14 DAY TRIAL // Two weeks ago, just after Google rolled out an advertising campaign called Unswitchable, I decided to test the search giant’s claims on my own.
While you can read more about this experiment here, the idea behind this whole thing is to test Google’s promise that the Google Pixel 3 makes you love it after just three weeks of use no matter what phone you owned before.
My preliminary conclusions after a week with the Pixel 3 are available here, but if you’re more interested in a TLDR, it basically comes down to this. I was still unswitchable, and while I liked the Google Pixel 3 for its high-end features, there were too many setbacks to convince me to switch.
And here I am at the end of the second week with the Google Pixel 3 and I still think I’m unswitchable. However, I like the Google Pixel 3 a bit more than a week ago, and I’m going to explain why in the next few paragraphs. Just stay with me for a few more minutes.
Google Pixel 3 is an amazing device that has its own pros and cons. But while I learned to focus more on the pros in the last few days, I can’t ignore the cons either.
First and foremost, God, you just can’t love its camera. In my opinion, the Pixel 3 has one of the best, if not THE best, camera on a smartphone right now. And those of you who tried it certainly know how good it is. Night Sight is probably what makes everyone drool about the Google Camera app, and third-party developers are struggling to bring it to other phones, including Samsung’s, as we speak.
The funny thing is that Night Sight is an amazing feature not only for total darkness but also in the daytime. And the more you use it, the more you love it.
But since this isn’t necessarily a review of the Pixel camera, let’s advance to the next thing I like on the Pixel 3. The Google Assistant integration is brilliant, and after using a Samsung phone for a while, you can’t imagine how good it is to forget about Bixby for a few weeks. Google’s Assistant wakes me up, provides me with the news, displays my calendar appointments, and shows details about my daily commute, all just when I need it.
And while this is without a doubt perfect integration, it’s also one of the things that are concerning for some people. And at some level, for me too.
Becoming too committed to the Google ecosystem means giving all your data to the search giant, and opinions on whether this is a good thing are still mixed. I’m not going to start a debate here, but since I’m more involved in Microsoft’s ecosystem and I install its apps on all my phones, I prefer to have my data in the hands of the software giant.
Unfortunately, I have to mention once again the limited amount of RAM on the Google Pixel 3. I still think that 4GB isn’t enough for a phone this advanced, and this makes it shows its limits rather often.
Since I’m a hardcore user who unlocks his phone way too many times each day and keeps tens of apps running in the background, I found myself having to refresh them just because they can’t be saved in the memory. And that’s because there’s not enough RAM on the Pixel 3.
Bugs like the buzzing speakers are also making me believe this may not be the phone to replace my iPhone, but I’ll give it one more week to see how this evolves.
Unfortunately, a new Pixel 3 update won’t land until early January, so it’s hard to believe my experience would change in a substantial manner in the next 7 days, but as things stand right now, I’m still unswitchable.
