13 ms·

I've had a lot of Google/Android phones - Nexus 5X - Pixel 1 - Pixel 3 - Pixel 4 Im going back to iPhone. There are too many problems w/Google HW. The supply

I've had a lot of Google/Android phones - Nexus 5X - Pixel 1 - Pixel 3 - Pixel 4 Im going back to iPhone. There are too many problems w/Google HW. The supply chain sucks if something breaks (which happens much more often than my iDevices). My pixel 1 mic stopped working, and it was impossible to find parts to fix it (including for 3rd part repair stores). My wife's Pixel 3 won't reliably charge wirelessly. You have to reboot the phone 1x per week inorder to get wireless charging to work. So you put it down... And wake up to a dead phone. My pixel 4 had a terrible Chrome problem until very recently. Chrome would basically lock up the system. The gesture navigation also kind os sucks. Also, the pixel 4 glass really sucks. I had scratches all over it with the first month... Vs my Moto G7 which has none. Don't even get me started on the new Android TV chrome cast or the 2 WearOS watches or my chromebox that can't have more than 2 BT devices connected (or it stops working).

spiznnx 6y ago
The Google/Nexus/Pixel series phones never seem to be perfect. I just don't think Google has the hardware DNA. On the other hand, pretty much every Samsung and Apple phone I've owned has been perfect hardware-wise.
- dessant 6y ago
  Samsung hardware is indeed excellent, but there's still much room to improve around delivering updates. Samsung's current commitment is to deliver 3 major OS updates after device launch [1], which is still not enough for a flagship that will work fine even after 5 years. [1] https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-raises-the-bar-for-mobile-experience-innovation-committing-to-three-generations-of-android-os-upgrades https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-raises-the-bar-for-m...
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    The Nexus S was made by Samsung. It'd be nice to see that happen again. On an unrelated note, my Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 both failed in different ways, but the Nexus S, from the year before the 4, still hasn't.
  - mekster 6y ago
    These days when Google itself doesn't even support a phone for longer than 3 years, you get to think phones are disposable assets and not something you're supposed to love keeping like in the old days hardware. Makes you think less of trying to buy expensive ones when they get obsoleted real fast.
- turtlebits 6y ago
  The Pixel 1 was perfect for me. It's showing its age though, I use it as a semi-permanent hotspot and it needs to be rebooted every 3 days or so.
  - spiznnx 6y ago
    On paper it was pretty good. For my experience specifically, my partner had to replace her Pixel 1 multiple times for a broken microphone, and they gave her a refurb which she wasn't happy about. Obviously most people weren't affected but it was common enough to result in a class action settlement.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  I thought google actually did a great job with the nexus phones. the hardware wasn't perfect, but they were pretty good (and even attractive imo) for the price point. I have a pixel 2 now. it's good enough for everything I use it for, but it really didn't justify its launch price. it's basically a nexus phone with a fancy chassis and nicer camera. just like my two nexus phones, the volume up button stopped working within a month or two of ownership. it still feels snappy and gets updates, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > I have a pixel 2 now. it's good enough for everything I use it for, but it really didn't justify its launch price. it's basically a nexus phone with a fancy chassis and nicer camera. I have a pixel 3a. The "a" series seems to be the same thing, but also at nexus prices. I remember the Ars Technica review of the 3a saying something like "there were some worries that sales of the 3a might cannibalize sales from the flagship line, to which we can only say... yeah."
  - dtzWill 6y ago
    > and gets updates Wife and I also have pixel 2's, and AFAIK October 2020 was the last month we got updates[1] :(. (although it notes "Pixel 2 Preferred Care customers have telephone support until April 2021.") Which makes this article all the more disappointing, as we're looking to upgrade for this and the usual reasons :). [1] https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en
    - kdrag0n 6y ago
      The final update comes in December 2020; they just skipped November. You'll have to upgrade or switch to a custom ROM after that for continued support — it's still a fairly solid phone if not for the lack of updates.
    - leetcrew 6y ago
      ha, I guess I spoke too soon. any idea what you'll replace your pixel 2's with? pixel 4a looks decent this cycle.
uep 6y ago
It sounds like you go through a lot of phones. Any particular reason for that? Do you just like to upgrade to the latest, or is it due to the dissatisfaction you're referring to?
- anonuser123456 6y ago
  TL;dr: Mostly hardware failure. I didn't mention that my 5X flash died (after 18 months of ownership). Or at least I assume it was the flash...since the bootloader failed screen would loop. That prompted me to buy pixel 1. My pixel 1 became non-functional because dust got in the microphone...and no replacement parts were available. So I got a moto g7 as an interim. The pixel 3 is my wife's. The pixel 4 is my current and replaced moto g7 because it's slow as molasses with newer android. So basically all my replacements were because of a HW failure or SW slowdown. This compares to my mom's iPhone 6s that still runs snappy. My brother had a 6 that worked fine until he replaced it for the SE recently. My kids have used our ipads as skateboards across the tile and they still work fine. I drop them regularly... No problem. My experience with Google HW is that it is sub par.
  - 0_____0 6y ago
    that's weird, i have a pixel 2 with latest android and the speed is fine. that being said, i do have weird issues where the phone reboots when doing video-intensive tasks (recording video, on a vid call) for apple, iPhone is literally half their income; i think the phone business is a few percentage points for google. not a surprise that you see more attention to detail w/ apple
  - toast0 6y ago
    The 5x's had some serious issues leading to bootlooping for lots of users. You could get it repaired by LG (often free, even after warranty), but you'd still be out a phone for about 10 days and it came back wiped (IIRC), and then you're still going to worry about it. I'd consider another Google phone, but I just don't trust them to have designed and implemented a phone that's going to last as long as a phone of that price should last. From the latest round of phones though, motorola seems good enough, except the vibration is very hard to miss unless it's on a table; nokia has bluetooth problems with one of my cars and isn't pushing a fix worldwide, even though some countries have had the fix for months; ugh.
bpodgursky 6y ago
There are a lot of high-quality phones in the Android ecosystem now that run a stock OS. You don't have to stick to the Nexus/Pixel line anymore. Samsung, LG, Moto, etc etc etc. Not really any reason in switching to iPhones on the weakness of the Pixel line, unless you're trying to make some other political point.
xnx 6y ago
Google doesn't have the expertise or ship enough volume to make good hardware. If I could get a pure Google experience on Samsung-quality hardware, I'd go for that every time.
- mxschumacher 6y ago
  I have a one plus phone and it is exactly what you describe. I'm very happy with it
- jbay808 6y ago
  > If I could get a pure Google experience on Samsung-quality hardware, I'd go for that every time. "I'm always here when you need me", moped the lonely Sony Xperia in a distant corner of the room.
- singhrac 6y ago
  The annoying thing is - the Pixel software experience is just really good. I love the call interception feature, the photos are uniformly great, all the Google-y AI stuff is somewhat useful. I can't get that on any other Android phone, and this year's Pixel seems good but not top-of-line. Honestly I wouldn't upgrade unless otherwise incentivized, but I'm making the switch to iPhone for the first time. This is a bummer since Android is finally a great platform.
- mekster 6y ago
  I just think Google is making the baseline phones to remove worse phones out of the market. If you want better experience, there are other Android phones.
hundchenkatze 6y ago
For another data point here's my anecdote. My wife and I had Pixel 2s and then we upgraded to Pixel 3s. The only issues we've had were self-inflicted. I dropped both my 2 and 3 causing the screens to crack, but they've been fine otherwise. I also still have a Nexus 5 that's currently running LineageOS.
- meowster 6y ago
  The nexus devices were designed and manufactured by another company. Both my Nexus 5 and Nexus 5X experienced boot loops due to hardware.
  - Softcadbury 6y ago
    Same here for both phones after 1 year...
  - ColanR 6y ago
    I have a nexus 5 that bootlooped, and fixed it. Disassembled the phone, and took off the power button from the main board. Turned out the soldering job inside the power button was badly done, and the looping was due to a piece of solder that had come loose and was shorting the connection. So now I have a totally functional nexus 5, but to use the power button I have to stick a piece of tin foil down inside where the power button used to be. I have a mod on there that added a 4th home row button which covers all but the 'on' functions of that button.
    - toast0 6y ago
      FYI, I had an Android phone where the power button stopped working. I was able to turn it on by plugging it in and quickly unplugging it. May be easier than finding tin foil (or aluminum foil).
      - ColanR 6y ago
        Thanks, I'll try that.
    - 6y ago
mseidl 6y ago
I've been a long time Linux/android guy but I was thinking of trying my first iphone now.
- anonuser123456 6y ago
  I got lucky and my work bought everyone iPhone SE due to covid. So far I love it. The camera on the SE isn't as good as the Pixel 4, but other than that the iPhone seems better.
archon810 6y ago
Your Pixel 3 wireless charging issue is likely the bloating of the battery. https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/09/10/increasing-reports-of-pixel-3-and-pixel-3-xl-battery-swelling-damaging-phones/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/09/10/increasing-reports-... I actually had this happen and made Google replace it out of warranty (they sent a refurb).
thaumasiotes 6y ago
I got a Pixel in the hopes of running LineageOS. No dice; I was never able to get the Pixel's USB port to do anything other than draw power from my computer. Apparently this wasn't even an unusual problem.
- kinjba11 6y ago
  I have experienced a flaky connection for an iPhone as well - plug it in and Catalina would spin endlessly, and when it did manage to connect, it'd fail soon after. Yet other devices were fine. Sometimes QA can't catch every failure, assuming it was hardware and not software.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    I believe it was software. I got different behavior depending on (a) which USB port I tried to connect it to (OK, that looks like hardware), but also (b) what mode the phone was booted into.
- milleramp 6y ago
  There are 2 flavors of pixel phones the Verizon and Google, both are carrier unlocked but the Verizon has a locked bootloader. There are work arounds for some of the devices but last time I checked none for the pixel 2xl. If your buying a used one for Lineage good idea to check.
jaymzcampbell 6y ago
I bought a second hand Pixel 2XL and was initially thrilled until I tried plugging it in and realised it was immediately turning itself off - hard and fast. A quick search came across multiple large threads which never had a single reliable "it's because of X" reason - all sort of cargo cult solutions posted but really the device charging port seems to be somewhat fried but no official acknowledgement that's the case from Google. * https://support.google.com/pixelphone/forum/AAAAb4-OgUsBZo6teS4fCA/ https://support.google.com/pixelphone/forum/AAAAb4-OgUsBZo6t...? * https://support.google.com/pixelphone/forum/AAAAb4-OgUs4rkbD8ad4DA/ https://support.google.com/pixelphone/forum/AAAAb4-OgUs4rkbD... In the end I ended up returning the CEX (2nd hand store) phone to Google who then sent a new device to me. Though I was glad to get it sorted in that way (and do love the device itself - when it works, it works great) it really put me off ever wanting to buy new their hardware fresh. Just seems to have way too many problems. * https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/cm9dt9/cex_bought_pixel_2xl_powering_off_when_charging/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/cm9dt9/cex_bou...
- discreditable 6y ago
  Google's tech support had my wife factory reset her Pixel 2 for charging problems. Big surprise it did not fix it. We ended up trading in for credit to upgrade to a Pixel 3a, which she still has.
ufmace 6y ago
Maybe you've had bad luck with devices? I've stuck with Google phones for a while, and mostly had good experiences. Nexus 5X, Pixel 2, Pixel 4a lately. The Nexus 5X was great, until it bricked itself. Fortunately, freezing it (literally in a freezer) would get it running long enough to get a few critical bits off. Pixel 2 was a great phone, no complaints. Only replaced it because the battery life was getting painfully low. And the charging connection got really finicky in the last 6 months or so. Pixel 4a is also great. Only issue is that for some reason, like a quarter of my contacts names don't show up in the text messenger conversation list. Weird, but I can live with it.
- hug 6y ago
  Your definition of "good experiences" differs from mine. Like "Oh I absolutely loved my new car, ran like a dream. Of course there was that one time it spontaneously set on fire on while I was driving it but other than that, it was excellent."
  - ufmace 6y ago
    Well I chuckled at least. But yeah, a car spontaneously catching on fire is completely unacceptable and should never ever happen. A phone's battery life getting worse after 2.5 years of use is pretty normal and expected. The other one with the sudden hard bricking is pretty bad, but it worked perfectly up until then, and it lasted about the normal lifetime of a phone anyways. The parent to mine was complaining about day to day usage issues that I've never had.
creativityEng 6y ago
I'm not sure Apple is any better, you have safari and apples ecosystem. Dangerous games you are playing when you give into Apple.
wstrange 6y ago
Another anecdote: Two pixel 3as in the family. Both have been flawless. Great value for the price.
dangus 6y ago
The consistency of iPhones and Apple’s predictability really do play in to making the iPhone a easy recommendation. They clearly understand that phones are now our digital lifelines, not a place to be playing around with weird features. Apple doesn’t sell a slow phone, even for $399. People complain about Apple’s high prices but the real “secret” is that Apple’s previous generation phones that they continue to sell new are an excellent value. Their manufacturing is basically perfect. Since the 8/X especially I haven’t heard of any persistent hardware flaw and even before then there was not much to write home about. You don’t have to wonder when the next iPhone will come out or what it will be like. iOS never changes based on what phone you have besides minor necessary differences between notch and non-notch phones. I once had to ship my my phone to be repaired, and I was able to restore my exact setup and all data to my backup iPhone 6S. Not only did it work flawlessly, the 6S was still surprisingly fast. Overall, you really can’t get a phone that lasts longer. Even iPhones that don’t get iOS 14 are still getting security patches. You could feel pretty decently about connecting an iPhone 5S with iOS 12 to a network. Yep, an 8 year old phone - I am positive there are tens of thousands of people still daily driving that phone.
- mekster 6y ago
  Not to mention app developers can target for newer iOS with newer features when Apple is the only manufacturer to support all the iPhone making them quick to provide updates across the devices. Android still has plenty of Android 5 around today.

spiznnx 6y ago

The Google/Nexus/Pixel series phones never seem to be perfect. I just don't think Google has the hardware DNA. On the other hand, pretty much every Samsung and Apple phone I've owned has been perfect hardware-wise.

dessant 6y ago
Samsung hardware is indeed excellent, but there's still much room to improve around delivering updates. Samsung's current commitment is to deliver 3 major OS updates after device launch [1], which is still not enough for a flagship that will work fine even after 5 years. [1] https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-raises-the-bar-for-mobile-experience-innovation-committing-to-three-generations-of-android-os-upgrades https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-raises-the-bar-for-m...
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  The Nexus S was made by Samsung. It'd be nice to see that happen again. On an unrelated note, my Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 both failed in different ways, but the Nexus S, from the year before the 4, still hasn't.
- mekster 6y ago
  These days when Google itself doesn't even support a phone for longer than 3 years, you get to think phones are disposable assets and not something you're supposed to love keeping like in the old days hardware. Makes you think less of trying to buy expensive ones when they get obsoleted real fast.
turtlebits 6y ago
The Pixel 1 was perfect for me. It's showing its age though, I use it as a semi-permanent hotspot and it needs to be rebooted every 3 days or so.
- spiznnx 6y ago
  On paper it was pretty good. For my experience specifically, my partner had to replace her Pixel 1 multiple times for a broken microphone, and they gave her a refurb which she wasn't happy about. Obviously most people weren't affected but it was common enough to result in a class action settlement.
leetcrew 6y ago
I thought google actually did a great job with the nexus phones. the hardware wasn't perfect, but they were pretty good (and even attractive imo) for the price point. I have a pixel 2 now. it's good enough for everything I use it for, but it really didn't justify its launch price. it's basically a nexus phone with a fancy chassis and nicer camera. just like my two nexus phones, the volume up button stopped working within a month or two of ownership. it still feels snappy and gets updates, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > I have a pixel 2 now. it's good enough for everything I use it for, but it really didn't justify its launch price. it's basically a nexus phone with a fancy chassis and nicer camera. I have a pixel 3a. The "a" series seems to be the same thing, but also at nexus prices. I remember the Ars Technica review of the 3a saying something like "there were some worries that sales of the 3a might cannibalize sales from the flagship line, to which we can only say... yeah."
- dtzWill 6y ago
  > and gets updates Wife and I also have pixel 2's, and AFAIK October 2020 was the last month we got updates[1] :(. (although it notes "Pixel 2 Preferred Care customers have telephone support until April 2021.") Which makes this article all the more disappointing, as we're looking to upgrade for this and the usual reasons :). [1] https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en
  - kdrag0n 6y ago
    The final update comes in December 2020; they just skipped November. You'll have to upgrade or switch to a custom ROM after that for continued support — it's still a fairly solid phone if not for the lack of updates.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    ha, I guess I spoke too soon. any idea what you'll replace your pixel 2's with? pixel 4a looks decent this cycle.

uep 6y ago

It sounds like you go through a lot of phones. Any particular reason for that? Do you just like to upgrade to the latest, or is it due to the dissatisfaction you're referring to?

anonuser123456 6y ago
TL;dr: Mostly hardware failure. I didn't mention that my 5X flash died (after 18 months of ownership). Or at least I assume it was the flash...since the bootloader failed screen would loop. That prompted me to buy pixel 1. My pixel 1 became non-functional because dust got in the microphone...and no replacement parts were available. So I got a moto g7 as an interim. The pixel 3 is my wife's. The pixel 4 is my current and replaced moto g7 because it's slow as molasses with newer android. So basically all my replacements were because of a HW failure or SW slowdown. This compares to my mom's iPhone 6s that still runs snappy. My brother had a 6 that worked fine until he replaced it for the SE recently. My kids have used our ipads as skateboards across the tile and they still work fine. I drop them regularly... No problem. My experience with Google HW is that it is sub par.
- 0_____0 6y ago
  that's weird, i have a pixel 2 with latest android and the speed is fine. that being said, i do have weird issues where the phone reboots when doing video-intensive tasks (recording video, on a vid call) for apple, iPhone is literally half their income; i think the phone business is a few percentage points for google. not a surprise that you see more attention to detail w/ apple
- toast0 6y ago
  The 5x's had some serious issues leading to bootlooping for lots of users. You could get it repaired by LG (often free, even after warranty), but you'd still be out a phone for about 10 days and it came back wiped (IIRC), and then you're still going to worry about it. I'd consider another Google phone, but I just don't trust them to have designed and implemented a phone that's going to last as long as a phone of that price should last. From the latest round of phones though, motorola seems good enough, except the vibration is very hard to miss unless it's on a table; nokia has bluetooth problems with one of my cars and isn't pushing a fix worldwide, even though some countries have had the fix for months; ugh.

bpodgursky 6y ago

There are a lot of high-quality phones in the Android ecosystem now that run a stock OS. You don't have to stick to the Nexus/Pixel line anymore. Samsung, LG, Moto, etc etc etc. Not really any reason in switching to iPhones on the weakness of the Pixel line, unless you're trying to make some other political point.

xnx 6y ago

Google doesn't have the expertise or ship enough volume to make good hardware. If I could get a pure Google experience on Samsung-quality hardware, I'd go for that every time.

mxschumacher 6y ago
I have a one plus phone and it is exactly what you describe. I'm very happy with it
jbay808 6y ago
> If I could get a pure Google experience on Samsung-quality hardware, I'd go for that every time. "I'm always here when you need me", moped the lonely Sony Xperia in a distant corner of the room.
singhrac 6y ago
The annoying thing is - the Pixel software experience is just really good. I love the call interception feature, the photos are uniformly great, all the Google-y AI stuff is somewhat useful. I can't get that on any other Android phone, and this year's Pixel seems good but not top-of-line. Honestly I wouldn't upgrade unless otherwise incentivized, but I'm making the switch to iPhone for the first time. This is a bummer since Android is finally a great platform.
mekster 6y ago
I just think Google is making the baseline phones to remove worse phones out of the market. If you want better experience, there are other Android phones.

hundchenkatze 6y ago

For another data point here's my anecdote. My wife and I had Pixel 2s and then we upgraded to Pixel 3s. The only issues we've had were self-inflicted. I dropped both my 2 and 3 causing the screens to crack, but they've been fine otherwise. I also still have a Nexus 5 that's currently running LineageOS.

meowster 6y ago
The nexus devices were designed and manufactured by another company. Both my Nexus 5 and Nexus 5X experienced boot loops due to hardware.
- Softcadbury 6y ago
  Same here for both phones after 1 year...
- ColanR 6y ago
  I have a nexus 5 that bootlooped, and fixed it. Disassembled the phone, and took off the power button from the main board. Turned out the soldering job inside the power button was badly done, and the looping was due to a piece of solder that had come loose and was shorting the connection. So now I have a totally functional nexus 5, but to use the power button I have to stick a piece of tin foil down inside where the power button used to be. I have a mod on there that added a 4th home row button which covers all but the 'on' functions of that button.
  - toast0 6y ago
    FYI, I had an Android phone where the power button stopped working. I was able to turn it on by plugging it in and quickly unplugging it. May be easier than finding tin foil (or aluminum foil).
    - ColanR 6y ago
      Thanks, I'll try that.
  - 6y ago

mseidl 6y ago

I've been a long time Linux/android guy but I was thinking of trying my first iphone now.

anonuser123456 6y ago
I got lucky and my work bought everyone iPhone SE due to covid. So far I love it. The camera on the SE isn't as good as the Pixel 4, but other than that the iPhone seems better.

archon810 6y ago

Your Pixel 3 wireless charging issue is likely the bloating of the battery. https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/09/10/increasing-reports-of-pixel-3-and-pixel-3-xl-battery-swelling-damaging-phones/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/09/10/increasing-reports-... I actually had this happen and made Google replace it out of warranty (they sent a refurb).

thaumasiotes 6y ago

I got a Pixel in the hopes of running LineageOS. No dice; I was never able to get the Pixel's USB port to do anything other than draw power from my computer. Apparently this wasn't even an unusual problem.

kinjba11 6y ago
I have experienced a flaky connection for an iPhone as well - plug it in and Catalina would spin endlessly, and when it did manage to connect, it'd fail soon after. Yet other devices were fine. Sometimes QA can't catch every failure, assuming it was hardware and not software.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  I believe it was software. I got different behavior depending on (a) which USB port I tried to connect it to (OK, that looks like hardware), but also (b) what mode the phone was booted into.
milleramp 6y ago
There are 2 flavors of pixel phones the Verizon and Google, both are carrier unlocked but the Verizon has a locked bootloader. There are work arounds for some of the devices but last time I checked none for the pixel 2xl. If your buying a used one for Lineage good idea to check.

jaymzcampbell 6y ago

I bought a second hand Pixel 2XL and was initially thrilled until I tried plugging it in and realised it was immediately turning itself off - hard and fast. A quick search came across multiple large threads which never had a single reliable "it's because of X" reason - all sort of cargo cult solutions posted but really the device charging port seems to be somewhat fried but no official acknowledgement that's the case from Google. * https://support.google.com/pixelphone/forum/AAAAb4-OgUsBZo6teS4fCA/ https://support.google.com/pixelphone/forum/AAAAb4-OgUsBZo6t...? * https://support.google.com/pixelphone/forum/AAAAb4-OgUs4rkbD8ad4DA/ https://support.google.com/pixelphone/forum/AAAAb4-OgUs4rkbD... In the end I ended up returning the CEX (2nd hand store) phone to Google who then sent a new device to me. Though I was glad to get it sorted in that way (and do love the device itself - when it works, it works great) it really put me off ever wanting to buy new their hardware fresh. Just seems to have way too many problems. * https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/cm9dt9/cex_bought_pixel_2xl_powering_off_when_charging/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/cm9dt9/cex_bou...

discreditable 6y ago
Google's tech support had my wife factory reset her Pixel 2 for charging problems. Big surprise it did not fix it. We ended up trading in for credit to upgrade to a Pixel 3a, which she still has.

ufmace 6y ago

Maybe you've had bad luck with devices? I've stuck with Google phones for a while, and mostly had good experiences. Nexus 5X, Pixel 2, Pixel 4a lately. The Nexus 5X was great, until it bricked itself. Fortunately, freezing it (literally in a freezer) would get it running long enough to get a few critical bits off. Pixel 2 was a great phone, no complaints. Only replaced it because the battery life was getting painfully low. And the charging connection got really finicky in the last 6 months or so. Pixel 4a is also great. Only issue is that for some reason, like a quarter of my contacts names don't show up in the text messenger conversation list. Weird, but I can live with it.

hug 6y ago
Your definition of "good experiences" differs from mine. Like "Oh I absolutely loved my new car, ran like a dream. Of course there was that one time it spontaneously set on fire on while I was driving it but other than that, it was excellent."
- ufmace 6y ago
  Well I chuckled at least. But yeah, a car spontaneously catching on fire is completely unacceptable and should never ever happen. A phone's battery life getting worse after 2.5 years of use is pretty normal and expected. The other one with the sudden hard bricking is pretty bad, but it worked perfectly up until then, and it lasted about the normal lifetime of a phone anyways. The parent to mine was complaining about day to day usage issues that I've never had.

creativityEng 6y ago

I'm not sure Apple is any better, you have safari and apples ecosystem. Dangerous games you are playing when you give into Apple.

wstrange 6y ago

Another anecdote: Two pixel 3as in the family. Both have been flawless. Great value for the price.

dangus 6y ago

The consistency of iPhones and Apple’s predictability really do play in to making the iPhone a easy recommendation. They clearly understand that phones are now our digital lifelines, not a place to be playing around with weird features. Apple doesn’t sell a slow phone, even for $399. People complain about Apple’s high prices but the real “secret” is that Apple’s previous generation phones that they continue to sell new are an excellent value. Their manufacturing is basically perfect. Since the 8/X especially I haven’t heard of any persistent hardware flaw and even before then there was not much to write home about. You don’t have to wonder when the next iPhone will come out or what it will be like. iOS never changes based on what phone you have besides minor necessary differences between notch and non-notch phones. I once had to ship my my phone to be repaired, and I was able to restore my exact setup and all data to my backup iPhone 6S. Not only did it work flawlessly, the 6S was still surprisingly fast. Overall, you really can’t get a phone that lasts longer. Even iPhones that don’t get iOS 14 are still getting security patches. You could feel pretty decently about connecting an iPhone 5S with iOS 12 to a network. Yep, an 8 year old phone - I am positive there are tens of thousands of people still daily driving that phone.

mekster 6y ago
Not to mention app developers can target for newer iOS with newer features when Apple is the only manufacturer to support all the iPhone making them quick to provide updates across the devices. Android still has plenty of Android 5 around today.