Google Pixel 3 XL long-term review: Still the king? By Android Police

So, it's been about five months since the pixel 3 was released and as I'm sure, a lot of you remember. Its release was pretty bumpy, so I thought I'd take another look at it now that it's had some time to marinate, so to speak, even with it's not so clean slate, its bugs' performance issues and design quirks the pixel three excels still found its way into my pocket, as my main phone for a large portion of the past five months. Call me crazy, but here's why? Let's get the obvious out of the way the cameras, the pixel threes cameras remain my personal top pick and I. Think I can speak for a lot of people when I say this is still the best set of cameras for regular, stills and selfies, and it continues to impress with it's a single rear facing camera and Google's software wizardry and yes, I know there are some people that actually don't like the way the pictures come out on the pixel, but there's no denying the sharpness and the detail and the ease of getting a great shot, especially in portrait mode and the cameras aside. The pixel 3 still has a number of things going for it. Its screen is still one of the best on an Android phone.

The phone itself is made out of nice, solid premium, good-feeling materials. It's one of the few flagships left with dual front firing speakers. It's got the best haptics I've felt on an android device. Furthermore, it's got a rear-mounted fingerprint reader and people think I'm crazy for liking. This, but hey it's comfortable, and it actually works.

Then, of course, it's got pure stock, always up-to-date, pixelated, Android and all the things it has to offer like now, playing call screening which I actually miss on other phones. It'll be the first to get Android cue and unlimited backups to Google photos in original quality. Alas, not even the cameras and the fact that it's running stock Android could save the pixel 3 from providing a rather catastrophic experience for some people. Just wanted to take a moment to thank this video, a sponsor Skill share for supporting the channel and helping make these videos possible. Skill share.

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Software updates here and there seems to iron out the experience a little too bad. Those updates couldn't fix the design at the phone in my right, I. Don't think I really need to go into all that, but I'm pretty sure we can all agree. This isn't the most aesthetically pleasing phone around now, in my experience as time has gone on, things have worked out. Just fine, the design kind of disappeared, and I was immersed into the rest of the phone.

I was getting five to five and a half hours of screen on time. Performance overall was pretty smooth and everything just worked as it should with few hitches, and luckily I can still say the same today. My pixel three Excel works just fine. On the flip side, however, others haven't been so lucky. A few tech reviewers and even some pixel users within our Android police family reported that their pixels were not performing well.

Reports, tweets and articles surfaced with people saying that their pixels began to lag. The fluidity disappeared, stutters and hiccups began. Popping up applications would take their sweet time opening, especially the camera application. Taking five to ten seconds until able to snap a shot battery life went bad, and these things got so severe that it not only forced users to have to reboot the phone multiple times during the day, but some have even been forced to factory reset their phones or even completely switched to something else. It kind of makes you think back to the fact of the three excel only having four gigs of ram, and we all knew from the jump.

It was not a good idea for Google to do that. They tried to prove a point about Android, but they should have just played it safe and at least have gone with six. Now, of course, we got this software update for March, which directly targeted the camera. Among other things, it stinks that it took this long for it to come out, but better late than never I suppose. So this should have fixed everything right.

Well, not entirely. The update did work for a lot of users, while others reported that they have continued to deal with poor performance, mainly from the camera. While these issues luckily do not affect the majority of users, they don't seem to be too widely spread. There's still pretty serious problems nonetheless see these are things you wouldn't or at least shouldn't have to expect from a phone running pure Android right, especially straight from Google itself, but the pixel phone track record is just loaded with weird stuff from strange design language. Both software and hardware issues, ? device, longevity going through the floor for some users, I know it's Google's 1/3 phone, but I feel by now they should have these fundamental things taken care of.

So while my personal experience, along with the experience of many other pixel 3xl users, has been pretty good over the past five months and I haven't really had any glaring issues with mine, I can't excitedly recommend people go out and get a three excel right now, especially with new 2019 phones, starting to come out. I really wish I could sure these issues aren't widespread, but it's not like I can guarantee that they won't happen to the next user. I can't say that if by some miracle, Google is able to truly fix. All of these issues, then yeah I think it might be worth a look. You can find one in mint condition online for around six hundred bucks, which I think is a good deal.

What, with all these thousand our phones popping up Google's got some work to do I'm remaining hopeful for their next smartphone attempt and I expect it to be amazing. As for the three well, let's just look at it as another stepping stone to what will hopefully be pixel perfection. So what are your thoughts on the pixel three excel five months later? Do you have one? If so, let us know your experience with it so far, and whether you'll be sticking with it or switching to something else. We'd love to hear your feedback, but anyway, that does it for this video I hope you guys enjoyed if you did feel free to hit that, like button subscribe to the android police channel, if you are new, that does it for me. I will talk to you guys later, and thank you so much for watching you.

Source : Android Police