Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Why I Don’t Use the Pixel!”.
That was my. That was my attempt to use it click baity title, but actually not really, though, because it’s kind of true hey what is up guys mkbhd here and i think if you ask a lot of people what phone they think i use like what phone you think mkbhd Uses, they probably would have said pixel 2, and i wouldn’t blame you, that’s typically what it is. I’Ve said before in videos. I carry two phones, my iphone of choice and my android phone of choice that would be iphone x, my favorite iphone and usually pixel 2. and, like i’ve, used a lot of android phones this year and nine times out of 10 when i’m done testing them. When i take my sim card back out and get to choose what to put it back in as my daily driver, it’s usually back in a pixel, i’ve said that in videos now sometimes for various reasons, there are other phones that are really tempting to stick with. Uh and that’s fine, i have no allegiance so as soon as i like, a phone better, that’s the one i’m gon na stick with i’m fortunate enough to be in that position. So, like the 120 hertz display on the razer phone was incredible. It felt like it was spoiling me and it was really hard to leave that, but eventually i did and i went back to the pixel 2 daily because of that camera.
I did say that in the review, video and galaxy s9 galaxy s9 screen is so damn good. It’S obviously samsung’s made the best displays in the business for a little while now and just the galaxy s9 plus as an overall package, the better hardware, the glass and metal, i think, lou from unbox therapy. He recently made a video about why he’s using that phone as his daily driver and it was tempting, but at the end of the day i went back to the pixel 2 for my software preferences and that superior camera. In fact, it pretty much always came down to the camera.
Obviously, a lot of other phones are better than pixel in plenty of other ways, but the pixel 2’s camera is from my usage, so much better, so vastly better than others that it was hard to give up. As someone who shoots a lot of videos and takes a lot of photos, you’ve seen my twitter and my instagram, the pixel 2 was a must-have in my pocket, plus things like the colored power button, the stock android, the google assistant front-facing speakers, all the stuff didn’t Hurt but lately it’s changed over the last few months: i’ve ping-ponged back and forth between my pixel 2 xl and oneplus 6, and you know three weeks here a month there, two weeks here, two weeks there just back and forth, but lately i’ve landed on and my Sim card is in right now the oneplus 6, at least for right now i mean it’s not really like. One of these phones is drastically better than the other uh oneplus. 6 is obviously a bit newer. So it’s got newer, specs snapdragon, 845 versus 835. It has eight gigs of ram versus four gigs and if i’m nitpicking, i think the overall build quality is better.
It has a headphone jack, it has better clickier buttons, it has the alert slider. All the stuff i talked about in the full review is still true, but the pixel. On the other hand, on top of that great camera, it has that colored power button.
It has a fingerprint reader that i think, is a little bit better. It has the squeeze for the assistant, it has day one software updates and pure stock android and, of course, the front-facing speakers. All this stuff, i said in that review – is also still true, but the tilt that keeps sending me over from pixel back to oneplus 6 is performance.
That’S been the difference. The other day, one of my friends artem from android police tweeted, something that actually rang home with me a lot. He said his pixel 2 is devastatingly and embarrassingly laggy both on oreo and android p. It’S been like that for months and he hates using it and the only reason he’s sticking to it is the camera and his oneplus 6 is roughly 700 times snappier, but the camera isn’t as good, so he’s basically forced to stick with the pixel that more or Less has been the same experience.
I’Ve had swapping back and forth between these phones using them over and over again. I’Ve found the same thing. My pixel 2 has felt like it’s slowed down. Uh much more than other phones have in the same amount of time i’ve owned it.
I mean it’s, not mine’s, not devastatingly and embarrassingly laggy and slow, but it’s noticeable for me. I look at animations a lot. A lot of transitions, a lot of swiping a lot of movement – and this is not holding animations at the 60 fps anymore, like i kind of assumed it could and would for a while and it’s less than a year old. So it’s just weird! I actually thought it was because i was trying.
Obviously you saw those videos – the android, p developer preview on this phone, and maybe that would be responsible for some slow down. So i actually got another phone specifically to never put a beta on this phone and just use it as a daily driver, and now both of these phones are slow strange, that that’s not made a difference and all the while. While this is going on the oneplus 6, which has been sitting as like my second favorite, android phone has been just as smooth and fast as the day. I got it snappy it’s hard to appreciate in video form, because the pixel 2 is basically almost every bit as fast as the oneplus 6.
As far as like opening and closing apps and things like that, but the oneplus 6 is way snappier and quicker feeling because of the animations holding their frame rates, the transitions and movements are all smoother and drop less frames like. I can tell that for certain with my eye just looking at it, and it’s significant enough to the point where i notice it between the two and it does bother me. The weird part is, usually, you would expect a phone with stock android, especially a pixel or a nexus, or anything from this line to be a plus optimization, because google controls the experience from the top down hardware to the software. So this should be the smoothest fastest. Android phone right, but it’s not! You can also see after multitasking for a while, it starts to drop apps from memory faster, and that makes a difference when you’re, using a phone all day.
If you have to keep reloading apps all the time and waiting an extra bit, this is a real world difference between actually four gigs of ram and eight gigs of ram a couple years ago. I would have said it doesn’t really matter. Oneplus, you could safely say.
Was putting extra ram in phones just to impress people who look at the spec sheet, but now i’m actually observing it, make a real world difference. Basically, this whole experience highlights the always tough part about reviewing electronics, specifically a smartphone, because you don’t really fully know how it’s going to bear out durability wise in the future you’re guessing i mean you can tell when something feels high quality, and you know when build Quality and materials are good that it’ll physically hold up, but you never really know down the line if things like the flash storage or the ram are going to degrade faster than usual or slow down things like that, you just kind of find out when they happen, Like a lot of times, it’s easy to preach, like oh you’ll, never know the difference between a snapdragon, 835 and 845, or between six gigs and eight gigs of ram, and that sometimes is true when you first get the phone but later down the road. Sometimes you do see those differences play out like i’d, be curious, if there’s other, if you’re, if you’re a pixel, 2 or pixel 2 xl owner out there if you’ve had performance drops or what your experience is. Because again, this is still definitely by far the best camera in any smartphone and that’s what makes it such an appeal. Besides all the other things about stock android and what it does well, but the performance. So it’s the speed of the oneplus 6 plus a couple other smaller preferential things. It’S mostly preference, but i do like the build quality better.
I do like the screen better. The buttons are better but uh. It’S what’s turned me over to using this phone full-time and enjoying that experience, but i miss this camera so much, but then also, i know we’re all very excited to see.
What’S going to happen with the next pixel, the pixel 3., i think just the mere possibility of a smartphone camera being better than what we already have in the pixel 2 is nuts plus the display can’t possibly have the same issues as this one, so it’ll be Better it’ll probably have front-facing speakers it’ll be first in line for software updates, we’ll complete the whole integration of htc and google controlling the whole experience. It should be awesome, i’m looking forward to that phone, but then also as far as we know, just because of the way google operates. This phone will probably also have four gigs of ram and not six or eight, and we also, of course, got those leaks of the gigantic like really big notch bigger than we expected. I don’t know, i guess the moral of the story is uh one.
It’S hard to know how electronics, especially smartphones, are gon na break down internally. In the future i mean we can all kind of tell just based on build quality and construction and how they’re made if they’ll hold up physically, but internally. You know when things start to slow down or they break down before they’re supposed to really that’s always a weird thing.
Even if it’s an isolated incident, i’ve had two different pixel, 2 xl’s slow down the same way. That’S why i’m curious what your experience has been with yours, but also two. It also says something good about the state of smartphones when i actively choose and use every day a 500 something dollar phone in a world where i’m surrounded, especially even in this studio by 900 to 1100 phones that you could also use.
So that’s a good sign, but basically preference is everything and priority. Your own priority is everything when it comes to picking something as personal as the smartphone you’re going to use every single day, but that’s why i’ve landed on oneplus 6 for right now you might not have known that now. You do and i got my eye on that next pixel. I got my eye on that next galaxy.
Note! That’S about to come out. I got my eye on the next iphone. That’S about to come out, there’s a whole bunch of stuff. It’S kind of like that.
Pre-Holiday season, electronics dump that we’re about to see i’m excited for it, but until then now you know thanks for watching talk to you guys in the next one peace. .