Google Pixel 6 review

17 November 2021


Sort by:

  • H
  • Haplo
  • MIn
  • 18 Nov 2021

Trent , 18 Nov 2021I agree with your assessment. I went for a Pixel 5a though ... moreI don't see how Pixel 6 is a failure battery-wise. It's been improving for me since I got it. It now lasts 2 days of my typical moderate use. Also its capable of 3 days with light use.
Its better then my 3-year old Huawei P20 Pro - which was my previous battery endurance champion (although to be fair, Huawei was even better when new - but not by a huge margin).

Although, to be fair, I guess it probably has significantly less endurance in 5G networks due to its last-gen 5G modem.

    • ?
    • Anonymous
    • 3AX
    • 18 Nov 2021

    Garbage battery life very disappointed.

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • mip
      • 18 Nov 2021

      Anonymous, 18 Nov 2021Why there's zero talk about 4K 60fps video quality? ... moreIm pretty sure most people dont care about 4k in phones and IF, than not in phones sub 1000$ really. If they do, they mostly buy into apple (since their good quality) or sony (you should simply go sony if you want to max out you video shooting). Shooting videos that need higher rez than 720p is rare on phones, shooting 4k is nearly none-existing. If you don't believe me, go ask outside your bubble. Most people don't even know what upscaling is and dont care if they look at 1080p content on 4k televions...it's weird, but sadly true.

        • T
        • Trent
        • n7Y
        • 18 Nov 2021

        AnonD-994853, 18 Nov 2021My 3rd best phone of the year, just behind Poco F3 and Onep... moreI agree with your assessment. I went for a Pixel 5a though as it is very close to a global LTE phone (it does not have all 5G bands required to say the same for 5G) and has significantly better battery life. Let's face it, the Pixel 6 is a letdown in the battery department. The Nord 2 was the runner up but I saw what it did to they poor guy when exploding. The Poco is a bit large but otherwise a top choice.

          • ?
          • Anonymous
          • StU
          • 18 Nov 2021

          AngryLithuanian, 18 Nov 2021If you're in UK, Pixel 6 goes for just around £500 mar... morePixel retails for for £599 in UK

            • E
            • EG3Po
            • Jib
            • 18 Nov 2021

            Here's some questions to the authors:
            It says in the article that "Google specs say a 114-degree field of view, which is a rather extreme 14mm equivalent, but that's explicitly when you're shooting RAW."

            So is there a way for Google to update firmware so that the phone can save JPEG at 14mm equivalent instead of 16-17mm? If we save photos in RAW+JPEG and post-process RAW, save it as JPEG, we would have a 14mm ultrawide (uncorrected) JPEG?

              • H
              • Haplo
              • MIn
              • 18 Nov 2021

              AngryLithuanian, 18 Nov 2021If you're in UK, Pixel 6 goes for just around £500 mar... moreI disagree. I mean its cool that Pixel 6 is cheaper. But even at equal pricing, personally I'd never pick regular S21 (or S21+ for that matter) over Pixel 6. My choice was essentially between S21 Ultra, OnePlus 9 Pro, Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.
              I have chosen Pixel 6 (dislike curved screens and couldn't care less about higher refresh or resolution, issues with availability of the Pro and much higher prices of imported Pixels in my country on top of the already large price difference between them) and don't regret it one bit. Its a fantastic phone. The camera is great and the real-time offline AI features VERY impressive.

                • S
                • Shiny Dave
                • mpm
                • 18 Nov 2021

                AngryLithuanian, 18 Nov 2021If you're in UK, Pixel 6 goes for just around £500 mar... moreIndeed, and there are some carrier deals that come in legitimately under £700 for the two-year deal including reasonable airtime bundles.

                Almost wish I'd actually gone for the sweet preorder deal here, but when I saw the "revolutionary" Tensor SoC literally uses two of the same cores as the 2019 midranger (Galaxy A70) I'm trying to replace, plus two X1 cores... I was convinced it was going to come out terribly for thermals and battery life. And indeed those look like the biggest weaknesses of this phone, although I thought they'd be nailed-on deal-breakers and they're not bad enough for that.

                Would still get the S20 FE 5G at the same price (which on carrier deals at least is what they are) or potentially the A52s 5G for significantly less, although I hate the trypophobia camera bump on the latter (doesn't affect me but I'd worry about it affecting other people who saw it).

                  ...nice try Google....comeback next year with something with higher pretensions and maybe, maybe....so far I can say: "bye bye baby!!!!"

                    • G
                    • GrahamD
                    • nE0
                    • 18 Nov 2021

                    Just another boring phone with average battery life.

                      • ?
                      • Anonymous
                      • TL%
                      • 18 Nov 2021

                      This is a good phone. I'm impressed.

                        • ?
                        • Anonymous
                        • 3%%
                        • 18 Nov 2021

                        Thank you @GSMArena for providing camera samples from the regular places this time. It helps a lot so we can compare the quality with other smartphones.
                        IMO Google camera is one of the best but unfortunately it could be easily better. I noticed that there is a new trend in Google to do some extreme noise reduction(Luma,Chroma) which leads to softer images especially for such big sensor some fine details shouldn't be lost. Thanks to its great HDR though it does get the most possible Information from every scene even from the shadows.
                        I own a Redmi Note 9 Pro and with a gcam properly configured to capture even the finest details without any noticeable noise i believe i am able to get better results so everything is possible.
                        Since there are similar samples from other smartphones it's interesting to see how well also other cheaper phones are doing like Xiaomi Poco F3, Mi11i and 11T Pro. Check also the night mode from Realme GT Neo2 and GT 5G which is very impressive and can be considered a worthy opponent in this area.
                        Although i doubt cause it's already too good i hope that Google will aim to improve the camera quality of the Pixel 6 series even further one day.

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • kUg
                          • 18 Nov 2021

                          The grass looks like green mush in the very first camera sample. How is it so bad?

                            • ?
                            • Anonymous
                            • Eyw
                            • 18 Nov 2021

                            AnonD-994853, 18 Nov 2021The Pixel 6 doesn't have a telephoto camera, but it do... moreThe sensor most likely needs extra tuning, you'd think with all the extra data the GN1 has to work with that super-res zoom would look better than it did on the Pixel 5 but it actually looks worse

                              • A
                              • AngryLithuanian
                              • C9n
                              • 18 Nov 2021

                              If you're in UK, Pixel 6 goes for just around £500 mark, while Samsung S21 is around £650 (depends on discount). At those prices Pixel 6 is a better option, if both phones would be equally priced, then Samsung is a better choice.

                                • ?
                                • Anonymous
                                • mYV
                                • 18 Nov 2021

                                Why there's zero talk about 4K 60fps video quality?
                                We saw a nice results with 4K 30fps x264 @48Mbps, but how does Pixel 6 deal with 4K 60fps x264 @70Mbps it produces?

                                  • D
                                  • AnonD-994853
                                  • Kxb
                                  • 18 Nov 2021

                                  The Pixel 6 doesn't have a telephoto camera, but it does include a 2x zoom button in the viewfinder. These can very well fool you; they're coming from a dedicated camera at fit to screen magnification which is good enough for sharing around - the colors and dynamic range are the same as 1x shots. Naturally, at 1:1 examination, their crop-and-upscale essence is revealed, and pixel-level sharpness isn't great.


                                  What happened to the super res zoom feature? I thought even Pixel 3 has excellent 2x zoom. So why Pixel 6 has bad 2x zoom? Sensor needs tuning?

                                    • D
                                    • AnonD-994853
                                    • Kxb
                                    • 18 Nov 2021

                                    My 3rd best phone of the year, just behind Poco F3 and Oneplus Nord 2.

                                      Can anyone list out all the hardware and software issues plaguing pixel series??
                                      Google has the worst quality control for their devices. Apple is not too far behind.

                                        • D
                                        • AnonD-1025872
                                        • a4j
                                        • 17 Nov 2021

                                        Pixel phones battery life: back to future

                                          7 of 8