well. This speaker isn’t necessarily aimed purely at listening to music, so keep that in mind when you look at these.

Setting this up with my phone (android) was straightforward and easy. Download the Home app and it picks it up and sets it up quickly. After that you’re ready to use Google Voice Assistant, which is better than ever. With a quick “Hey google” you can begin asking it a plethora of things as well asking it to play music from any of your music streaming apps (i.e. Pandora, Spotify, YouTube music). Another thing I must point out is that the Nest mini is very good at picking out my voice from surrounding noise, such as from a TV or from another speaker playing in the room. This must be a result of the mic combination within the Nest mini as well as Google’s software for voice recognition, well done Google.

If you’re looking for a little companion for a small space that will be a great voice assistant, the Nest mini will be a great buy, whether for someone new to smart speakers or someone who already has a google ecosystem set up at home and wants to add a new speaker to another room.

It can be paired with Bluetooth speakers(use one at a time).

The wall mount is a clever idea. I use a push pin to mount it (they recommend a #8 screw).

You can ask(voice) it to play specific music, change volume; with smart bulb, turn on/off/dim (even to certain percentage)/change color; with Tile, search for missing objects; ask/set event schedules, ask weather, time etc. I believe it can operate smart curtain and shower head, but I haven't install one.

It looks pretty too.

But I still don't have a good way for music source. The YouTube reqires premium membership, the Pandora doesn't work, the Google Music Play always say the piece I choosed not available. Now it uses some alternative, works fine now, but I don't know whether it's just temporary trial.

Overview: Google's smaller version of the Google Home smart assistant which was originally released back in November of 2016.

The Good: This is the second Google Home Mini (Sorry, I still call it that even though they rebranded it into "Nest") that I've purchased. These little smart speakers are tiny but pack a bunch as far as audio quality and volume are concerned. The term "Smart Speaker" rings true here - this thing can do a ton. From setting alarms and timers from you, to playing the daily news, it seems there's always a new feature to be discovered with this device. The microphone is surprisingly sensitive and will be able to hear your "Hey Google" ques even if you're a good distance away. I've played a ton of music on these devices, controlled Phillips Hue light systems, and used it to boost productivity through reminders and alarms. This thing is so well designed that I don't really see the need for the larger Google Nest products.

The Bad: There have been some weird issues with inadvertent voice recording in the past. Google has subsequently removed that recording feature through patches. Still, the stigma of having a device unknowingly recording you is one that is hard to get rid of.

The Other: This thing is loooooaded with cheesy puns and bad jokes. The Dad joke enthusiasts among us will love this thing. Just say, "Hey Google, tell me a joke" and prepare yourself!

Recommended? Yes.

I have had and been using amazons alexa "ZIGGY" for months before i purchased this google home. Let me just say, though quite sad... Ziggy has been unplugged since the second day of the introduction of google home.... a much smarter device

I'll confess in that I was not expecting the Google Nest Mini to be any different from the Google Home Mini I had been using. Wow, was I ever wrong! First off the sound quality from the Nest Mini is a huge improvement over my older Home Mini. Lightyears better. It's not up to premium quality speaker brands such as Bose but for something this small to have such full, rich sound is amazing in my book.

If you've used a Google Home (or Home Mini) then you know the basics here. It uses the Google Assistant to answer questions, control smart home items such as lights, and also play music, pod casts and audio books. One thing i like about the Nest Mini is the built in hole on the back in case you wanted to mount it on a wall. Another bonus is easier to use pause/playback and volume controls on the top.

I posted three pictures with my old Google Mini side by side with the Nest Mini. They are the same size with the Nest feeling ever so slightly heavier. Another change is the ditching of charging via Micro-USB.

Again, the biggest improvement for me in this is the outstanding sound quality.

I was so surprised that the Google Nest Mini Actually turns the TV on and off by speaking to it and many other things like telling you about the weather in your

hometown and happy birthday so good for the price..

I would say I like it but I don’t have any Internet so I haven’t been able to use it but it seems like a beard be a cool thing once I could get something figured out but it was a great price and it’s handy it’s little and it would be perfect for what I need it for which is a bit bigger sound in the little basement apartment I live in right now

I purchased this Google Mesh system for the purpose of expanding my WiFi for a Ring set-up. After taking advantage of Best Buy’s free in-home consultation and speaking with a few other BB techs, I got the Google Mesh system. I used this YouTube video [https://youtu.be/wz62iZogrPQ] for set-up and wah-lah, I’ve got my doorbell & 2 stick-up cameras working seamlessly. Huge shout out to the techs at BB and the gentleman who made this very easy video!

I had very low wireless internet speed(8MB/s) in the furthest room of my house, I tried with wireless extenders and it improved the network(20MB/s) but not what I expected, After google wifi internet speed improved almost 10 times. Everybody in the house are very happy with this purchase.

We already had wifi but it would only work downstairs so instead we went and bought these, We have a two story so we needed wifi to reach upstairs so we bought these and they work excellent!! We have one in both bedrooms and one downstairs. If you’re looking to buy for wifi I definitely recommend this product.

Almost as good as an Apple Time Capsule ;)

Easy set up done in under ten minutes. Cool classy modern contemporary design. The Google home app lets you priorities devices and mange everyone on your network. Caps at 50 WiFi devices. Compatible with Nest products off the bat. My speeds were 225 dl and 10 upload.

I like each unit can be hardwired with Ethernet, and no more dead zones in the house!

I live in a 3 bedrooms apartment. And always having trouble with the wifi signal. But, after this wifi google stuff. Problem solved.

Thanks for this item.

Worked just liked advertised. Super easy setup and really fast speeds through out my whole guest house. I will definitely refer this product to anyone who wants to increase their WiFi range.

Easy to set up and does the job. My Wifi signal is so much better.

Google's range extender is a must for every household. Works well with a house that has mulitiple room. Easy to set up, virtually set up and forget. Awesome speaker. Create a mesh network with this bad boy and you'll good coverage all around the house with instant speakers everywhere.

We have replaced our Alexa with Google. We converted to Nest Wifi earlier this year and have been adding point range extenders throughout the house one room at a time. We can now walk around the entire ground level and not skip a beat to any music that is playing. Our grandson has also been adding smart lighting throughout the home and we can turn on lights from any room with our Nest extenders. Will definitely be purchasing more extenders to go upstairs.

I already had a mesh network with 3 "Google Wi-Fi" nodes/access points. This newer version joined the existing network very easily, and helped cover the last remaining "dead zone" in our home. I really enjoy the fact that this also acts as a Google Home speaker, I had always wished my other nodes functioned the same way. Very happy overall with this purchase.

At first when i saw the price, i was super skeptical. However once i set the add on wifi point it amazed me! Theres a speaker embedded in the unit that connects to wifi, and if you have more thN one you can communicate via google assistant to other units within the house. The connection overall is fluid and fast. We had areas with slower thsn normal wifi signal but that has been alleviated! Love this mesh network!

Super easy to add to our existing Nest WiFi router / point.

Placed this in the garage due to one of the bedrooms being far away from the router and 1st WiFi point.

It's helped immensely having two points throughout the house. We are now getting strong WiFi signals everywhere.

I have Google WiFi pucks (1st Gen) and had recently updated my main distribution point to a Nest Router, I had been debating on upgrading one of the Google "points" to a Nest Point, I did not need the speaker function but the location using Google WiFi consistently was weak; updating the point to Nest WiFi improved this locations signal into the great range and has improved the overall network performance

I was a little nervous switching to google wifi but surprisingly, I haven’t had many issues. I purchased this device to extend my wifi to other rooms and it has done its job.

Google makes a surprisingly good mesh wi-fi system at a reasonable price. This is not the system for an advanced user, one that needs to DMZ zones and exercise granular security, this is for the everyday person that needs while house coverage without needing to understand how it works. Overall it's a really great product

I purchased this Google Mesh system for the purpose of expanding my WiFi for a Ring set-up. After taking advantage of Best Buy’s free in-home consultation and speaking with a few other BB techs, I got the Google Mesh system. I used this YouTube video [https://youtu.be/wz62iZogrPQ] for set-up and wah-lah, I’ve got my doorbell & 2 stick-up cameras working seamlessly. Huge shout out to the techs at BB and the gentleman who made this very easy video!

I had very low wireless internet speed(8MB/s) in the furthest room of my house, I tried with wireless extenders and it improved the network(20MB/s) but not what I expected, After google wifi internet speed improved almost 10 times. Everybody in the house are very happy with this purchase.

We already had wifi but it would only work downstairs so instead we went and bought these, We have a two story so we needed wifi to reach upstairs so we bought these and they work excellent!! We have one in both bedrooms and one downstairs. If you’re looking to buy for wifi I definitely recommend this product.

Almost as good as an Apple Time Capsule ;)

Easy set up done in under ten minutes. Cool classy modern contemporary design. The Google home app lets you priorities devices and mange everyone on your network. Caps at 50 WiFi devices. Compatible with Nest products off the bat. My speeds were 225 dl and 10 upload.

I like each unit can be hardwired with Ethernet, and no more dead zones in the house!

I live in a 3 bedrooms apartment. And always having trouble with the wifi signal. But, after this wifi google stuff. Problem solved.

Thanks for this item.

Worked just liked advertised. Super easy setup and really fast speeds through out my whole guest house. I will definitely refer this product to anyone who wants to increase their WiFi range.

Easy to set up and does the job. My Wifi signal is so much better.

Chromecasts have long been something I've ignored because I don't like the idea of having to use my phone to cast to my TV for everything I watch. However, when Google announced their "Chromecast with Google TV" I was very intrigued at the mix of a streaming device with the ability to Chromecast. So far, I am quite happy with my purchase!

SET-UP:

- Unboxing and first impressions are always great with Google Products. They have a great way of making the unboxing process simple while providing a product that's uniquely Google.

- I really go like the feel and look of the Chromecast and Remote. They are modern yet simple and feel very good in the hand, not too cheap at all.

- Set-up was mainly simply but had a few hiccups. Google says you can use the "Google Home" app to do all your setup for you but I have largely found that the Google Home can be the most useful app I have while also being the most frustrating when setting up a new product.

- I eventually ditched using the Google Home app and did the setup just via the remote and that was very simple and straight forward. After a little bit to download new firmware updates and download all my apps, I was ready to go!

PROS:

- I really like the interface! It's smooth, easy to maneuver, and when in doubt just ask Google where something is.

- Speaking of which, the Google Assistant button is a fantastic addition. Use it for asking everyday questions or use it to find "movies that won Oscars in the 2000's" really whatever you need it to do!

- The device uses your app subscriptions (Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+...) to recommend TV and Movies you might want to watch. I really like how it does not push you to watch something you have no interest in or don't even have a subscription too. The whole add-less vibe feels nonintrusive and makes for a more personal experience.

- If you have YouTube TV, this Chromecast is a must have! Google TV integrates Live TV right into the menu so you can quickly browse what's on air right now without having to open the YouTube TV app. I really like that because it makes the home menu screen your go to place to find anything you subscribe too.

- The "Chromecast" feature of this Google TV device is also very easy to use! It syncs up with your Google Home Devices or phones so that if you are watching a video or streaming Spotify, you can just quickly cast it to your TV with the touch of a button. Or, simply say "Hey Google, play Netflix on my TV" and it can do that too without you even touching the remote.

- Watching shows & movies on here is truly a great experience too! The 4K HDR is vibrant and crisp, it has Dolby Vision for movies/TV that it applies to, and Dolby Atmos for superior home theater sound quality. All three of those qualities are an absolute must for the best home theater experience and you are getting them all for only $50.

CONS:

- The one app that I wish this had is "Apple TV". I know Google/Apple don't usually get along, but I do with the Apple TV app was on here for those who want to stream "Apple TV+"

- This isn't a con for me but although you don't need Google services (Like Google Smart Speakers, Android Phone, & YouTube TV) to enjoy this Chromecast, I would imagine that your experience would not be as great as mine without all those devices/services.

- I think the "Library" section of the Home page is really lacking on 2 parts. First, if you have a large library of movies you digitally own, they will show in your library but its in one long scrollable line. Rather then a sortable area where you can view 20 movies at a time, its really just a long single line list where you can see 5 at a time. Second, Google TV is trying to push its "Watchlist" feature where from an Android phone you can easily add a Show/Movie to your watchlist and it will appear on your Google TV. But at the time of writing this, the Google TV app is not available on Android phones yet and hasn't even been announced on Apple phones yet.

BOTTOM LINE:

- If you are looking for a simple, easy to use streaming device but has all the high end specs you would want at a low price, the Chromecast with Google TV is an absolute no brainer. It is simple to use, has a great interface, and has all features you would want from a higher end streaming device (4K HDR, Dolby Vision/Atmos, Voice Commands). I really think Google TV is going to be a great solution for many home's entertainment needs!

This is the most amazing product from Google I've owned yet. I purchased this initially to upgrade my older Chromecast. Everything about this "Google TV" is 1000x better than what I owned previously. I can now view my content in 4K which the older model could not do, and it has a great interface. It's Android 10 over the Google TV UI, and it's pretty appealing. I can easily ask Google to find something particular to watch and it'll do it. This thing will search movies across different apps to find exactly what you're looking for. What makes it even better is that it still has it's cast function. so you have the option to use the Google TV remote or cast from your Android phone like normal. I was hesitant at first, and I wish I had mad this purchase sooner. You can even control all your google connected with the remote included. For example I use my Google Home to control my AC, but I can also with my remote in hand tell the Google remote to turn the AC on or off, and it does it. Even quick than my home can which is pretty neat. If you were ever indecisive about buying this device then I hope this review helps you. You're gonna love this Google TV. For $50 you can't go wrong.

Easily the best 50 bucks I've spent! All apps consolidated into one. You can open apps individually or search everything with voice. Controls tv volume and power!!!!! 1 remote for everything. And it looks sleek and elegant, as to be expected. ***Note: plug in directly to wall outlet; if plugged in to tv usb it will have to reboot each time, AND the tv power button won't work.

This is a must-have device for anybody that still using an old 1080p TV and oh yeah just in case some of your app don't Play the audio going to your setting display and sound go down to Advanced sound setting and set the format selection to manual and you're all good until you upgrade to a 4K TV.

Keeps everything well organized and easy to find. Voice control is very accurate and responsive. Picture quality for some reason is better than with apps built into my TV's(a Samsung and a Vizio). Has a broad variety of downloadable apps that aren't available on Samsung. The remote is able to control both the power and volume of the TV and the content and makes selecting a program very easy as the device connected to the TV is very responsive to the remote. Highly recommend!

Is so fast(faster than some good smart tvs) and go to 4k, if you dont have an smart tv or yuo have an old one this is the Best option. I prove Amazon fire stick 4k, tv boxes, an Chromecast of 3rd generation and this one (Chromecast 4th generation) and this is they best option.

This is a great item to add, especially if you are a Google person. I still don't have a smart TV, so utilizing this works great!

Hoooly Sheeeeesh! This the best flipping flopping Chromecast google has ever invented!!!@/@& I love this sheeshts! And I can connect my galaxy buds plus, without having my mother nagging. “Turn your VOLUME DOWN” hahahahhaa! Thank you GOOGLE!!

Google is finally realizing that one of the biggest reasons people buy a smart speaker is to be... a speaker. First generation Google Home was a great smart device and a mediocre speaker. Now with the Nest Audio we finally have an incredible Google Assistant device with an incredible speaker. I love the sound it produces. I love how loud it gets. I love the look of it. I love how sensitive the microphones are. I LOVE the price. I was on the fence about buying another Sonos One speaker, but I'm glad I waited because this is half the price, sounds just as good, and is a way better smart speaker. Also for some insane reason you still can't cast music to Sonos. Good riddance Sonos, hello Nest Audio.

I’m an Apple loyalist first and foremost, however with Google’s mesh wifi system, I had to switch as I got tired of spending $600 for a descent router. After switching, I got a little excited that I can add nest audio to my setup and I was a little weary that the sound would be sub par. I was wrong. They got these right. Now full disclosure, these aren’t a sonos situation, but for $59 (Black Friday deal) these are a home run and I love the added benefit of the “Hey Google” mic. Super accurate and well worth the switch. Now if they only sold a sub to pair with these little piece of awesomeness. Don’t hesitate.

Great sound, I bought two of them for 28 foot motorhome with a super slide that I live in, it’s about 300 ft.² and I listen to my music at about 80% volume because I like it loud, great bass and treble fills my motorhome

I was amased with the bass levals todly wtho the money

I absolutely love the quality of this speaker! I currently own 3 of these speakers and have them connected to 6 other Google Speakers/hub around the home. It is awesome to have music playing from each speaker, with no lagging. This speaker can also be connected to other devices via Bluetooth. I highly recommend this speaker to anyone looking for an economical speaker with amazing sound.

Purchased the speaker primarily to use in my bedroom with my iPad.

The sound was so good looks lie I will need to purchase a 2nd speaker to acquire a balanced sound. Which you can't get when the nest is paired with a Google Mini. One review called it the sweet spot between price and quality! Exactly right in my view.

Compact smart speaker sounds great for its size. Huge improvement over original Google Home. Great looking too.

I bought two a paired them as a stereo set which works very well. I have them in a rather open space so I don't think one on its own would be great sound for the whole room. However, with two of them, it works well.

These aren't going to blow your mind or produce massively loud volume. More like gentle giants (not physically).

Great upgrade to the Google home line. Speaker's quality is clear and has decent bass. The assistant is very responsive and the device itself is very nice to look at so you do not have to worry about finding a location for it that is out of sight. Setting this bad boy to max volume will definitely get your place shaking.

If you are still using the wifi router provided to you by your internet service provider, chances are (unless you live in a very small house or apartment), that you are not completely happy with your wifi performance. Your signal can be strong in one room, and non-existent in the next. You may wish to sit “here”, but you can’t get a signal unless you move a few feet over “there”, where you don’t want to sit. You may have tried wifi repeaters or extenders in the past, but they basically just create a second network in your home with slow speeds and similar dead zones, forcing you to switch back and forth.

Enter the Google Nest wifi router and “point” (what they call an extender). These small, semi/almost round devices that can fit in your hand create what’s called a “mesh” system where by connecting the Google router to your existing router, you can transfer the wifi functions to it, allowing it to send out stronger signals in both the 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz frequencies simultaneously. The “point(s)” (very slightly smaller than the router itself) are set in other areas of your home, picking up the signal from the main Google router, and boosting them even further. Nicer still, they do not create a separate network in the same way older models do, but instead, extend the one you have.

If you buy a pair (one being the main router and the other the point device), you have three choices of colors, but the router is always white – the point comes in three colors… Mist (a very pale blueish color), Sand (which to me looks Pink), and Snow (white). For large homes, you can also get a router and two points sets. You need to install the appropriate Google Home app to set the system up, and instructions for doing so are simple and included in the app, which works on Apple devices and Android. Provided there are no unforeseen hiccups, you should be up and running within minutes. I know a couple of other people with these devices aside from myself, and one of them did not even need the extra access point – the Google router alone provided stronger and faster wifi than their older one did. One of them has a multi-level home and they did use the point on another level, which did boost speeds and reliability in that area. For myself, the router speed dropped off once it reached the other side of the single level ranch style house, but the overall STRENGTH of it was stronger than my older model… no dead spots.

Side-note: Your access point should you decide to use it, also doubles as a Google Assistant device, where you can ask it a variety of questions, control lights, and more with the appropriate equipment.

I do recommend this system, but there is one warning involved – if you have some types of security cameras, doorbells, and devices that ONLY run on a 2.4 ghz frequency, some people can have an issue where they won’t connect, or they won’t stay connected, to a mesh system like this because it transmits on both 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz at the same time. They get confused it seems. Now, RING (doorbells, cameras, etc) tech support can walk you through how to get around this. If you are lucky (very lucky) you can get a tech at ARLO to do this, too. Your success will vary and you may have to make more than one call if you do run into this issue, so just be prepared knowing that you MIGHT have to do this to ensure all of your devices work with it. Waving a finger at these other device makers though, they need to get with it and update their devices to work on all wifi frequencies, and better be able to detect, connect to, and maintain connection to, mesh networks. It’s not always the router’s fault – many times it’s the device makers not keeping their devices updated, and one rep with one of these companies even admitted to me they are behind in catching up to working with mesh networks.

My one big complaint about the router itself, and it is a big one as others have pointed out, is that the Google router only has one “out” ethernet port on the back for extra devices. That’s it. Camera systems like Arlo require you plug their own hub into one of these. Perhaps you have smart bulbs that come with a small hub as well that need a port, or home phone service, etc. In my opinion, there really is NO excuse for Google only putting one extra ethernet port on this device. Just be aware of this because if you have various things that you currently have plugged directly into your old modem, you may need extra equipment if you are going to use this one to replace it entirely – and the point device has NO ethernet ports. It’s for this reason I won’t give this 5 stars, and really, would drop it to 3 ½ if I could. Yeah – big booboo, Google.

Otherwise, yes, it’s a reliable system for those willing to do the tech call work to perhaps get some of their devices to work with it. But you will most likely be rewarded with a stronger wifi signal over greater ranges.

With internet usage and connected home devices increasing so much in your typical household, the need for high quality routers have become more common. I believe that the best form of achieving this is through a mesh router system and Google has really made an achievement with their new Google Nest Wifi Mesh System.

PROS:

- The design of the router and the point are very appealing. Everything is smooth, seamless, and its meant to be that way. Google did this on purpose to encourage users to have them out in the open as opposed to tucked away. The router will work much better being out in the open so it’s a good choice to make them beautiful!

- Set-Up was very easy. As expected, Google makes everything feel so simplified and straight forward. It was a clean process and I was very pleased with the set up!

- This package features a Router and a Point, which is very common for mesh systems. The Router plugs in directly to your modem so that it gets the hard wired internet source. Then the Point can be placed elsewhere in the house and it just requires power. The system works together flawlessly and really provides a strong boost of internet across multiple levels of your home. It is worth noting that the "Point" isn't as strong as the Router, which seems obvious, but I had no issues as the Point delivered much stronger internet than I previously had to an almost dead internet area of my home.

- The Point makes up for its subtle lack in power, by doubling as a Google Nest Speaker as well and it sounds great! Once again, this encourages you to place it out in the open but the speaker sounds great, has all the same functionality as a Google Nest Mini, and even has a colorful ring to it.

- Lastly, Google really makes this WiFi very easy to manage and just makes it feel so much more accessible than any other WiFi system I have used. By integrating this into your Google Home App and Google Assistants, there are plenty of perks you enjoy. This includes checking connection speeds, setting up Guest networks, see what devices are on it, prioritize which devices are more important for WiFi, and even turn off WiFi for devices aka devices your kids are using. I also really enjoy that you can use a Google Smart Display device to show what your speed tests are or display password information easily.

CONS:

- The biggest complaint I foresee people having is that the router only has 2 Ethernet ports. One being for the input and one being for output. Sure there are ways around this issue but it would be nicer to have more ports.

- At the time of this review, you really need two apps to access every feature for these routers: The Google Home app and the Google WiFi app. Eventually, Google will merge these two apps into one but for the time being you will have to have two apps if you really want to utilize all the features - although this isn't necessary.

- This mesh system does not support WiFi 6. It seems odd considering WiFi 6 is moving forward as the latest and greatest in home consumer WiFi, but Google opted against including it in this system.

BOTTOM LINE:

- This system is an all-around win-win for home internet users. On one hand it can be simple and out of the way for you minimalists while providing easy controls when needed. On the other hand, it can be a welcomed addition to you heavy smart-home users by providing a well-integrated Mesh WiFi system that works so well with your other devices. Google knows how to make high quality products, with comfortable ease of use, at reasonable prices compared to what others offer - this Google Nest Mesh System is no exception and will keep you happy.

I've had the Asus Ac 5300 for about 2 years. Great router for gaming, but doesn't cover the 5,000 sq ft that it advertises. Maybe it does, but my walls are insulated with foam and I was hardly getting a bar in my garage area (2900sq) to connect my 2 garage doors to wifi. I made a decision to buy another Asus router to mesh. I bought the AC 2900 and it really changed the game, but now I was about $500-600 invested. The routers didn't look attractive at all since we moved to a newer modern home so I invested in these tiny Google routers and boy are they a game changer. Now I don't worry about updates or any problems what so ever. I am very glad I finally made the move to this new system after many years with Asus. They are worth every penny and more! I highly recommend these to anyone that wants superior wifi coverage and speeds.

Paired with Arris Surfboard 3.0 (also reviewed), the best wifi service I have ever experienced. I highly recommend this pair. I used to have cable company modem and could not have more than 3 devices connected at once without the frustration of lagging.

With my Arris Surfboard and Google Nest pairing, I have had as much as 12 devices connected at the same time and no lagging. I am so happy I no longer have to constantly get stressed about my wifi signal like before ^_^

I normally do not review products unless they blow my expectations away. This product with the Arris surfboard pairing did exactly that. Absolutely phenomenal!!!

Google - Nest Wifi AC2200 Dual-Band Mesh Wi-Fi System (2-Pack)

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Google’s Nest Wifi system has been a huge upgrade from my (fairly old) ASUS RT-N66U. One of the biggest differences has been going from a single-router to a mesh system with multiple access points to cover more square feet around my home. Initially I bought the 2-pack (Router and AP) but ended up expanding to another AP due to how satisfied I was with the product.

Setting up the system is bar-none the easiest I’ve had to setup. Using Google Home’s app, it’s all automated and straight-forward as you go through the prompt. The only issue I had (which is definitely due to my laziness) is I shared the same SSID and PW with my current router and the new Nest...so of course I had issues getting it all paired up. But after I worked that out, the drop in was almost flawless.

Speeds have been considerably faster on all of my WiFi devices (which I have quite a bit of) and I haven’t experienced any dropoff or inconsistent speeds since my installation. Arguably some of this could have been attributed to how WiFi signal dips as it goes through walls or other channels my neighbors are using...but nonetheless it has resolved a lot of what I was hoping it would fix.

One personal gripe I have (which is a nonissue for most) is the hardline capabilities of the router itself. If hardline is required, you will have to get an unmanaged switch to fork the connections to allow for things such as ethernet runs or Powerline ethernet (which is how I hardline my computers in separate rooms). Unfortunately there’s only one output of ethernet on the back of the router, so some creativity might be involved with transitioning to this router.

Onto the aesthetics, I don’t think there are many mesh systems that are as sleek and provide as much features as the Nest. Having a built-in Google Home essentially replaces the current Google Minis I have spread across rooms. Not just that, but the AP is pleasing on the eyes wherever they’re placed.

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*****Quick Features & Specs*****

Each AP covers around 1600sq ft

Dual-band 2.4 and 5GHz channels

Built-in Google Assistant

Ease of setup via Google Home App

Lots of management options for the router (IE parental rules, or limiting bandwidth)

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*****What's in the box*****

Nest AC2200 Dual-Band Mesh Wi-Fi Router

Nest AC1200 Dual-Band Access Point

Ethernet Cable (6.5ft)

Power Adapter (2x)

Manual

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Great wifi get solid coverage inside and outside the house. My approximate sq is 3700 and this covers everything my old router couldn’t. The built in app that you set this is is also great. I see everything on the network and what’s being used. This is a feature I use all the time tied to my kids iPads and Xbox in order to kill their internet for bedtime, dinner, lunch and other breaks. Has parental controls in it as well to help protect them from sites and I can do network and Speedtest that are built in to check wifi. Really great system and having the google home function built in to play music, answer questions or use it like an intercom and broadcast to the house is an awesome feature too! Btw they look really nice and are compact!

I wasn’t looking to buy a router but the salesman explained this item to me and I bought it. I have 47 devices on my home network and e always had problems with WiFi extenders. This lets all my devices work seamlessly I’m even able to hold my weekly zoom meetings in the back yard on the patio with blazing speed. I have X-Finity 200 mbs service and I am able to get full speed in the back yard.(241 mbs) It’s worth every penny!My point is near the back patio door.

As a longtime owner of the previous generation Google WIFI, I’m definitely impressed with this surprising update. Setup was a breeze and the results speak for themselves.

The previously required Google WIFI app still has a place when needing advanced routing features like reservations, port forwarding, etc... However, it’s no longer a requirement. You can see critical information, manage family WIFI settings, see devices and retrieve passwords from within the Google Home app, along with all your other google smart home integrated products.

With the 2 unit kit, one router and one access point, I was able to cover my entire home without issue. The documentation claims that 2 units can handle up to 3800 square feet – so no surprise my 2000 + backyard was no issue. Placement is key, so make sure take consideration when setting them up.

The icing on the cake, at least for me, is that the access points are also Google Home Minis. What a great extra little feature for people like myself who have one in every room. I was able to place the access point in the back of the house and finally finish my full house audio setup.

If you are still using the wifi router provided to you by your internet service provider, chances are (unless you live in a very small house or apartment), that you are not completely happy with your wifi performance. Your signal can be strong in one room, and non-existent in the next. You may wish to sit “here”, but you can’t get a signal unless you move a few feet over “there”, where you don’t want to sit. You may have tried wifi repeaters or extenders in the past, but they basically just create a second network in your home with slow speeds and similar dead zones, forcing you to switch back and forth.

Enter the Google Nest wifi router and “point” (what they call an extender). These small, semi/almost round devices that can fit in your hand create what’s called a “mesh” system where by connecting the Google router to your existing router, you can transfer the wifi functions to it, allowing it to send out stronger signals in both the 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz frequencies simultaneously. The “point(s)” (very slightly smaller than the router itself) are set in other areas of your home, picking up the signal from the main Google router, and boosting them even further. Nicer still, they do not create a separate network in the same way older models do, but instead, extend the one you have.

If you buy a pair (one being the main router and the other the point device), you have three choices of colors, but the router is always white – the point comes in three colors… Mist (a very pale blueish color), Sand (which to me looks Pink), and Snow (white). For large homes, you can also get a router and two points sets. You need to install the appropriate Google Home app to set the system up, and instructions for doing so are simple and included in the app, which works on Apple devices and Android. Provided there are no unforeseen hiccups, you should be up and running within minutes. I know a couple of other people with these devices aside from myself, and one of them did not even need the extra access point – the Google router alone provided stronger and faster wifi than their older one did. One of them has a multi-level home and they did use the point on another level, which did boost speeds and reliability in that area. For myself, the router speed dropped off once it reached the other side of the single level ranch style house, but the overall STRENGTH of it was stronger than my older model… no dead spots.

Side-note: Your access point should you decide to use it, also doubles as a Google Assistant device, where you can ask it a variety of questions, control lights, and more with the appropriate equipment.

I do recommend this system, but there is one warning involved – if you have some types of security cameras, doorbells, and devices that ONLY run on a 2.4 ghz frequency, some people can have an issue where they won’t connect, or they won’t stay connected, to a mesh system like this because it transmits on both 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz at the same time. They get confused it seems. Now, RING (doorbells, cameras, etc) tech support can walk you through how to get around this. If you are lucky (very lucky) you can get a tech at ARLO to do this, too. Your success will vary and you may have to make more than one call if you do run into this issue, so just be prepared knowing that you MIGHT have to do this to ensure all of your devices work with it. Waving a finger at these other device makers though, they need to get with it and update their devices to work on all wifi frequencies, and better be able to detect, connect to, and maintain connection to, mesh networks. It’s not always the router’s fault – many times it’s the device makers not keeping their devices updated, and one rep with one of these companies even admitted to me they are behind in catching up to working with mesh networks.

My one big complaint about the router itself, and it is a big one as others have pointed out, is that the Google router only has one “out” ethernet port on the back for extra devices. That’s it. Camera systems like Arlo require you plug their own hub into one of these. Perhaps you have smart bulbs that come with a small hub as well that need a port, or home phone service, etc. In my opinion, there really is NO excuse for Google only putting one extra ethernet port on this device. Just be aware of this because if you have various things that you currently have plugged directly into your old modem, you may need extra equipment if you are going to use this one to replace it entirely – and the point device has NO ethernet ports. It’s for this reason I won’t give this 5 stars, and really, would drop it to 3 ½ if I could. Yeah – big booboo, Google.

Otherwise, yes, it’s a reliable system for those willing to do the tech call work to perhaps get some of their devices to work with it. But you will most likely be rewarded with a stronger wifi signal over greater ranges.

With internet usage and connected home devices increasing so much in your typical household, the need for high quality routers have become more common. I believe that the best form of achieving this is through a mesh router system and Google has really made an achievement with their new Google Nest Wifi Mesh System.

PROS:

- The design of the router and the point are very appealing. Everything is smooth, seamless, and its meant to be that way. Google did this on purpose to encourage users to have them out in the open as opposed to tucked away. The router will work much better being out in the open so it’s a good choice to make them beautiful!

- Set-Up was very easy. As expected, Google makes everything feel so simplified and straight forward. It was a clean process and I was very pleased with the set up!

- This package features a Router and a Point, which is very common for mesh systems. The Router plugs in directly to your modem so that it gets the hard wired internet source. Then the Point can be placed elsewhere in the house and it just requires power. The system works together flawlessly and really provides a strong boost of internet across multiple levels of your home. It is worth noting that the "Point" isn't as strong as the Router, which seems obvious, but I had no issues as the Point delivered much stronger internet than I previously had to an almost dead internet area of my home.

- The Point makes up for its subtle lack in power, by doubling as a Google Nest Speaker as well and it sounds great! Once again, this encourages you to place it out in the open but the speaker sounds great, has all the same functionality as a Google Nest Mini, and even has a colorful ring to it.

- Lastly, Google really makes this WiFi very easy to manage and just makes it feel so much more accessible than any other WiFi system I have used. By integrating this into your Google Home App and Google Assistants, there are plenty of perks you enjoy. This includes checking connection speeds, setting up Guest networks, see what devices are on it, prioritize which devices are more important for WiFi, and even turn off WiFi for devices aka devices your kids are using. I also really enjoy that you can use a Google Smart Display device to show what your speed tests are or display password information easily.

CONS:

- The biggest complaint I foresee people having is that the router only has 2 Ethernet ports. One being for the input and one being for output. Sure there are ways around this issue but it would be nicer to have more ports.

- At the time of this review, you really need two apps to access every feature for these routers: The Google Home app and the Google WiFi app. Eventually, Google will merge these two apps into one but for the time being you will have to have two apps if you really want to utilize all the features - although this isn't necessary.

- This mesh system does not support WiFi 6. It seems odd considering WiFi 6 is moving forward as the latest and greatest in home consumer WiFi, but Google opted against including it in this system.

BOTTOM LINE:

- This system is an all-around win-win for home internet users. On one hand it can be simple and out of the way for you minimalists while providing easy controls when needed. On the other hand, it can be a welcomed addition to you heavy smart-home users by providing a well-integrated Mesh WiFi system that works so well with your other devices. Google knows how to make high quality products, with comfortable ease of use, at reasonable prices compared to what others offer - this Google Nest Mesh System is no exception and will keep you happy.

I've had the Asus Ac 5300 for about 2 years. Great router for gaming, but doesn't cover the 5,000 sq ft that it advertises. Maybe it does, but my walls are insulated with foam and I was hardly getting a bar in my garage area (2900sq) to connect my 2 garage doors to wifi. I made a decision to buy another Asus router to mesh. I bought the AC 2900 and it really changed the game, but now I was about $500-600 invested. The routers didn't look attractive at all since we moved to a newer modern home so I invested in these tiny Google routers and boy are they a game changer. Now I don't worry about updates or any problems what so ever. I am very glad I finally made the move to this new system after many years with Asus. They are worth every penny and more! I highly recommend these to anyone that wants superior wifi coverage and speeds.

Paired with Arris Surfboard 3.0 (also reviewed), the best wifi service I have ever experienced. I highly recommend this pair. I used to have cable company modem and could not have more than 3 devices connected at once without the frustration of lagging.

With my Arris Surfboard and Google Nest pairing, I have had as much as 12 devices connected at the same time and no lagging. I am so happy I no longer have to constantly get stressed about my wifi signal like before ^_^

I normally do not review products unless they blow my expectations away. This product with the Arris surfboard pairing did exactly that. Absolutely phenomenal!!!

Google - Nest Wifi AC2200 Dual-Band Mesh Wi-Fi System (2-Pack)

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Google’s Nest Wifi system has been a huge upgrade from my (fairly old) ASUS RT-N66U. One of the biggest differences has been going from a single-router to a mesh system with multiple access points to cover more square feet around my home. Initially I bought the 2-pack (Router and AP) but ended up expanding to another AP due to how satisfied I was with the product.

Setting up the system is bar-none the easiest I’ve had to setup. Using Google Home’s app, it’s all automated and straight-forward as you go through the prompt. The only issue I had (which is definitely due to my laziness) is I shared the same SSID and PW with my current router and the new Nest...so of course I had issues getting it all paired up. But after I worked that out, the drop in was almost flawless.

Speeds have been considerably faster on all of my WiFi devices (which I have quite a bit of) and I haven’t experienced any dropoff or inconsistent speeds since my installation. Arguably some of this could have been attributed to how WiFi signal dips as it goes through walls or other channels my neighbors are using...but nonetheless it has resolved a lot of what I was hoping it would fix.

One personal gripe I have (which is a nonissue for most) is the hardline capabilities of the router itself. If hardline is required, you will have to get an unmanaged switch to fork the connections to allow for things such as ethernet runs or Powerline ethernet (which is how I hardline my computers in separate rooms). Unfortunately there’s only one output of ethernet on the back of the router, so some creativity might be involved with transitioning to this router.

Onto the aesthetics, I don’t think there are many mesh systems that are as sleek and provide as much features as the Nest. Having a built-in Google Home essentially replaces the current Google Minis I have spread across rooms. Not just that, but the AP is pleasing on the eyes wherever they’re placed.

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*****Quick Features & Specs*****

Each AP covers around 1600sq ft

Dual-band 2.4 and 5GHz channels

Built-in Google Assistant

Ease of setup via Google Home App

Lots of management options for the router (IE parental rules, or limiting bandwidth)

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*****What's in the box*****

Nest AC2200 Dual-Band Mesh Wi-Fi Router

Nest AC1200 Dual-Band Access Point

Ethernet Cable (6.5ft)

Power Adapter (2x)

Manual

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Great wifi get solid coverage inside and outside the house. My approximate sq is 3700 and this covers everything my old router couldn’t. The built in app that you set this is is also great. I see everything on the network and what’s being used. This is a feature I use all the time tied to my kids iPads and Xbox in order to kill their internet for bedtime, dinner, lunch and other breaks. Has parental controls in it as well to help protect them from sites and I can do network and Speedtest that are built in to check wifi. Really great system and having the google home function built in to play music, answer questions or use it like an intercom and broadcast to the house is an awesome feature too! Btw they look really nice and are compact!

I wasn’t looking to buy a router but the salesman explained this item to me and I bought it. I have 47 devices on my home network and e always had problems with WiFi extenders. This lets all my devices work seamlessly I’m even able to hold my weekly zoom meetings in the back yard on the patio with blazing speed. I have X-Finity 200 mbs service and I am able to get full speed in the back yard.(241 mbs) It’s worth every penny!My point is near the back patio door.

As a longtime owner of the previous generation Google WIFI, I’m definitely impressed with this surprising update. Setup was a breeze and the results speak for themselves.

The previously required Google WIFI app still has a place when needing advanced routing features like reservations, port forwarding, etc... However, it’s no longer a requirement. You can see critical information, manage family WIFI settings, see devices and retrieve passwords from within the Google Home app, along with all your other google smart home integrated products.

With the 2 unit kit, one router and one access point, I was able to cover my entire home without issue. The documentation claims that 2 units can handle up to 3800 square feet – so no surprise my 2000 + backyard was no issue. Placement is key, so make sure take consideration when setting them up.

The icing on the cake, at least for me, is that the access points are also Google Home Minis. What a great extra little feature for people like myself who have one in every room. I was able to place the access point in the back of the house and finally finish my full house audio setup.

So I took a long time to come around to trying agoogle Nest wifi but a tight budget forced my hand. I am pretty satisfied with the performance and with the ability it has to handle 4k streeming along side keeping my smartphone online and functioning. Just to give you an example I currently have 95 devices on my network I neverhavea slowdown when streaming music or 4k video. For the price range I think this is a great value. Oh and a huge + was that I was able to integrate my old Google WiFi with the Google NestWiFi I did not have to purchase additional access points witch was very nice.

I needed To get a mesh router for a new building i moved Into. I was Pulling 15mps and we were about to switch. The installer that came out recommended this router and I told them I would give it a try. I couldnt be happier with it! Easy is an understatement to use and now i am Pulling 900+ Mps out of the router!

Gets the job done. Slightly expensive, but you get good convenience features.

Working pretty great. I just don't like that you can't manually choose if you'd like to connect to 2.4ghz or 5ghz frequency. You just have to trust that it makes the best decision for your devices.

The Google Nest WIFI AC2200 Router was super easy to set up with the Google Home app. The Google Home app walks you through the installation process with ease. I did have an issue with it connecting to my WIFI smart outlets that run on 2.4GHz. I called up Google and they provided me a workaround to get them set up. (it will require a secondary phone with hotspot capabilities). I am paying for 200 Mbps internet and when I perform the speed test I hit 207 Mbps on Ookla's speedtest. On top of the performance and ease of setup, I put this router ontop of our floating TV console in our living room and it is aesthetically pleasing to look at. My GF did not like our old router with the antennas sticking out.

1. Setup a secondary phone hotspot with the same SSID and password as you configured for your Google Nest WIFI Router

2. Turn on secondary phone hotspot

3. Connect your Phone to the secondary hotspot

a. Ensure that you see the blue banner on secondary phone

b. Ensure that you see the hotspot symbol on your phone

4. Using the specific WIFI smart app, enter in the same SSID and password as in step 1

5. Once you walk through the steps on the smart app and it successfully connects

6. You can now turn off the hotspot and rename the secondary phone back to its original name

7. On your phone now you can connect back to the Google Nest WIFI

8. Verify controls to WIFI outlets while on the Google Nest WIFI

This is to trick your WIFI outlets to thinking its connecting to a 2.4GHz router, this is because the Google Nest WIFI router does not have dedicated WIFI SSID's for 2.4GHz and 5Ghz. (Both channels are rolled up into one SSID)

I hope this help others!

Very easy for me to set this up.

I like that it’s small in size, don’t get in the way.

So far I had this for a few months and happy.

Setting up through Google Home app was a breeze. I don't think you really need the Google Wifi app anymore, since you can use the GH app for settings, etc..

Better coverage and way faster than Google Wifi mesh system. I needed 2 pucks with the older mesh system and now I only need the Nest router hooked up to my modem to have strong, fast, reliable Wifi in every space of the house.

Very pleased with my purchase!!

I purchased this router to wirelessly connect with Google Nest router connected to my modem. I wanted a hard wire connection to my work laptop in my office to give it the fastest connection. Prior to purchase my laptop connected to web wirelessly with Google Nest wireless point in my office. The connections speed was not awful, but I suspected it would be faster connected to be wired to Google Nest router. I was right, my speed doubled and ping dropped as well, anywhere from 8-15 Ms depending on the time of day. Set up is easy. You connect the 2nd router just like if u set up a wireless point. After it is set up I connected my Cat8 cable (5 ft) to my laptop. The initial set up of router took about 10 minutes, then another 5 to 10 minutes for the Ethernet connection to my laptop to to work at its full potential. Overall , I am happy with purchase and set up. I know there a couple other options out there with a little more flexibility or maybe slightly cheaper, but the low profile of the Google Nest appealed to me and my family.

I waited to post this until I had a few months of usage on my Pixelbook. I am so happy I decided to purchase this. I am a trusted "Google" user and already have most products that they have released. Automatically syncs using my Google account with all associated products. All updates are automatic, turns on within seconds of opening, and is extremely easy to use. For someone like me that needed something for simplicity and on a system I was familiar with, the Pixelbook is perfect!

I was really skeptical at first because this is super expensive for a chrome machine. However I was pleasantly surprised with the result. You can definitely get a MacBook Air for this price ... so why bother with this? The specs themselves are not that difference ... slightly better on the screen resolution... and the screen is touch and the CPU is slightly faster but overall you're not going to feel that. What you will feel is the longevity and reliability of this machine. It boots instantly. It will work for years with the guaranteed multiyear support.

Love it!! It's lightweight, very user friendly, love the Chrome OS as I'm an Android person. Nothing bad to say other than I should have gotten a screen protector, not sure if they're even available. I've had it for over a year now and it's still going strong, but I did drop it and cracked the screen

Wonderful laptop that serves like a MacBook. When I bought this laptop I thought I wanted a macbook but having it over 6 months it works the same. Best Purchase Ever!

Best laptop I've ever owned.

+ Excellent display & speakers

+ Premium quality

+ Long term support

+ Simple & secure OS

Expensive but worth it. This is my third "Chromebook" and by far the best. You get what you pay for. And with this one, you get the absolute best.

I bought this laptop for my son during the beginning of the pandemic. Love the storage capacity & touch screen, but it doesn't come with any USB ports.

Very easy to operate. Lightweight. Highly recommended.

Covers a square /rectangular prior thermostat control unit almost…

This is nice to have if you have a messy wall connection, but it’s not required to have to make the Nest Thermostat work.

Not much to review it fits as designed to cover the wall when upgrading your thermostat to the nest/google system. A little odd that it is comes away from the wall so you can see behind it, sorta defeats the purpose.

Looks great and covered up an opening left by my original thermostat.

Just what I need to complete the look with my Nest thermostat

I love this thing and its energy saving possibilities! It knows when the home is empty and adjusts when were on our way home! Has definitely saved me a ton of money on heating and cooling. Proved when I compared the bills to past years as well. Super helpful you won’t regret it. You dont really need the pro model unless you have smart ducts or multiple compressors for separate level cooling.

My old thermostat was housed in an electrical box, so this piece was necessary for my Nest Thermostat to be mounted properly. Wish it was included in the thermostat itself; seems pricey for a metal plate and plastic cover.

These are a must if you’re installing the Nest thermostats. It covers up any imperfections and looks good too!!

Here is a detailed review after about 10 days with the phone.

BATTERY LIFE: Very good! You need to let the adaptive battery smarts learn how you use the phone and start adjusting power use as needed. I was worried on day one but now, very satisfied. This is my experience but give it a 2-3 days and see if yours is the same.

FINGERPRINT SENSOR: This is a complicated one. I hated it at first. I thought Google made a huge mistake. First, you need to stay out of developer options and don’t change the animation scales. Once you do this, the lock screen will consistently show you the fingerprint symbol. Turn on the extra touch sensitivity in the phone’s options. Enroll your finger(s) twice (advice given to many different branded phones). From there, you need to learn how to use it. It takes a little pressure. I kept missing the center but with time, muscle memory developed and now I am satisfied with the FPS. It isn’t the greatest but it’s also not “terrible” or “unusable.” I don’t think this should stop you. I am getting close to not even noticing anything unusual with the FPS. Time heals all… FPS issues – well, most.

CHARGING: This is one that I don’t have a fix for and I think Google mislead people on the phone’s ability to fast charge. It does use high-speed charging to get to 50% and that’s what they promised. Unfortunately, 51% to 100% is closer to regular rapid charging. You won’t get super-fast charging from 50% to 100%. I can live with it since the phone easily makes it through my day. I just charge my phone overnight. It has a nice adaptive charging feature to protect your battery when overnight charging.

THE CAMERA BAR: Before I got the phone, I thought it was going to be problematic, easy to scratch. Well, the opposite. I love it. It looks cool and no rocking when you have it on a table (unlike S21 and Apple iPhone). My case has a lip around it. I am trying out a camera lens protector because they came in the box with my screen protectors. Not sure I need it – I just put it on last night. My case seems to protect it on its own.

SCREEN PROTECTOR: Unfortunately, on the Pixel 6 Pro, you are mostly stuck with TPU film protectors. They get dirty easily and wear out much sooner than tempered glass. There’s also all this talk about how they affect fingerprint performance. My film does not have a fingerprint sensor problem but it does have the typical dirty and wear issues. Since I am picky about the screen, I will probably end up replacing the film soon. This isn’t a Pixel problem per se, it’s TPU film protectors. Also, note that the regular Pixel 6 screen does not have the rolled edges, it’s squared off so you can get tempered glass for it.

CAMERA: This is obvious. It’s fantastic. The 4x optical Zoom is so cool. Magic Eraser is neat but doesn’t always work well. I’m not a pro photographer. I am probably like you, someone who enjoys everyday photos. The Pixel is doing a GREAT job with my everyday photo experience. It does a whole heck of a lot more that I still need to explore.

MATERIAL YOU THEMING: I thought this was going to be silly. It’s not. It’s kinda neat the way it pulls colors out of your wallpaper and uses them throughout the phone. I like it!

OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER: No way around it, this is a big phone. Check it out in person if you are concerned. And it’s slippery! Buy a case when you buy the phone. Look at what the regular Pixel 6 has to offer and if the Pro is worth it for you

I came from a Galaxy S21+ and I am really enjoying all of the Pixel features. I love the call screen and “hold for me.” The high resolution, adaptive high refresh rate make for a beautiful screen experience. This is the phone to get if you want Google’s latest tech. They just added “Adaptive Sound” today! Yes, an update… a quiet little update.

When you read other reviews, which you should, make sure the reviewer isn’t expressing only first day, gut reactions. Make sure they have used the phone for at least several days.

After using the phone for a week and admittedly being a Pixel/Android person, I give it 4.5 stars. The half star off is for that charging discrepancy. It’s a great phone that you will enjoy. You are probably going to be married to your phone for at least a year so read other reviews.

Photos: My Pixel 6 Pro in the Spigen Thin Fit case. Phone is in the “light mode” theme. Photos taken with a cheap, old phone.

There are many good things about this phone. The big screen, excellent camera, awesome battery life, the Google Android interface and many others. Others. You would need time to get used to the aspect ratio and the big size if you are coming from a smaller phone or another iPhone. So far I'm loving it and I switch it from iPhone.

Excellent phone I only returned because I will no longer give my money to best buy picking this phone up at the nearest T-Mobile store

I have the pixel 3xl and I've loved it since I got it. I just got this new phone today and I'm seeing things I don't like. This phone gets hot, easily. The front camera is grainy and can't focus at all in darker lighting and is tough to do in brighter settings because every time you move it shifts out of focus. If you're an avid OtterBox user, this case is expensive! 60 dollars for it to be exact for real protection. It also doesn't run as fast as my Google pixel 3xl did. I hope they can figure out these bugs fast.

I have had the phone a month now. It is working great! Takes awesome pictures and videos! There are so many features that this phone offer's, best one is the security features! This phone is worth every penny!

I love this phone! A minor complaint is screen size (I have to wear glasses to see the default screen font), but a great Android experience. Killer pics from the camera, some cool new features in Android 11 ( like ability to copy text verification codes from some apps). Decent battery life, though seems to take a while to charge. A nice upgrade from my 3 year old Moto Z2 Force phone. I highly recommend. Att he’d pics with phone in protective case.

To me, there is a singular reason for buying a Pixel phone: Software. The software experience on a Pixel device is simply unparalleled. Simple but thoughtful additions enhance the user experience. One of these features, call screening, is absolutely amazing. It's one of the most powerful tools in battling spam calls. The Pixel line has had a somewhat troubled history, but I think Google has made a wise decision in chasing value as opposed to industry-leading specs. While the Pixel 5 doesn't pack the latest processor, its performance is unquestionably more than capable for most users. The simplicity of the software combined with the 90 Hz display makes the Pixel 5 feel fluid and fast in everyday use. Additionally, Google seems to have finally taken battery life seriously. After the dismal battery life of the Pixel 4 lines, Google has sported the Pixel 5 with a much larger battery that, combined with the mid-range processor, makes this phone leave any battery life concerns in the past. While I liked face unlock with the Pixel 4, I find the fingerprint sensor on the Pixel 5 to be fast and accurate and, if I am going to use a fingerprint sensor, I much prefer it to be located on the back of the device rather than embedded in the screen (I actually miss LG's old approach of integrating the fingerprint sensor with the power button on the back of the phone). Not surprisingly, the camera is still impressive although, admittedly, the camera is one of the lowest priorities on a smartphone for me; But, if a good camera is a priority for you, you'll find it on the Pixel 5. The phone's design is a bit uninspired and utilitarian but, slap one of Google's nice fabric cases on it and the phone gets some personality. The screen is excellent - minimal bezels with a small hole punch camera on the left. Sound on the Pixel 5 is a bit underwhelming, and this is likely due to there being no true top speaker (google uses the screen itself as a speaker, much like LG did with the LG G8). Call clarity is perfectly fine, but music can sound a bit muffled - this is not a big deal for me because I used wireless headphones 99% of the time I listen to music. If you are looking for the latest hardware and top of the line specs, the Pixel 5 is not for you; but, if you are looking for an unparalleled software experience wrapped in a manageable form factor, the Pixel 5 is definitely worth a look.

I switched from iphone to try the Google phone, and I have to be honest, I don't love it. The iphone is definitely more user friendly, the interface is much better & the touch screen adaptability is way smoother. The settings are a little more dificult to get through on Google & the touch screen is SO touchy. Sometimes it doesn't register touch at all, so I increase the sensitivity and then it is way too sensitive. So I end up just looking silly, poking my phone over and over until it realizes I'm touching it. I also hate the sideways back swipe, because it's easily confused with regular scrolling and it takes me out of what I'm looking at all the time. Super frustrating. I do like the picture & video quality more than iphone, but the portrait mode definitely lacks in comparison to iphone. The blur around the object is rough and messy. I do enjoy the size of this phone, iphones were getting too big and bulky for me. I just wish the haptics of this phone were as smooth as iphone. My #1 pet peeve, is no longer having imessaging. It's been a huge bummer. I've had for about 6 months and I'm not sure if I want to keep it at this point.

I was concerned about the 765 CPU in the Pixel 5, but after 3 months I think it is plenty fast. I don't play games on my phone, so that might be a consideration. I wanted to stay with a Pixel phone for the clean Android experience and timely updates (this phone replaced a Pixel 2XL). I did want a larger screen, but I'm not disappointed with my purchase and would recommend it to others.

Coming from a Pixel 3XL to a Pixel 5, I was excited. Temper your expectations, don't expect a flagship processor but know that you're getting a near perfect "it just works" phone. I don't play games, so the Snapdragon 765G didn't bother me too much. The phone symmetry is beautiful, uniform bezels, holepunch camera, form factor, and a nice textured back. The fingerprint sensor and the camera are the best in any device I have ever used. The camera sensor may be old but once you go Pixel, it's hard to use any other camera. The battery life is incredible and the standout feature of this phone. I got 8 hours of screen on time with a single charge, blew my mind. My 3 XL got like 4-5 hours max. The only negative is the speaker. There are two down firing speakers that sound fine, but another behind the glass screen and it sounds terrible. Overall, for users with no gaming requirements, it's a high recommendation. Stock Android for life.

Google, pls get a better processor for the next Pixel though.

I love this phone! It was a very easy transition from my Google Pixel 2 to the Google Pixel 5, thanks to Best Buy for helping me move everything from my old phone to the new one. Installing a screen protector and recommending a good case helped me know that I could be worry-free about this purchase.

Love this phone. The size is perfect (its a shame that most phone makers just keep making bigger phones. Not all of us have hands the size of an NBA player!), the screen is great, and the camera is fantastic!

This is definitely a required accessory for the battery-powered Nest Cams if you want to use it indoors, but I just wish the cameras had a deeper 'pocket' to attach this onto. The camera is HEAVY and when we placed it onto the stand and put the stand on a shelf, I kept thinking how easily it could knock off if bumped, and drop on someone's toe. Didn't seem a 100% secure fit

Great addition to the camera itself. Nice cord that is long allowing to place it most places, even allows camera to tilt

This turned out to be the best phone I have used so far. It should have been a five star product for me but for one little gripe. I got tired of the tons of bloatware on the Samsung platform which is what I have used mostly. Having multiple apps for the same task because I am unable to uninstall the samsung version. If you are a minimalist and want a phone that is free of bloat, is very responsive and intuitive, I really dont believe you can beat the value of this phone. It is plain vanilla android, just the way google intended android to be. It is also priced to perfection in my opinion. My only gripe is the fingerprint scanner which I feel is underwhelming. I am not sure if it will be improved by a software update but I have quite a few failed attempts each day.

For the price, and the added five years of support for this device, this is a no brainer to me. Fast, responsive and well priced. Flagship.

Like the title says, this is the phone to beat in this particular arena. This is aimed to take on the S21 and other potential rivals. Just to state, you cannot compare this to the S21 Ultra, that fight belongs to the Pixel 6 Pro in the ultra premium segment. The Pixel 6 reigns supreme in the mid to premium segment. Camera, excellent. Low light photography is fantastic. The camera interface is also super simple and easy to use. The motion blur adds some fun to the camera experience. Portrait works pretty good adding bokeh. The integration with Google Photos is also great to easily edit most effects. Photos also have very natural colors, does not seem to be as unnaturally boosted like Samsung tends to do. No real complaints. Battery is also excellent. I personally don't care for the 90hz refresh rate. With that feature disabled I regularly get 2 days battery life, generally a day and a half with it activated. Colors are screen appear to be accurate to real life. Build quality is great, no issues with fit an finish with my device. Speakers are more than adequate when I'm quickly watching or sharing something. If I'm really listening to something on my phone I'm using bluetooth headphones. Range and sound quality with bluetooth is also great, quality is highly dependent on what headphones you are using due to codecs. It is nice with this purely Google device not having my device always syncing to Google servers and the additional Samsung services like the S21 series and other manufacturer devices. This also leads to much less bloatware as other manufacturers have lot of redundant software that duplicates what Googles apps offer that tend to do a better job. A great example of redundancy issues is with the Samsung camera app, you cannot edit any of the effects in Google Photos. You need to use Samsung Gallery which I don't recommend as Google Photos is superior. I don't need 2 contact syncs, 2 calendar syncs, etc. I could keep writing and nitpick little things between this and other devices but that would be overkill at this point. At the end of the day unless you need crazy zoom features like Pixel 6 Pro or S21 Ultra this is the device to get.

I have had several Android phones over the years. Motorola, Samsung, OnePlus and then switch to Pixel 3a XL. That Pixel was a beast and just a tad slow. It was getting old and with the Pixel 6/6 Pro coming out I knew I wanted to upgrade. I tried a 6 Pro, but the curves screen and less than stellar batter did not make the phone worth $300 more.

I picked up the 6 and it is overall an impressive phone that has 2 short comings. First a weak in screen finger print scanner. Put a sensor on the back again , please. Second the subpar battery life. I don't understand how Apple can continue to dominate with battery life while Android needs bigger batteries and still cant touch the iPhones. Google needs 500mAh more in the 6 and 6 Pro to truly compete.

Overall outside those 2 issues the phone is good. It is quick and I like Android 12 so far. The battery app is garbage so I loaded a third party battery tool that tells me much more about what my phone is using. I disabled 90Hz and 5G as those 2 hurt battery and now at least it seems on par with my Pixel 3a XL. Very sad that they can't do better.

BTW yes I actually have the phone in hand! All in all it's a good phone for the price. The transfer of files from my old phone was seamless. Despite the bulge of the camera in th back it doesn't give you that bulky feeling in your hand. The display is sharp, scrolling and processing is fast and for my usage, my battery life is great and lasts me the entire day. The only complaints that I have are the camera quality could be a tad better, and the fingerprint scanner is hit or miss - sometimes it can take 3-4 tries before it recognizes your print (also points deducted for having it in the middle of the phone screen). Also it seems a lot of the phones are no longer coming with charging blocks so just a heads up on that - kinda makes you miss the days of Samsung where you got a full charger and headphones. Speaking of headphones, the sound quality of this phone is phenomenal and the speaker phone is loud haha. I use the Galaxy buds and it connects quickly with no lag. Finally if you have a Google home and TV (like I do) you will find yourself like a kid in a candy store (note though- you can't screenshare on certain TVs - it wouldn't pick up my LGs but connected quickly to my Hisense and Philips) If you are balling on a budget but need a great phone this is it!

Google phones has always been amazing, if you are looking for the purest android experience without all that bloatware on your phone then look no further this phone won't do you no wrong. its snappy, responsive and beautiful.

Only thing is the fingerprint reader not being consistent, and also some screen protector doesn't play nicely with the fingerprint (Spigen, but they removed the listing from their page), I removed the screen protector and the fingerprint is working more then before when I had the screen protector on

All & all I highly recommend this phone, pure android, great camera, modern design, snappy!

I'm honestly writing this review to cancel out that review bomb. I like iPhones, but Pixel is where I would go if I wanted Android. They can connect to any ChromeCast device or Android TV wirelessly, Type C is a huge plus, and this years SoC made by Google is no slouch. People should review bomb just because they don't like a products one feature.

Very Solid android phone, battery life isn't as good as a new iPhone but it's on par with other Android phones. Camera and screen are solid and this definitely feels snappier overall compared to my 3 year old LG V35. I'm definitely happy with this phone so far. Check out the DBrand grip case for this, makes the camera bump look normal without making the whole thing feel thicck.

I bought this for my daughter to upgrade from a Samsung S8. The migration from the S8 to the Pixel 6 was easy and no issue. My daughter now is happy like a clam as she can play some games that she couldn't with the S8. The upgrade is night and day but didn't break the wallet. The S8 actually cost more than the P6!!!

PROS

+ Flagship-level camera with Live HDR+ and near magical low-light photography

+ Adaptive battery that easily lasts the entire day and learns from your power usage

+ Just small enough for one-handed use, but with a large, almost full-frame screen

+ At least three years of OS and security updates, alongside a class-leading Titan-M security chip

+ Google features including call screening, recorder, transcription, and Google Assistant

+ Headphone Jack!

+ PRICE

CONS

- Older chipset means good but not great speed

- Display is nothing to write home about and could be brighter for sunny daytime use

- Durability is questionable

- No IP-Water Resistance

- No Wireless Charging

- No Ultra-wide or Telephoto Lenses

MY OPINION

I have really come to love Google’s philosophy with its “a” line of phones. Rather than cutting across the board on all features to create a budget phone in the age of $1000+ flagship phones, Google strategically cuts expensive features where needed while maintaining many of the features users have come to love about Pixel phones. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and so to meet this budget price, Google needs to be specific about where it cuts, but when I look at this phone and how it performs, it honestly feels like they hit the sweet spot perfectly. Let me elaborate.

PERFORMANCE

I am personally not a heavy power user when it comes to my phone. Most of my primary use cases are taking photos, browsing the internet, calling, texting, using apps for miscellaneous tasks, and playing very light smartphone games on occasion. I am not a developer, nor do I play any serious mobile games. As a result, I don’t need a heavy chipset. I appreciate phone speed from day-to-day use, like opening many tabs and not experience slowdown, and smoothly transitioning between apps, but that’s about it. So in this regard, one of the Pixel’s biggest downsides, its snapdragon 730G and 6GB of RAM, while far weaker than high-end phone specs, are more than enough for me in my use. In the long-term, if this phone was to show its age in any way though, it will likely be in its performance, since it is starting with less power than many modern phones.

SIZE

Now that that is out of the way, lets get into the good stuff, because there is SO MUCH to love about this phone that makes it a bit shocking it is as cheap as it is. Firstly, I love the size. I don’t personally care for larger phones, and this to me is the perfect size for maintaining one-handed use, while not being so small that reading becomes difficult. I previously owned the Pixel 2, which has nearly the same dimensions as the pixel 4a, except that the Pixel 4a has a 5.8 inch screen while the Pixel 2 has only a 5 inch screen. This is because the bezels as much smaller, and the speakers are now on the bottom of the phone, leaving more room for nearly an edge-to-edge screen.

CAMERA

As nice as the screen is, it’s the camera that gets my vote for why this phone is truly amazing. It uses a single lens, unlike many modern flagships, but what you get with that one lens is easily the best camera phone I have ever used. Pictures are incredibly detailed with great dynamic range, and with Live HDR+, the photo preview looks nearly identical to what the final photo will be after processing. In my old Pixel 2, I would often take a picture and then the phone would process the photo, with the final photo often looking better than the preview, but also decidedly different, meaning you had to go on faith the photo would turn out how you would expect.

In addition to the generally great camera performance, the digital zoom is surprisingly good, albeit probably not as good as you get with a dedicated telephoto lens. Likewise, there is no ultra-wide lens, so ultra-wide shots are not possible in this case, although if you have the time, you can still create panoramic shots.

Where some of the magic happens is with night shots and taking pictures of the stars. Night Sight lets you take low-light photos with great detail, without needing to use the flash on the phone. It works amazingly well, and while noisier than bright daytime photos, it is still better than taking photos in the dark without it. Likewise, astrophotography is really cool, as it allows you to set your phone up on a tripod or other fixed position, and capture highly detailed shots of the night sky. You do still want to be somewhere with low light pollution, but if you can, you need to try this out!

THE BEST OF THE REST

While I could go on and on about the phone’s many features, I do want to call out some of the other things that are smaller, but still significant features in making this phone such a great deal. First, the battery life is excellent. I often finish a typical day with 40-50% remaining, and with the adaptive battery system google uses to prioritize power usage, it is tailored to your individual use patterns.

Google is also committed to OS and security updates for at least three years, which I love since I tend to hang-on to my phones for at least a few years. Likewise, since it’s a Google phone, android updates typically arrive earliest to pixel phones, while the Titan-M security chip is still class-leading in this space.

Google specific features like call screening let you use an automated assistant to screen potential spam calls, while you read a transcription of what the person who is calling is saying. The phone also has an amazing recorder app for recording audio, with live captioning capabilities so you can get live transcripts of what you are recording, such as a meeting. It works amazingly well and comes in handy more often that I would have thought. Finally, you can also use Google Assistant built-in to the phone for typical smart assistant tasks such as reminders, alarms, calendars, web searches, and integrating into Google Home. There is also a built-in capability where Google will display the name of a song that is playing if it can hear one, almost like an always-on Shazam, if you choose to leave the feature on.

Finally, a personal favorite feature of mine, even though I may be in the minority, is the headphone jack. Its extremely rare to find phones with headphone jacks nowadays, but I still use my wired Sennheiser headphones regularly for music listening, and it nice not to have to deal with Bluetooth connectivity drop-outs, or dongles, when I want to listen to music. You can still use wireless headphones as well, but as someone who prefers wired, this is a small but nice addition!

THE REST OF THE NOT SO BEST

As I mentioned earlier, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and with the great price comes cuts. Firstly, the build-quality is mostly plastic, and while it feels well-constructed, I am not confident it would hold-up to repeated drops on a hard surface. In fact, I would very readily recommend both a case and screen protector for the phone, and if possible, a screen protector for the camera lens as well, since I could see the glass cracking very easily if dropped just right.

The OLED display is very good, with natural colors and deep black levels as you’d expect from OLED. It doesn’t get too bright though, and so for outdoor use in the daylight, I often find I need to crank up the brightness in order to take photos or check a text. You can watch HDR videos, such as on Netflix, but the limited brightness does mean they pop with less intensity than that of what you’d find on higher-end phones or an OLED TV. If you’re a big media consumer, this may be serviceable, but it certainly won’t be the best you have ever seen.

There is also no wireless charging, which may be inconvenient for many since wireless charging pads in vehicles and across devices are becoming more common. I found the USB-C charger to be perfectly fast and capable, but you may find you need to clean the charging port on occasion as dust builds up. Since the battery life is full-day, I just charge overnight, so I find I don’t miss wireless charging too much.

Likewise, there is no IP-Water Resistance, so you won’t want to use this phone around deeper water. I have never dropped my phone in water, so I don’t see this as a great miss, but it is there none the less.

Finally, the speakers are serviceable, but if you want to do any serious listening to music or videos, I’d highly recommend some earbuds, as even cheap ones will likely be an improvement over the built-in speakers.

Right from the box, the phone feels very Google in all of its glory. It came in a white box and there’s the phone, 18 watt charger and USB-C cable inside. The cable is a thick quality cable that feels durable.

The phone feels just right. It’s light and sturdy. The screen estate is great as the screen is covering most of the front side of the phone, with noticeable camera punch hole on the top right corner of the screen. This is a mid-tier phone that doesn’t really feel like a budget phone. My first impression is I’m getting a lot of value. And that reminds me of the Nexus line of phones from Google, at the time when Google devices were much more affordable while still offered excellent value.

Setting up is easy. You can insert a physical SIM card or an E-SIM, the latter option should be available from your service provider. Because this is a Google branded phone, up-to-date software is guaranteed. The phone will download the latest Android operating system to the phone upon set up and you can be assured that Google will make these updates available to its Pixel phones first whenever they have new version of Android operating system.

The phone will ask you to transfer data from your old phone, Android and iPhones are covered. The process is simple, you just need to connect the cable to your phones and follow the on-screen instruction.

The phone came with a Snapdragon 730G chipset. This is an Octacore mid-class processor with a dedicated GPU from Qualcomm. The 730G chipset is faster than the more common 730 chipset and it is meant to provide better performance in more demanding application such as for gaming. It is fast enough but may not be blazingly fast when you compare it with high-end phones. Opening up a website is smooth and fast. The phone does feel a bit warm when the processor is having heavy workload. At this price range, Google has made a good choice of processor.

The screen is gorgeous, colors look vivid and wonderful. Playing video from Youtube and Netflix is a smooth and pleasant experience. Speaker’s volume is adequate but it’s not loud enough comparing to high end phone from other makes. The phone does have a headphone jack so you can plug in those audiophile cans if you prefer audio quality to wireless connectivity. The phone is bright enough when you use it outdoor. The phone does not have an IP rating so you better leave water out from your phone at all times.

Connectivity is great. It has the typical wireless and Bluetooth connectivity and it uses USB-C. Google provides you with USB-C to USB adapter, which will be handy for plugging in external storage device. You can't extend built-in memory storage but at least there are ways if you want to store and access extra memory.

The phone has headphone jack, something that is pretty rare these days with quality phones. This model does not have 5G but that should not be a dealbreaker for most potential users out there.

Fingerprint sensor works wonderfully. You touch the sensor on the back with your finger and the phone unlocks instantly. Much better than some high-end phone that has in screen finger print sensor.

The phone only has one camera lens. This may feel a bit underwhelming at first considering a lot of phones now offering more than one lens. However, picture quality is great. You can zoom to compose your shot up to 7x magnification and the result is surprisingly good. There’s an image stabilization tech that google employs and it really helps getting the shots vibration free. Selfies look nice, too. Videos work well and look good. You can tell there’s a lot of tech in the camera and Google even offers you free unlimited high-quality image cloud photo storage. This is one camera phone that you will want to use even when you already have a high-end phone from makers like Samsung and Apple.

Gaming in the phone is okay but not great. I don’t play Fortnite but processing demanding massive multiplayer online games work with the phone. These are the kinds of games that will bog down even the most expensive phones and tablet around. I notice better performance when using high-end phone and tablet but the game is still playable and enjoyable.

Overall, Google is offering a great value with the phone. So who is this phone would be better suit for? Those who look for great value in a phone. Or maybe if you want to have a second phone and you already own a high end phone. It’s also good for those who are in school or college.

I recommend to get Google pixel 4a official cover (see the picture). It’s a good and functional cover for your phone.

I’m very impressed with the Pixel 4a. The features and build quality of the phone really standout and surprise me at a $349.00 price point. I don’t expect much at that price point for a phone given the current prices of flagship phones. The Pixel 4a certainly delivers.

I’m coming from a Pixel 3 XL to the Pixel 4a and although this review is not about the 3XL there are a few reasons to mention key differences, at least, for myself. I’ve always been a huge fan of large phones. Large screens, more to view, a phablet essentially. So, I was a bit nervous to downsize. After about a week of using the Pixel 4a, I feel like it is sooooo much more convenient than my 3XL. Easier to get out of my pocket, easier to hold in my hand, one handed use is so simple now. I would say it depends on the size of your hand, but for me, I really feel like downsizing a bit was a great idea. I added a couple comparison images of the size and screen size vs my Pixel 3 XL.

Even though I downsized, I feel like the screen real estate is ideal. Google did a great job getting rid of the notch and incorporating the front facing camera as its just a small dot in the top left of the screen. The entire rest of the screen is screen. I love it. The form factor and screen size go hand in hand and really produce a great looking device.

I’ve read some mixed reviews on the build quality of the phone given it has a plastic back. I don’t really feel like that is a negative. For one, its not a flagship phone so cutting some corners is absolutely necessary. But I will say, the plastic back has advantages. If you drop it without a case, it doesn’t shatter like flagship glass backs. That’s a strong plus. Even though its plastic, if still feels great in the hand and the weight and feel of the phone still feels like a very high-quality phone so even though they did have to cut that corner, they did it very well in my opinion. The volume and power button is tactile and firm, you know when you press it and the accidental press of either is limited given the amount of force it takes to click them. Another plus.

The camera is awesome. I attached a pic I took of my pup. Night sight is amazing on this phone. If having a fantastic camera is of importance for you, you WILL be impressed. I don’t tend to use the camera on my phones that often but for the sake of this review I did snap a couple awesome pics. Night sight is a very amazing feature that has proven great success with low light images. Just because the Pixel 4a isn’t a $800.00 plus flagship phone, it definitely has a flagship camera on it.

The battery life is excellent. I use my phone quite aggressively throughout the day. Conference calls, surfing the web, looking at social media, listening to music, etc. I have not had any concerns on battery performance whatsoever. Given my day to day activities, battery performance is always a strong consideration for me. The Pixel 4a does not fall short in this category.

All in all, after really enjoying this phone, I give it 5 stars. The price point, the quality, and the features just make it a wonderful choice. I would also highly recommend it if you are looking for a phone for your child. The price point and quality are great and if they break it or something happens to it, you’re not out $800.00+. Great job Google!

(This is a review from from my Google account, I bought this phone from bestbuy so I thought might as well put it here to with some picture comparison, two night mode pictures from both and one normal picture. The first 3 pictures are the galaxy s10+.)

I bought this phone for my father, just arrived today, I wanted to see if the hype about the cameras were true....boyy I'm shock at how a $350 phone blew my galaxy s10+ to the side, I bought this galaxy for 1k+ and for it to be blown away by a phone thats only 350 is kind of disappointing, the pixel is such a simple phone straight to the point, being pretty isn't its objective, put a case on it and it look just like any other phone, ill update this review later with a speed test

Update: Did a speed test and they were almost identical in opening apps and searching for something on the web, this was an average consumer speed test no milliseconds analysis that you wouldn't even be able to perceive the difference if you were really using these phones on a separate basis.

Also did a quality test of the screen, the galaxy s10 plus gets brighter and thats about it, the pixel colors are accurate and blacks looks deep. On YouTube the samsung is able to hit 1440p the pixels maxed is 1080p, when turning my samsung brightness up standing next to the pixel i never realized how saturated some colors were on the samsung I did this test on the Weeknd song "binding lights" the red suit looked so saturated on the samsung, the pixel also does an amazing job at contrasting colors.

My last test was a sound test and the pixel 4a won by a landslide won't even get into detail, the pixel almost sound like a little speaker.

I'm still shock at the difference, a flagship phone from 2019 should still be able to outperform a mid 350 dollar phone of 2020 that's really a huge disappointment, for this price range this phone is the best you can get. On the other hand the galaxy still beats the pixel in raw power, so if you're a gamer the pixel wouldn't be the best option, though it still performs well.

I must say Pixel 4a is a good phone with solid hardware and some very cool options. I will mention hardware first, and I want to start by mentioning its beautiful 5,8 inch edge to edge OLED display which I really love, and it’s the best phone screen display I ever saw. Phone is extremely light and in right size to my own preference. Fingerprint in the back seem to be very convenient and it works all the time. Phone has two speakers on the bottom, one by each side of USB type C charging port and they seem to be very loud. Snapdragon™ 730G combined with 6GB RAM makes this device work very smoothly and I never experienced and lagging on the screen or when using the apps. Android 10 seem to be working well and it could be customized to pretty much anyone’s preferences. No ads, custom fonts and themes, and option to remove or disable any app makes whole system very user friendly.

…..

Front camera is 8mp and it’s made as “punch hole” in notification bar which I actually like. Rear camera is 12mp but provides very realistic colors thanks to HDR+ feature. There is a few point I would like to mention additionally about it:

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Nightsight mode with Astrophotography: This is new and very nice feature to be used in low light conditioning where flash might not be working well (such as where flash might be reflecting back, or while taking pictures of little kids while they are sleeping without scaring them). Nightsight captures few images and combine them into one single best image which brighten up final image to looks like image taken in lighten up environment (see my images).

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Since I am taking about camera I would like to mention Photo Sphere as well. This mod lets you take several pictures and combine them into one single panoramic-like image. Difference between regular panorama shot and sphere is that in here you take multiple images instead of one, and there is on screen assistance with blue dot and circle to make this image lined up better.

…..

Last camera mod I wanted to mention is “Lens”. This feature identifies objects, animals and others things you take picture of, and offers you links to open about those. For example is I take a picture of mosquito it will identify insect and offer me the link to read about them.

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My absolutely favorite thing on Pixel 4a is Live caption. I did expected to see live caption on the YouTube videos (works even when sound is muted) but I was positively shocked when I realized that it works even on videos I recorded, my ring bell videos and others. Very nice touch.

…..

Now I must mention call screening. This is the app where google assistant actually answer call and ask caller who is calling you, to identify themselves (you can hear caller). Then it gives you selective options to respond through assistant such as pick the call or by telling caller that they have wrong number and hanging up on them (and other options).

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Battery last whole day for me and I really get lots of notifications through the day and I tend to check most of them.

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Now I must mention apps because smartphones are great because of them. I had problem with really several apps force crashing - first randomly then all the time and this is where I had problem with this device. One of the really important apps for me is “PumpSpy” which monitors water level in my basement and it’s supposed to notify me in case of any changes and this app stopped working after just one day. Reinstalling the app just removed problem for few hours and then it returned again – constant force crashes. Few other apps I had issues where apps for home video surveillance.

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Pros:

Display

Hardware

New Features (NightSight, Photo Sphere, Lens, Live caption, Call screening)

Good low light camera

Super Light

Size

Design

Headphone jack

Adaptive battery

…..

Cons:

Several apps force crashing

Not water resistant

No wireless charge

No SD card slot

1. Great camera performance

2. Best Budget Phone.

3. Colorful & Sharp Display

4. Compact & Comfortable Size.

Everything about this phone appears uniquely relaxing. There's only one camera on the rear, the same 12.2-megapixel sensor you'll find on the 2019 flagship Pixel 4, and frankly, that's all you need. One real good camera is better than several average ones. The new Pixel 4a has a clean Android interface with three years of guaranteed updates. And in terms of design, the Pixel 4a seems like a much more advanced version of its predecessor. The bezels have been trimmed down significantly.

Google did a great job on this phone from several corners... Starting with the price, about $350! It is indeed a very good price for what you are getting. This phone has an amazing "Portable" size without compromising the screen real size or the usability of the device. The phone is made out of plastic! I bet 99% of people put their phone in cases... Why to pay extra for something you will put a cover on?

Battery life is ok. It lasted the whole day with moderate to sever use! I can't complain about it. It charges really fast as well (using the original charger USB-C). I don't need to talk about the camera, how amazing it is! The camera on this phone is really beyond what I expected! Very good photos and I love the night sight photos! The phone is very light weight, small to carry (unlike my other giant devices) and doing the job correctly. If tested with other phones, It is way faster than the Pixel 3a (normal) and also faster than my old iphone X (possibly normal as well). The screen is very crisp. Selfie camera is very good. Not really bothered by the punch hole.. I like the finger print in the back (the best place I guess) and the feel (mechanical response) of the side buttons. Phone sounds are loud! Loud enough... I watched some Youtube videos on it (and also Youtube TV) with no issues or complain. The screen size is fine for me! Still can manage all my daily tasks on it. Its refresh rate is OK (for what you pay)...

Wireless coverage is not bad at all, I used it on ATT and Google Fi. With both I have very good coverage everywhere and very good voice call quality. Internet speed not bad at all whether on 4G or WiFi... Very good. Google added in the box a Google brand phone case (I've already got an aftermarket one) and honestly, the Google phone case is very nice! It gives characters for the device. I never saw it this way... My work has some harsh environment, I swap to Google phone case whenever I am off work. I am really considering buying more cases.

The Android OS when directly from Google (on Google devices) is amazing. No bloatware or crapwares... Just pure Android experience with still a lot of nice features... With the low specs on paper, the device is still blazing fast..

In conclusion about the phone:

- You really get more of a device for what you pay

- Fast, small and good battery device in one package

- Plastic built is honestly not a big deal! Still high quality device.

- Screen size is OK. Small in size but big in resolution

- Good batter and charging fast

- Amazing cameras (front and back)

- Good Android experience. Always up to date.

In the box, there is also a USB-C to USB adapter for connecting external storage device. Nice from Google to add it

I recommend this if you are looking for affordable but still very good phone that you can rely on for your daily use.

overall this is a great little phone, I bought this as a replacement for my galaxy note 9 which had a cracked screen, I wasn’t sure how I would like going from a bigger phone with a stylus to a smaller phone without, but I can honestly say I haven’t missed it yet..

software experience and camera

I really like the vanilla or pixel android experience vs what Samsung puts on their phones.

The exclusive pixel features such as call screening and call hold are great, I have used the call screening feature and it really helps block those unwanted calls, especially the one about the car warranty. I have not used the call hold feature yet, but I am sure that will come in handy, as I do not like to wait on hold.

The camera is great on this phone, I have done some astrophotography shots and they come out great and even regular shots in the camera also come looking incredibly good.

the portrait shots really look good too. I am incredibly surprised with this budget friendly phone just how good the camera is.

Now I do not consider myself a light user, but I do not game heavily on my phone, occasionally I play a light game here or there.

I do use apps like tasker and join to automate different things and even with these apps I haven’t had any lag or slowdown on the phone, the only time I see any stutter is when I open the Google play store and go into “my apps”, when that’s opening it sort of pauses with the navigation pane on the left, but I think that’s cause its loading the apps that have updates, but otherwise no problems with this phone.

Hardware and size

I did by a unicorn beetle pro case for this, as it isn’t dust or water resistant, no IP rating on the phone, so I needed a decent case so I wouldn’t worry so much about breaking this phone.

The fingerprint reader on the back works great and fast, not much else to say about that. I never got into face unlock and have always preferred the fingerprint to unlock.

The size of the phone is actually quite nice, I didn’t realize how much I missed having a smaller phone in my day to day life, I can put this in my pocket, even with the case, and barely notice I have it on me, with my previous phone it would bulge out of the pocket so if I sat down I would have to finagle the phone otherwise it would jab me.

Battery

The battery hasn’t been exactly that consistent, also neither am I, so that could be part of the problem, a few days I have gotten straight through from when I unplug in the morning until I go to bed and plug back in with somewhere in the neighborhood of between 10-20 percent remaining. There have been some nights where I had to plug in before that, but I think the adaptive battery setting is still learning my usage, and I also did find some apps that were using battery in the background and restricted them from being able to, that has also helped improve the battery life on this phone.

Conclusion

I would highly recommend this phone to anyone who is in the market for a new phone but isn’t looking for all the bells and whistles. This checks most the boxes for the average user, if you are a gamer or more of a power user looking for more features, you most likely wont even be considering this phone anyway.

I plan on keeping this phone for a few years since the software will keep getting updates for a long while. The camera is excellent and every photo I take looks great. Google has added so many little touches in the software that I've grown to appreciate and could not see how I could go without. One example is when I'm on the lock screen and a song is playing over the loud speaker say at Best Buy and I want to see who the Artist is It shows on the bottom half of the screen. The face unlock is super fast and is consistent. Battery life is decent. The 18w fast charger it comes with charges the device blazingly fast. The only issues I have had were on a previous unit which had some minor battery problems, maybe it was a bad first batch I'm not sure, but Best Buy helped me get the phone replaced since I have Geek Squad protection which I recommend. I've enjoyed owning this so much that I've helped three friends switch to the Pixel and they haven't looked back.

I bought this Google-Pixel 4XL, 64GB, White to replace another Google Pixel 2 phone that our son gave to us a couple of years ago when he bought a new Google Pixel phone. We had Apple phones in the past, however our son and his wife were so pleased with their Google phones that we thought we would try them too. I thought that I would miss the Apple phones, however I can't say that I have. It does everything just a well, including DUO, which replaces Face-time and works just fine. I recommend Google-Pixel phones to anyone.

A great phone for the price,this is comparable to a galaxy note 10 plus in processing power and camera,it only has 64 gigs of non expandable storage but it does not come with your standard bloat eare like other phones being this is a straight up android phone. Higly recommend this o e

Best android phone for me! No bloatware to worry about therefore, very fast. It's like the Apple of android. It feels premium and after owning it for almost a year, it still doesn't feel obsolete since it doesn't slow down like a lot of android phones I've seen, and the design is still nice. The white color is nice. If you take a lot of pictures though, i would recommend getting the ones with more memory.

My husband is an HTC user but since they stopped making them he had to get introduced to another phone so I got him this and he says it’s pretty much the same. So if he’s happy then I’m happy!

I wouldn't buy a Google phone again after this device. I used to own Pixel 2 XL and Pixel 3 XL, and this one was a major disappointment in terms of quality. The frame starts to chip away its paint within a week, and ontop of that the glue that secures the backplate against water was not quality. I took it to the beach and it died, versus my old S8 that survived 3 years with multiple trips to the beach.

This is a great phone overall, but is a bit over priced when compared to other phones. I love the stock android experience with no bloatware. The camera is great, battery life is good, build quality is good, and overall it is a great phone, but I should have waited for the black friday deals to pick it up.

Coming from an LGV30 I knew it would be a change but I've always loved pixels. It's snappy responsive and I easily get a day to day and a half of battery life with moderate use.

Got this to replace a 15 year old thermostat because I wanted to control my thermostat remotely through Google Home. The installation was mostly smooth, except I discovered that my old thermostat's C-Wire was not plugged in on the furnace side after the Home app reported that there was no power on the C-Wire. I was able to get it wired correctly on the furnace and then everything worked fine. I'll also note that I had to plug in a few of the wires on this unit a few times before they were all detected, so it was a little finnicky.

This is a simple smart thermostat and doesn't have as many features as the more expensive Nest Thermostat or Ecobee. But, I don't really need any of those features. I just want to change the temperature through Google Assistant. The thermostat was quickly recognised by Google Home and worked flawlessly once I got the wiring issues worked out.

I'm not a huge fan of the wall plate that you have to buy at extra cost. It just looks weird how it curves away from the wall. But, it's fine. The Thermostat had a shiny mirror finish to the screen which can have some glare. Also it turns off when you walk away so you can't see the temperature from far away. But you can always just check the Home app on your phone.

Overall, this is a fine entry level, simple smart thermostat. I used an energy rebate to get $100 off, so check for that as well.

Pretty cool device! I’m glad I got this model and not the most expensive one. This does the job. I can change my temperature from my phone even in the middle of the night without getting out of bed or from the car on the way home from work! It’s easy set up and easy use! I love the graphs it shows of how much energy I used and how much I saved. Very reliable!

Compatible with my Alexa. Haven’t really done much or expected much from it. Easy to install, no issues so far.

I like how I can control the thermostat from my phone very convenient and easy to install if you know what you doing. You definitely will need to purchase the face plate if you had a wider thermostat.

after a few attempts of connecting(replacement of proprietary register),even though it told me it wasn’t compatible with my system, i knew better, and connected anyway. it has wirked flawlessly!

Incredibly simple to use and simple to mount. Perfect size (about that of a hockey puck). 65 inch tv for size reference

It’s a nice product easy to work with..I recommend it.

I bought two of these when they came out on Nov 1, 2020 to upgrade from old honeywell programmable sensors. I have two (2) 24V wire connections: 1 red and 1 white for running my oil furnace.

When I first installed them, I didn't see a problem with them, but soon discovered that they were leeching the battery to run. Fortunately, I could still return them and get money back on my card due to the extra time on the holiday return window. However, it took over a month to see this problem and by that point you wouldn't be able to return them under the 15 day policy.

I ended up splurging and getting the 3rd Generation Nest Learning Thermostat. It's only been running for a couple of days now, but I have them installed upstairs and downstairs and I'm not seeing any battery leech.

If you have 3 wires, you'll probably be fine as you can use one as the C-wire to power your unit. But if you're like me with only 2 wires then my recommendation is to stay away from this model.

I've owned a lot of phones throughout the years. I'm going from an Iphone 12 pro max back to android. I chose the Pixel 6 due to the price and features. This pixel has one of the smoothest screens I've used. I have had no issues with the in screen fingerprint scanner, it has worked great. I enjoy having the power and volume keys on the same side of the phone. The phone feels great in the hand although the back of the phone does acquire smudges a little due to having a glass back. The cameras are great and the night mode works (dare I say) better than the iPhone. I really like this phone. It's hard to put down. The 90 hz screen is very smooth and the screen scroll is fast and enjoyable. As you can tell I'm not good at reviews but I felt I needed another reason to use my phone. In short, Im happy I chose the Pixel 6. I have used the phone as much as I can to test the battery life. I can easily go a day without charging and at the moment I'm using the phone alot throughout the day. Hope this helps someone that's on the fence about choosing. The built in call screening with Google is nice as well.

I'm no tech expert, so no real comments about such things. The phone works very well and fast. The battery life is a big improvement over my old phone. With heavy use, I'll still have 50% or more after 16-20 hours. The camera is fantastic, with good editing features (including removing extraneous people). The phone glass is very slippery so a cover is a necessity. The raised camera surface seemed strange at first, but I like it because it improves the grip on the phone.

Purchased this device recently after seeing how affordable this device is. I bought this to upgrade my mom's aging and problematic Galaxy S8+. I did have a Pixel 2 XL prior, and this was similar to me. It does have the premium feel that the older Galaxies and current iPhones have, with that glass back. But, what I noticed is that the back glass color is gray, not fully black.

One thing I don't like about this device is the camera zoom. My current phone which I purchased from Best Buy last year, has more zoom options. But this is still better than the options that comes on the iPhone.

A solid upgrade from my Pixel 3 with great battery life and excellent camera features...Magic Eraser is awesome. The Pixel 6 is a great value and highly recommended.

It is a great phone. Easy to set up and transfer my data and apps.

Better that going to a Verizon store.

I bought this phone and love it the camera pixel is great works great i love it

best android phone period. clean, no extra apps and stuff you cant get rid of like samsung, fast, smooth and is updated fast

Very nice phone for the money. Phone battery life if wonderful.

This is the best hardware Google has made! Likewise, it is still very much so a Google device. That means your phone will iteratively get better. While that is a good thing it can mean that you will have some pain points if you buy this phone in the first few months after its release. Overall, it is a very smooth, premium Android device that is priced below other comparable phones. If you are someone that is patient enough to let Google work out the issues (listed in the Cons section below) then you are getting one of the best phones to be released this year.

Pros:

- Great hardware design

- Gorgeous screen

- Super smooth and fast UI

- Amazing rear cameras

- No duplicate apps (i.e. 2 web browsers)

- More custom settings available that previously could only be accessed from

- Much cleaner and uniform looking widgets

- The call screening feature is very convenient, and sometimes entertaining.

Cons:

- Front facing camera was extremely grainy in lowlight settings and created pictures that looked cartoonish at best and downright awful at the worst.

- The phone would get very hot when using 5G. One time led to me needing to restart it to cool it down. Another time the camera app displayed a message that the flash was disabled because the phone was too hot.

- Random software errors in a few different apps would freeze the phone until it restarted itself. (No, it would not let me hard reset it)

- UI needs some polish (i.e. PiP works when swiping from the app playing the video or Maps but not if you side swipe from the app playing the video to another app without going home)

- Videos can come out jittery sometimes

- Fingerprint scanner was often times frustratingly slow

- So so battery life

I've been a Pixel fan since day one. I owned all the phones except for the Pixel 5 series. I skipped that one because I felt it was a downgrade compared to my pixel 4. Which brings me to today and my Pixel 6 Pro. I absolutely love this phone.

Prior to my purchase I was worried that the Pixel 6 Pro was too big, or the camera bump would stick out too much and whether I would miss being able to squeeze the phone to summon the google assistant. After using this phone for a few days all those worries went away and it was clear that this was the upgrade I was waiting for.

Everything about this phone is awesome. The display is gorgeous. The processor is super-fast. The cameras are excellent. Bluetooth connects flawlessly, and the size and weight are perfect. It is slightly larger than my pixel 4 and it feels like it weighs about the same weight. Instead of squeezing the phone to summon my assistant now I just have to long press the power button. As for the camera bump, it pretty much disappeared when I put the phone in a case. Then there is my favorite feature of the phone, the battery. All I can say is wow! It easily gets me a full day of use. Almost double of what I got with my pixel 4.

So, If you are like me and are still hanging on to your pixel 4, you can rest easy. The Pixel 6 Pro is the upgrade you've been waiting for. I highly recommend buying it.

I finally decided to move from the Samsung Note series to this option. I have a fully integrated Google home with the complete Best lineup so it made sense for me. It has optimized controlling the home as expected. The camera is next level. I shot the pic attached from 25' away and it has incredible detail even from that distance. Battery could be better but I seldom use the optimizer so that's on me. Very happy with this premium device.

The product is as I read. I was able to use it translate whole documents from another language instantaneously for my work, and I love the pure android experience. The phone does heat up when charging. Overall very good phone experience, loud speakers, great pictures, magic eraser is very amusing to use.

I preordered on 10/23/21 in store and was told best buy was honoring the pixel buds preorder deal from google. The best buy associate ran up the purchase wrong, and when they couldn't go back I was told by 3 separate people, they would make sure I received my 2 buds with my order. I had tried to get written confirmation from customer service and their manager promised the buds verbally. I picked up the order on 10/28 and no buds and was denied them.

I am definitely IMPRESSED! The phone has been hard to find and I'm so thankful that Best Buy had them available with just a 2 day wait. I upgraded from a Pixel 4XL and several years before that had a Pixel 2 XL. I do love the software for the Pixel line so moving to the Pixel 6 Pro was an easy choice for me. The phone is just gorgeous! Well made, quality look and feel. Just excellent craftsmanship. I bought a clear Otterbox Symmetry case to protect the phone. Another great choice.

The Pixel 6 Pro is the largest Google Pixel I've owned and I wasn't sure if the size was right for me. I had the phone for a week now and I really haven't had any issues with it's size. It's barely noticeable while I'm using it. The display is fantastic. Clear, excellent clarity. Motion, scrolling, etc. is flawless, simple and fluid. They've done an amazing job with this phone.

I've heard that the battery doesn't last long on this phone but I have not had that experience. So far, I've been able to get through a full day before charging. The batter saver feature or extreme battery saver feature is available should you need to prevent any issues throughout your day. Those features were available on earlier versions of the Pixel as well.

The software...it's just THE BEST of Android functionality. Google Assistant, camera functionality, picture quality and clarity, magic eraser, call screening, call hold, new home screen widgets, privacy notifications for mic and camera, scrolling screenshots (how long I've wished for that!). The list goes on.

The price is excellent and so I opted for the 256GB version and I'm so happy I did. It has been so much fun exploring this phone for the last week and I know I haven't even scratched the surface of the functionality yet. This is DEFINITELY the BEST Pixel yet!

So far this phone is super dope. I had the original pixel xl then the small size pixel 3 and hadn't upgraded since then. I was worried about the size but I preordered several cases off the zon and realized compared to the pixel xl it wasn't that much bigger so I was like let's go. The phone is awesome and whenever I look at my small pixel 3 I wonder how I took pictures or played games on such a small cellular device. My only complaint is the fingerprint scanner is slower than the one on the 3 but I have noticed it getting faster the more I use it as several other reviews have noted. I'm a pretty heavy user and the battery is awesome. It takes forever to run down and it's so big that with my old charger I could literally never get it fully charged. But with my 30w charger it charges real fast all the way to 100. Cases are still sparse but I'm using a cheap case until my real one comes and I got some sticky tape to put on the back of it so I don't drop it. I like the grippy cases. I get 5g everywhere I go and it hooks up to the radio in my car good using the bluetooth connection. I took some pics of the sunrise yesterday morning and they were supurb. The magical eraser is really cool it will erase anything you want. Sometimes it just leaves a big blob of a single color but whatever you wanted gone is gone. Pixel 6 pro 10/10 hit the subscribe button below for more great content.

I switched over from ab Iphone 12 pro.... I have been with iphones since the 3 and honeslty they just stopped innovation. So I made a change and thus far have very much enjoyed it. The screen is beautiful and the ease of use is fantastic. I thought I would miss the face ID and I don't. Overall the battery life is way better too.

Upgraded from Pixel 2, which I loved but was slowing down. Been waiting for this release for some time because I wasn’t thrilled with the earlier models. I’m excited to use the camera upgrades, but haven’t had a chance yet. My biggest disappointment is loss of the rear fingerprint reader even though I knew it was happening. It was so effortless to use on the rear, which is why I’ve only given it 4 stars instead of 5. Having the reader on the front is much more clunky. I hope they consider returning to it in a future model.

This is the best hardware Google has made! Likewise, it is still very much so a Google device. That means your phone will iteratively get better. While that is a good thing it can mean that you will have some pain points if you buy this phone in the first few months after its release. Overall, it is a very smooth, premium Android device that is priced below other comparable phones. If you are someone that is patient enough to let Google work out the issues (listed in the Cons section below) then you are getting one of the best phones to be released this year.

Pros:

- Great hardware design

- Gorgeous screen

- Super smooth and fast UI

- Amazing rear cameras

- No duplicate apps (i.e. 2 web browsers)

- More custom settings available that previously could only be accessed from

- Much cleaner and uniform looking widgets

- The call screening feature is very convenient, and sometimes entertaining.

Cons:

- Front facing camera was extremely grainy in lowlight settings and created pictures that looked cartoonish at best and downright awful at the worst.

- The phone would get very hot when using 5G. One time led to me needing to restart it to cool it down. Another time the camera app displayed a message that the flash was disabled because the phone was too hot.

- Random software errors in a few different apps would freeze the phone until it restarted itself. (No, it would not let me hard reset it)

- UI needs some polish (i.e. PiP works when swiping from the app playing the video or Maps but not if you side swipe from the app playing the video to another app without going home)

- Videos can come out jittery sometimes

- Fingerprint scanner was often times frustratingly slow

- So so battery life

I've been a Pixel fan since day one. I owned all the phones except for the Pixel 5 series. I skipped that one because I felt it was a downgrade compared to my pixel 4. Which brings me to today and my Pixel 6 Pro. I absolutely love this phone.

Prior to my purchase I was worried that the Pixel 6 Pro was too big, or the camera bump would stick out too much and whether I would miss being able to squeeze the phone to summon the google assistant. After using this phone for a few days all those worries went away and it was clear that this was the upgrade I was waiting for.

Everything about this phone is awesome. The display is gorgeous. The processor is super-fast. The cameras are excellent. Bluetooth connects flawlessly, and the size and weight are perfect. It is slightly larger than my pixel 4 and it feels like it weighs about the same weight. Instead of squeezing the phone to summon my assistant now I just have to long press the power button. As for the camera bump, it pretty much disappeared when I put the phone in a case. Then there is my favorite feature of the phone, the battery. All I can say is wow! It easily gets me a full day of use. Almost double of what I got with my pixel 4.

So, If you are like me and are still hanging on to your pixel 4, you can rest easy. The Pixel 6 Pro is the upgrade you've been waiting for. I highly recommend buying it.

I finally decided to move from the Samsung Note series to this option. I have a fully integrated Google home with the complete Best lineup so it made sense for me. It has optimized controlling the home as expected. The camera is next level. I shot the pic attached from 25' away and it has incredible detail even from that distance. Battery could be better but I seldom use the optimizer so that's on me. Very happy with this premium device.

The product is as I read. I was able to use it translate whole documents from another language instantaneously for my work, and I love the pure android experience. The phone does heat up when charging. Overall very good phone experience, loud speakers, great pictures, magic eraser is very amusing to use.

I preordered on 10/23/21 in store and was told best buy was honoring the pixel buds preorder deal from google. The best buy associate ran up the purchase wrong, and when they couldn't go back I was told by 3 separate people, they would make sure I received my 2 buds with my order. I had tried to get written confirmation from customer service and their manager promised the buds verbally. I picked up the order on 10/28 and no buds and was denied them.

I am definitely IMPRESSED! The phone has been hard to find and I'm so thankful that Best Buy had them available with just a 2 day wait. I upgraded from a Pixel 4XL and several years before that had a Pixel 2 XL. I do love the software for the Pixel line so moving to the Pixel 6 Pro was an easy choice for me. The phone is just gorgeous! Well made, quality look and feel. Just excellent craftsmanship. I bought a clear Otterbox Symmetry case to protect the phone. Another great choice.

The Pixel 6 Pro is the largest Google Pixel I've owned and I wasn't sure if the size was right for me. I had the phone for a week now and I really haven't had any issues with it's size. It's barely noticeable while I'm using it. The display is fantastic. Clear, excellent clarity. Motion, scrolling, etc. is flawless, simple and fluid. They've done an amazing job with this phone.

I've heard that the battery doesn't last long on this phone but I have not had that experience. So far, I've been able to get through a full day before charging. The batter saver feature or extreme battery saver feature is available should you need to prevent any issues throughout your day. Those features were available on earlier versions of the Pixel as well.

The software...it's just THE BEST of Android functionality. Google Assistant, camera functionality, picture quality and clarity, magic eraser, call screening, call hold, new home screen widgets, privacy notifications for mic and camera, scrolling screenshots (how long I've wished for that!). The list goes on.

The price is excellent and so I opted for the 256GB version and I'm so happy I did. It has been so much fun exploring this phone for the last week and I know I haven't even scratched the surface of the functionality yet. This is DEFINITELY the BEST Pixel yet!

So far this phone is super dope. I had the original pixel xl then the small size pixel 3 and hadn't upgraded since then. I was worried about the size but I preordered several cases off the zon and realized compared to the pixel xl it wasn't that much bigger so I was like let's go. The phone is awesome and whenever I look at my small pixel 3 I wonder how I took pictures or played games on such a small cellular device. My only complaint is the fingerprint scanner is slower than the one on the 3 but I have noticed it getting faster the more I use it as several other reviews have noted. I'm a pretty heavy user and the battery is awesome. It takes forever to run down and it's so big that with my old charger I could literally never get it fully charged. But with my 30w charger it charges real fast all the way to 100. Cases are still sparse but I'm using a cheap case until my real one comes and I got some sticky tape to put on the back of it so I don't drop it. I like the grippy cases. I get 5g everywhere I go and it hooks up to the radio in my car good using the bluetooth connection. I took some pics of the sunrise yesterday morning and they were supurb. The magical eraser is really cool it will erase anything you want. Sometimes it just leaves a big blob of a single color but whatever you wanted gone is gone. Pixel 6 pro 10/10 hit the subscribe button below for more great content.

I switched over from ab Iphone 12 pro.... I have been with iphones since the 3 and honeslty they just stopped innovation. So I made a change and thus far have very much enjoyed it. The screen is beautiful and the ease of use is fantastic. I thought I would miss the face ID and I don't. Overall the battery life is way better too.

Upgraded from Pixel 2, which I loved but was slowing down. Been waiting for this release for some time because I wasn’t thrilled with the earlier models. I’m excited to use the camera upgrades, but haven’t had a chance yet. My biggest disappointment is loss of the rear fingerprint reader even though I knew it was happening. It was so effortless to use on the rear, which is why I’ve only given it 4 stars instead of 5. Having the reader on the front is much more clunky. I hope they consider returning to it in a future model.

The new Pixelbook Go is Google’s latest series of Chromebooks, and it is absolutely fantastic. Apparently, it is intended to be a “scaled down” Pixelbook Chromebook. The Pixelbook Go is available in several configurations including this entry-level model which has an Intel Core m3 CPU, 8GB of RAM and 64GB of SSD storage. The next level model has an Intel Core i5 CPU with either 8GB or 16GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The top tier has an Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. All 3 CPUs are 8th generation. The first two models have Full HD, 1920x1080, 16x9 Aspect Ratio, 13.3” Touchscreen Displays, while the top tier model adds a 4k, Ultra HD Display. The Corning Concore glass touchscreen panels are very reflective, which is very typical of touchscreens and which also obviously readily collect fingerprints. The touchscreen is very responsive and pleasant to use. Inasmuch as Google used Corning Concore glass, it is reasonable to surmise that these are “One Glass Solution” (OGS) screens, which utilize a sheet of high-strength Concore Glass as the top sheet of the display panel, rather than a second sheet of glass being laminated to the top of the panel. This results in a thinner, lighter and more economical display panel, and undoubtedly contributes to the extremely thin, 0.5” thickness profile of the Pixelbook Go. Off-axis angle viewing is very decent, but of course the greater the off-axis angle, the more visibility, contrast and color fidelity deteriorate. Overall, the display genuinely appears to be excellent. It is bright and vivid, with good color rendition and color fidelity, and is very nice to view. Videos and TV streams look great and don’t suffer from buffering or lagging.

The clamshell case is very impressive. The painted magnesium alloy case is a very elegant and high-end attribute. It both looks and feels very impressive, and it is reasonable to surmise that it is likely to be very durable. The bottom of the case is scalloped. Perhaps that is for structure, perhaps it is merely aesthetic, but perhaps it might have been designed to serve both as a heat-sink with the additional surface area, as well as providing convection cooling via the scalloped channels. In fact, when the computer is working hard, such as when running multiple video streams, the bottom of the Pixelbook Go, as well as the area above the keyboard get palpably warm. This Pixelbook Go is remarkably lightweight. The specifications claim 2.3lbs (1061g). The size, weight and tough magnesium case really make this easy to move around and easy and convenient to carry and makes it the default travelling device.

On initial setup, the Pixelbook Go commenced a lengthy update process which evidently included updating most or all of the apps as well as the device’s firmware (including a notification that the touchpad firmware was being updated). Flashing the firmware is likely what consumed most of the time. As is standard with all Chromebooks, setup is extremely easy, and if you choose to sync devices, all browser shortcuts, passwords, etc. will be automatically imported to this device during the initial setup process.

The backlit keyboard has very nice feel and key rebound, and relatively quiet sound. Key travel is short, and the keyboard is compact, necessarily constrained by the dimensions of the case. Typing is very comfortable with this high-quality keyboard, and I find backlighting to be absolutely indispensable, and an absolute necessity. When the Pixelbook Go is sleeping, touching any key or the touchpad awakens the display and backlit keyboard. The touchpad is oversized and responsive, a nice and convenient attribute.

Even in this base configuration with the Core m3 CPU and 8GB of RAM, the Pixelbook Go performed very well with many open browser windows and tabs and multiple live-TV streams running simultaneously. I really expected the unit to choke with a far less demanding load on the CPU and video sections. This performance was truly very impressive. This is a very powerful and capable Chromebook. This base, entry-level configuration is not at all inferior or insufficient. In fact, it is genuinely excellent.

The battery life on the Pixelbook Go is really great. Google claims up to 12 hours of use, but obviously battery life is extremely dependent on how the computer is being used, and especially how much time the screen is active. I’m finding that all-day use for browsing, email (many), live-streaming news broadcasts, etc. is well within the battery capacity. In fact, during the course of a single day I used the Pixelbook Go extensively, with at least 7 to 10 tabs or browser instances active throughout, the screen/display kept on throughout and including 6.5 hours of live-streaming TV in addition to the foregoing. After 11.5 hours of this very heavy utilization, 11.5 hours of screen on including 6.5 hours of live-streaming broadcast TV, the Pixelbook Go reported 6% remaining battery capacity. If this Pixelbook Go had only typical, intermittent use during the day, and the screen was allowed to turn off and the computer had any time of no activity in which to “sleep”, I am certain that the run-time would have exceeded the claimed 12 hour capacity. In fact, with this very heavy use example, I’m confident that the battery would have kept the Chromebook alive for another 0.5 hours, easily. Demonstrating fantastic battery performance, coupled with the superior portability of the Pixelbook Go, this is obviously the Chromebook to take along when away from home.

The camera works well, but is nothing special. It’s fine for video chats (its intended purpose). The audio is stereo (of course) and sounds excellent. The audio quality, fidelity, volume and projection were all very good, and the stereo separation has a nice spatial quality that makes the Pixelbook Go pleasant to listen to. There is a headphone jack and Bluetooth headphones are of course supported. The Wi-Fi performance is also excellent. The Wi-Fi specs include: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2x2 (MIMO), dual-band (2.4 GHz, 5.0 GHz), and it utilized the full available bandwidth of the Wi-Fi stream, with its 2x2 Mimo.

Whereas almost everything about the hardware platform of the Pixelbook Go appears to be first rate, Google clearly economized on the number of ports provided. There are only two USB-C ports (one on each side) and a headphone jack (3.5mm). Additionally, one of those USB-C jacks must be used for battery charging. There is no SD Card slot and no USB-A ports to accept the ubiquitous USB thumb drives that we all use. At the price levels of these computers, there really should be more connectivity options, inclusive of SD Card acceptance.

A perplexing matter is that of the pre-established obsolescence schedule for all Chromebooks and Google Pixel phones. Chromebooks, irrespective of manufacturer, are currently only supported for 6.5 years (thankfully increased from 5 years in 2017) with OS and Security updates (termed the “Auto Update Expiration (AUE) date” by Google). The 6.5 years begins when the particular hardware platform is initially released into the retail channel (not from when the particular model enters the marketplace, nor when the computer is purchased). Pixel phones receive only three years of support. This Pixelbook Go is replacing a less than five year old Acer Chromebook that has already received its “final update notification” from Google. It still operates perfectly well, but without Security updates it is destined for consignment to oblivion. These support policies do not appear to be in the best interests of consumers. Additionally, since most electronics in the US are not recycled (and many components are not recyclable at all), these end of life policies increase the amount of landfill waste and environmental pollution.

Overall, the Pixelbook Go is absolutely a first rate, top-of-the-line Chromebook. It is quite powerful and fast. It is compact and light-weight, and epitomizes portability and convenience. The case is elegant and a good measure above typical computers, with its thin profile and sleek magnesium shell. The display is also outstanding, and in addition to being full HD, it is a touch-screen. The battery performance is truly excellent, exceeding expectations. The keyboard sounds and feels great, and is backlit. It does everything very well, and its performance is clearly superior to many other Chromebooks, and certainly far better than one might anticipate from a “base-level” configuration.

The Pixelbook Go is fantastic, and a pleasure to use. I am extremely impressed with the Pixelbook Go, and I am genuinely enjoying it. It is a wonderful Chromebook that is worthy of accolades. Of course, I recommend it highly.

Wasn't really sure of what to expect choosing this Google Pixelbook Go 13.3" Touch-Screen Chromebook in exchange for an honest review. In the past Chrome OS has not been stellar, but now it turns out to be a great alternative to both Windows and Apple OS. So, after three weeks of constant use It appears to me that the Google Chrome Platform doesn't need the latest, greatest, most powerful Intel Chip, immense memory, or a huge hard drive to operate fast. It does quite well with the 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i5 processor coupled with 8 GB Ram of memory and 128GB SSD. Amazing speed! What also makes this Pixelbook Go so versatile is that I can download numerous Android Apps and software from the Google Play Store like MS Word and Excel. WooHoo! In addition to Google Docs and Presentations this makes this laptop ideal for any kind of productivity for a home office, student, or any professional 'on-the-go'.

Here is what I love about this Pixelbook Go:

*** DESIGN & BUILD – The lightweight magnesium shell is cleverly designed with a matte black finish, ribbed bottom with two rubberized strips to keep this attractive unit from slipping on any hard surfaces.

* I love that it is pretty much fingerprint resistant and classy looking too. This sleek unit weighs approximately 2.3 pounds.

* It is designed to be super-portable, and as a laptop only. The ribbed bottom makes it easy to grip and carry anywhere.

* At only a half inch thick, it is thin enough to slide in my backpack. It can also fit into a medium sized handbag, or carrier.

* Love the rounded edges, which make this unit so easy to handle and comfortable in my lap.

* What I like about using this unit in my lap is that it does not heat up like my larger Windows unit does.

** HARDWARE FEATURES – First, the keyboard is backlit, and is adjustable for brightness. The keys are illuminated, individually, without light escaping around the keys perimeter. The Hush Keys are silent and responsive to my touch.

* A trackpad is conveniently placed in the very center of the unit. It is sensitive and can be adjusted to accommodate anyone's personal preferences.

* The LCD, Touch Screen display is 13.3 inches with full HD, 1920x1080 pixels. I was impressed with the brilliance and quality while streaming Netflix Christmas movies with my Grand Kids.

* The dual stereo speakers deliver unbelievable sound quality for a medium-sized unit, and can be enhanced by an EQ App downloaded from the Play Store for even richer performance.

* The 2MP, 1080p front duo cams allow for dynamic videoconferencing in Google Hangouts. Impressive!

* There are two USB-C ports and one 3.5mm headphone jack or auxiliary audio output. Either USB-C port can charge this unit using the included 6.5 foot charging cable with the 45W USB-C wall power adapter featuring fold in/out prongs. I discovered that there is a USB-C to SD card adapter, which allows me to use a 128GB SD card as additional storage. I can also use the second USB-C port to connect an additional screen display.

* The WI-Fi connection is 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, which allows me to take advantage of my routers ability to MU-MIMO. It features a 2x2 MIMO dual-band Wi-Fi for even faster uninterrupted download speeds for video streaming.

* For data storage the Pixelbook incorporates a 128 GB, flash, SSD drive, with low power draw on the battery and decreased heat production.

* The Intel i5-8200Y processor is eighth generation, and uses very little power. It is a dual core processor featuring Intel's Turbo Boost technology.

* This Pixelbook Go is also Bluetooth 4.2, which allows me to connect my BT mouse for more efficient scrolling and word processing functions, or, any other BT device like auxiliary speakers or even a printer.

*** CHROME OS – Chrome features thousands of Android apps for productivity and entertainment. I downloaded MS Word and Excel from the Play Store so that I could use this laptop on the road for my part-time, consulting job. I am also impressed with Google Docs and Presentations.

* Set-Up was very simple. All I needed was my Wi-Fi connection to my home router and my Google account as outlined in the included Quick Start Guide. The Pixelbook turns ON as I opened the unit. The on-screen instructions guided me through the whole set-up. It took approximately five minutes and I was ready to GO.

* What I really appreciate is that Chrome features its own virus protection with automatic updates to includes updating the Chrome OS too. These updates operate in the background and do not require any user interface. This saves me money from buying additional third-party virus protection. Great!

* The Chrome OS also provides cloud backups. I found that the more I use this OS the more I wonder if I ever really needed Windows. Chrome is a simple OS to learn, and very User-Friendly. Chrome OS is not bloated with unneeded add-ons and features like Windows, which require higher processing speeds, gobs of RAM memory, and a huge hard drive.

* I am amazed at how fast this Pixelbook Go actually is. It automatically turns ON when I open it and goes directly to my designated Home Page in just a few seconds. I primarily use this Pixelbook Go for creating construction-related documents, e-mail, and streaming Netflix movies for entertainment. It performs all my activities with quick speed, which was an unexpected surprise and plus. YaHoo!

* I can also connect my Android phone to my Pixelbook for 'Smart Lock' and message notifications. My Android phone can lock and unlock my Pixelbook if I so choose and allow me to both send and receive messages on my Pixelbook.

* I can also sync with my Android phone to connect my Pixelbook to the Internet using my phone's mobile data (tethering). This comes in handy when there is no WI-FI connection and I need to have an Internet connection to my Pixelbook.

* Be aware that the Pixelbook Go can only be BT connected to an Android phone for now. An IOS phone is not compatible at this time.

*** BATTERY LIFE – For what activities I do and my settings of the backlit key brightness, and screen display levels allow me approximately 10 hours of battery use. YooHoo! About an hour less if I stream a movie. That is more then enough to last me one day of full use.

*** SUMMARY – After three weeks of everyday use I am totally impressed with this Pixelbook Go. I highly recommend this Pixelbook Go as an efficient alternative to Windows and Mac. It allows me to be productive in creating both Word and Google Documents, and, is fantastic for streaming movies. Just the right size for people on-the-go. For its size processor it is one speedy machine with a simple Chrome OS for everyday computer activities. If you are considering serious gaming, photo, and, or, graphics editing, this machine may not fit your needs. However, I think it is an excellent choice for a student, and, plan on buying one for my Grandson, who is going to be in his first year of college this Spring. It's productivity Apps and Portability make this a great choice for him. If you buy one you won't be disappointed.

I have used quite a few Chromebooks over the years, and the absolute first thing I noticed about the Chromebook Go was the build. Admittedly, the design is perfect for me. It is simple, clean, sleek and matte black everywhere. It is made of magnesium but is coated in some type of material that gives it both a nice feel as well as look. It has a very solid feel in the hand, yet, it is also very light. In addition, the bottom has a ribbed design that I have never seen on laptop before. It is very practical and also gives you confidence when you have it in your hand and are on the go. I have been taking this everywhere and I barely notice the weight and am impressed with how it is holding up.

Boot times are near instant and initial set-up is extremely easy (with your Google account), although you can dig deeper on some settings if you like. Even though I had some minor concerns regarding the Intel Core M3 chip going in, performance has been great. That is the beauty of Chrome OS. It does not need much to excel and I could not be happier. Chrome with a slew of tabs is no issue, and I have been able to nail down all of my work with ease using Google’s Suite of services as well as some Microsoft Office Apps when required. Having access to Play Store Apps on the Chromebook is a fantastic change. While not all apps will work, I love seeing continued improvements to the platform.

That said, life is not all Gmail and work. The touchscreen is Full HD 1080p, with great brightness levels, nice details and full, rich and vivid color. The speakers, located on both sides of the keyboard, sound unexpectedly, well, awesome. There is lots of volume, some bass (yes, a little bass), and little to no distortion at high volume. I consume a TON of media, both at home as well as when I am out, and this thing is fantastic. I have regularly been streaming YouTube TV, Netflix and more recently Disney+ and have liked what I have been seeing (and hearing). It is a good media experience.

Having a touchscreen is great, but ultimately, you need a keyboard. An OK one will be…just OK. A bad one? It can ruin an entire computer. A good one? It can be a pleasure to use. That is the case here. It is tough to say, but this may be the best keyboard I have ever used. The layout, spacing and travel are all great. It is extremely quiet and the keys just “feel nice.” It is also backlit with minimal to no bleed through. Google nailed it. If you are a writer or do a lot of typing, try to find one and give it a try. The trackpad is much of the same. Nice size, responsive and a good feel, BUT, whoa, the click is loud. Noticeably loud. By no means a deal-breaker but keep it in mind.

Lastly, it is a Chromebook. You will be taking it with you. Everywhere. It doesn’t work without power. Google rates the battery for 12 hours of use and while how long your battery lasts depends on so many factors, I can only say battery life has been great. I have been using my machine pretty hard and generally am doing everything I need and want to throughout the day with battery to spare. Again, your use case is probably different than mine, but I feel confident it won’t be an issue for you. In addition, it comes with a 45W USB-C charger that supports Quick Charge. You should get 2 hours of use from a 20-minute charge.

In conclusion, I think this is a fantastic machine. It is well-built, lightweight, portable, and performs well. The display and speakers are great for media, battery life is very strong, and the keyboard is among the best I have used. Chrome OS has evolved a lot over the years and continues to do so. If Chrome OS is for you, and I would guess it is for most people, it is hard for me to find a better way to use it than this Chromebook.

Google Pixelbook Go 13.3" Touch-Screen Chromebook (Intel Core m3; 8GB Memory; 64GB Solid State Drive): My first introduction to Chromebooks a few years ago took me by surprise. They were more competent and compatible than I expected. But, those Chromebook versions were not as lightweight and convenient as I was led to believe. I think Google has made a course correction in this version of the Google Pixelbook Go. While remaining competent and very compatible, it also is more convenient and comfortable enough to take everywhere. This particular model Pixelbook Go has a simple, exceptionally sleek look with a “groovy” bottom surface that adds some uniqueness and ease-of-handling.

SETUP: I use a stopwatch these days to test setup and App installation. This Google Pixelbook was ready to use in under 5 minutes. I was online, receiving email, selecting a few more Apps to download and seeing if my photos and movies were ready to review. Yes. I was really ready to work. This notebook required an update, but that didn’t take more than a few more minutes with my fast internet connection. The selection of Apps is incredibly large, with so many useful and free.

There are two USB-C™⁵ charging and display outputs (2). I had a fairly generic, multi-port dock available which allowed me to use an ethernet connection, and add USB devices or an external monitor or similar peripherals. I don’t concern myself with ports because I’m willing to trade off to get more portability.

PERFORMANCE: While I understand that this is the slower of the available Google Pixelbook Go processors, the included 8GB RAM, the 64GB SSD, as well as the remarkably easy and useful free access (15GB) to Google Drive conceals any limitations. Google Apps are often efficient and mostly compatible. The result is a computer that always feels fast and responsive to anything I wanted to do.

The screen is bright, with appropriate contrast, and very colorful. The keyboard has a soft feel, but the keys and trackpad are sensitive and responsive. The speakers are face up, alongside of the keyboard, and can get loud for personal listening. That headphone port makes it easy to connect to an external (not included) system, which you’ll want to add for some better bass. I streamed several movies from my GooglePlay Movie “locker”, (Finding Nemo and Jersey Boys) to test black levels, skin tones, and color. This is a very high quality screen with a wide and useful field of view. I don’t just work on the road; I love my movies-on-the-go. At just over 2lbs., the Pixelbook Go is very very easy to manage. It’s also great for working wherever you take it. Students will love it.

INTEROPERABILITY: The major rationale for a Chromebook for me is lightweight usefulness. Translation? I absolutely need to exchange data, pictures, and videos with my other devices but I hate traveling with unnecessary weight. I took the easy way out for this first test and sent my new Google Pixelbook a series of attachments: TEXT (RTF), WORD, EXCEL, PDF, and JPG. EVERY other file type was handled easily, with the Chromebook offering at least one App to manage or edit my transferred files. Videos of my grandson, created on a MacBook now played on my Pixelbook. My Word document was opened without hiccup by a Google Doc, and my simple EXCEL file was opened by Google Sheet. Both were ready to edit.. . . on this Chromebook.

SUMMARY: The Google Pixelbook Go approach, with portability, comfort, ease of use, simpler programs and dependence on online storage challenges notions that you need to lug a powerful, near-desktop to get work done on the road. Transitioning between my newest MacBook pro with i7 and this Google Pixelbook was problem-free. Speed is NOT an issue. In fact, those instances where I’m sitting and waiting often favored the Pixelbook’s simpler demands. Carrying around the Pixelbook just seemed smart, and looked professional. I can easily recommend this Pixelbook Go.

Purchased the Google Pixelbook Go for my 6th grader July of 2020 and it's been working out great for at home learning this fall. She uses Chrome books at school so was familiar with how they operate. This is my first experience & I love it too. When she's not using it, I use it for web browsing, emails, Netflix and have even created a few spreadsheets. Was surprised how amazing the sound was that comes from two speakers on each side of the keyboard. The images on the screen are great too, my MacBook Air looks better of course but for just over $600 it's perfect. The keyboard is super responsive and comfortable to type. Love the light weight also as I hold it on my lap when not at my desk. Battery life lasts me all day, have never had an issue running out of juice. Looking for a printer that's compatible right now, my Brother Laser did not work with it and I bought an Anker adapter for the USB to C connection for some devices. Love it overall and would buy again for sure. :)

Computer is great, but it’s very hard connecting accessories such as the pen, mouse and headset. We manage to get the headset working after many tries, but so far not the pen and mouse.

But all-in-all great purchase.

Love everything about it! except how it absorbs prints on touch screen and it's outer magnesium body and not having bluetooth 5.0 only 4.2 . But no deal breaker best chromebook i've owned after owning 2 previous chromebooks. Price is some what expensive should've cost 500.00 to 550.00 but with Titan security chip & updates till 2026 with magnesium build & feel not plastic it's worth it's price rather have good quality very pleased & content with purchase!

WOW this is a fast start and load time. You wouldn't think it would be this fast and so thin. I love how they have made the bottom with a rubber ridges on. I feel safe putting this on any surface i have no fear of it slipping off. This is very light and thin easy to carry around. Screen has a great picture on it and the SOUND is AWESOME i haven't seen a laptop with 2 speakers on top that sound this good. The touch screen is a great feature on this easy touch. The Battery life is good i haven't used it all up yet i want to use it for a whole day to see how long it really last. They make this so easy to use just unfold it and its on to start the set up only took 5min nothing hard just sign in to your Google and your good to go. This can go anywhere as light as it is doesn't really feel like you are hold any extra weight. I wont give you all the specs of the device like the GB, RAM or SSD size. I will just tell you i really enjoy this as my new device. I added pictures of the device so you can see what i'm talking about.

~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.

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!!

The Google Pixel 6 Pro has a myriad of features that I explored for a week. I think this phone is outstanding and close to perfect. It’s fun to use and I’m looking forward to continuing learning about Google features that can enhance my day-to-day smartphone experience. There are so many features that I didn't even get to cover it all in this lengthy review. I’ve always been an Android user and I’ve just upgraded from a Galaxy S9 which I had for over 3 years.

GOOGLE TENSOR PROCESSOR

The new Google Tensor custom-built processor lends to a powerful performance and I can attest to that. I’ve experienced no issues navigating between apps or having multiple apps open at one time. From a user standpoint I can confirm that what makes Pixel 6 the flagship line is the processor and the camera.

CAMERA

I have been super excited to try out the camera because I’m new to Pixel phones and the camera is their claim to fame. I am a camera enthusiast and take many photos. I’ve heard so much about the Pixel camera so I was eager to see if it lives up to the hype. So far, it does. I feel like phone cameras are getting closer and closer to DSLR quality.

- MAGIC ERASER

The first thing that caught my attention was the Magic Eraser tool. Very cool to use and when it works, it’s wonderful to have that editing feature handy! I like that it will occasionally make erasing suggestions. The tool itself can be hit and miss though, depending on what you’re trying to erase. If there’s a [mostly] solid color around your editing selection, it will perform fine. But if you’re selecting a piece that’s by something with a lot of variance (like a fence) or a selection on top of an edge between contrasting surfaces, the Magic Eraser has trouble making a true content-aware fill and will sometimes make jagged fills, hard edge/corners around the edited selection. I’ll attach some photos that show this. The Magic Eraser does not replace PhotoShop’s healing brush or stamp tool but it’ll work in a pinch, especially if you can forgive any mistakes. It’s a really cool feature that can be a little finicky at times but overall I’ve already taken advantage of the Magic Eraser with positive results.

- ZOOM FOR STILL AND VIDEOS

The zoom on the CAMERA is quite impressive as the shots look clear at 20x. Outdoor natural lighting made the quality pop but I was impressed at how much (or how little) grain was in the photos zoomed into the maximum 20x. 1x zoom on VIDEO looks crisp; it’s when you get to 4x or max 7x that you start noticing decreased video quality, though it still renders an acceptable video.

- NIGHT SIGHT

Night Sight is good and captures vivid colors, but as with any low-lighting situation, the camera must remain still for a few seconds. This mode is best used with poses and doesn’t lend well to movement.

- PORTRAIT MODE

Portrait Mode can offer great photos in the right conditions. I suggest posing to avoid gaps (i.e. between arms) as sometimes the blur effect doesn’t notice them and will leave the background in the gaps in focus. I’ve already taken some beautiful photos of my dog that I can’t wait to print. I tried Portrait mode on myself and it has a little trouble handling my frizzy hair which is a little disappointing. Understandable though because the background blur is simulated, whereas a DSLR will capture true depth of field. I took some with a hat on and it worked much better for me because it was able to better decipher the outline of my head. The Photos app also allows editing of the background blurriness in Portrait Mode which I absolutely love to tinker with.

- PHOTO COLOR QUALITY

The colors in the photos are very saturated and make for colorful and vivid images. I would like a little less saturation but that’s a personal preference. Using Photos with the Pixel 6 Pro is a treat because there are so many editing tools available to tweak settings like saturation, contrast, brightness, etc. as well as adding sky enhancing filters, general filters, and much more.

- GENERAL VIDEO & VIDEO STABILIZATION

The video is generally good quality. The Pixel 6 Pro has a “Get photos from this video” feature that suggests frames to be exported as a single shot in view mode. As for the Stabilization features, unfortunately I was only able to test this out in my backyard. I didn’t get a good sense of the difference in quality between Standard and Active. They both had a distinct blur during rapid movements, but I was capturing my dog running at close to moderate distances. I’m hoping I can take more advantage of this feature in the future in other conditions.

- EDITING & MORE

There are so many editing features to work with! The camera itself has many modes to shoot with and I haven’t actually been able to get into everything, but I did take advantage of the main shooting modes and editing tools and I’m very happy so far. There were a couple of instances where the phone took a long time to process an image that I edited a lot. It hasn’t happened but once or twice; I’m not too worried about it.

BATTERY LIFE

The battery life has been great, though new phones tend to do well in the early months of ownership. As expected, video streaming will eat up more battery than social/other apps.

- WORK DAY DIARY

My day starts at 6am. I’ve been running YouTube on the phone periodically throughout the day. It’s 3:45pm and I’m at 45% battery. I just plugged it in, and it shows it will take 1hr 45min till Fully Charged. I charged it until it got to 50% then unplugged it to move about. It’s 7:30pm now and battery life is at 42% (about 12 hr 43 min left). Not bad! Next day update: I left it off the charger all night, it’s now 9am and the battery is at 26%.

- EVENT DAY DIARY

I unplugged the phone around 7:30am with 100% battery. I went to an outdoor festival and used the camera frequently throughout the day. I didn’t use many other apps, maybe a messaging app or social media check once but mainly used the camera. Back home at 5:15pm the battery is at 50%. I continued to use my phone throughout the evening, going through photos and editing. The phone hit 12% around midnight when I was finally ready to charge it for the night.

- OVERALL

Safe to say, I’m very impressed with the battery life as it lasted all day with constant use. Charging time is on the normal side, not super quick or slow. The Pixel 6 Pro does not come with a charging cable/box but since my last phone has a USB-C connection, I already have chargers ready to go.

SETUP

I’m glad I started up the Pixel 6 Pro in the middle of a free day because it takes a couple of hours to fully set up. I was able to activate cell service with my old T-Mobile SIM card and used the included USB-C to USB-C cable to transfer data from my S9. The startup made the phone very hot to the touch, but that seems like a one-time issue so far. After setup was complete, I took some more time to start learning the navigation/UI.

USER INTERFACE

The Pixel 6 Pro offers a “Pixel Tips” section (found in Settings) that really helped me get used to the interface. As I mentioned, I owned a Galaxy S9 for about 3 years so I’d been used to that navigation and the gestures became muscle memory. After a week with the Pixel 6 Pro, I’m already getting acclimated to the gestures, and I am so grateful for the Tips section that has little tutorials on how to “go back”, navigate from app to app, or how to take full advantage of the camera settings and tools. The entire front of the phone is a screen meaning there are no physical buttons, so the tutorials are essential to learn a UI I’ve never used before.

FINGERPRINT SCANNER

I installed a film screen protector and have had no excessive issues with the fingerprint scanner. My issue with the scanner is the light that emits from under my finger. It’s really bright in low-light situations which is the norm for me. I hope there is an update that either lowers the brightness or at least allows users to adjust it in the settings. As for the scanner quality, I have found no outstanding issue. It reads reasonably quickly for me.

GOOGLE ASSISTANT

In the past week, I’ve been able to utilize Google Assistant for a few things like Routine (found in Alarms), Call Screening, Wait Times, Hold for Me, and more, making for a well rounded smartphone experience. It’s these extra features that makes me think “I didn’t know what I was missing”.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

The Google Pixel 6 Pro is a great phone. Highly recommend it! I’m happy to have this phone for years to come.

Google pixel 6 pro, is an impressive phone . You get so many features at a reasonable price. All my other things that I have backed up on my other Android phone, were transferred over although being a different brand. You can even transfer your iphone files and other data/ settings to the pixel with the included dongle . Connect the iphone to the pixel and it will begin the transfer. Super easy to setup follow the directions given and you get a nice tutorial when you first start using the phone that helps explain in detail and shows you video clips on how it's done . I appreciate all that Google did to make my experience a favorable one. I definitely love that they (Google) send out updates pretty fast. The fingerprint scanner is much faster now after the update . The camera is amazing plus the advertised features like magic tool that help erase things in your photos that you don't want and it looks like it was done professionally. Super easy to do. The live translation is pretty good as well having signs or notes written in another language translated on the go and works fast . You have live captions while you’re talking on the phone it’s a hit or miss depends on the accent or the way certain words are pronounced but it’s very helpful especially for those who have trouble hearing . The sound is good from the 2 bottom speakers it's loud . Phone calls were clear and the signal was better than expected. I barely get signal in the basement, with this phone I at least get 4g LTE. Battery life is nice with this phone I still have over 50% after 8 hours and using it to text and browse the web and see a video or 2 . unplugged my phone at 6am it's now 5pm I'm at 56%. The night time charge mode is nice while you’re asleep it will slowly charge it and have it at 100% when I wake up. You don't get a charger plug with the phone but I used other ones I had and it works fine. The phone is a dual simm card slot. No SD card slot . I also use bedtime mode which reminds me that I should be in bed and I play some relaxing ocean waves to help me sleep and drown out any outside noise. Trust me living in the city you get tons of outside and bothersome noise so this feature is one of my favorites. I can adjust how long the sound will play and it will turn off . I use my Samsung gear watch and it works 99% for my notifications I'm still working on getting my alarm to work properly on the watch . Bluetooth was good I had no issues . I do save some passwords on Google and were saved and installed when I started installing my streaming apps later on after my phone was setup , it was like I had the Google pixel from the beginning of the year so even if during the beginning of using your phone you forget to install an app this will still help you once you install those other apps . Wifi settings were already setup as well like the ones in my friends house and relatives . Banking app , and other frequent apps I used were mostly setup once installed I did forget to mention this in the beginning of this review . I have the adaptive battery mode on, helps extend battery lif. Now if you want the phone to run at 100% you can turn this off . So far very little issues with my notifications. It is definitely worth taking a look at this phone there is no retina scanner but the thumbprint is fine . Watching movies is nice automatically goes from 60hz to 120hz . The colors are good . You can always change the colors to what you like. Definitely take a look in settings and search for PIXEL TIPS, if the tips widget goes away. This is where you learn how to use all the phones features . Which is pretty good if you forget how to do something you can always go back there and learn it again. All the buttons are on the right side and they have this feature to screen shot by double tapping the back of the phone which I love cuz now I can keep using just one hand. So if you’re looking for a good affordable and dependable phone with tons of features don’t hesitate to give the Google pixel 6 pro a chance.

I bought my last "flagship" phone about two years ago, so it was time for a new one, which is why I jumped as soon as an opportunity to test the Pixel 6 Pro from Google came up. I'd never owned a Pixel phone before, so I wasn't sure what to expect other than unlimited Google Photos cloud backup (which was awesome since I was just about full after having the same Google account for almost 15 years).

My Pixel 6 Pro arrived just before Halloween offering me the chance to try out the upgrades to the light filter allowing for night photos. On my old phone which boasted a top-of-the-line camera pre-Covid would take pictures at night or in low lighting that appeared to be dipped in sand, grainy and had colored specks all over them. With the Pixel 6 Pro that is not an issue, much to my surprise and excitement! The pictures come out vibrant and clear, only showing some blurring if you zoom in close. It boasts a 50MP rear camera and the daytime pictures are incredible, not that I'm a great photographer. One of the Pixel 6 line's selling points was its suite of editing tools which would adjust skin tones, deblur automatically, and a Magic Eraser to remove photobombers or unexpected background subjects. Deblur works to varying degrees, I used my kids as test subjects and while some of the pictures are still blurry there were a handful that auto corrected and look great. Magic Eraser....hoo boy, this is a neat idea but for me it just doesn't work. Its listed as being best used outdoors, unfortunately being in the Pacific Northwest now isn't a great time to hit the beach or park. It’s also not available in every photo, but I found a shot of my grandson which had a child sneaking up behind him and my son-in-law in the background. Not a great or textbook example but it had the Eraser icon, so I gave it a shot....and it blurred both figures replacing them with colors or patterns from nearby objects.

Other features of the phone are a security mode that detects car crashes and alerts a series of emergency contacts you set up. There's also a mode that lets you tell your emergency list what you’re doing and if you don't check in after a set time it will alert them something is wrong (for example if you were walking home from work at night through the bad part of town...neat but I won't use it I don't think). Material You is what they're calling a feature that, when you turn it on, kind of color matches your Google icons and clock to match the wallpaper. I had my lock screen set to green slime from my favorite 80s movie and it changed the clock to a matching but different shade of green. This also worked with other images to change icons a blue/gray for predominantly blue/gray images, pinks to match reds, etc. It’s neat! Direct My Call transcribed menu options and let me tap to navigate, Hold For Me lets you put the phone down and Pixel will hold the line until it’s your turn then ring so you pick up only when someone is ready to talk with you (none of my toll-free numbers I tried had a hold that let me try this unfortunately).

Hardware wise the phone is just beautiful! The iconic camera band across the back didn't take me anytime to get used to at all and the slight raise also allowed me to have reference for holding the slick smooth glass body (beautiful as it may be, case will be encouraged to avoid shattering this slippery phone!). The 120hz refresh makes everything so smooth and the colors pop on the 6.7 OLED screen with just the slightest curve on the edges. There is no headphone jack, so beware anyone still hardwiring for their music. Since it also doesn't have a memory slot you will be stuck with the space you have on the internal storage, so choose wisely. This is probably also a great place to confirm and inform anyone who isn't aware: Pixel 6 Pro is the first Pixel to NOT give you unlimited Google Photo backup, a huge disappointment given how great this camera will make photos look. Really this is the biggest downside to the Pixel 6 line, and I would love to have them reverse this later. Yes, you can upgrade your Google Drive storage for a fee but personally I have enough subscriptions each month I don't want to add another.

So bottom line this is a solid phone with an awesome set of hardware and some neat Google features packing an incredible camera and a beautiful unique look! If you just need a phone this is one of the more affordable "top line" phones out there now and worth a look. If you're a longtime Google user or simply a serial downloader then the lack of unlimited photo storage and no expansion slot for more memory is going to be a reason not to buy. Head to Best Buy and play with one of these phones, give it a test drive and see if its right for you. I think I'm going to love it.... I just gotta take the time to clear out a few gigs of Google photos/files first.

Things I want to get out of the way immediately and will expand upon later on;

- Yes, the finger print sensor is a little troublesome at first. You can improve it *very easily*. Chances are it is the save file for your finger, not the tech/sensor itself.

- Yes, the Pro flavor is *massive* relative to previous Pixel offerings.

- It may be massive, but it feels premium relative to those same aforementioned devices.

- Camera ridge on the back, while awkward/weird at first, *will* become a non-issue once accustomed to it. Or you put a case on it.

Straight out of the box you will certainly notice this is not your usual Google Pixel phone (aside from the fact you don't get a charger, only a type-c to type-c cable and a USB to type-c adapter). It's huge and it feels premium. As in, actually premium, not just your brain reminding you how you've heard and read for months leading up to this moment about how the device you are currently holding is supposed to be the flagship Google offering. This time it finally feels like that namesake is justified. There is a heft, a fit and finish, and an overall look to the 6 pro that screams "I'm not like other (Google) phones..."

Side note; awesome job on Google's behalf for not including a single piece of plastic in the packaging for this device. I'm sure they do a lot of other things (bad) that more than make up for it, but at least it's a start and a practice I hope to see other products (regardless of manufacturer) follow.

As stated above I am coming over to the 6 Pro from a Pixel 5. Before that I used a 3 XL while my daughter currently uses a 4a. The Nexus 6P was my first Google-branded/marketed phone in the summer of 2015 and tested the Google Fi (Project Fi at that time) network before it all went public in early 2016. We have been on Fi with all of our devices ever since. I mention all of this because my devices all have given me little to no fuss whatsoever during the setup process, but seen as how I am on Fi and only ever used a Google phone on Fi, I can not speak for how well/smooth this process can/will be if you are on Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint etc etc etc

The interface itself is beautiful and extremely intuitive. Some of the features trickled into my daily routine in the last couple of updates (11 and 12) which I had done on my Pixel 5, so I will also point out that swipe gestures and a few other things were already part of my muscle memory by time the 6 Pro landed on my doorstep. Defaut fonts and layouts are less edgy, with a more rounded-corners and a flow aesthetic that is much more on the softer side of things, something my eyes didn't know they were longing for. And that's just the aesthetics of the Google/Android software, which itself is (and always has been, imo) amazing. There's no bloatware, no unnecessary items, and anything you want to remove *can* be uninstalled or not even installed in the first place.

Speaking of rounded; the screen itself trails/rounds off on the sides. Leading up to my own review I noticed many others not caring for this "feature". Knowing that the gesture/swipe controls on my Pixel 5 (non-rounded sides) were kind of infringed upon (especially with the case on, which elevate the sides even more for protection) when attempting to do them, I'm thankful for the smooth transition my finger is able to make (even with a case on) when telling the device I want to close something or go back. It's less jarring and my fingertip welcomes it. No, you don't have to start all the way off to the side to initiate the swipe in order for the movement to be recognized, but more often than not I do and it (the feeling on my finger) is something on the 5 I noted before ever having the 6 Pro in my hand.

Sticking with the screen you get 4K and 120hz refresh capability. While not all apps/games are supporting 120hz, more and more are making the necessary improvements/changes to do so. The screen real estate itself is massive, with very little bezel or unused screen percentage tied up with notches or cutouts. Nearly the entire front is active, usable screen and it's beautiful. It's huge but not annoyingly so. The picture is beautiful and sound is a drastic improvement over the 5, with speakers on each end that provide plenty of oomph when needed. As it is part of the screen, I will quickly go into the finger print sensor.

On previous offerings this sensor was on the back of the phone and worked quite well, if I do say so myself. Having it on the screen I was a little, not concerned, but maybe just a little worried about how well it would work in relation to the in-body design from older generations. After doing one finger and then another other (you can add additional fingers like in years past via the security settings menu) I noticed a little bit of a lag (or an outright refusal to unlock) with the #1 finger. I left it be and would either give it multiple tries or use my pin to unlock. A couple days went by doing this before I noticed that when I picked up the phone with my other hand and unlocked the screen (thus using my #2 finger) that the screen would unlock on the first attempt every. single. time. With that in mind I went back into the settings, deleted finger #1, and re-established it by doing the touch-release touch-release all over again. 30 seconds later and no more problems. I simply hadn't adjusted my finger enough and had a finicky save for my finger print. So it was user-error, not the tech itself. A few days later and the phone still unlocks with either finger first time every time.

Onto the body which, as I quickly noted above, feels premium. Very very premium. I have the Stormy Black colorway and the backside of the phone at the very top above the camera/sensor (the "eyebrow" for lack of a better term) is a slightly lighter color than the body. At first I didn't even notice it, then I thought it was a mistake that I was rather found of, only to discover it was intentional and supposed to be that way all along. The camera/sensors do stick out quite a bit and will take some getting used to as far as feel in your hand and when setting the phone down. But, having said that, I really liked this design layout within 24 hours of using the phone as my daily driver. My index finger naturally hits right at the base of the "pod" which allows the phone to sit/balance perfectly. Once my case (a Moment photography case, which I've used on all my phones) arrived the size of the jut is much less pronounced, but still present enough so that you can continue to use your finger(s) if you want.

Battery life, thanks to a whopping ~5000mAh capacity, has been a non-issue after a week of solid use. I kept the 6 Pro off a charger for an entire day putting it through my usual routine and by time I got back home (~11 hours later) it was sitting at 32%. This included two 30 minute Waze sessions along with YouTube Music going on at the same time, podcast listening for 5 hours, a dozen photographs, random/intermittent IG and texting, as well as a little bit of time killing via games. Most days I will cycle the battery down to at least single digits before putting it on a charger, so I knew after an entire day of typical use that the battery was going to be a non-issue with the 6 Pro. I'm sure throwing a bunch of movies at it on a flight or something more video-heavy back to back to back to back would certainly drain it quicker, but that isn't what I usually do on a daily basis, so I can't comment on it. Other reviewers have noted poor battery life, but that isn't something I've noticed given my usage habits.

Considering the weather and quickness with which I need to get this review posted I only had a single weekend to go out and get photos. I did add some older photos to mess with the Magic Erasure Tool, which is absolutely awesome. Yes, other apps/software have something comparable, but the auto-mode for it does a great job with the click of a button. The fact you can also manually go in and do it to either support the auto-mode or take on yourself with no help is very welcome. Reviews are limited to 6 photos, so I can't show everything, but I loaded an older Pixel 5 photo and did auto-mode for the Magic Erasure. In 5 seconds the photo was cleaned up and ready to share. In years past I would have to share it to any number of apps, either pay for a subscription to utilize a similar feature, or manually go in and painstakingly select the areas to remove. 5. seconds. FIVE. And it was done. That right there is nearly worth the price of the phone itself if you take a lot of photos. Sometimes I don't want to get rid of EVERYTHING in the background, sometimes a photo just needs a little less clutter going on, and this is where the manual mode comes in handy.

All in all, this sets a new standard for Google as far as them slapping the "flagship" moniker on something. For the money this is such a bang for the buck compared to the $1500+ alternatives out there from other brands (coming with an MSRP of $899 for the 128GB flavor). If you are on the fence and looking to go with a premium offering, you really can't go wrong with the 6 Pro or the 6 for that matter. The 6, while not having the materials for the body/chassis nor the same camera setup, offers just about everything else the Pro model does only with a much smaller body, something a lot of people prefer.

I am the type of person who switches phones a few times a year cause I’m always on the search of the perfect phone for my needs. Coming from the Pixel 4 XL , I can say this phone is far superior in a lot of things and I will mention them below :

Pixel 6 pro vs Pixel 4XL

Pros:

RAM (12gb vs 6gb)

Storage starts at (128gb vs 64gb)

Better and bigger display (6.71” vs 6.3” )

Higher refresh rate (120hz vs 90hz)

Bigger battery (5,003 mah vs 3,700 mah)

Now there are a few things that prevent me from giving it 5 stars.

Cons:

Fingerprint sensor is slow compared to other phones

Curved display prevents you from installing a decent tempered glass screen protector

No face id (why google ? ) Pixel 4xl had this and cheaper phone have this . (Hopefully they will add it with a software update)

Gets hot ( I have noticed this phone gets very hot when charging and sometimes during normal use)

Doesn’t come with a charger. (Really google?)

No gesture swipe feature (pixel 4xl have this)

I honestly feel that if google would have kept some of the features from the pixel 4xl like the face id and the gestures , leaving the fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone instead of underneath the display and having a flat display instead of the curved waterfall display, I would definitely would have considered this phone the best android phone you could buy but the fact they missed out on these feature , I can say that there are some other alternatives that feel more premium for the money you pay for this . I would still recommend this phone to anyone who wants to be in the Android ecosystem but have some of the support like people who own apple devices cause this phone will continue getting updates just like the iphone does.

If you are on the apple ecosystem already , it would be hard for me to recommend this phone for you but if you are an android user who wants the pure android experience with a few compromises , then yes this is the phone for you . If you don’t want to spend $900 on this phone , you can always get the pixel 6 for $599.00 or get the pixel 4 xl which goes around for $350 on ebay and amazon.

It’s hard to start any review of the Pixel 6 Pro without superlatives. Best cameras ever. Best version of Android ever. Best price for a flagship phone, ever. And while all of that IS true, one of the best things about the Pixel is that is truly the best Google phone experience ever. Because for the first time, Google has developed both the hardware and the operating system to work in concert with each other. That finally puts the Pixel line in the realm of Apple’s iPhone instead of just a “work for hire” hardware piece – and it shows.

The onboarding experience was well thought out on Android 12, much better than previous versions and Google branded phones. My Google Fi eSIM activation was flawless and each step of onboarding is explained clearly with options to get more info. The included transfer cable brought over my apps and data and marked apps that needed to be updated or downloaded, so phone was ‘ready to go’ in minutes. Even my home screen layout with all my favorite widgets in place and working.

Android 12/Material You gives rebirth to the original slogan of Android; “Be together, not the same.” It’s all about making the user experience more personal while enhancing privacy. While it is a fine line to tread the Pixel6Pro and Android 12 shows that it CAN be done.

Centering the UI customizations around wallpaper was a stroke of genius on Google’s part. You look at this picture all day, so you obviously see yourself in it in some way. Material You bases its color palette on this throughout the UI. If it’s a personal picture, you may be the only person in the world with that photo – meaning you may also be the only person with that particular color palette. I do wish they would allow you to pick an accent color that ISN’T distinctly extracted from the image, but I can forgive that small omission.

The thing about the Material You widgets though is that I think many folks are either going to love them or hate them. While I don’t actively dislike them, I do think that that they use way too much whitespace which limits your screen real estate (even on a display this large) so I find that I’ve gone back to using my third-party widgets. Hopefully this is something that Google will address in future software updates.

The phone itself is sleek and distinctive. The camera ‘brow’ is a great new take on the “lens bulge” common on newer phones and ensures that if you put the phone on a flat surface, it isn’t wobbling around and it gives something to anchor your fingers against while holding it. It just feels better in my hands than my previous phones. The display is magnificent and sharp and the variable refresh on the Pro makes transitions and switching through screens smooth as silk when you need it but then steps down to save battery when you don’t.

The Google developed Tensor chip makes this – and many other magic things – possible. This is a bigger deal than many people realize; having the ability to tune the software to the chip and vice versa makes it not only a brilliant phone, but a preview of what may be possible with the chip added to other Google devices. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Tensor show up in a future line of Google Home display speakers; in fact, this may be a primary reason that Google has been rolling out the Fuchsia OS to current devices.

What it allows for with the cameras is nothing short of magic though. Things I’d previous have to do in post processing with Photoshop, like content aware erasing and slow exposure photography are now done simply, in camera and in the moment. I’ve been a photo buff for decades and the cameras in the Pixel 6 Pro take better photos than my DSLR or even my current digital camera. I can see this phone becoming my primary camera which is important because there are many times I wished I had my cameras with me and having cameras of this quality in my phone means I’ll be less likely to miss a great shot. I even purchased a selfie stick/tripod with a remote so that I’ll be able to take advantage of the Pixel’s low light and astrophotography settings. Great artistic photography is less about capturing the reality of a scene (that’s photojournalism) and more about a depiction of a feeling, a memory. The range and flexibility of photography (and videography) that the Pixel 6 Pro affords will allow me to be more creative – and most importantly, whenever the mood strikes, or the opportunity presents itself.

As awesome as the hardware is, the software here competes to be the star of the show. Little things like the Calling Assistant make life so much better by taking advantage of Google’s reach and breadth. I had to call Ring yesterday to change one of my plans over to a new camera I’d purchased from Best Buy and before I even pressed call, above my dial pad was a chart showing the peak times for Ring’s customer service along with an estimated wait time if I called now. And once I put the call through, I was able to have the Calling Assistant take over, showing me the menu options and even stay on hold for me, signaling me when a CS rep picked up. As someone who spends a lot of time in call queues with vendors, this is amazingly helpful.

The Tensor chip also makes live transcription and translations not only more effective than ever before, but it is almost magical. I have Taiwanese neighbors who were glad to help me test this out and they were amazed that not only were the translations accurate, but they also made sense grammatically. It’s incredible to watch; I accidentally activated a live transcription session while I was watching TV and marveled at how the Pixel was following along, at speed and incredibly accurate. This would be a neat little tool to use at meetings or college lectures!

However, the Tensor chip’s most important features may be the ones that the average user won’t see or even think about much – privacy and security. While I won’t get into a boring discussion of chip architecture here, suffice to say that security and privacy have been built into the chip as much as into the OS. Things like the live transcribe feature I just mentioned are all done ON THE CHIP, without the data ever going to the cloud via an open source ‘sandbox’ called the Private Compute Core. This and other processor sections like the Tensor Security Core help make the Pixel 6 platform one of the most secure phones on the market at the time of this review.

You can see some of this privacy forward thinking at the user level though via Android 12’s new Privacy Dashboard that allows you more control than any previous version of Android. Here you can adjust all those settings both on the phone and in your Google account. Things like on-device anti-phishing protection locally scan potentially malicious phone calls, SMS text messages, emails - even links sent through partner apps like WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, and Facebook Messenger Light – and will warn you if something seems off. You can be notified via icons on the screen when an app is accessing your camera or phone and easily turn them off if need be. Some of these features will make it to other phones that get upgraded to Android 12, but none of them will work as well as the Pixel 6/6 Pro with the Tensor chip.

To say that this is a revolutionary phone may sound superlative, but it really isn’t. This phone is truly worthy of being called Google’s “flagship” and everyone else is going to have to play catch up now. I couldn’t recommend it more highly and at the price, it is the phone to beat.

When I saw the new design and specs for the Google Pixel 6 “P6” I knew I had to give it a try as I’ve always been a big fan of the Pixel phones, going back to the original.

Unboxing:

The phone comes in a nice retail box “pretty much how all phones are packed now” and inside was the phone, charging cable, USB A to C adapter, sim removal tool and a small information/quick setup pamphlet, that’s it, no charger “that’s ok I have plenty”.

Setting up:

Setting up is pretty much the same as all other Pixel phones, I installed my Verizon sim first, and then just followed through the initial steps, add your Google account “or create one” and you are off and running. There was a system update right away so you’ll want to make sure you do that before completing. Also, I didn’t try transferring anything from my other phone, I wanted to do everything manually.

Design:

The Pixel 6 is pretty good sized, it’s bigger than my S21, “not by much, a lot bigger than the P5, but it does weigh a good bit more than either as the S21 being the next largest comes in at 171.6 the Pixel 6 at 208.6g is which is a good bit heavier. I don’t mind thee weight difference as I like the little bit larger screen and it’s more squared in the corners “reminds me of a Sony screen, in a good way”. Colors are nice and vibrant and the 90hz refresh rate is a noticeable improvement over any of the 60hz screens I’ve had/used.

The back is all glass this time, and I actually prefer the plastic back of the S21 or the plastic covered metal of the P5, just no worry about those being broken and for me this one went in a case the day I got it. The phone itself feels very substantial and well made, really no flex to it at all and seems more like a solid one pieced unit.

The buttons on the side are nice and firm plus they have a definite “click” to them, a little better than the S21s. If you are familiar with Samsung products you’ll have to get used to the power button being on top rather than the bottom and volume buttons “while on the same side are in opposite positioning”.

Use:

Android 12 is installed on the phone from the box and it’s definitely different than 11 on our current phones. It has the very simple basic Android interface you will be familiar with if you’ve ever used a Pixel phone and much more basic than any of our Samsung phones we currently have. I did set up fingerprint unlock and it works well, plus I’ve installed a screen protector “PET” and did have to turn up the screen sensitivity, otherwise the FP reader works reasonably well especially if you register two sets for one finger. I also have trusted places turned on so the phone stays unlocked while at home and tied to my smart watch.

You can adjust the screen layout and grid size, but this time those settings are under “Wall Paper & Style” after a long press on a blank area on any main screen. The 5x5 layout max isn’t to my liking so I installed Nova Launcher. I was initially skeptical that Nova would be ready for Android 12 but to my surprise it integrated perfectly “like it was made for this phone”. With Nova I was able to remove the search bar as that cannot be removed with the Google Launcher. Otherwise that’s all I needed for tweaking and getting things running the way I wanted. I do like the dynamic colors that apply the theme color to some apps, sort of how Windows can be set to do the same.

Calling Features:

The signal for Verizon here in NW Phoenix isn’t that great at our house, but it’s on par with our TMO phones, “we just don’t get great service “acceptable but could be a lot better”. So I went out to test the difference in two of our worst areas. My S21 with TMO and the Pixel 6 with Verizon, and from what my tests show TMO is faster but the Verizon isn’t far behind and the Verizon signal inside two different grocery stores was better than TMO by a good bit.

I accidentally turned on “Direct my Call” and was surprised that there was a live transcription you can read as the conversation carries on. For me that would be extremely useful as I have some hearing issues and if I’m in a noisy environment I can’t make out what anyone says, so this feature itself will be very handy.

Performance:

I’ve been doing some speed testing between the two phones “P6 vs S21” and the Geek Bench CPU scores were very close the P6 got a 1031 single core score and a 2841 multi-core score, the S21 received a 1017 single core and a 3355 multi-core score, “very close for this new Google designed CPU”. Then I tested them with 3dMarks “Wild Life” test and those came back as 6398 for the P6 and 5810 for the S21. That’s pretty amazing and a good bit faster than the S21 so I’m impressed and the performance of the phone itself seems faster than the S21 during use.

Camera:

The camera is where this P6 shines “for me that is”, the photos come out better than the S21, and the details it captures when zooming in and comparing photos is pretty impressive “much better in some cases over the S21”, and I don’t even miss the telephoto “so far” that the S21 has over the P6. I also went outside on a clear night, and took a photo straight up using “Night Sight” and was really impressed that it actually caught the stars above without blurring them, “a lot more showed up that I had expected. The front camera is good as front cameras go and I have no complaints how the video looked during a Zoom meeting, it’s actually a lot better than my desktops standalone 1080 camera.

We also live close to an AFB and was able to capture a really cool photo of a F35 flying through the clouds overhead. I have a hard time capturing them with my mirrorless camera so I’m very impressed with the performance of the P6.

I also took a picture of a flowering bush in our back yard, using the P6 and S21 and they were within a few seconds of each other. I’ve cropped the photos to a spot at 100% and you can easily see there’s more detail captured in the flowers with the P6, the S21s colors sort of run together on the flowers and you can’t make out much detail. I’ve attached a photo so you can judge for yourself.

Battery Life:

I’ve had no issue with the battery lasting over a day and even at the end of the day with some pretty heavy use I still had over 50% left, the S21 would always be around 35-40%, not a lot but a big enough difference. I usually don’t charge with the power cord and 99% of the time use wireless chargers, I have them all over, but the wireless charging times are decent and using a Belkin high powered wireless charger it tops up the phone way before we get up in the AM. I also have a very heavy duty case on my phone and it has no issue with charging just placement, as you have to make sure it’s placed just right on the charger or it won’t connect.

Conclusions:

This is the way I wish all Pixel phones were from the beginning, I really like the P6, better than my S21 or P5 that’s for sure. The screen is larger than both “and getting older I need a large screen”. The build quality is impeccable and the phone feels premium in the hand “and not because it has a glass back”, it’s just a very solid feeling phone. I’ve tried out some of the new features and things like “Live Translate” are fun to use and was impressed how it overlays the translated text on what you are looking at with Google Lens and the camera.

I’ve owned so many phones I’m embarrassed to count, but this new Pixel 6 is at the top of my list as a favorite. You get a plain Android experience and can tweak it anyway you like. There’s literally 0 bloatware and that leaves more space for all my apps “ones I prefer, not what a manufacture says I have to have”. I could go on for pages with all the new features of Android 12 and what this new Pixel 6 has but I can say if you are a fan of Android phones this is going to be one of the best phones this year and I’m sure you will love owning one.

Let’s start with the basics. The Google Pixel 6 is a 5G phone which has a 6.4” 90Hz display made of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, a 50mp front facing camera ( with ultra wide lens), a fingerprint scanner located under the screen, and a high capacity long lasting battery. It is Google’s first phone with it’s own in house designed processor (Tensor).

In the box you get the phone, a usb-c to usb-c cable and a usb-a to usb-c adapter for transferring data from your old phone.

This greatly speeds up the setup process. You also get a sim key and brochures. You do not get a charger included.

After the setup is complete you should update to the latest firmware in the System Settings and then go to the Google Play store and update all of your apps.

You are not only getting a new phone, you are getting Google’s latest operating system Android 12. It has anew UI which allows you to personalize the phone more easily. Changing the wallpaper theme will be reflected throughout the apps on your phone. This phone is designed to take advantage of all of the AI features built in the Tensor chip, it is very speech capable and takes the Google Assistant to the next level.

This is what I call the trifecta of features that separate this phone from the rest.

1)Phone Assist:

Google can answer your phone, from non-contact numbers, and ask why they are calling you. You can watch the transcription of their response and then decide if you want to answer your phone. It will also silently decline calls from known robo callers. When you dial a toll free number a chart will appear with the approximate hold times for today and the rest of the week. So you can decide the best day and time to call for the shortest wait time. I called a retailer and the recording said a 10 minute wait, however Google showed a 15 minute wait. Sure enough exactly 15 minutes later the call was answered. So the Google Assistant was more accurate than the retailer. Should you decide to hold the Google Assistant will hold for you. It will notify you with an audible sound when a human voice is detected. I have used this feature for a long time on my Pixel 4 and it has been 100% accurate and has saved me from untold hours of waiting on hold listening to horrible music.

2)Speech, Translation and Transcribing:

You can have a conversation or chat with anyone who speaks several of the most common foreign languages.

You speak or type in English and it will immediately be translated to the other persons language. They can then respond to you in their native language and it will be translated back to English. You can even put emojis in your chat by using your voice. I live in a multi cultural area where many languages are spoken.

This will not only help in every day life, it is a tremendous business tool allowing you to expand your client base.

Live transcription is also extremely accurate even when speaking rapidly and can be used with translation. No need for punctuating, Google will do that for you.

You can point your camera at a traffic sign or any document in another language and it will instantly translate to English.

It can translate webpages and transcribe live caption videos.

3)Camera:

Still photos are very clear, colors are accurate and detailed without being overly saturated. .(See above pictures). Night Sight captures beautiful detailed images at night.

Skin tones of all shades are very natural. Great results for those of us who like to point and shoot. However, there are enough camera modes and settings to allow you to be as creative as you like.

Videos are recorded in 1080p and have optical stabilization which you can adjust to account for the amount of movement.

I found to adjustability of the stabilization to be very helpful.

There are other new features:

Magic eraser let’s you remove unwanted people and objects from your photos. You really have to see this. It is fun to use and can completely change the context of the photo. Whether at a particular location or with a celebrity and other people are around, you can make it appear as if you are the only person there.

Motion Mode lets you blur objects in the background, such as moving traffic, while keeping the subject in focus.

Face Unblur does exactly that when the subject is moving, such as jumping.

Speech enhancement blocks out ambient sounds in noisy environments while recording videos on the selfie camera.

All of these tools and enhancements are easy to find and use, either intuitively or by simply bringing up the Pixel Tools and Tips from your settings. You can search anything on your phone by swiping up on the screen. Just start typing what you are looking for and Google immediately starts bringing up results. Then just click on what you want, whether its a contact or and app or a chat.

Privacy and security have been enhanced with additional settings that give you complete control over what information is shared with your apps, right down to being able to toggle the camera and mic on and off.

Some things to note:

The 5G is mid and low band. Though not as fast as millimeter wave, it is much more available and reliable. I am on the T-Mobile network. Walking around my neighborhood I was able to get 215mbps download and 48mbps upload speeds (see picture). This of course will vary depending on your location and your carrier. Connection of data and calls was always reliable.

Phone calls were clear, the screen is bright responsive and easy to read outdoors. Battery life is excellent. Over 24 hour periods I was able to average about 6 hours of display time while still having 20% battery remaining. Easily getting me through a day with emails, calls (video and voice), camera use and some You Tube videos.

There are however a couple of negatives.

First the under the screen fingerprint reader requires you to keep your finger on it longer than you expect. This results in having to repeat the process because you lifted your finger too quickly.

However, I did notice that today it seemed to be working quicker without issues. So either I am adapting to the phone, or the phone is adapting to me.

The first day the auto brightness made the screen too dark, however that seems to have corrected itself and it now works properly.

The volume does not get loud enough to hear anything until it reaches more than 50%. It will eventually get loud enough but that is at 80-100%. I hope this is a software issue that can be fixed with an update.

Overall this is an incredible phone at an equally incredible price. It looks and feels the part of a flagship phone.

Loaded with features designed to make your life easier, and it succeeds. To call this a phone does not do it justice. It is so much more. Google has stepped out of the ordinary with the new bold design and I love it, Especially in Stormy Black.

We have been a Google family having used Pixel 4 phones for the past 2 years. Our house is packed with Google devices and we have become dependent on the google assistant. The Pixel 6 along with all of the added AI features allows us to get more accomplished with less effort.

I would highly recommend this phone to everyone.

I consider myself a tech savvy person. I have a my lights, TVs, cameras, garage, air filters, consoles, laptops, Ipads, tablets etc all connected together. I’ve also had the luxury of owning a lot of different phones (HTC ONE, 10 and u11, Pixel 3, One Plus 7 Pro, Iphone 4,6,8,MAX Xs, Microsoft Surface Duo). Different phones had its pros and cons. I like the openness of the Android OS (HTC/OnePlus) but I felt the camera was always lacking. Iphones have the same layout and easy to use cameras. The Pixel 6 is a phone I was truly exciting to try out. Anyways,

Look and feel

Personally, I don’t mind the camera bar bump. The two tone color is a nice touch. The back has a glass like feeling that you would get from a $1000 cell phone. I am going to purchase a case for the Pixel ( to protect it when I drop it). So really the look of the case is what your phone would really look like in the end. I am more concern with the performance and usage of the Pixel than the look. One annoying thing is the Google search bar is locked in the bottom of the home screen. YOU CAN NOT REMOVE it. GOOGLE needs to fix this.

Setup process

Pretty straight forward. Transfer my old data and information from my other device (Android 11). Cable transfer didn’t work for me despite trying 3 times. Just use wireless transfer and worked. The phone needed to download an update to Android 12 took about 30 mins to download and install.

Search function

I think this is a kind of a cool feature. You have search your phone apps, contacts and settings in the search function.

Fingerprint sensor

Takes about half a second to a second to recognize my fingerprint and open the phone. Its about the same as my other phones. Nothing special about this.

Display smoothness

There is a noticeable difference between my old phone and the Pixel 6. I guess the 90hz refresh rate really makes a difference. Its smoother when scrolling and better on the eyes.

Assistant voice typing

It seems better and smooth when using the voice to text on the Pixel 6. It catches my words better than before. However the Interpreter mode is still lacking. At times, Doesn’t translate the meaning well enough. I think Google needs more help here but it’s a good step forward.

Camera System

This is what separates the Pixel 6 from all other cell phones (or maybe my expectation bar was set too low). Ive attached pictures I have taken in low light settings. 0.7x, 1x, 2x zoom. I’ve also used the Magic Eraser on a few photo to take a people. You can judge the quality of the magic eraser.. But it think this is one of the best feature of the Pixel 6. I can see how useful this tool will be for me and the family. Even previous picture that are stored in the Google photo can be edit by the Pixel 6. This is a great feature and I can see Google using this technology on their other devices.

I have used the Motion / action take pretty nice pictures, Long Exposure, Face Unblur (pretty good, but not perfect), 4x zoom still grainy, Ultrawide selfies (not

really ultrawide compared to others ive seen before). Overall I am pretty happy with the Pixel 6. At $599 it’s a great deal for what you get.

Battery Life

There is a lot of marketing and call out of the Pixel 6 battery life. My experience its not the best or the worst. On average usage of the Pixel I can get by (14 hour) but definitely have to charge it at night or in the morning.

Below is the “real” world testing for fast charging. On both test the Pixel 6 got warm in the case but not burning hot. Under 50% full you are looking at 12%-14% battery fill per 10mins of charging.

Charging from a 90watt laptop adaptor with USB Type C

Pixel started at 15%

After 10mins 29%

After 20mins 43%

After 30mins 57%

After 40mins 69%

Charging from a 60 watt cell phone quick charge adaptor

Pixel started at 5%

After 10mins 19%

After 20mins 33%

After 30mins 47%

After 40mins 60%

With all the good and the bad of the Pixel the best part is the price. Coming in at $599 I would definitely recommend this to anyone look for a new phone.

I always get excited when Google announces new Pixel phones and this year was no different. When I saw the two new models of the Pixel 6 I knew right away that I wanted the regular Pixel 6 over the pro model. Now that I've been using the Pixel 6 for a few days, below are my thoughts.

Size

I think the size of the regular Pixel 6 is perfect. I'm a fan of bigger phones so this fits the bill just right. Its just a hair smaller than the Pixel 4xl and a lot bigger than the Pixel 5 which I felt was too small in hand. I've include pics for size comparison of the Pixel 4xl, Pixel 5, and the Pixel 6. Its a chonky phone though. A bit thicker and heavier than I was expecting so you defiantly notice it when its in your pocket. Still not as heavy as the iphone 13 pro max though.

Hardware

The phone feels very solid and well built. The volume and power buttons are clicky. The frame is a matte black just like the Pixel 4xl was. The back is glass again. I'm not sure when this back glass fad will end but at least Google makes it look good. The color choices this year are great. You get to choose from three. Stormy Black, Sorta Seafoam, and Kinda Coral. Really cant go wrong with any of them. The front of the phones are the same on all three.

This is the first phone with Googles Tensor chip. Googles first mobile processor. I have to say the phone is buttery smooth. Navigating around, opening apps, closing apps and just doing day to day stuff. I've had no issues or lag with anything I've done. In my opinion Tensor performs like any other high end mobile processor.

Google included all of the latest wireless standards. This years pixels have wifi 6/6e support, bluetooth 5.2, and mobile 5g! I've been using all of these with the exception of wifi 6e, (don't have a 6e router yet), and all work great. I was getting well over gigabit wifi speeds on wifi 6. Around 90mbps download on 5g, and audio streams with no lag or drops on bluetooth 5.2.

Display

The display is a 1080p+ 6.4" OLED display and gets bright enough for my needs while looking great. Its a bit more square this year but still slightly rounded in the corners. Bezels are minimal enough. Its got a 90Hz display which is on by default. I find that scrolling is really smooth like previous Pixels. I'm not sure why Google decided to go with a curved display on the pro model but I'm glad they didn't on this regular Pixel. I prefer flat displays. Included in the display is an in screen fingerprint reader. Note that its not instant but takes about half a second to recognize and unlock. Everyone has their opinion of where the fingerprint reader should be side, back, or front. I prefer front or side so I can unlock my phone without having to pick it up every time so I appreciate that they move it to the front.

Sound

I would say audio from the speakers is just average. The dual speakers in the Pixel 6 sound so much better than last years Pixel 5 but not as good as the Pixel 4xl. Not sure why that is though since the phone is thicker you would think they would have done a better job on the speakers.

Haptics

The haptics motor is actually really good in this phone. The problem I would like to mention is that the haptics motor is placed at the top of the phone for some weird reason. So when typing you don't feel it as much because your hands are at the bottom of the phone. But even with this placement its still better than most phones I've used.

Battery

From my experience battery life has been pretty good. I've been charging every other day with regular use. I can go two days on a charge before needing to top it off overnight. You should have no problem going one day under heavy use. Oh and there is no power brick in the box so you will have to either use a existing or buy a new one. If you buy a new one make sure it can do 30 watt charging which is the fastest charging it can do. I'm currently using a 18 watt charger so I cant comment on 30 watt charging speeds.

Android

One great thing about having a Google Pixel is that you get OS updates day one! No need for waiting for manufactures to make their changes and push it months later. Also you get monthly security updates that sometimes even have little added Pixel software features. This phone comes with the latest version of Android, Android 12. I had been using it for a few weeks, even before I got the Pixel 6. Android 12s Material You theming works really well. At first I didn't think I would like it or use it but I was surprised at how well the colors adapted in everything to my background choices. I've decided to leave it on although you can customize it and even turn it off if you choose to. I feel like Android has matured enough now that they are starting to make it fun to use again.

Camera

The camera has been updated this year and I can tell! It does a great job of taking photos and video with its 50MP camera. I'm a point and click type of person so I use a phone for most of my photos. I am sad they they didn't include a optical zoom in the regular Pixel 6 though. I really prefer having the optical zoom but I guess you can get the pro model if you really need it. I find for the most part my photos look great. What I found is what you see in the screen before you take the shot is not always what you get. After you take the phone it typically looks better. Google does their computational photo adjustments (instantly) and your photos come out looking even better. Also one of my favorite features night shots still look absolutely hands down spectacular. I love the idea of not having to use flash in low light situations.

I like that the camera app is simple to use and not cluttered like some others. Google does a good job here. They make it easy to switch modes and edit photos. There is a new camera app feature called Magic Eraser. It works well in some situations but not all. For example I took a picture of my arm with a cut on it and was able to erase the cut just fine like it never existed. Removing any face imperfections works well too. Removing people or objects seems to depend on the background. From my experience it works better when there is less detail in the background so your experience will vary there. Overall its a really cool feature that lets you touch up on your photos if needed. There is also a new Motion mode that allows you to add a motion blur effect to your phones. Its nice when phone manufactures add these little things into the camera app so you don't need to install another photo editing app to do it. I think these features will get better with time too.

Summary

In the end I love using this phone and I keep coming back to it. I finally have a phone worthy of getting me to move off my Pixel 4xl. Even with a few minor shortcomings this is in my opinion still the best Pixel phone to date! So close to perfection.

My previous phone was a dual screen. As an office device it was excellent but as a phone and a camera it rated as the poorest phone I have ever owned. So I switched to the Pixel 6. The 6.4” screen size is perfect. I prefer larger phones and the display is beautiful. There is some weight to the phone and it is slippery without a case and I would strongly recommend a case and a screen protector.

It comes with a Reviews Guide that is a manual for some of the features. When is the last time a phone came with a useful manual? Full color and very helpful, another win for Google.

Setting up was a breeze. I didn’t even have to call Verizon to have a setting fixed. You can transfer your SIM card (easy) or download a virtual SIM (didn’t use). Just follow the on screen prompts and it will walk you through the process. Via a cable I was able to transfer everything from my old phone. Warning – all of my apps transferred, including those native to the previous phone manufacturer. Just delete what you don’t need anymore.

Reviewers have reported issues with the Fingerprint Unlock. My experience is that it works 99.9% of the time. Setting up this feature, I made sure that all sides of my finger were well recorded in its more natural state (drier vs. oily). It works great.

The Pixel 6 comes in 3 colors. It really doesn’t matter once you put a case on it and then select a wallpaper. The UI can be customized with themed icons, widgets and dynamic colors.

As a phone the Pixel 6 is excellent. It is a phone and some manufacturers forget that fact. Everyone has noticed an improved call quality over my previous phone. It connects perfectly to my 2019 Subaru Outback EVERY TIME. My previous phone always cut out on a stretch of road near our house and in our driveway or garage. The Pixel 6 does not have that problem so now I know it is not a signal strength issue but with the previous phone itself. Call volume is finally loud enough, clarity is great, calls are not dropped, connects to car every time (with more connectable apps) – what’s not to love? It has been about 4 phones ago since the phone was a priority; thanks Google.

One of the best features is Calling Assistance. I used it to call Disney World. A 4 hour wait time that turned into 5 hours. It will tell you projected wait times (so did Disney and they were close) and then it will hold for you and call you when your call is ready. What a wonderful feature when the company you are calling doesn’t offer the call back feature. Priceless – why don’t other phones offer this?

There are a lot of features with this phone. You can use Assistant Voice Typing to send a message. Live Translate will translate text messages or Live Caption video or audio. Very cool. I watched a Japanese video and it captioned nicely. It also can translate foreign language signs via your camera. There is an Interpreter to translate conversations.

Of course “Hey Google” is incorporated into a Google phone. They took it one step better and have voice commands that no longer have to be preceded by “Hey Google.”

The camera almost made me cry. All I can say is WOW. Very easy to use. You can Magic Erase photobombers. I tested on the TV screen too and you can remove actors from a scene. Fun to play with. It actually suggests items to remove. In the photo, I removed the frog that was behind the witches. That I had to manually erase and it takes a little practice. You Can Action Pan or Long Exposure as well. I used Long Exposure for some of my evening Halloween shots. Face Unblur helps clear up your less than perfect shots. Real Tone does well capturing skin tones. Backlit photos also look very good, the Pixel 6 has a nice adjustment for that.

4X Optical Zoom works well and can be extended to 20X. Ultrawide Selfies was good but not a feature I will use very much. There is also front video at 4K and that works well if you want to film yourself. The regular video was easy to use and did well at night too.

The name Google normally doesn’t ring synonymous with Privacy. But they did it right with some features on this phone. You have a Privacy Dashboard that shows usage history for your apps. The Security Hub is one of my favorite features. There are a lot of settings in there. Safety and Emergency is my favorite. It has Emergency Contacts, Emergency SOS, Car Crash Detection and Medical Information. Crisis Alerts are also available for the immediate area. There are lots of worthy settings in this area and you should explore what works for you.

Anti-Malware and Phishing are also built in and work very well.

Adaptive Battery is another great feature. Seldom used apps don’t drain the battery in this setting.

Powering the Pixel 6 off wasn’t as simple as pushing the power button. You either press Power Button + Volume Up at the same time or slide down from the top of the screen and go down until you see the power icon circle. Holding the power button would have been much easier.

To take a screenshot you will need to hold the Power Button + Volume Down at the same time. The screen will flash so you know you have a capture.

Of course, this works effortlessly with Nest and also Google Home devices. Just talk to your phone and control the devices. Cast music from your phone to Google Home. Share and store your photos with Google Photos. Everything is so easily integrated.

This phone really performs well and Google spent some time getting it right. It doesn’t seem rushed like many other phones. Very happy and highly recommended.

NOTE: I received this product in exchange for my fair and unbiased review.

I've been a Samsung Note and galaxy user for about a decade. I've invested a lot in the android ecosystem and it's become an integral part of my personal and professional life. It's been quite some time since I've really immersed myself with a device that offers the purest form of the android operating system. Over the years I've grown extremely accustomed to a manufacturer's overlay on top of vanilla android. In my case, it's been the touchwiz user interface from Samsung. Coming from years of using a different user interface, it took me about 3 days for me to begin using the Google Pixel 6 from muscle memory; as if it was second nature. The experience has been a night and day difference - in a very good way! I've heard that Google's android phones are the purest and best way to experience the android platform. I finally understand why that's the case and it took me actually using the phone daily for me to understand. A big part of the reason this phone has really impressed me is because of the innovation that Google has brought to the android platform with their custom designed tensor chip on these new pixel 6 phones. The "Smart AI" features on this phone are incredible. I've listed some key highlights below of my experience with pixel 6.

Design and Construction:

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The Google pixel 6 is an extremely premium feeling phone. The phone has matted aluminum sides and a glass back (definitely prefer this over the glossy sides on the pixel 6 pro!). The Gorilla Glass 6 on the back feels like it can withstand some abuse. The front of the display has the Gorilla Glass Victus and as someone who constantly keeps their phone in the same pocket as their keys, I can gladly attest to no scratches on the display. Initially I thought that the protruding bar on the rear of the phone that houses the camera sensors would be cumbersome and intrusive. That has turned out to not be the case at all. When gripping the phone normally (either one handed or two handed) never did it get in the way or did my fingers keep hitting it. When laying the phone flat (with no case) there's no wobble despite the protrusion. You'd really have to push down on the top of the phone to experience some wobble.

I find the dimensions of the google pixel 6 to be perfect for one handed use. While the pixel pro has some minor upgrades over the standard pixel 6, I feel as though it borders being "too large" for my one handed use. In terms of bezels I was surprised that I didnt miss the curved bezels from my previous note android device. While this phone doesn't have the thinnest bezels, it's still one of the sleekest looking phones on the market. I also love that Google stuck with the small circular camera cut out and didn't go with a distracting notch! The one thing I would change in terms of design would be the placement of the volume rocker. I wish it was either on the left side or that it would have been moved further down on the right side to make it more central. I watch all of my content in landscape mode so having it more centrally located would have been a bit more convenient.

Performance/User Experience:

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This is the most fluid and snappy experience that I've ever used on any phone. Applications instantly open, load, and close. I can leave several apps running in the background while playing a game, listening to music, watching streaming content, downloading large files, etc. Not once during daily use have I noticed even a minor hiccup. To test the phone I left several apps running in the backgroundc and played the very well known genshin impact android game as well as some warhammer and the experience was flawless. I've owned nothing but flagship Android phones this past decade and I'm convinced that the reason why the pixel 6 provides such a buttery smooth experience on android is due to to the combination of google's new tensor chip and the close to stock vanilla Android UI. Even though I knew the tensor chip was not going to outperform the top of the line qualcomm processors on raw numbers alone, I still benchmarked my pixel 6 out of curiosity. It still received pretty impressive numbers on geekbench 5. It received a single-core score of 1032 and a multi-core score of 2744. More than adequate to run all the latest and future applications.

Camera:

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The camera sensors on this phone are a feat of engineering! The 50 megapixel main sensor and 12 megapixel ultrawide sensor takes stunning photos. When in camera mode, you have instant options to alter color and shadow. I've found myself using this feature a lot as it makes photos with dull colors come alive! The slight disappointment here is that we don't get the new coveted 4x telephoto zoom that's featured on the pro model. This means that we don't get any optical zoom and instead we're stuck with Google's "Super Res" 7x digital zoom. I've tested the digital zoom and it's not terrible but it won't compare to an optical lens. Some of my favorite camera features are the "Magic Eraser" and "Night Sight". Both are extremely impressive features. Magic eraser is similar to the magic eraser tool in photoshop. It does a fantastic job of removing people or objects that you don't want in the photo (so long as they're not the main focal points of attraction in the image). The night sight feature is a game changer for taking pictures at night. Please see the two images I have attached. There is very little ambient lighting in the room that the picture was taken in. The same object was taken with the same lighting conditions without flash. It's as if someone turned on the light when taken with the night sight feature! The whole camera ecosystem has been designed with convience in mind too. Google photos makes it incredibly easy to instantly edit, share, and upload all your content.

Features:

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This is the part of the Pixel 6 that extremely impresses me. There's sooo many great features to list so I'll just name a few of my favorites. 5G speeds are ridiculously fast! When connected to 5G, I typically average 250+ Mbps down and 60 + Mbps up (see screenshot). One of my absolute favorite features on the pixel 6 is the automatic ability to screen calls. The amount of robocalls I receive has greatly increased within the last couple of years. If the pixel detects that either a phone call or a text message is from an unknown caller, it'll automatically decline the call without interupting you (it'll never decline anyone in your contact list). You can also set it so that the google assistant automatically answers unknown calls. The assistant politely asks the caller a couple of basic questions to make sure it's not a robocall, a faked number, or a potential scam. The transcript of the brief conversation appears on your phone so you know if it's legit.

Display:

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While the standard Pixel 6 doesn't share the same quad hd resolution (1440p) and pixel density as it's bigger brother, the 1080p HDR capable display on the pixel 6 is still impressive. Also, I'd argue that at this six inch screen size, you're really not missing much with 1440p over 1080p. The 6.4 inch OLED display produces an impressive color accurate picture. It produces some rich reds, lush greens, vibrant purples, all while not over saturating the image. I also love the deep blacks that this display produces! The adaptive 90hz refresh rate makes a world of a difference coming from a 60hz display. Swiping through the UI, switching between apps, browsing through content on a browser, etc has attributed to the smoothest performance I've ever experienced on a phone. The pixel 6 doesn't have the brightest screen but it's certainly more than adequate. With the manual slider you get 500 nits of maximum brightness and about 850+ when set to adaptive. On a sunny day, I found myself having to turn up the brightness slider to at least 80 percent to get good visibility while being outdoors. I do wish it provided closer to 1000 nits of maximum peak brightness for optimum visiblity on these occasional situations but it's a minor gripe.

Audio:

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Without a doubt, the most impressive stereo audio I've heard on any phone. This thing gets loud! The audio is produced by a bottom firing speaker and the earpiece. The listening experience has been decent enough to where I've found myself, on multiple occassions, not bothering to get up to turn on my bluetooth home audio speaker. At full volume, there's no distortion and music sounds crisp. However, as a fan of a wired music listening experience, the one thing I wish was included was a standard headphone jack.

Battery Life:

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In terms of phone use, at the end of a standard work day, I easily still have over 30% battery left. On most days, I've had over 40% without ever charging it once throughout the day. This is thanks to the beefy 4600 mAh battery on the pixel 6. This phone should be able to easily get you through a full workday with a similar workload as I've just described. You also get 50% charge in 30 minutes if you're using a 30 watt charger.

Overall, I've been very impressed with the pixel 6, especially at the price segment it comes in at. While the pixel 6 may not officially be considered a flagship phone compared to the pro model, I feel that it still retains enough flagship features to still be considered worthy of the flagship title. For all the flagship features that you get at this competitive price point, this is an easy recommendation!

I have been a long time Pixel user (most recently a Pixel 3XL) and an even longer Android user (dating back to the original Verizon Motorola Droid in 2009). So with all of the leaks over the past months and the eventual official announcement for the Pixel 6, I couldn’t help but get pulled into the building excitement. Now, with the phone in hand, let's see if the Pixel 6 and Android 12 live up to the hype.

First, let's talk about the physical device itself. The frame is metal and finished in matte black. The front and back are both glass. The front is mostly flat and has a very thin, almost imperceptible, cushion layer between the screen and the frame. At the top, just between the screen and the frame, is an ultra-narrow ear slit and just below that is a cutout for the single front-facing shooter. The back is glossy, has more curve to the edges, lacks the extra cushion layer of the front, and features the distinctive camera bar. The camera bar frame is metal that extends from the main body frame then is filled with more glass covering over the dual cameras and flash. On the bottom, flanking the USB-C port, are 2 downward firing speakers. The right side features the power button and volume rocker while the left side is home to the single nano SIM tray.

The overall design is both attractive and functional. The phone fits well in the hand, the power and volume rockers are placed well, and the camera bar keeps the phone from rocking when set down on its back. Construction seems top notch with excellent fit and finish and no noticeable flex in the body. On the downside, the glossy glass on the back makes the phone quite slippery. So best to protect your investment with a good case.

Once powered on, you’re greeted by the beautiful 6.4 inch AMOLED display. The 2400x1080 resolution offers super crisp images with no perceptible pixels and the 90Hz refresh rate delivers ultra smooth scrolling and gaming. Colors are rich and vibrant and blacks are deep and dark. The screen offers a good brightness range from dark-but-visible up to significantly bright, even in broad daylight. Also, having just the slightest of bezels, apps fill the front of the phone while not creating unwanted touches just by gripping the sides, as compared to other curved, wrap-around screens that I’ve used.

The Pixel 6’s speakers have been satisfactory. Playing games or watching videos, the Pixel employs the ear slit as well as the lower downward firing speakers to give a fuller stereo effect. The setup offers plenty of volume and clarity. Highs are crisp but lows are lacking a bit. Like other phones with this configuration, the lower speakers do tend to get covered by your hand when holding the phone in a landscape orientation and make me miss the dual front-facing speakers of my older 3XL a little. Calls on both the handset and speakerphone have plenty of volume and clarity.

The in-display fingerprint reader has worked well for me. Its placed well on the front so my thumb can reach it naturally and its response has been plenty fast. Accuracy has been no different than the rear-mounted reader on my 3XL, with just the periodic miss-then-reread. That said, I do miss having it on the back: It just feels more natural to me. Also, I haven’t yet been able to test it with a screen protector installed as I’m still waiting for delivery.

Battery life has been very good. Typical usage on the Pixel 6 for me includes calls, texts, emails, activity tracking, some casual gaming, periodic web research, media playback (Plex for music and misc streaming services for videos), and managing smart home items such as a robot vacuum, video doorbell, smart outlets, and Google Nest security camera. Through all of this, the battery lasts a full day with some left over without need for midday top-ups. Experience has shown that using 5G, both AT&T and Google Fi, is significantly harder on battery life. But this can be mitigated by being on wifi or dropping back to 4G, which can be managed in the settings on an as needed basis.

Wired and wireless charging rates are fast, depending on your source. While 30w charging is possible, no charging brick is included with the phone. Wireless charging placement is not finicky, to the point you can actually rest the camera bar on the charger and still successfully charge. Also, the phone allows for battery sharing, which is a nice touch.

The cameras are very, very good. The app launches very quickly with a double-tap of the Power button. There are plenty of modes available; the familiar Portrait and Night Sight, and now the new Motion mode. All produce stunning, creative, flagship-level photos with great detail and vivid color. The photo tools have been beefed up to include the much ballyhooed Magic Eraser. In my testing, while the Magic Eraser is interesting, it never seems to be convincing, frequently leaving smears or discolorations. Video now includes digital stabilization, which works very, very well.

Covering a few other features: I tested Bluetooth with a new gen 6 smartwatch as well as various headphones and speakers. All worked well and demonstrated good range. NFC for contactless payments has been quick and effective. Casting to an older Chromecast has been fast and reliable (Note: There is currently a legal issue limiting access to volume control from the volume rocker while casting). Video calls using the front camera have been excellent. On the downside, there is no headphone port, no expandable memory, and no option for video out over the USB-C port.

Now, let's spend a few moments talking about Android. The phone ships with Android 12 out of the box, which is the most significant visual update to Android in years. Most functionality is where you’re used to finding it, but has been given a fresh look with the new Material You design language. While its all very attractive, things like the quick toggles or volume settings just take up more screen real estate than before.

Beyond the appearance, there’s a lot of good here. Boot time is super fast. Voice recognition and transcription has been incredibly accurate. The ability of the Assistant to work conversationally is amazing. The new wallpaper theming and icon theming are nice touches. 3-button navigation is, thankfully, still available (for those of us old fogeys who don’t like gestures). Also, scrolling screenshots work well (in apps that they are compatible with, which doesn’t include Chrome currently).

Then there’s frustrations. The loss of the incredibly useful Power menu (Power Off, Restart, GPay, and access to smart appliances) is frustrating. Even if you go through the settings and enable the new Power menu (Settings/System/Gestures/Press and hold power button), it only gives you the power-related options and quick access to declare an emergency. Most, not all, of the other combined functionality is now available in a Home icon on the lock screen.

Then there’s Google’s tendency to kill off mature products and forcibly replace them with products that simply don’t work as well. For example, the loss of Google Play Music still stings. But now, with Android 12, we’ve lost access to Android Auto for Phone Screens; a tool me and many others used profusely. Its replaced by the new Google Assistant Driving Mode. Which simply doesn’t work as well.

That said, Android and its apps are an ever evolving adventure. Issues such as these will likely be addressed as updates are released. And because its a Pixel, you’ll have access to those updates immediately.

All things considered, the Pixel 6 is simply the best Pixel ever made. Its not perfect, but no phone is. If you want a well built phone that produces great pictures, offers easy access to Google’s ecosystem, and delivers immediate updates, this Pixel 6 is a great choice.

The Pixel 6 (and 6 Pro) is Google’s latest generation of the Pixel lineup. The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro offer Google’s first home built processor, Tensor, with Titan M2 security chip for enhanced protection. Both of these chips provide the phone with faster processing and enhanced security over every other Pixel before it. This paired with all new camera sensors and a fairly groundbreaking exterior design prove that Google takes Pixel very seriously. I will be focusing my review on the Pixel 6 as this is the device I have been using but some of these items can be applied to the Pixel 6 Pro as well.

Design:

The new design for Pixel is a bit of a controversial one. Personally I really like it. The horizontal camera bar houses the new camera hardware as well as provides a differentiating look compared to every other phone out there. The bonus of the camera car is the phone sits very stable on a flat surface! (No wobble) Google continues offering several color options just like the last few generations which is a nice touch. The stormy black unit I received is a great neutral color for those who may not want a colorful device and I assume the white would be similar.

Screen:

The Pixel 6 features a 6.4-inch 90Hz AMOLED panel with FHD+ resolution stretching 1080 x 2400 pixels. This comes with a 20:9 aspect ratio, 411ppi pixel density, and an 83.4% screen-to-body ratio.

The Pixel 6 Pro features a 6.7-inch adaptive 120Hz LTPO AMOLED panel with QHD+ resolution stretching 1440 x 3120 pixels. This comes with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 512ppi pixel density, and an 88.8% screen-to-body ratio.

Both phones come with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus on the front and support HDR10+ content and always-on display. The biggest difference is the curved display on the Pixel 6 Pro, higher resolution/refresh rate, and Gorilla Glass Victus on the back too instead of Gorilla Glass 6 like the regular Pixel 6.

My Pixel 6 has been enjoyable to use however this is the one area I did downgrade vs my last THREE phones believe it or not. I love the upgrade to a 90Hz screen but I do not like the downgrade in resolution vs QHD displays I have used in the past. With this said it wasn’t as big of a drawback as I originally feared. The 6.4” display has great colors, great blacks, and a higher refresh rate which is pleasurable to use. I just wish the PPI was higher as I have had QHD displays on my last three LG phones. One other notable feature is the use of an optical finger print sensor under the front display on both devices. The sensor works ok but it one of the other minor disappointments of the phone. It can be slow to respond or not recognize at all. I would recommend registering your same fingerprints at least two times for a better chance of the phone getting it on the first try.

Android 12:

The Pixel 6 launches with Android 12 which is the latest version of Android. The Pixel 6 gets, at minimum, 3 years of software updates and 5 years of security updates. As far as I know this is the longest period of support for Android phone makers. This is nice because you know as long as the hardware is solid, Google will be there is support the phone for many years to come so you are not forced to upgrade in just 2-3 years just to have the latest software features. If you would like to find in depth details of this version of Android, I would recommend searching YouTube for a video review highlighting the changes. Overall the UI looks new and fresh. It implements new design features to provide accent colors throughout the interface depending on your background colors. The overall interface isn’t so far removed from other versions of Android it should be easy to adopt for those used to Android. The settings menu has an easy to use key word, search bar to find the specific setting you want to find so you are not digging through menus. Overall, lots of customization abilities, multi-device integration through your Google account (If wanted), and easy to navigate UI.

Only gripe so far is I get some occasional accidental back/forward swipes while using some apps. I have changed the sensitivity to be at its lowest setting but it can be easy to accidentally swipe back (Swipe right from edge of screen).

Battery Life:

I have had outstanding battery life compared to my last device. The Pixel 6 features a 4,614 mAh battery which is larger than all the smaller Pixel’s of the past. I have easily been able to make it through a normal day with plenty of battery to spare. In fact, I have not been able to drain it (through normal usage) below 50% while using Wi-Fi and 4G data. I have gotten between 3-4 hours of screen on time within my battery usage and I have no doubts many more is possible depending on the type of usage. I have seen reports than 5G can impact battery life more significantly but have not been able to verify myself.

Speakers:

The speakers have good quality especially for a smartphone but are a little on the quiet side. I routinely find myself using the top 30% of the volume range in anything but the quietest of settings.

Cameras:

The main camera on the Pixel 6 is a new 50MP (f/1.85) sensor that does Pixel binning to create a final 12.5MP image. The Ultra Wide camera is 12MP (f/2.2) sensor. The front camera is an 8MP (f/2.0) sensor. So far I have been very happy with images from all three sensors. The new, main camera sensor combined with Google image processing and computational tools. Android 12 adds Magic Eraser which lets you remove objects/people from an image. It works very well in some scenarios and just ok in others. The fact you can do this from your phone so easily now is impression nonetheless. Other software tools involve removing blur from faces and improvements to skin tones. I have been very happy with image quality and it is heaps better than my prior phone as Google’s software has been optimized to take advantage of the sensors capabilities. My only minor complaints is the Ultra Wide sensor takes good but not great pictures and could be a tad wider overall. The phone’s video shooting abilities have been greatly improved compared to Pixels of the past and it shoots video up to 4K at 60FPS. The main camera features Laser Autofocus and Optical Image Stabilization (OIS).

If you are looking for the best camera specs, you’ll want to opt for the Pixel 6 Pro which features the same Main, and Ultra Wide sensors but adds a 48MP f/3.5 telephoto lens with OIS and 4x optical zoom and a better front facing camera with 11.1MP f/2.2 which also shoots 4K 30FPS video instead of 1080p 30FPS on the Pixel 6.

Three attached images (Outside of two of phone) are straight out of camera with no editing.

Performance:

The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro features Google first in house processor named Tensor. This is paired with 8GB of ram on the Pixel 6 and 12GB on the 6 Pro. Google claims the Pixel 6 has 370% higher GPU performance and 80% higher CPU performance compared to the Pixel 5. I came from a phone with the Snapdragon 845, Adreno 630 and 6GB of ram. I have been very pleased with the performance of the Pixel 6 as it has been overall much smoother than my prior phone. The software optimization here obviously helps a bunch compared to the other phone but I think the processor itself has good performance all around. Overall, I haven’t experienced any real performance challenges so far. I don’t game on my phones but the photo editing and multitasking with apps is hassle free for the phone.

Verdict:

The Pixel 6 has been amazing to use! It is clearly the best phone Google has ever made. The cameras on the Pixel 6 are great along with the software to back them up. The new editing tools bring another level of power to the photos you capture. Tensor, the new processor, seems like promising venture for Google. Performance has been great with no issues and I am happy to see the dedicated support for years to come. It will be interesting to see its Machine Learning capacities as time progresses. Battery life is another strong point in my usage of the phone. I have enjoyed ending the day with more than 50% left on the phone compared to struggling to make a full day with my last device. I would highly recommend upgrading to the Pixel 6 if you have an older Pixel device or just want a stock Android device with good performance. The value Google has offered with this phone is incredible.

Do I believe the $300 premium for the Pro is worth it? Maybe. I prefer the flat display on the regular Pixel 6 but I would love the higher resolution display and the Telephoto camera found on the 6 Pro. The Pixel 6 is by far the stronger value of the two however.

I loved.I like the fabric it is easy to hold and it does not slip

I love the color and the fit was perfect light but will protect from scratches! As far as durability I just bought it not long ago so I'll need more time with it to find out the longevity!! I'd say wash it if you don't want it to look dirty since it can soak some hand oiles and sweat! Also price could of been cheaper! over all it's a good case!!

When you purchase a phone... Depending on who you are and obviously your likes, you either want to show off your phone, protect it or if possible BOTH! Google hit the mark with this one. Most clear cases get greasy, grimy, are slippery etc. So that was a no go for me & then you want to protect your investment at least a little... but the whole rhinoshield, UAG, otterbox cases are hideous and bulk your phone up almost to a brick. So nope, but Google figured this one out, slim profile - tight fitting and just enough protection to not shatter this Pixel 4 XL... So I for one am satisfied! Now on to get the Sorta Smokey and Bluish colors.

Simple oils from your hands collects on the edges and if you set it on something it picks up stains really easy.

Needs to be Scotch Guard-ed,

A very minimal no frills case, as I am sure Google intended it. The cloth texture is easy to hold and so far doesn't seem to attract and dust or dirt. My Pixel Stand works flawlessy with it, as well as other wireless chargers. The buttons are nice without any mush. The bottom is completely open to accept any type of USB-C and keeps the speakers exposed. Overall, it may tend to be a little on the overpriced side but coupled with a tempered glass screen protector, it will keep your Pixel in great condition.

If you have a Google Pixel 4 XL, you really can't go wrong with a name brand case. This is a great case, but it's a shame it's the only name brand case stocked at my store. At least, it was at the time of purchase. I wouldn't be surprised if my local Best Buy didn't stock any Pixel 4 XL cases by now. They'll usually have a whole aisle of iPhone cases, and almost nothing else. Even though the newest iPhone STILL has a lower screen resolution than the old Samsung Note 5. I know... But I'm aftaid that it is, sad but true.

Comfortable and durable, I was able to drop my phone onto my couch without any damage being done to it with this case on. Then it fell on the floor and still no damage! I even yelled into my phone when my clash of clans base was raised and I lost nearly 100% of my resources and still the case protected it not only from physical turmoil but verbal as well!

I had the previous version of this case for my Pixel 3 and liked it, so I decided to get this for my Pixel 4. It's well built, the blue color is more unique than the typical black case I see, and the fabric gives it a nice texture. Does it get dirty easier than a normal/TPU/rubber case? Yes, but it's pretty easy to clean and I think it's worth it. Additionally, I've had numerous people tell me that they like my case and wish they had a similar one.

It also works perfectly well with wireless charging and with magnetic mounts (I have the plate between the case and my phone).