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Phones · Google Pixel

Google Pixel 8

116owners with an opinion
48%of verdicts positive
44/50positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for performance and ease of use; criticized for reliability and software.

What owners wrote

Doesn’t like itOwned 2 years
The hardware and features seem great, but I'm not gonna buy another pixel phone. I've had a pixel 8 for 2 years the stability of the software has gone down so much. I frequently have an unresponsive UI, requiring me to turn off my phone with the side buttons. I also have had many issues with the keyboard and it not responding when using chrome, requiring me to kill chrome and restart it. It seems like Google only tests on their latest device when releasing android because people I know who always get the latest phones don't have these problems. It's a very poor customer experience. It's the phone experience of an old super car. It's fast and does lots of cool things, but it feels like the wheels are gonna come off at any minute.
Doesn’t like itOwned 1.5 years
My Pixel 8 failed with the exact failure mode (supposedly) covered by that extended warranty [0] program after owning it for 18 months. I had a very frustrating back and forth with Google support and in the end they refused to fix it under warranty because it wasn't manufactured in a specific batch. Flagship phone turned into a useless device after 18 months of ownership due to a manufacturing issue and I've got no recourse. I'm done with Pixel and Google in general. [0] https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/15009955?hl=en
Doesn’t like itOwned 1.5 years
My Pixel 8 failed with the exact failure mode (supposedly) covered by an extended warranty [0] program after owning it for 18 months. I had a very frustrating back and forth with Google support and in the end they refused to fix it under warranty because it wasn't manufactured in a specific batch. Flagship phone turned into a useless device after 18 months of ownership due to a manufacturing issue and I've got no recourse. I'm done with Pixel and Google in general. [0] https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/15009955?hl=en
Doesn’t like itOwned 1 year
Pixels have lasted about 1 year for me historically (I started with the first pixel and had every other one in the lineup, now the 10). It forced me to buy new ones. I might be doing something wrong, but battery life always degraded for me. I've even bought the same Pixel on eBay when it stopped being sold by Google, so I can save money on buying the latest. My Pixel 8 had to be replaced because the screen starting randomly detecting presses in a spasmic fury, which would happen with no known correlation. There are NO new features worth getting on the new Pixels. I love taking photos - insider tip - huge megapixel sensors don't make better photos. I liked the pixels that had the fingerprint sensor on the back best Years ago I had and loved the Samsung phones with replaceable batteries. I buy new ones because they make me, not because I chase as aesthetic novelty like a stereotypical Apple consumer.
Doesn’t like itOwned 1 year
I've been using Pixel 8 for nearly a year now and I agree that it's surprisingly buggy. Also, the chip is excessively power-hungry, especially for the performance it offers. In addition: the modem is bad and very power-hungry as well. And the cherry on top for me was the subpar fingerprint scanner. Can't recommend.
Neutral
I've considered this before, but the short software support timeframe given by device manufacturers makes this a costly endeavour. I still have a perfectly functional Galaxy Tab S2 9.7, but even the third party ROMs have dropped it. I have a pixel 4a, and although it works beautifully running a supported version of lineage it's very likely that the modem baseband has a significant vulnerability that Google isn't patching. I don't think running banking or crypto wallet software on those devices is any smarter than running it on my daily driver pixel 8.
Likes it
The Pixel 11 is the first Pixel phone to be released after the RAMpocolypse. It has made a lot of compromises in the name of lowering cost. I am definitely going to skip that generation. I tend to upgrade every 3 years, but there really isn't a big driver to do so right now. My Pixel 8 is holding up great. If I broke it and needed to buy a new phone today, I'd probably get a used Pixel 10 instead of a new 11.
Doesn’t like it
> big bulge on the top-left of the device and no longer sit flat on a table Fucking hate this trend so much. My Pixel 8 is an absolute dogshit phone compared to my Pixel 2 for the same reason. Phones are giant now, impossible to use with one hand anymore, and slide off of fucking everything because they don't lie flat, and are uncomfortable to hold with how top-heavy they are too. I wish phone design would have stagnated, about 10 years ago. A phone's form factor did not need innovating! It was already perfect!
Likes it
For me, mostly a lot of false negatives. I have a Pixel 8, and I have no problems using the microphone normally, but somehow, Merlin requires the bird to be within a couple of meters of me and sing for quite a while before Merlin will even say “hearing a bird”. And of course, you have to be dead silent; if anyone talks or coughs, it will mess up the spectogram badly. Given that it's colloquially “Shazam for birds” and Shazam is just amazingly resistant to noise, it's a bit disappointing :-)
Likes it
I did buy flagships few times and to be honest I did not regret them. I kept them longer and I was able to do more... but that was few years ago when phones were getting more powerful for a reason. Cameras were getting more megapixels to get on par with non digital photography (arguably, if you are not an artist at least) and everything needed to come along, memory, storage, processing and of course screen resolution. ... but again once that was done, which varies for everyone but still, and that is the key part of the argument, reaches a plateau of usefulness for the average user, then everything "more" was really a technical specification d*ck measuring contest. Unless you have superhuman vision, current screens are "good enough" to check your family photos and your work email. Long story short I went from flaghships to 2nd hand few generations olds Pixel 8 (cheapest I could try GrapheneOS on) and I don't regret that decision at all. TL;DR: I did, I don't anymore. PS: before someone argues I don't know what I'm missing as I'm probably not using my phone for much, I do quite a lot on my phone including programming on it (directly on it, not via ssh), streaming videos on video projectors, running qemu for other architectures, etc. I'm not a casual user.
Likes it
Currently auditioning a used pixel 8 with graphene os on it. It's nice. Not strictly linux, but it's de-googled. Minimal. Not designed to suck you in. Bit of a pain to get installed, but other than that, pretty good. My iPhone is the last tie i have to the apple ecosystem, so it's been much harder to untangle than my mac was - but I'm getting close! :)
Likes it
If your phone is a Tensor-powered Google Pixel (so a Pixel 6 or newer), you can root it and run a full KVM-accellerated arm64 Linux VM with USB passthrough and SLiRP networking. I've used my Pixel 8 with a USB hub and a Mediatek MT7921AU USB 3.0 WiFi card in monitor mode with kismet for the ultimate mobile wardriving setup.
Likes it
I had the exact same problem because I had a strong addiction to smartphone apps. I looked into the Light Phone and The Mudita Kompakt, but I ended up buying a refurbished Pixel 8 and putting Graphene OS on it, then I installed only essential apps I need. I keep my old iPhone 12 in a drawer at home and use it for anytime I Need any apps that don't work on a custom ROM, which includes my bank app (plus, imo, it's safer not carry around a phone that has my baking data on it in case it gets lost or stolen). The light phones are a really cool concept but the Light Phone 3 is quite expensive (more expensive than a new Pixel 10) and the Mudita Kompakt seems to have a huge amount of grievances from users on their forum, so that put me off.
Neutral
I recently bought my first smartphone, just went for a refurbished Pixel 8 with GrapeheneOS. To be honest, life without a smartphone was increasingly becoming a PITA. For example, Ryanair doesn't accept printed tickets anymore. A few clubs in Berlin (Tresor, Ohm, Oxi) have recently replaced their cloakroom by automated lockers that require a smartphone to operate. I've encountered a few gyms (2 in Spain, 1 in USA) that use live-updated QR codes to enter the gym. I did a project in the US and the client's office required a smartphone to open the door. In Spain it's common since the pandemic to have restaurants that only offer the menu as QR code. In fact, the pandemic was rough, as you had this system where you had to register with a QR code in most places. In many places they had a paper-registry that I could use, but often I would have to end up just using a friend's phone. Plus all 4G dumbphones are crap compared to older 2G models. The few that exist are built really bad, designed for old people, lack features like T9. 2G is out already in great parts of the world. To be honest, it saddens me deeply that the only way to live in society today involves carrying an internet-connected computer in your pocket. But it was just too much of burden... With GrapeheneOS the experience still feels somewhat acceptable and I get a somewhat similar feeling of control to what I get using NixOS on my laptop. But still...
Doesn’t like it
I'm writing this on a Pixel 8 and it's the worst phone I have ever used. The wireless chip is basically dead. And the battery can't make it to 3pm. Annoys the hell out of me that so many reviewers I thought I could trust speak so highly of this phone.
Likes it
> Approximately nobody is throwing away phones because the OEM stopped providing security patches. They're doing it for more practical reasons, like the phone getting slow, the battery wearing out, or wanting a better camera. I did this just last year because my Pixel 4a stopped getting security updates and some app I needed to use for work (I think Duo?) refused to install or run because of it. The phone was otherwise running perfectly fine and I had no reason to change it. I'm on a Pixel 8 now which is supposed to have 7 years of security updates, and I don't see myself replacing it until then.
Neutral
And phone companies are enabling telecoms by manufacturing devices that don't take physical sim cards anymore. I recently migrate from pixel 8 to 10, it only supports eSim. In order to migrate my sim to an eSim I had to provide voice, image, documents and info of the phone I was installing the eSim on. One of the worse companies in Brazil, Vivo, now have everything about me. I bet they keep it in a big excel file accessible via a secret but public link
Likes it
I'm not sure if this is possible for Apple devices, but with my GrapheneOS Pixel 8 I can use a Dell Monitor with integrated USB-C dock to connect and show the screen as well as supplying power and adding USB devices (like keyboard, mouse, etc.). I also own a little Ugreen USB-C dock (Revodock?!) that also enables connecting regular USB-A Keyboards (even wireless ones) as well as HDMI - so maybe this is more flexible in terms of which keyboard you like and which screen is available.
Neutral
The problem is Google's AI results get even simple factual questions wrong all the time. Earlier today, I searched "pixel 10 wifi 7" because I was confused that GSMArena showed my Pixel 8 supports Wifi 7, but the Pixel 10 only Wifi 6. Gemini confidently claimed that the Pixel 10 does support Wifi 7 -- but that's not true at all. Only the Pixel 10 _Pro_ supports it, as I discovered when actually reading the non-AI search results. And this is a question about a Google product!
Neutral
Some of us are already doing this. My main phone is a Google Pixel 8 running LineageOS 23.2 with F-Droid, microG, and Aurora Store installed. For things requiring Play Integrity, I picked up a $20 burner carrier-locked Motorola phone at Walmart for $30. It's WiFi-only, given that I'm never going to pay for service on it, but I can also tether it to my main phone. It's also useful for writing one-star reviews on apps that require Play Integrity to function, which is something everyone should be doing.