Why I won't switch to a Google Pixel phone

Google’s Nexus phones once offered the best pure Android experience. Today’s Pixel phones just don’t—at least in my honest opinion. If you’re not a fan of the Google ecosystem, you’re left with a phone that doesn’t quite match the competition.

1 Pixel devices weren't as advanced as they should have been.

From the start, Pixel phones weren't meant to be as good as the best phones from Samsung and Apple. Pixel phones weren't as expensive and were made with cheaper materials.

The gap has narrowed over time; we could almost say it disappeared entirely with the Pixel 9 series. The displays are now bright and pixel-dense. The way Google has combined the Pixel’s metal and glass frame creates a similar sense of luxury. The use of an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor means the phone can now unlock just as quickly as a Samsung phone.

It’s these little details that didn’t translate into the spec sheet that you might have missed when picking up a Pixel in the past. However, it’s too early to take this attention to detail for granted.

The Pixel Watch still doesn’t use Gorilla Glass and is more scratch-prone than the Apple Watch or other similarly priced Android Wear watches. The Pixel Tablet remains a mid-range slab of plastic. Google remains a software-first company that’s still figuring out how to release top-tier hardware.

2 You sacrifice strength.

Apple's mobile processors are no small feat, and most of the top Android phones are powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors. While these processors lag Apple's in benchmarks, few people realize the difference in everyday use.

Instead of using a Snapdragon processor, the Pixel phones use Google’s Tensor chip. This chip is actually a modified Exynos chip from Samsung. Samsung ships the Exynos processor in many of its international phones, but sticks with Snapdragon in the US because its processor doesn’t quite match Qualcomm’s performance.

As a result, while Pixel phones are still capable of running any Android game available, they are more prone to frame drops or overheating, have unpredictable battery life, and are more prone to crashing over time.

The experience is inconsistent, with many Pixel users enjoying a great experience for years while others are left baffled as to why their devices have become a hot mess in just two years. I’d rather have the more reliable Snapdragon chip, which has served me well in all my recent phones.

3 I ignore most of the Google ecosystem (including Gemini)

I love Android, but I don’t love Google. On any Android device I buy, I reject most Google features during setup and uninstall the pre-installed Google apps. On Pixel devices, this means I have to uninstall pages of Google apps, leaving me with only a few quality pre-installed apps after I’m done installing them.

Of the 20 pre-installed apps shown in the image above, there are only seven that I don’t want to get rid of, and only four of them are Google apps (Google Maps, Google Messages, YouTube, and the Play Store). I’ve spent years as an Android user without using any Google apps at all.

I’m less interested in Gemini. Google refers to the Pixel 9 series as Gemini phones, and displays the Gemini logo when these phones are turned on instead of the Android logo. For me, that’s not a reason to buy Google’s flagship phones for 2024. Instead, it turns me off from Google’s best devices yet.

4 The Android platform has fewer features.

Some people find it hard to let go of their Pixel phones because of the features they might have to give up. However, more often than not, these features aren’t built into the Android platform. They’re Google features that you won’t be able to access if you set up your Pixel phone without signing in to a Google account. In fact, the stock version of Android that comes with Pixel phones is pretty basic.

In contrast, Samsung offers the most powerful Android apps. You can configure more things out of the box and tweak everything else with Samsung’s Good Lock app. The S Pen’s features also have a huge impact on how productive I am on my phone. Many of Samsung’s apps are so well thought out and feature-rich that I don’t look for alternatives.

For example, if my wife and I want to watch a video on my phone without disturbing the kids, we can connect two Bluetooth headphones to my phone and listen together. You’ll need to buy adapters to manage something similar on the Pixel. While all of these features are important to me, I haven’t yet figured out the biggest deal-breaker.

5 Google has no alternative to Samsung DeX

Samsung DeX is the one feature that convinced me to buy a Samsung phone. It's the ability to connect a monitor, TV, or any kind of external display and set up a desktop with your Samsung phone.

This means I don’t need to use a computer when my phone screen is too small to do a task. This way, not only can I use my phone as a computer, but I can also connect my phone to AR glasses to enjoy games and movies in my own theater. I can connect my phone to a projector for family movie nights, give a presentation, or share photos.

Samsung phones have had DeX for over a decade. Now, Motorola’s high-end phones offer something similar in a feature now called Smart Connect (formerly Motorola Ready For). But before the Pixel 8, connecting a Pixel phone to an external display didn’t do anything at all. And even with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 9, you could only mirror the built-in display to the external display — well, at least until Google rolls out its own experimental desktop mode.

6 Pixels have the worst experience on foldable devices

While I thought I would use Samsung DeX a lot, I actually don’t use it as much as I expected. Even though I work entirely remotely from my phone, I still primarily use my phone’s screen. That’s because a foldable phone like the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is more capable of being a productivity device than I expected.

It’s not just the size of the internal display that makes foldables great, it’s also the software. On the Samsung Fold, I can multitask using a split screen with up to three apps, access a compact taskbar, put any app in a floating window, shrink any app to a floating app bubble, or minimize any app to a window that I hide in the corner of the screen.

Samsung has made it a point to force any app to stretch to the desired size, regardless of whether the app developer supports tablet formats or app windows.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s split-screen view is limited to two apps at once. There’s no floating window support at all. You’ll likely see black bars if an app isn’t available for tablets. So while I can easily switch between five apps on my Z Fold 5, I’ll have to limit myself to two on the Pixel.

There's nothing quite as innovative as the OnePlus 8's Open Canvas feature, which is arguably a smoother way to manage multiple apps on a small, tablet-sized screen.

My Android phone workflow may be far removed from mainstream phone usage, but the Pixel simply can’t do what I expect it to do. It’s unfortunate that what’s often seen as the best representation of Android can’t do everything the OS can do better. This gives even longtime Pixel users a reason to ditch their Pixel phones in favor of Samsung’s offerings.