Pixel 6 & 6 Pro Review - 6 Months Later

The pixel six and six Pro are Google's latest phones that I've been using for over six months now .

And these are without a doubt , the best phones Google has ever made .

But what are the top features that make them stand out ?

Should you go for one now or wait for the seven and seven Pro later this year is the Pro really worth the price over the regular six .

And why would you go for a pixel over a Samsung phone ?

I'm going to answer all of those questions and more .

And first , let's talk about how Google implemented Android 12 on these pixels because it makes these phones feel very different from any other phone I've used previously , Google did a great job making the pixel six and six Pro software feel very fun and differentiated from past Android devices .

And I love how easy it is to match the system's colors to your wallpaper with the new material you them in and you can make it all match with your phone's hardware color , the colors you choose run deep into the Os showing up in quick settings , regular settings and in other UI areas like widgets and even app icons .

Unfortunately , it seems like only Google's own widgets and maybe one or two from apps , I have have embraced the new material use styling and the same goes for app icons , you'll only see the new app icon , them feature really work with Google's own Android apps .

So the widget experience , it's still a little bit inconsistent compared to what you get on I OS in terms of visual consistency .

However , I do like the Android actually gives widgets more functionality .

Like for example , the pocket cast widget , I can just tap play to resume the podcast I was listening to .

Whereas on I OS , if you tap the same pocket cast widget on the home screen , it'll take you into the app and then you can hit play .

Now there are of course pixel specific features that you can get on the six and six Pro that you cannot get on any other Android device .

And these features help set the pixel apart from its main competition from Samsung , some of these features are small things like the now playing feature that shows you what music is playing in the background .

Others are bigger like hold for me , which I've used so much when calling customer service numbers .

When you're waiting for a person to pick up on the other end , the pixel will actually wait on hold for you and will notify you on the phone .

When somebody on the other end of the line has picked up so you don't have to listen to that .

Awful hold music for 20 plus minutes and you can go and focus on other things .

You also get call screening as well with pixel where the assistant will screen incoming calls from unknown numbers allowing you to see the conversation the person had with the Google assistant making likely spam calls pretty obvious .

Next up .

Also new to the pixel with this version of Android is security hub , which I think is a really well designed upgrade that makes it easy to check and see if any of your accounts , passwords , device settings need your attention .

So your security is always up to date and protected Android 12 also includes one of my personal favorite features , which is the work profile , which allows me to separate my Google workplace work apps from my personal apps and it makes it easy to schedule my work apps to turn off at a specific time at night and also has a nice button to allow you to turn them on and off .

Now , if I missed out on your favorite pixel or Android feature , let me know in the comments , what feature keeps you coming back to Android and or the pixel and to see more content around pixel related features and more videos on Google products .

Make sure you subscribe to the channel .

Next , let's talk about performance and both the pixel six and the pixel six pro include Google's first ever custom design chip which is called the Google tensor chip .

And over the past six months , the performance on both of these phones has just been blazing fast , especially when this chip is paired with the six Pros 120 Hertz display .

The tensor chip also helps enable some new features this year , like the pixels improved video and still image processing .

And like in past years , the camera quality on this year's pixels is superb and even the video quality now is pretty good , which has not always been the case with previous pixels .

While I'll admit the difference between phone cameras seems to have gotten smaller among the flagship phones from Google Apple and Samsung .

The pixels camera still stands out to me in a few ways .

One the pixel six pro has the best telephoto lens I've used on a phone thus far and captures some truly excellent shots .

The second major benefit of this camera system is facial color and tone .

Google did a lot of work with this year's camera algorithms with real tone to make sure they capture darker skin complexions much better , which others have reported seems to be the case .

I've actually even noticed that this pixel camera system does better than any other phone I've used previously at capturing my own skin tones , especially in difficult lighting situations .

Like you've got hard sunlight hitting your skin , the color accuracy and tone of my skin tone in these photos is just better than any other camera system I've used including the iphone 13 Pros overall , the pixel six and six Pro are very comparable to the other main phone .

I use my iphone 13 Pro and I find I prefer the pixels look about half the time compared to my iphone's photos .

It still gets you those Hallmark high contrast and cool pixel shots which I really dig new this year on the pixel is a much improved video processing which makes the videos you take usable and makes the videos I've taken on previous pixels look pretty much like garbage , especially if they were in low light scenarios .

Now , the video quality still isn't as good as the iphones which just produces way less noisy of an image and overall is just solid , but the pixels video quality isn't far behind anymore .

And something I definitely use now , one other new camera feature that Google added this year for the pixel six and six pro is called Magic Eraser , which makes it very easy to go into a photo you take and delete people and objects out .

I've used this a lot compared to some other new features like face on blur and motion mode which are also new on these pixels .

Magic eraser works pretty well .

As long as you know its limitations , I use it to take out hair fly and other unwanted objects or people .

And one piece of advice with this feature , you're going to get better results if you use pinch to zoom and then make your edits .

And the best part is you can use this feature on not only photos you take on your pixel but on photos sent to you or in photos that you previously took in your Google Photos library .

Now , the next thing I've really enjoyed with both of these phones is Google's speech dictation feature .

It's one of the best new features on these phones .

Thanks to Google's tensor chip , these pixels have a brand new speech recognition model that will automatically add the right punctuation .

And for the first time , it's phonetically based instead of being key stroke based .

And in my experience , this makes smart suggestions much better and more useful .

In fact , Google's speech recognition model is so good .

I've been using it to generate all of the closed captions you see on my videos on the channel for the past six months with very few light edits .

The pixel six and six pro also feature a completely new and somewhat polarizing external design .

And after six months for the pro specifically Google just created a great phone to comfortably hold in your hand , the metal rails and rounded edges make it more grippy than you'd expect .

And given the phone's larger size , it actually weighs about 20 g less than the Samsung S 22 ultra .

The six is comfortable to hold , but I found it's brushed aluminum sides , make it slightly more slick and because it's about the same weight as the Pro , but in a smaller form factor , it feels a bit more weighty .

Next .

Let's talk battery life .

Both of these phones have about average battery life for me .

Easily lasting me all day with light to moderate phone use .

I use the Pro more than the six and the Pro typically will get down to around 40% battery after a full day of use .

By the time I want to charge it at night , the last hardware feature I've really enjoyed with these phones are haptics and specifically for the Pro because the Haptic engine is actually located a little bit farther down the phone's body .

You really feel the haptics when you're typing on the keyboard and they feel great .

These are definitely the best haptics I've ever felt on a pixel in the regular are good too .

The last thing I've enjoyed with these phones are the Android ecosystem benefits .

You can download apps outside of the Play store like Fortnite and really Tinker and customize with the device to make it the way you want it versus something like I OS , which is more locked down .

However , now this leads me to my first downside that I found with these pixels and that's their overall accessory ecosystem .

Samsung and Apple are the two dominant players in the smartphone market today and they have a ton of access and other devices you can buy that work seamlessly with their phones .

Google just doesn't have that yet though recent links suggest they're close to launching a new smart watch which will of course review on the channel .

So make sure you're subscribed to see that video .

And I do think that having a smart watch made by Google will make the pixels accessory ecosystem a bit more competitive compared to Samsung and Apple's and related to accessories .

I think Google needs to make better cases for the pixel .

This year's were a bit of a disappointment .

They're ok , not great and make me miss the great fabric cases .

Google made for previous pixels , the fingerprint sensor , which is a bit slower than other phones I've used but has worked fine over the past six months .

But it still makes me miss having face unlock in a pixel , face id and face unlock are the fastest ways to unlock a phone in my experience and something I'd like to see Google bring back now the biggest downside I found with both of these devices over the past six months has been auto brightness .

It just isn't good .

It's not nearly as accurate as my galaxy S 21 ultra and iphone 13 Pro .

It's too quick to get to different brightness levels versus other phones that do a better job of fading in and out brightness .

So you notice the adjustments less and sometimes the adjustments it makes are just so wrong , especially in low light situations .

I just turned the feature off entirely .

The last downside I found with these devices is only for the pixel six and that's screen for $600 .

I just expect a better screen at this point .

While it is an OLED screen , the viewing angle shifts which have a green and purple color to them .

With this display just make it look cheap and not great compared to other phones and devices in this price range .

It's a screen I'd expect to see on a pixel , a series line of phone but not for the pixel six .

Now , one other thing I do want to mention a lot has been made about the Google software updates over the past six months and introducing new bugs and issues with the pixel six and six Pro .

I have not personally seen that which is why I did not put the software updates in my downsides .

Part of this video , the only nasty bug I ran into was the wifi bug where no matter what you did , the phones would not connect to wifi but that was fixed in a later software update .

So those are the downsides I found with these devices .

Now , let's talk which pixel I think you should get which one to go for .

And if I recommend both of these devices , and while I do think the screen is subpar on the pixel six for the $600 price , the $300 price difference between the pixel six and the six pro .

I do think that is a bit steep .

However , if you want a much better screen , a telephoto camera , a better selfie camera and more premium build materials like I do , then the pro is really your only option .

And it's the phone I typically recommend to people when they ask me which pixel they should buy .

Based on my experience , I recommend the pixel six Pro because of its better screen quality now , because these phones are over six months old .

Now , naturally , the question is , should you wait for the pixel seven and seven PRO to come out in the fall or get one of these phones ?

Now , it's unlikely Google is going to do a fundamental redesign with the seven and seven Pro given the pixel six and six Pro were such a huge jump from previous generations of pixels .

My advice would be if you can find a good deal on the six Pro , I'd go for it .

But if you're looking at the pixel six , I'd actually wait at this point , I'd wait to see what Google does with the pixel seven .

And if they put a better screen in that phone now , if you don't care about screen quality , of course .

Yeah , you're good to go with the pixel six .

Now , the Google Pixel six Pro retails for 8 $99 and the pixel six retails for 5 $99 you can use the purchase links here in this video and in the description below , if you'd like to purchase them or learn more .

And if you have any further questions about either the pixel six or the six pro , let me know in the comments below and I'll try to address them there .

Hit that thumbs up button if you like this video and subscribe to the channel to see more long term reviews like this one .

And if you're looking for what to watch next , check out some of our other Google reviews like the review I did of the nest battery doorbell , the nest audio and the nest hub , second generation with sleep tracking .

So go check those out for six months later .

I'm Josh Teter .

Thanks for watching .