Google Pixel 7 Pro Long Term Review after using it as my daily driver for the past 8 months, from October 2022 to July 2023 & how it competes with the iPhone...
I do agree with In Depth Tech Reviews’ overall sentiment as a pixel 7 pro user. Personally, I have different gripes for it.
I’ve gotten every generation of pixel phones. I was very excited for the 7 pro given the shortcomings I had with the 6 pro (very horrible cellular, disappointing battery life, prone to thermal protection scenarios)
I also go between google and samsung phones, most recently used an S23 ultra.
I had mostly stuck with pixels because of the camera, but to be honest, I feel like google has regressed still camera results since about the pixel 4/5 timeframe.
What I’ve noticed about my 7 pro, and I’m also disappointed with it, but different from the video, I did not keep using it in spite of the issues:
Battery life has been really bad. From 100% charge at 7:45am and using it for very basic usage on wifi during a working day without taxing apps like games or video chats, I will use it for up to 2.5h SOT and it will be down to 35% battery left after 12h. Wifi almost all the time, and I have cellular set to prefer LTE (no 5g). I use it incidentally throughout the day for MS Teams text chats, some outlook (limited), some text chats on discord, checking gmail, and (in the past) some reddit usage, and maybe 45 minutes of bluetooth audio streaming. That’s it, and only 2.5h SOT with 35% battery left is awful.
I disagree with him re. screen brightness outdoors. Screen does not stay bright when outdoors for a significant amount of time. I was glad that google started using brighter displays, but for me it feels like after 30 seconds the screen brightness drops to the point of being difficult to read outdoors.
Cellular–while better than the 6 series, it’s still not great. I’m not talking the difference between 500mbps and 900mbps, which is insignificant in terms of overall normal usage. I’m talking the difference between a stable and reliable cellular connection with no drops or lag in usage. Between my 7 pro and S23 ultra in the same location along a local ‘main drag’ area, and in many places my 7 pro will have an unstable cellular data experience and the S23 ultra has no issues. When my 7 pro disconnects from cellular, like in a parking structure, it takes quite some time to re-establish connection to cellular. My S23 ultra reconnects almost instantly.
Charging speed–I’m not asking for more than 25w charging, or even 65w or 100w like other phones (for example). But the throughout-battery-range charge speeds are too conservative and slow, especially when, in my experience with the 7 pro, it drains battery very fast and needs intermittent top-ups at times. Even on 18w USB-PD charging, my 7 pro charges much more slowly from the 40-100% range compared to my S23 ultra; to the point where it takes twice as long. This is frustrating and I wish google would at least make it an option to charge faster.
Front facing camera is bad. That’s the best way to put it. So disappointing that google didn’t maintain the auto-focus camera system on the pixel 3; the best front camera experience I’ve had on a phone.
I had a recent weekend trip for an outdoor wedding and was using my 7 pro at that time. Battery life was bad. I had to charge up from a battery pack in the middle of the day and it was frustrating. Also, being outdoors, I was taking reasonable shots and videos of the wedding and it was almost impossible to see the viewfinder because the screen brightness dropped due to temperatures. It wasn’t hot outside; it was 68f and sunny with a bit of overcast/light clouds on occasion.
I have been using the S23 ultra since early May. I was pushed mostly because battery life on my 7 pro for a regular day was basically unusable without necessary interruptions to charge. Battery life is crazy better on the S23 ultra–with the same usage that takes my 7 pro down to 35% on a normal, basic, untaxing day, my S23 ultra is never below 70% battery for the same time/usage. Cellular performance is so much better as well. I also like many of samsung’s software additions including but not limited to things like Modes & Routines, attention to sound settings (individual app volume settings, ability to route simultaneous sounds to different outputs), attention to video settings. Better video recording and audio recording quality. Samsung software experience is a polarizing topic, especially among pixel users, but overall it’s never bothered me.
I continue to prefer the still camera results from google camera on a pixel, but the differences are much smaller now than in the past between google and samsung cameras. I also noticed that subject motion blur–something that I was always disappointed with samsung cameras–is better on the S23 ultra to the point where it doesn’t really bother me in the context of whether to use a google or samsung phone.
And then there’s other aspects–Samsung pays more attention to having an integrated ecosystem experience. What I mean by this–take the example of the video where he mentions nice features on the 7 pro like reverse wireless charging, and he sets the pixel buds on the back of the phone. He also has a pixel watch in many shots of the video, but google did not build in the proprietary charging protocol to reverse wireless charging on the 7 pro, so you can’t use it to charge the pixel watch. With samsung they have built in support of charging galaxy watches with their battery share feature, so if you are going on a trip or something like that, you don’t need to even worry about or think of bringing your watch charger. It’s that sort of attention to the ecosystem that I think Samsung does a better job with than where google currently is. Google’s devices don’t feel very integrated outside of the industrial design and color schemes they chose.
Overall I’m disappointed with the 7 pro. Mostly because of the battery life. Google does need to re-invigorate the camera experience. They have challenges with their SOC and cellular modem choices and I’m disappointed that their first ‘non-qualcomm’ approach has been disappointing. When even samsung doesn’t use their own SOC design and SOC manufacturing and opts for their competitor then you know there must be a reason, and plowing ahead despite that is a pretty poor decision.
Google used to make “XL” versions of some of the earlier Pixels, up to the (checks) Pixel 4. Those were larger and spent the extra space on battery. I wish that Google was still doing that, as I definitely was fine with a larger/heavier phone if I got a larger battery out of it.
I don’t use Pixels these days, so I guess it’s not really a factor for me now, but…
That’s basically what the Pixel 7 Pro is over the Pixel 7; it’s just that it also comes with other extras, like another camera.
Not sure why they only managed 14% extra battery in the 7 series though. It’s the smallest jump from their smaller model vs the larger one except for the 6 series. Combine it with the more power hungry display on the Pro, and the already-inefficient chipset on both devices, and you just don’t get the battery life that competitors get.
I’ve gotten every generation of pixel phones. I was very excited for the 7 pro given the shortcomings I had with the 6 pro (very horrible cellular, disappointing battery life, prone to thermal protection scenarios)
I also go between google and samsung phones, most recently used an S23 ultra.
I had mostly stuck with pixels because of the camera, but to be honest, I feel like google has regressed still camera results since about the pixel 4/5 timeframe.
What I’ve noticed about my 7 pro, and I’m also disappointed with it, but different from the video, I did not keep using it in spite of the issues:
Battery life has been really bad. From 100% charge at 7:45am and using it for very basic usage on wifi during a working day without taxing apps like games or video chats, I will use it for up to 2.5h SOT and it will be down to 35% battery left after 12h. Wifi almost all the time, and I have cellular set to prefer LTE (no 5g). I use it incidentally throughout the day for MS Teams text chats, some outlook (limited), some text chats on discord, checking gmail, and (in the past) some reddit usage, and maybe 45 minutes of bluetooth audio streaming. That’s it, and only 2.5h SOT with 35% battery left is awful.
I disagree with him re. screen brightness outdoors. Screen does not stay bright when outdoors for a significant amount of time. I was glad that google started using brighter displays, but for me it feels like after 30 seconds the screen brightness drops to the point of being difficult to read outdoors.
Cellular–while better than the 6 series, it’s still not great. I’m not talking the difference between 500mbps and 900mbps, which is insignificant in terms of overall normal usage. I’m talking the difference between a stable and reliable cellular connection with no drops or lag in usage. Between my 7 pro and S23 ultra in the same location along a local ‘main drag’ area, and in many places my 7 pro will have an unstable cellular data experience and the S23 ultra has no issues. When my 7 pro disconnects from cellular, like in a parking structure, it takes quite some time to re-establish connection to cellular. My S23 ultra reconnects almost instantly.
Charging speed–I’m not asking for more than 25w charging, or even 65w or 100w like other phones (for example). But the throughout-battery-range charge speeds are too conservative and slow, especially when, in my experience with the 7 pro, it drains battery very fast and needs intermittent top-ups at times. Even on 18w USB-PD charging, my 7 pro charges much more slowly from the 40-100% range compared to my S23 ultra; to the point where it takes twice as long. This is frustrating and I wish google would at least make it an option to charge faster.
Front facing camera is bad. That’s the best way to put it. So disappointing that google didn’t maintain the auto-focus camera system on the pixel 3; the best front camera experience I’ve had on a phone.
I had a recent weekend trip for an outdoor wedding and was using my 7 pro at that time. Battery life was bad. I had to charge up from a battery pack in the middle of the day and it was frustrating. Also, being outdoors, I was taking reasonable shots and videos of the wedding and it was almost impossible to see the viewfinder because the screen brightness dropped due to temperatures. It wasn’t hot outside; it was 68f and sunny with a bit of overcast/light clouds on occasion.
I have been using the S23 ultra since early May. I was pushed mostly because battery life on my 7 pro for a regular day was basically unusable without necessary interruptions to charge. Battery life is crazy better on the S23 ultra–with the same usage that takes my 7 pro down to 35% on a normal, basic, untaxing day, my S23 ultra is never below 70% battery for the same time/usage. Cellular performance is so much better as well. I also like many of samsung’s software additions including but not limited to things like Modes & Routines, attention to sound settings (individual app volume settings, ability to route simultaneous sounds to different outputs), attention to video settings. Better video recording and audio recording quality. Samsung software experience is a polarizing topic, especially among pixel users, but overall it’s never bothered me.
I continue to prefer the still camera results from google camera on a pixel, but the differences are much smaller now than in the past between google and samsung cameras. I also noticed that subject motion blur–something that I was always disappointed with samsung cameras–is better on the S23 ultra to the point where it doesn’t really bother me in the context of whether to use a google or samsung phone.
And then there’s other aspects–Samsung pays more attention to having an integrated ecosystem experience. What I mean by this–take the example of the video where he mentions nice features on the 7 pro like reverse wireless charging, and he sets the pixel buds on the back of the phone. He also has a pixel watch in many shots of the video, but google did not build in the proprietary charging protocol to reverse wireless charging on the 7 pro, so you can’t use it to charge the pixel watch. With samsung they have built in support of charging galaxy watches with their battery share feature, so if you are going on a trip or something like that, you don’t need to even worry about or think of bringing your watch charger. It’s that sort of attention to the ecosystem that I think Samsung does a better job with than where google currently is. Google’s devices don’t feel very integrated outside of the industrial design and color schemes they chose.
Overall I’m disappointed with the 7 pro. Mostly because of the battery life. Google does need to re-invigorate the camera experience. They have challenges with their SOC and cellular modem choices and I’m disappointed that their first ‘non-qualcomm’ approach has been disappointing. When even samsung doesn’t use their own SOC design and SOC manufacturing and opts for their competitor then you know there must be a reason, and plowing ahead despite that is a pretty poor decision.
Dissapointed was my experience with my pixel 1. My 4a is less so, but at least its cheap.
Google used to make “XL” versions of some of the earlier Pixels, up to the (checks) Pixel 4. Those were larger and spent the extra space on battery. I wish that Google was still doing that, as I definitely was fine with a larger/heavier phone if I got a larger battery out of it.
I don’t use Pixels these days, so I guess it’s not really a factor for me now, but…
That’s basically what the Pixel 7 Pro is over the Pixel 7; it’s just that it also comes with other extras, like another camera.
Not sure why they only managed 14% extra battery in the 7 series though. It’s the smallest jump from their smaller model vs the larger one except for the 6 series. Combine it with the more power hungry display on the Pro, and the already-inefficient chipset on both devices, and you just don’t get the battery life that competitors get.