LeoRex
Retired Moderator
It seems like the biggest ongoing gripes are the bang for buck or it doesn't provide flagship features for a flagship price. Both of which are subjectively false.
And people who've given both arguments typically ignore the most important (and costly) component in these phones; software. Any rando can call up Qualcomm, Sony and Samsung and slap some bits into a slab and call it a phone. It's what runs on those bits that's makes a phone special now. How functional is it? How does it improve your life, day to day?
Google's big software projects lately all have a purpose; to help you. Things like Google Assistant, Android Auto, Digital Wellbeing... I remember some years back when I got the first notification that there was a big accident on my commute that would add an hour to my commute and suggested an alternate route. I didn't set that up, or program in a reminder... It just knew that I was about to leave, where I was going and that I would be screwed if I took my usual route.
Keep your 'flagship' features and give me a phone that just gave me back an hour of my life.
And it goes beyond that. Google's phones have always been leading the way when it comes to look and feel, real world performance. Beastly phones from OEMs like Samsung were fast, but they ran like a race car that was having tuning issues... Janky, stuttery transitions and interactions that just felt rough, Garish UI designs that just felt bloated and poorly designed. The Pixel and Nexus line always felt fluid, as if what was on screen was something tangible moving about. They don't feel like you are issuing functional calls, they feel like you are actually interacting. They feel cohesive in a way that no other Android OEM even remotely comes close.
And cameras... Google is almost solely responsible for the massive leap in quality over the past few years. Everyone else was fussing with tired, established 'exposure+noise reduction+sharpening' processing techniques that had long since reached a technological dead end. They took an entirely new approach and caused a revolutionary shift in image quality.... Yes, many have caught up, but it also took a good 4 or 5 years for that to happen.
So I just can't see how you would look back over these phones and think they've been disappointing... They've drawn everyone else along and influenced them to innovate and improve in a way that matters well beyond geekbench scores.