Comment by microtonal

I buy Pixel for GrapheneOS, but the hardware is terrible for the price. They charge flagship prices for what are mid-range SoCs. They are very heavy for the size (e.g. the 10/10 Pro are around 205g) and the weight distribution makes them feel like a brick. Battery life is very mediocre, even with almost no apps or other crap installed. They have also had a lot of hardware/software issues in recent years - spicy pillows, display issues, camera bars that fall off, software updates that resulted in boot loops for many people, etc. In (most of?) Europe, they farmed out repairs to another company and often reject warranty claims if there is as much as a scratch on the case.

I would only recommend Pixel if you want to run GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS is stellar and until next year, getting a Pixel is the only way to run it. Also, wait until midway the cycle of a model to get a large discount.

If you do not want to run GrapheneOS, do yourself a favor and either:

1.) Get a Samsung S series (or maybe A5x). It's the only phone besides Pixel that does reliable monthly updates, QPR2 and rolls out major updates fairly quickly. They have a separate secure enclave (Knox Vault). Also, after a few months the pricing is really good (e.g. an S26 with 256GB storage costs 620 Euro here now). You can pretty much remove all of the bloat, including Gemini, Google hot words, Bixby, etc. with UAD. The SoC, battery life, etc. will blow Pixels out of the water.

2.) Get an iPhone. The most secure phone after GrapheneOS and the hardware is well worth the price. Their support is stellar, easy to reach a human by phone, generally easy to get repairs.