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Phones · Google Pixel

Google Pixel 6

58owners with an opinion
59%of verdicts positive
22/16positive/negative since 2024
3 yrslongest happy owner
1happy after 3+ years

Praised for reliability and software; criticized for battery.

What owners wrote

Likes itOwned 3 yearsStill going
I've got a Galaxy Note 3 kicking around somewhere. I think it even still works. That was a great phone. I'm currently going on 3 years of usage on my GrapheneOS-equipped Pixel 6. I have no immediate plans to upgrade. The thing just works, and there hasn't even been a whole lot of battery degradation.
Likes itOwned 2.5 years
Same here, I bought my current smartphone, a Pixel 6, two or three years ago for 200 dollars on eBay, and it arrived in pristine condition. Super small bump on one of the frame edges, not a single scratch on the display though now there are many, of course, I'm not that careful and the phone is cheap enough not to be too upset. I generally trust private sellers a lot more than professional ones, if you vet them well enough (check their page, check their reviews, check their other listings), the chance that you'll get a good deal on a device in the condition described. The incentive to gain a profit is a whole lot lower, a commercial seller has to make sure they're the winner in some way during a transaction, they have bills, staff and assets. A private person is often happy to just get rid of the phone, as it would usually rot in the old phone drawer, until it eventually ends up in an e-waste bin a decade later when they clean out. Getting a little money back is already a win. Surprisingly, I've never had a bad experience. I presume there's also buyer protection, but I'm hoping I never have to use it.
Likes itOwned 2 years
Revolut works perfectly for me. What kind of issues did you have? I think it does require google play services (which can be installed easily). I have used GOS on a pixel 6 for the past two years with no issues. The phone finally died on me last weekend, so I'm in the market for a new pixel which will be getting GOS right away.
Likes itOwned 2 yearsStill going
I may switch this time since they're finally offering trade-in offers here in Ireland. I like my Pixel 6, but wanted a better camera for a while (to be clear, the Pixel 6 camera is really good, especially considering the price the phone was, but I still miss things like e.g. better optical zoom), so I may get a Pixel 9 Pro. BTW, for those talking about issues: I bought my Pixel 6 at release, and yes, I had some strange Bluetooth issues during a few months. Not anymore, and for a while the phone is solid. Also, this is probably the first phone that I have that I don't feel the battery got worse after 2+ years of usage, maybe thanks to the Adaptive Battery. My wife iPhone 12 (that she bought around at the same time as me) already had a ok-ish battery when she bought, but nowadays the battery is just plain sucks (battery health is 87%, that doesn't explain the whole story), one of the reason that she may switch to a Pixel too. Another thing I like from my Pixel is after those 2 years, the phone still feels snappy. I know people like to say that Tensor CPUs are bad, but I never had any issues with them. I don't like the fact that Google increased the prices though: Pixel 6 was an amazing value for EUR649, but at EUR919 the Pro looks a more interesting choice since the gap reduced between the two. I think the reason is because the Pixel a series is such an amazing value that nobody care about the normal Pixel anymore, but if anything this is Google's fault.
Doesn’t like itOwned 1 year
I’ve had the same experience. Switched to the pixel 6, had it for a year, bought the iPhone 15 Pro. I make a hell of a lot less than a lot of the commenters here, so the decision to do so was incredibly costly. I made it, in part, because I take a lot of photos. At its best, the Pixel produces phenomenal photos. At its worst, they are horrendous. The iPhone consistently does well. With the Pixel I was getting disgusting over-sharpening, to the point I would screenshot photos as a few seconds after taking them. If I didn't screenshot, I would watch in dismay as the post-processing ruined it. The lens flare was frequently awful — lines that swept across the entire image. When I complained, the community said I should leverage this flaw in an artistic way. The video was awful, and the microphone was noisy. A few of my photos have had inexplicable black squares. Occasionally the camera lagged or crashed. My iPhone camera has messed up, but not like the pixel does. I don’t know why everyone seems to think it’s better. Maybe somehow mine was defective, but I could find posts to corroborate every issue I had.
Likes it
I had to upgrade my 2021 iPad 9gen to a newer model to actually make is reasonably usable. So I am not sure about recent track record for Apple. My 2021 Pixel 6 works well for my mother and is getting updates.
Doesn’t like it
Funnily enough I'm looking at getting a new phone because my pixel 6 battery no longer lasts 9am until 6pm without a mid-day charge -- I looked at the latest pixels (10) and they looked neat, but expensive; so took a look at the 9's, and saw they're basically exactly the same at 60% the price; then looked at the 8's and they're basically the same except 40% the price...
Likes it
I have a Pixel 8 pro, last year I went to NYC with a friend who had an iPhone. We went to some of the museums and as we were taking pics, the difference in color accuracy were dismal. The Google phone was much, much, worse. I think google used to be known for their good photography and I was very happy with my earlier pixel 6. But something happened. I'm sorry to say, but when it comes to photos and videos I think the iphone is now much better than the pixel phones. Not only that but theres a lot of things that are easier to do when you're inside the apple ecosystem. Particularly in countries with high iphone usage. I think Google has dropped the ball hard, and yeah, people working in android use iphones, people working in the google watch use apple watch.
Doesn’t like it
Interesting the first comment on the post suggesting a Android phone. Ironically I went the other way and switched to an iPhone because it did a better job of text than my pixel 6 or 7 due to spherical aberration scanning receipts and I got fed up. Then stuck with the ecosystem. I guess grass is just always greener on the other side from small compact cameras and optics on these devices. Best solution seemed to be 2x zoom with a bit of distance.
Likes it
This is great, and I'm not knocking it, but every time I see these apps it reminds me of my phone. My 2021 Google Pixel 6, when offline, can transcribe speech to text, and also corrects things contextually. it can make a mistake, and as I continue to speak, it will go back and correct something earlier in the sentence. What tech does Google have shoved in there that predates Whisper and Qwen by five years? And why do we now need a 1Gb of transformers to do it on a more powerful platform?
Neutral
On my pixel 6, viewing on Firefox, the weird scroll snap system prevents me from actually being able to click the original Bitcoin post. I can see it as I pull the web page upward but the page can never settle with it present in the viewport. What I failed to realize is that most viewers of web pages don't care they are more smitten by the love tld and nice font family. The link to og content can be clicked by claw probably just need a mini swarm for that
Likes it
Exactly the reason I own a pixel. Pixels get first class support by google in terms of software which means I can rock my phone for several generations before upgrading. I've owned a 2, 6, and now 9. Even though the 9 is much faster than the 2 or 6, I've reached a point where that performance difference simply doesn't matter. I'm not being held back by the CPU in any real way. That leaves security, software, and battery life as the main reasons why I might decide to update my phone.
Likes it
Yeah, I have few bricked devices which reached the your goal. No, I cannot rely on the app sandbox. If someone else controls a device, then this device can be used against me. Your antivirus, scanner or not, is useless on your device for you. My antivirus on my device is useful for me. It works fine on GrapheneOS (Pixel 6), but banned by Google on Pixel 5, which is not supported by Google with security updates. WTF?
Neutral
I haven't used LineageOS for a long time, but I remember it being really good. And I used cyanogenmod which IIRC was it's predecessor. GraapheneOS is a different ball game IMO, especially if you need to use Google play services etc, banking apps etc. I'm not sure what the current state of microg is or Google services on lineage. I bought a second hand pixel 6, just for Graphene and when that died I bought another pixel.
Likes it
> but my USB-C port is failing I'm having the same issue with my pixel 8 (along with the screen randomly turning green out of nowhere, so I have to "ground" the display to get it to work again) In general the 8 feels a lot more cheaply made than the 6 I agree that the android UX is better than apple (or at least, it makes more sense to me). But I'd consider moving to iphone for build quality alone
Neutral
I'll be honest, I didn't feel much of a difference changing from my Pixel 2 to my Pixel 6. Actually, I liked my Pixel 2 more. Boy do I miss that back fingerprint sensor. As well as the squeeze feature. What a great design. Also, it cleanly fit in my pocket. Pixel 2 was peak Pixel if you ask me. (never tried the 3) Really the only reason I ended up switching was because I had already replaced the lens on the rear camera after some dirt got into it and I had cracked that back glass while taking it apart. Not a big deal, but it felt like time to move on I guess. I definitely got excited about all the new features of 6 and then promptly never actually used any of them.
Likes it
I have the pixel 6. It's still fine. This looks like a very incremental update to me as have the previous few editions. Same with the OS. I can barely tell apart Android versions these days. And since most of the value is software based, there isn't much practical difference between different generations of Pixel phones. My pixel 6 has the same 48 megapixel sensor in the camera as they still appear to be using. It seems camera sensors plateaued about 4-5 years ago. It's a great sensor; the raw images are pretty amazing given the form factor (tiny sensor and lens). And I expect it still is. People confuse the AI capabilities (removing subjects, adding missing detail, etc.) with simple operations to make the photo 'pop'. Boosting the contrast, saturating all the colors, applying some aggressive smoothing (noise) and sharpening, etc. Doing that manually on the raw files yields very similar results. It's good and convenient. But most of that is just the sensor being awesome and some tasteful defaults for these edits. Adding optical zoom is impressive. The digital/AI zoom is not something I'd use. They still seem to use different sensors for the different cameras; which is something Apple stopped doing with recent iphones. So, you have to choose between the right lens with lots of noise or the right sensor with the wrong focal range. The AI stuff is interesting as a gimmick but not something I use a lot. It seems to be the main differentiator for Google these days but I just don't…
Doesn’t like it
I'm really picky. Creaks, screen issues (got the line down the middle of the screen on a 2XL, 3, and 6), speaker went out on 5, cell radio would randomly stop working on the 8, having to reboot multiple times per day. Most recently a 9 Pro XL, flexed more than my wife's, and the screen creaked when pressed (which my wife's didn't). The camera bump falling off didn't happen to me, but I've seen it on others. If I'm going to pay Apple prices, I expect the same level of quality. I really want to like the pixel, but I can't trust Google's quality until they prove otherwise. Every generation of Pixel has had some sort of QC problem.
Neutral
I made a leather pouch with a belt loop for my Pixel 6. Great when travelling or hiking. The camera band sits above the edge of the front of the pouch with the 'lid' covering that when the pouch is closed with a tuck lock. The full-width band is just perfect for grabbing the phone and lifting it out of the form-fitting pouch, and doubles as a sort of safety preventing it from slipping from your grip.
Likes itStill going
Apple having such a dominant hold of market share in the smartphone space gave a lot of leverage when negotiating royalties with Sony who makes the felica stuff. From what I heard it was basically just gifted to them, because if Apple says no we wont support it, then you lose a huge amount of users. Whereas with other manufacturers they pay on a per device basis tracked by the underlying osaifu-keitai stuff. If you are rooted though it is usually just 1 flag or something you need to change. Been using my US Pixel 6 for years daily on my commutes. https://github.com/jjyao88/unlock-felica-pixel
Doesn’t like it
Storytime: my partner used to be a long time Samsung fan. She had the phone, tablet, headphones and watch and probably more gear that I don't even know about. Then she moved to Canada with me. Because of how poor the QA in their ecosystem is, after an update her latest-model Samsung watch couldn't pair with her one-year-old model Samsung phone, which severely diminished its usefulness (this was a heavily reported issue at the time). So we went to a mall and entered a store with big SAMSUNG logos everywhere, and were told to go skip rocks. They would not even touch the devices with the same logos they had on their shirts, because both the phone and the watch were bought in a different country. There was an Apple store in that mall as well, so we walked in and asked "if we buy an apple product here, and there is an issue with it while we are in a different country, would they help us in an Apple store there". The answer was "well yeah of course why wouldn't they" with a "what's the catch" tone and raised eyebrow. Needless to say she is now fully switched over. Even after two years, she gets delighted every now and then by how smooth the experience is. I recall many "LOL Samsung could never" events. My current Pixel 6 is my last android phone due to the UX issues that keep piling up with every single update. Last one I noticed: Turning on bedtime mode is now double (2) the clicks it used to be.