I just canceled my Google Pixel 8 Pro pre-order — here's why

[admin]

I was about to swap my phone for the Google Pixel 8 Pro, but realized it wasn't the right move for me.

I just canceled my Google Pixel 8 Pro pre-order — here's why : Read more

 

[bjrosen]

I agree with everything you said but I've ordered the 8Pro anyway. The $400 trade in for 6P brings the price down to a more reasonable $600. Reading the 6Ps screen outside has been a problem, hopefully the 8P really will be better. The 8P has a slightly better zoom lense and a better sensor, looking forward to that. I'm also hoping the LTE and 5G is better, I go to a lot of places with weak cell coverage and the 6P has a notoriously poor cell chip. In the future I have a request for Google, please work on battery life. That's the one area that really needs improvement. The CPUs have been fast enough for years, any speed increases there are completely meaningless, reducing power would be far more helpful.

 

[seniorgeek]

My Pixel 6 Pro works great too. I'm sorry about your battery life - I get more than a day on mine. What sucked me in on the 8 was the $400 trade in, the free $350 watch and the 0% interest payments. Seven years of updates isn't too bad either. I hope the 8 gets as good battery life as my 6 does.

 

[smartchange]

I love this article. It's rare to find encouragement for calm frugality.

 

[Technerd71]

The Pixel 8 Pro should be a significant release for Google. I think this phone or the 10 in the future possibly on TSMC 3nm are going to be stand out devices. The 9 will be a slight improvement of the 8. The 7 was a slight improvement of the 6 but the 8 is a major release.

Considering that the Pixel 7 Pro is just about perfect except for the fact it overheats by looking at it wrong, Battery life is just passable with a phone with such a big battery. The curved screen sucks.

Pixel 8 Pro will now have a flat screen, the Tensor G3 should if not fix the previous issues at least significantly improve them. Basically the Pixel 8 Pro has the potential to fix the pain points of the previous generation which could make it one of the best phones of 2023.

7 years of updates is really great and it is about time. The beauty of designing your own chips is you don't have limitations forced on you by the chip maker. Qualcomm limited firmware updates. Now Google doesn't have that limitation. This should boost the terrible resale value of Pixel phones.

So I guess if I was going to upgrade this would be the time. Yes, phones releases are mostly iterative but that doesn't mean that even iterative changes can't be significant.

 

[Tom Pritchard]

I agree with everything you said but I've ordered the 8Pro anyway. The $400 trade in for 6P brings the price down to a more reasonable $600. Reading the 6Ps screen outside has been a problem, hopefully the 8P really will be better. The 8P has a slightly better zoom lense and a better sensor, looking forward to that. I'm also hoping the LTE and 5G is better, I go to a lot of places with weak cell coverage and the 6P has a notoriously poor cell chip. In the future I have a request for Google, please work on battery life. That's the one area that really needs improvement. The CPUs have been fast enough for years, any speed increases there are completely meaningless, reducing power would be far more helpful.

Unfortunately the trade-ins here aren't nearly so generous. It wouldn't even cover a quarter of the price of a 128GB model. Not that it would have mattered to me, I was going to repurpose my old phone regardless, but it means there may be more than a few people similarly put off my the high price this year.

The 5G upgrade is an interesting note, and I seriously hope the modem is a lot more efficient than the 6 Pro's. But considering I don't even have 5G in the majority of places I go, I've learned to keep my devices set to 4G only.

 

[DrPlanarian]

I was about to swap my phone for the Google Pixel 8 Pro, but realized it wasn't the right move for me.

I just canceled my Google Pixel 8 Pro pre-order — here's why : Read more

I totally agree that the little, incremental improvements in smartphone technology from generation to generation, and this includes Pixels, Galaxies, iPhones, whatever, does not justify the cost of annual, or even biannual, upgrades. But there have been some major shifts in recent generations AWAY FROM technology I really appreciated in a smartphone, most prominently including the ability to store data on MicroSD cards and removable, replaceable batteries, that make me hesitant to upgrade at all.

I have to do without the replaceable batteries because the last phones to have that feature are now totally obsolete, but I will keep my Samsung Galaxy S20+, which DOES use a MicroSD card, until the wheels fall off it. Its battery life always leaves me with at least 30% at my bedtime when I hang it up on the wireless charger (and this is even when I watch something like an entire 3-hour baseball game in full HD on it in addition to a lot of YouTube videos and regular web and email browsing), it is so sturdy, without a mark on it despite having been dropped maybe a hundred times, and it meets all of my needs excellently well and fast. It has never given me any justification to upgrade it. It's not just "good enough" but it remains truly top-notch.

 

[pahding]

I moved from a 2-year upgrade cycle to a 3-year cycle when I went from the Pixel 2 to Pixel 5. I've pre-ordered the Pixel 8 Pro as I think the 3-year improvements justify the price I'd pay to upgrade (plus the $300 trade-in value for my Pixel 5 is fantastic considering I paid $640 for it when I bought it). With the promised 7-year support cycle, I'm hoping I can push that 3-year cycle even further. One likely disappointment will be the increased footprint of the phone which will be punishing to my small hands.

 

[Un1nsp1r3d]

This somewhat validated my feeling as I'm looking to jump from 6 to 8 (while not really needing to), but the twist is I use Fi as my carrier. In lieu of the free watch, I can get an 8 pro for $400 off (no trade in required). I have a hard time not making impulse purchases when the new shiny comes out

 

[samagon0]

coming from a 6pro into the 8pro, the differences are certainly less clear than they ever have been in the past when making a jump from a device 2 years old to a brand new device.

however, the differences are there, and in my opinion, worth it.

for anyone needing to use their phone as a mobile hotspot, you know with the 6pro (or at least my 6pro) you were getting what felt like maybe DSL speeds through the hotspot connection. the 8pro has amazing speed for hotspot tether and is good enough for doing work on the go where you maybe don't trust the coffee shop network you'd have to connect through otherwise.

the screen is a huge upgrade, flat, bright, amazing.

the camera upgrades are worthy.

either which way you go, sticking with the 6pro, or upgrading to the 8pro, having less differences between devices is a good thing. it means the market is maturing to a point where you don't feel compelled to upgrade every cycle.