Google Pixel 6 Pro review

3 November 2021


Sort by:

I've owned this phone for 6 months. It's now on Amazon for $354. I can't imagine a better bang for buck. Updates have fixed early issues. Their are some design issues though.

1 Fingerprint reader is a tad slow. Not a deal breaker.
2 Charging only 20w not 30. 2.5 hours to charge.
3 can't use 4X zoom with 1080p video recording, only with 4k. Big oversight... Almost a deal breaker.
4 Can't use voice enhance with 4k video recording.
5 Curved edges make getting good screen protectors and cases difficult.

There is one outstanding ability nobody mentions: taking photos of subjects against bright backgrounds.

    Was absolutely fantastic for 8 months then died for absolutely no reason. Turns out if you look hard enough there seems to be hardware failures that masquerade as a fastboot loop with no way to recover.

    Phone was fine but reliability is garbage and support even more so.

    forum.xda-developers.com/t/stuck-in-fastboot.4398265/

    For reference. ;)

      • M
      • Mumu
      • 6p}
      • 13 Jan 2023

      Mity Costi, 16 Jul 2022I have purchased a Google pixel 6 pro from Vodafone, the ph... moreI m facing the same problem now. Call is dropping

        Been with apple for a few few years and honestly the pixel 6 pro is an amazing phone love everything about it , only thing is the battery life could be better but all in all a brilliant device ,

          Sevenstreets, 01 Sep 2022The Pixel 6 Pro is a terrible phone with a flashy screen an... moreYou may be right when it comes to other things but to call its camera terrible is kind of a sin. It has a mediocre battery life, slow charging and other issues but its main camera is easily the best in the world when it comes to still photography. I admit the selfie camera is horrible.

            • B
            • Bomarc
            • 4$U
            • 18 Oct 2022

            I was talked into buying this POS by my Verizon rep.
            Worse, I trusted her advice!
            I'd been using Samsung products for more than 30 years.
            Always good for my needs.
            She said buying another Samsung wouldn't be all that great. Better I should get a Google Pixel 6 Pro!
            Her advice was/is total BS!
            ASAP, I'm ditching Pixel 6 and going back to Samsung!

              The battery of the P6P in the beta program is getting better and better. The phone is holding up great, everything is great!

                There is something I don't get from the review or the phone itself. Isn't the telephoto camera able to take portraits? These should be good as they are on most phones with a telephoto. Somehow the review makes it look as if this isn't possible and only the main cam takes portraits...

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • n@7
                  • 04 Oct 2022

                  Anonymous, 04 Oct 2022I have just found evidence that the f-number of the new per... moreOk, surprisingly, according to new rumors, the effective lens diameter of the Pixel 7 Pro periscope will be still at least 5mm large.

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • n@7
                    • 04 Oct 2022

                    Anonymous, 02 Oct 2022But maybe, Google has changed the periscope lens. The entra... moreI have just found evidence that the f-number of the new periscope lens could be maybe 4.9 (this would lead to a tiny bit of softness caused by diffraction in the 12 megapixel mode) and the focal length might be only 10% higher. If that's the case, then a 10% higher focal length with a 40% higher f-number (including slightly more diffraction) is really a downgrade. The new periscope lens may have an effective lens diameter of roughly 4.3mm instead of the previous 5.4mm.
                    Also, the new ultra wide angle lens will be likely wider (I don't like that). I guess they had to reduce the costs of the periscope camera in order to supply the ultra wide angle camera with an autofocus.
                    It could be also a deal with Samsung. Samsung maybe doesn't want the periscope camera of a competitor to be too good, so they maybe provide Google a periscope lens with a smaller diameter.

                      • ?
                      • Anonymous
                      • n@7
                      • 02 Oct 2022

                      Anonymous, 02 Oct 2022I have just seen the Google advertisement for the Pixel 7 P... moreBut maybe, Google has changed the periscope lens. The entrance pupil of the 7 Pro periscope lens is much smaller in the official renders (when compared with the 6 Pro). This is not a good sign and would lead to less background blur, but it could be also a mistake of the marketing team.

                        • ?
                        • Anonymous
                        • n@7
                        • 02 Oct 2022

                        I have just seen the Google advertisement for the Pixel 7 Pro and they show several camera zoom settings. I have calculated which zoom settings they show (if the first zoom setting was 1x) and surprisingly, one zoom setting was 4.7x even though the field of view of the periscope camera of the 6 Pro is 4.3x. If Google uses a 10 megapixel crop from the 12 megapixel mode of the 6 Pro periscope camera, then you would get 4.7x instead of 4.3x, but this would be nothing else than digital zoom. Google could round and advertise 5x and this would be nothing else than a marketing stunt. But that's just speculation.

                          • H
                          • Husky
                          • 6x}
                          • 18 Sep 2022

                          Go to Settings -System- Gestures-go to last option at bottom-flip switch

                            Sevenstreets, 04 Sep 2022Omg in full screen video, google's auto captions displ... moreOk fair do's you can drag the captions 😝

                              Sevenstreets, 01 Sep 2022Also - the USB C port is far too tight, you have to push th... moreOmg in full screen video, google's auto captions display over the pause/play button. They don't display at the bottom of the screen they display right in the centre, so with captions on with a full screen, you can't press pause/play. WHO DESIGNED THIS 😂

                              It's a joke, right? A £700 joke 😭

                                Sevenstreets, 01 Sep 2022And long pressing the power button doesn't bring up po... moreAlso - the USB C port is far too tight, you have to push the plug really hard to click it in, and you have to pull really hard to take it out... which means it's going to break quickly. Yet another *completely unnecessary* design failure.

                                (And while I'm here moaning, the curved edge on the screen distorts the edges of whatever's being displayed. So it makes the screen more vulnerable AND degrades the display.)

                                This is right up there with the very worst phones I've ever used.

                                  Sevenstreets, 01 Sep 2022The Pixel 6 Pro is a terrible phone with a flashy screen an... moreAnd long pressing the power button doesn't bring up power off/restart options it opens Google Assistant, the least useful app Google has yet invented. To open the power options you press power plus volume up. It's as though they're trying to make a phone that's horrible to use.

                                    The Pixel 6 Pro is a terrible phone with a flashy screen and a flashy but actually terrible camera. All the issues seem to be centred on poor design. The fingerprint scanner under the screen means screen protectors need a circle of different material where the scanner is, which means if you want a screen protector you have a large discoloured circle in the middle of the screen. And the scanner doesn't work anyway, protector on or not. The camera module is ridiculously prominent and perfectly positioned to get smashed. The camera has few functions, most of which are pointless. There's no good display options, you're limited to 3 colour "themes" and most of the homescreen choices are intricate patterns that the app icons get lost in. I know it's an OS issue but you can't rearrange homescreen panels, you have to move all the apps on a screen manually 1 by 1, which is annoying in itself but more annoying because of how simple it would have been to fix. The screen's curved edge is pointless and just makes the phone sit out of its case so the screen is vulnerable - and thanks to the ridiculous position of the fingerprint scanner, you can't use a screen protector. I just bought this phone and it's a massive disappointment.

                                      • ?
                                      • Anonymous
                                      • pQr
                                      • 05 Aug 2022

                                      What's really bad about the Pixel 6 Pro camera is the terrible noise reduction. In perfect light conditions it applies an aggressive and patchy luminance noise reduction. In low light conditions (if you don't use Night Sight and use a high brightness slider setting) it applies an aggressive color noise reduction. The raw files show that such aggressive noise reduction isn't necessary at all. Previous Google phones (for example Pixel 3a) didn't have this issue.

                                      I compared the 19mm f/3.5 periscope camera with the Canon M50 at 45mm f/8 in low light conditions without Night Sight.
                                      I looked at the exif exposure time and used the same exposure time (1/3s) for the M50.
                                      Theoretically, distant objects should look about the same with both cameras in low light conditions as there isn't enough time for the smartphone to combine multiple frames due to the long exposure time (1/3s).
                                      But Google's image was unusable (I forced the periscope camera, so it wasn't using the main camera). The image quality of the photographed objects was extremely bad/unusable whereas objects in Canon's jpg (with my favourite picture style settings, but I haven't adjusted my favourite picture style settings for this photo) looked much, much better.
                                      Then I looked at the raw files and disabled the noise reduction in the raw converter: Here the noise of the objects was basically identical (what I predicted theoretically). This proves how bad Google's image processing is.

                                        • ?
                                        • Anonymous
                                        • 8mp
                                        • 18 Jul 2022

                                        Huge connectivity issues. Had the phone changed, still the same issues.

                                          2 of 18