Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

It's an open secret that the North American market doesn't have access to very many smartphones, thanks to our usage of non-standard cellular bands. Asian markets generally have much more choice from the likes of Xiaomi, Oppo, OnePlus, Redmi, and so on, but those phones won't work well (or at all) here in the states. I preface the review with that fact because, comparing actual hardware value for money, the Pixel 6, at $600, doesn't stack up well to the litany of high-spec Chinese phones that are available today. I came from, and went back to, a OnePlus 8T 5G which I bought for $399 on sale and which gives me twice the storage, 4GB more RAM, a brighter, higher refresh rate display, more accurate optical fingerprint sensor, and admittedly worse (but not markedly so) camera. The Pixel 6 is a nice deviation in design from Google, but the massive camera visor is generally a love it or hate it design choice; it makes the phone top heavy and, coupled with the all-glass design of the phone, necessitates using a case. The cameras are good, even without the 4x optical zoom telephoto sensor you get on the Pixel 6 Pro, but they're not as good as those on the iPhone 13 or Galaxy S21 Ultra, in my estimation. Yes, those phones are more expensive than the Pixel 6, and compared to the competition around $600, the P6 does quite well. Some criticisms are that photos are excessively processed/too HDR-y and that low light photos just aren't mindblowing anymore, which is odd given the larger sensor compared to older Pixels (eg: Pixel 5). I don't see a lot of difference in picture quality between the Pixel 5's photos and the Pixel 6's, but maybe if you sit around, editing on a 4K display all day, you'd notice more detail from the P6's sensor. Battery life is another sore point, given Google's claims of improved efficiency thanks to their in-house Tensor SoC design. The long and short is battery life isn't great--it's adequate. You'd expect more from a 4600mAh battery in a phone with these specs, but maybe the two high-clocked X1 cores Google uses just sucks more energy than we expected. Pixel 5 and 5a battery life are significantly better, in my experience. One issue is that, depending on your submodel, this phone just uses exorbitant amounts of power on 5G sub-6 and 5G Ultra-wideband. Unfortunately, some cell carriers restrict you from disabling 5G, and LTE does provide better battery life than 5G. The display is fine, but I expected higher maximum brightness. I can't find any figures for maximum nits on the P6, only the P6 Pro, so my complaint here is subjective. Compared to the massive maximum brightness of phones like the iPhone 13 Pro, the OnePlus 9 Pro, Samsung S21/S21 Ultra, this one's a letdown. Adaptive brightness also seems buggy and overly sensitive, adjusting the screen brightness continually even when ambient lighting doesn't change. The speakers are equally underwhelming. They're fine--sensing a pattern yet? There are plenty of phones with better/louder speakers on the market in late 2021. Google's solution seems to be a software one, with their plan to add in 'Adaptive Sound'. Whether this makes the phone louder in noisy environments remains to be seen. The fingerprint sensor is disappointing. Accuracy isn't very good, regardless of how many times you re-enroll fingerprints or add new fingers. Time to unlock is pretty slow compared to other phones with optical and ultrasonic sensors. I greatly prefer capacitive fingerprint readers, ideally built into the power button. Google's move to in-display sensors just to follow market trends is a step backwards. Still better than Apple and their slavish dedication to face unlock, though! Overall, this feels like a $400 phone, not a $600 one. I don't know if Google is aware, but the smartphone market is saturated. You can't bring half-baked, mediocre products to market and ask premium prices for them. All of their machine learning, claims of improved security, custom chips, and software 'experiences' won't change a phone that's fundamentally just mediocre. Oh, and I returned mine because it kept making calls to people in my contact list and overheating while charging.