That being said, Google needs to improve their out-of-warranty repair/replacement options. I couldn't do anything for my Chromebook Pixel once the warranty ran out, and I wouldn't count on them to randomly add a de facto additional year to the warranty like they did with the 6P, which was probably done because of its terrible, widespread battery issues.

I bought my 6p from Google. I paid for the extended warranty. It went into a boot loop after 13 months and they still wanted me to pay the $75 fee for a refurb phone. Remember: I paid $89 in advance for a 2 year extended warranty. This is for a well known issue in their hardware, that iirc they are being taken to court for.

I had purchased a new Android phone every year for many years at that point. I do Android development for a popular open source library/product.

They're banned now. No more Android phones in my house for a long time. Happy on the iPhone and know if I walk into an Apple store I'll actually receive support.

I heard others were given Pixel XLs. I guess mileage really can vary.

they need additional 75 or more to assure the phone would function and that too with salty terms and conditions.

And those were multiple tries with different support associates. I will stay away from google hardware products until there are substantial improvements.

I feel like I purchased a year's worth of problem-free phone experience for nearly $CAD900. To me, that's not great value.

P.S: my Nexus 5 support story was stellar. With the Pixel promising but unavailable as a replacement I went for an iPhone 6S (not a 7 because I just invested in quality, jack’d audio hardware)

They did tell me that this was a one-time deal though.

I don't understand people comparing a 350$ Nexus 5 phone to a 700$ Pixel phone, and saying that they're both by Google, and anything that applies to the first also must apply to the second. It's also like people blindly hating on support for paid products by bringing anecdotal evidence from support on free products. That's just not how things work.

The Nexus line was barely a Google product, it was just meant to be a vanilla open device for developers, with some Google oversight. That's very different from a premium device built and supported from start to finish by Google.

She paid over $600 for it, I wouldn't exactly call it a bargain bin device.

Certainly so. They didn't really stand behind it, like they should have.

> it was just meant to be a vanilla open device for developers, with some Google oversight."

That counters the reality that these things were sold on the mass market to normal people without developer accounts and the accompanying "You'll shoot your eye out, dev" EULA.

It was advertised on TV, for !@!#$@ sake.

> That's very different from a premium device built and supported from start to finish by Google*

There aren't many devices out there, aside from the iPhone, that are supported from start and finish by one company.

From the onset it was broke. We are talking just a week after I bought, I started noticing a pattern of complaints about the audio clarity. I call support, what do I get? A refurb. Whatever, phone was just released -- probably gonna be a new phone. Two weeks later, another phone, same problem. I got used to it eventually, and worked around it. Headset, speaker phone, or whatsapp (for whatever reason) would fix the problem.

At first it was never Huawei again, whatever. But that changed. I called Google store again, one last time to complain. This time, they offered me a "buyers remorse refund". But then they retracted their offer as soon as the lady saw that I had it for a few weeks longer than 2 year. They told me the option wasn't available. But I kept asking them, why didn't you offer me this the second or third time I called? They never answered that one directly.

I am still so angry about this... I threw 600$ + 100$ for warranty at a company and for 2+ years I had a crappy phone that doesnt work when I call people. Done, never again.

I bought a lot of Samsung notes, but they are outright negligent with monthly security updates. Samsung also famously introduced the Galaxy Note 2 a little over 8 months after I spent $900 on the Note 1 (which became a paperweight quickly due to faulty sim trays).

Almost all android manufacturers are negligent in creating good phones, and if they do, ruining them by not offering the required monthly updates that Google and Apple offer directly.

Android was a poor experience pre-gingerbread. Now, the changed UI's doesn't look much better than native android - product differentiation aside.

Google was onto something very good with LG and the Nexus 5 partnership. I'm encouraged to see LG building their phone again, and hope the HTC acquisition will improve the phone quality moving forward.

If google is serious, I hope they leave the XL with LG while they build the Pixel 3 with their new HTC subsidiary to get some experience under their belt before expanding.

I'm using an LG G6 for the past few months. The phone has been excellent. The phone updates are a few months behind and I'm reminded why I'll be probably heading back to a monthly security Android phone - at moment I believe it's the Pixels or a Blackberry.

First I had a Huawei Ascend Mate 7 (6") for 2 years, then a Huawei MediaPad X2 (7") for 3 years. Somehow they stopped to build big phones, so I switched to a Xiaomi Mi Max 2 (6.4") and I couldn't be happier.

I paid a fraction of the price of one of those Nexus/iPhone/Samsung flagship Smartphones and they all had what I needed, big display and big battery.

I've purchased my Nexus 5x just a couple of months ago. Since it's a two-year-old model, you can also get it for a fraction of a flagship model (~$200), and, well, since I've purchased it brand new, I still have a year of security updates + a warranty that lasts exactly that. And on top of that, pure vanilla Android experience + whatever Google comes up with in the meanwhile (for example, I have Google Fi, Pixel camera app, Android Oreo, fingerprint reader at the same spot as this $1000 phone).

Next year I might buy the Pixel (original, not 2). My point is, if that I continue with what I've started this year, I'll upgrade to the next two-year-old Google phone, receive the latest and greatest features (that non-Google-made flagship models still don't have at the time) and I'll receive upgrades constantly.

Either you don't get them and your apps stop working one by one after some time.

Or you get them and performance goes downhill until your apps stop working one by one after some time

The only solution I found was to get a new device every 3-4 years.

I never plan on buying a phone that I would be devastated with the amount lost (like, 1000 bucks) if something ever happens to it for whatever reason.

3 years ago it was a big task to get the devices to speak English and install Google apps.

Now they got onboarding even for German and all things are installed on the first start.

I think my first phone was the Motorola Micro Tac, which was revolutionary for price and size. It selled like hotcakes in Norway on release in .. 93? Then the Nokia 8110, which I loved - it had WAP! :)

Then (in Australia) I had the great misfortune of buying into Hutchinson's first 3g phone - the Motorola A920. Switched after a while to the Motorola Razr - awesome - upgraded to the SLVR L7 - and then I think the Nokia N85.

My first proper smartphone was an iPhone 3, jailbroke it, then switched to the Nexus One when it came out. That was one of my all time favourites; still have it, still works (sans sim). I've been on Samsungs pretty much since that, however, starting with their S2 - then Nexus 4 briefly (got run over by a car after 2 months, fell out of pocket and got completely squashed - I was gutted) - replaced it with the S4, then the S6 Edge and now the S8+.

Have no regrets for staying with Samsung in the past 6 odd years. Love the OLED screens.

On the occasions when I've been having issues I've received immediate service; latest was my old S6 Edge needing a new motherboard which was done same day at a Samsung Experience center (Melbourne Central). This was at 16 months.

I'll continue buying their products until such a time that they make me regret it. I've been lucky with my phones; no major issues other than Three phone due to the initial horrible state of the network and the rushed release of the phone.

I got a Samsung Galaxy S when it first came out while on a trip to the UK. I've always thought Samsung made good hardware generally, but their insistance on fucking with the Android experience is what stops me really liking it. I don't want their S Notes or their S Calendar, etc. Putting a custom ROM on it tended to be a better experience than stock.

The current bullshit with Bixby is also not encouraging - I want a stock Android experience.

In the S8, there's hardly anything that's annoyingly Samsung. Minor exception for Bixby, but at least they let us disable the short presses now (for the button). Ideally they'd let us use whatever A.I. provider of choice; I'd prefer to map it to Google Now/Plus.

(#Just realised I forgot to add the S5 in between the S4 and S6 Edge in my chronology!)

Something similar happened to my wife with her Nexus5X. Google shipped an update that bricked a ton of 5X phones, and Google stopped responding to her Customer Service emails.

We've been Nexus (specifically pure Nexus) users since the first Google phone. I own a G1, still in my closet. I own all of them (well, at least one of each generation). I own a Pixel XL as well. I'm done with Google, for this, and other reasons.

I'm amazed at how poor the Android experience has been after years on iPhone. I'm still more amazed that Android is as popular as it is despite all this.

Doesn't help that my Pixel was supposed to replace an ever-bootlooping Nexus 5X.

Because Google isn't the manufacturer of Google-branded Nexus devices and, if you bought it elsewhere, isn't the retailer, either.

> Apple manages to support iPhones whether you purchase them from an Apple store or in a back alley for bitcoins.

Apple is always the manufacturer of iPhones.

I agree that it's bad for Google's image to operate that way, stick their name on a phone and then shrug their shoulders and tell you to talk to the real manufacturer. But that distinction is why Apple supports most iPhones no questions asked, and Google wants to know that you bought it from them. They're a glorified retailer licensing out their brand to Huawei.

I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think that's how it was. LG's Nexus devices were manufactured by LG for LG, etc. The "Google" part of a Nexus phone is the software and some collaboration in the design.

If it was advertised as a Huawei 6p that would be different.

The Pixel, instead, is branded as the Google Pixel.

The replacement they sent has the wide-spread microphone issue out of the box, and I just haven't had the gumption to deal with yet another support experience.

I've had great luck so far with my Pixel XL and love it - one of the best phones I've ever owned. But the Pixel I bought along with it has been by far the most unreliable piece of hardware I've bought in a decade. It's really soured my opinion of Google, even though so far they have (grudgingly) replaced the item.

I'm dreading replacing it for the third time, as I know they will refer to their 2 replacements limit in their warranty contract. Zero of those replacements were anything but known hardware issues on the handset itself thousands of others have reported on-line.

With Apple, it's no big deal to extend the warranty during the first year of the warranty.

I bought mine direct from google and the service was fantastic when I had an issue with my phone. I called them up, explained my problem, and 5 mins later they were sending me a replacement in the mail with a pre-stamped shipping package to send the old one back. I'm not sure what else I could ask for.

Why should that matter? My wife's iPhone was purchased from TMO. It had an issue so she took it into an Apple store and she came out with a new phone 10 minutes later.

What the parent is saying is that's precisely the difference. Your wife brought her phone to the manufacturer.

The Nexus phones were not manufactured by Google. If I don't buy it from the Google store, my buying didn't establish a commercial relationship with them. The Pixel phones, though, are manufactured by Google.

Disclaimer: Even though I'm a Google employee I have no idea how these things work. I'm just clarifying what the parent said, which sounds likely to me.

any different from an Apple phone, manufactured by FoxConn?

Apple wasn't the manufacturer at all.

So yes, it's pretty different from an Apple phone. Unless you refer to yours as the FoxConn iPhone 6 or something, which would be a unique perspective on your part.

That's definitely not how it was marketed.

Huawei Nexus

The Nexus marketing always seemed pretty clear to me: buy a phone made by the chosen hardware partner, and get the pure Google Android experience.

It's a Google product. So yes, she bought it from Google. Which store sold this Google product shouldn't be a factor in whether Google is willing to support it to the best of their ability, should it?

https://support.google.com/store/answer/6301411?hl=en

Nexus 6p is a Huawei product that you may or may not purchase via Google. iPhone is always an Apple product.

Here's my story.

Bought Nexus 5. Smashed screen in go-kart accident. Called Google to ask about repair; they offered to replace it for free. I still have that phone as a backup.

Bought Nexus 6p. Then bought another for wife. Both worked fine; we gave them to family members after two years.

Now have Pixel, Pixel XL for wife, and Pixel for daughter. They've all worked fine. Daughter got small scratch on screen, bought screen protector after that, no incidents since.

Standard disclosure: I work at Google. These experiences were all with normal retail devices, purchased with own money at full price, using personal Gmail accounts, with no special treatment as a Google employee.

Apple just doesn't treat customers like that. IME obviously.

Why Google ever did a licensing deal with Huawei is beyond me. They are controlled by the same Chinese government that won't allow Google to operate in their borders.

Bought a Galaxy Nexus. Used it for two years without issues. Would've continued with it for longer, but I was leaving Sprint.

Bought a Nexus 5. Used it for two years, with minor issues concerning wifi signal strength and wireless charging. The phone still works, and I keep it as a spare, but the wifi issues were especially annoying.

I've had an HTC One A9 for a year so far. No issues, aside from it being larger than I'd really like. I don't plan to replace it until I have a very good reason. Also have an iPhone 6 from work. It's nice, but harder to tinker with, which I think has always been Apple devices' shortcoming.

An iPhone gets OS updates for years and years, Google's flagship Pixel phone has two years of updates. Never would I spend that money on a phone that has so terrible support.

[0] https://store.google.com/product/pixel_2_specs

[1] http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/10/04/google-says-pixel-2-...

[2] https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/05/here-comes...

Anyone who bought an iPhone 4S at the end of its run only got 2 years of support. The iPhone 5 did much better though - 3 years 10 months.

For the the iPhone 5S to reach a minimum of 3 years support, it'll have to continue to get updates for another 17 months.

Dropping support at that particular point in time was purely a marketing / management decision that wasn't driven by any technical considerations whatsoever.

When you do this kind of thing as a company over and over again, people notice.

I think that covers most of the main points.

Of course, it may be that it all came down to support contracts internally between Google and the Nexus device suppliers (the Nexus 7 blobs come via Asus, the Nexus 4 was an LG device that used the same Qualcomm chipset IIRC.) but that’s the kind of detail that end users really don’t care about: both were Google devices that Google sold & from the point of view of the end user Google dropped support for one device for no obvious reason as far as the end user can see.

1 - Google has a history of living up to the absolute bare minimum promised. Apple does not. Per history, one can assume that when Google says they'll support for 3 years they mean 3 years and one day, and Apple means about 5.

2 - Google has a history of whining as if they are absolutely powerless, broke, and incapable of affecting what Qualcomm or others do. At least when it suits Google.

Switching to an Android phone to save $100-200 over the lifetime of a product that I use 1000 times per day, and risk bad customer service is just bad value.

I've been very happy with my iPhones so far, though. Only ever had issues when the batteries started to swell up.

Strong words. If Apple's support started getting worse, you'd switch.

What you're saying is that you like to stick with a company that has so far had an outstanding support track record.

Which is pretty self-evident.

However, when it comes to end-to-end experience, Apple's vertically integrated approach is simply better. This is one of the key reasons I switched back to iPhone recently: I just want my phone to work and to be taken care of when it doesn't work.

I bought a Nexus 6P from the Google store and had some issues. Out of warranty they replaced it with a new Nexus 6P. When that failed as well, they replaced the phone with a brand new Pixel XL. Each of these replacements was sent via overnight shipping at no cost to me.

I wouldn't call this a great experience because I wish the original phone never had the issue, but I can't ask for more from support.

A few months later I heard a rattle in my phone, turns out they sent me one that was part of a line that had an issue with a microphone component. Contact support and yet again it was replaced within a week.

This is my issue. They have continually sent replacement refurbs that exhibited well known and common problems. This has to be done knowingly.

It's really made me think about an iphone for the first time ever. I refuse to use any non-nexus (or pixel now) Android since I care about software updates and shovelware, so it's either a Pixel or an iPhone at this point. Google shoveling me repeatedly known bad hardware just sits very wrong with me.

The iPhone 3G is the worst purchase I ever made, a month after buying it iOS 4 turned it into a barely functoinal brick with no ability to roll back the OS.

I've also had an HTC Amaze which was great, a Note 3 which was great, a Nexus 5 which was OK, etc...

No company always gets it right, even Apple. That being said, the Pixel XL was great, so I'll guess that this new one will be good too. Nexus 6p was a dud, Huawei doesn't make them anymore, Google re-branded and moved on...

They originally told me I could get a replacement 5X, then they told me I could get a T-Mobile G5 and what they eventually sent me was an AT&T specific G5 that required digging into config menus before it would connect to T-mobile LTE.

Despite the removal of the headphone jack, I switched to an iPhone 7+. Had an issue with touch id, and they just replaced the entire screen for free while I hung out at the mall.

Between the privacy moves Apple has made, along with their awesome support, I can't see myself switching back.

I also once had a problem with a new MacBook Pro (probably bad memory). Went to the Apple Store, I could either get a (new) replacement or my money back, no questions asked.

I used Android for a while when Motorola was a Google company and a brief period after they were purchased by Lenovo. My Moto X 2013 had spontaneous reboots, repair took one or two weeks and afterwards they wouldn't tell me the problem was. After a year or so, the Moto X started cracking spontaneously. I also purchased a Moto 360, which spontaneously cracked as well (known problem). Repair took one week, but the package disappeared in delivery. It took them two months (!) to send me a new Moto 360. Then there was the horror of the incredibly buggy Android 5.0 release on the Moto X 2014, which had a memory leak that killed background apps all the time.

1) My wife's Samsung phone developed an issue. We contacted Samsung and they RMA'd it and she had a brand new phone by the end of the week. Not Applecare, but it was fine.

2) Had an Android tablet with a minor battery recall. The manufacturer just sent me a second tablet and told me to keep both.

I hear about these kinds of horror stories but if you go in knowing that you aren't going to get Applecare, you don't look for it and you deal with it like literally any other consumer purchase you might make in your life, from refrigerators to cars and it's suddenly not a big deal.

After I sent them, within a few days a brand new Nexus was delivered along with a return package for my broken one. They didn't even demand I send back the faulty one first. He said the idea was that you won't be without a phone in the interim (irrelevant in my case however as the phone was bricked).

After that I went with iPhone, simply because I know I can get it replaced or fixed within 2 days, but I have walked out of the store with a brand new one in 20 min before.

I had the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and then the Galaxy S5, both great phones. Definitely preferred the vanilla Android experience though, and the Pixel XL has been great for the past year. It is the best phone I've ever held, vastly better display than any iPhone. The Pixel 2 with no headphone jack is not going to work for me, but I expect to use the Pixel XL for 3-4 years anyway.

I bought my Nexus 5X used on Swappa. It finally bootlooped about a month ago. Called Project Fi support, they transferred the phone to my ownership in their system, and then issued an RMA and sent me a refurbed 5X. I was fairly surprised, as the phone was both out of warranty and bought used.

My Nexus 5X had a boot loop issue, I filed a support ticket, paid the deductible, and 2 days later I had a replacement phone in hand. Couldn't have been easier...

On the other hand, I actually loved Google's support. Reaching them on the phone was easy. No wait. At some point I had to step away to take care of my baby, so they said they would call me back in 30min, and the same rep called me EXACTLY on the dot when they said they would call. They didn't follow a script to the letter, with numerous unnecessary steps, but jumped ahead when I told them what I had tried to diagnose the problem. Overall, very efficient, quality support. Of course I was bummed the bootloop couldn't be fixed (I experienced it before it was a widespread issue) but I was honestly stunned how good their support experience was.

I ended up replacing the 6P by a Nexus 5X. I know I'll get good support IF I ever need it.

How is this acceptable? The boot loop is most likely caused by a software bug that was not introduced by your wife (unless she was installing custom ROMs). Moreover, it is probably easy for Huawei/Google to repair the phone by reflashing the firmware.

Rather than going the extra mile for a customer who dropped $500+ on a device, they literally stick to the warranty period mandated by the law and leave you out in the woods.

That is terrible customer service.

https://www.xda-developers.com/nexus-6p-bootloop-fix/

The applications are generally less polished, the hardware is better on paper yet fails to hold up in real life, and the battery life is abysmal within a year or less. It use to be the case that some of the sacrifices were worth it because flagship Android phones were considerably cheaper than their Apple counterparts, but that is no longer true either.

I'll be going back to Apple for the first time since the iPhone 4, now that they've finally killed the hideous 1980's CRT style bezel.

My support experience with the 6p was pretty good : when the battery became unusable they replaced the phone without asking too many questions (they just made sure I had followed all the basic steps to make sure that the problem was indeed hardware, even though I am a mobile engineer able to diagnose the device myself. I don't rely blame them for having to follow a script though).

Anecdotally my support experience with Apple has been atrocious : -they refused to repair my mbp 2011 whereas it suffered from their well known design flaw in the GPU soldering and have a repair program for this model.

-they made me pay reparation fees for a mbp for which all the cooling system started malfunctioning while it was still in the warranty period.

When my wife's phone bootlooped (8 months out of warranty), Google shipped her a replacement phone for free! I swore myself away from buying any LG products after that.

Fwiw there's a small open-source patch for affected devices that disables big cores (disables dual core I think) and fixes the bootloop but cripples the phone's performance.

Now, it looks like those issues are caused by the Snapdragon 808/810. The Pixel 2 uses the 835. I don't think it's been around long enough to know of any long-term issues, but I'm hoping it sucks less.

Pixel was much better, except the XL 128gb had memory speed issues.

Google has gone back to LG to build the Pixel 2 XL, (similar to the Nexus 5) which was great. For that reason I'm probably going to get it - my dad still has and loves his LG made nexus 5.

I do an insane amount of long-haul flying and really rely on the 3.5mm jack for my noise cancelling headphones. I could get bluetooth headphones but they wouldn't work with in-flight entertainment when it's available.

I hope this whole no-headphone jack trend doesn't continue, I know the 3.5mm TNC isn't the best jack but if you don't want it because of bad waterproofing reasons or size/whatever can we just get a different analog jack with an adapter? Having the DAC built into the phone is required to keep things nice.

- There are USB-C to 3.5mm jacks. Probably the simplest. There are also Y cables that put out a USB-C charging port and 3.5mm. - I own a Sony SBH54. Converts bluetooth into 3.5mm. Awesome to pair to my phone and laptop, hoping improved specs of Bluetooth 5 shoe up in a new device soon. I have been on Bluetooth audio with their SBH50 and MW600 - the audio quality has improved greatly. I wonder if there's a wireless external DAC.

I heard of an intriguing option yesterday - USB C Digital headphones where the signal remains purely digital.

LG has put dacs into the v20 and a variant of the g6, I kind of wish I had gotten a model with one.

I sense the no headphone jack is here to stay if the reason for it is true (allowing thinner phones).

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/nexus/G_0s70PzK...

Check this! You can still buy devices from Google or LG or HTC if you have way too much money to waste of same device repeatedly every year.

Last month, it started shutting down early. I contacted them and they're sending me a $800 check...

The Pixel 2 doesn't have a headphone jack either: https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/04/google-unveils-the-pixel...

Switched to a Nexus 5x. After 1.3 years of rather gentle use, it bootlooped. I would attempt to get Google to deal with it, but it bootlooped days after I took pictures of flood damage (not mine, fortunately), and I hadn't gotten those pictures off the phone. Then, I got busy. Still hope one of the rescue approaches will let me get the pictures off, before I try to maybe get a replacement. Fuck the warranty, 1.3 years of use -- cut short by a known product defect -- is simply not acceptable.

I bought a cheap Moto G5 Plus to tide me over; figured I could dink around with it after I switched to maybe a Pixel 2.

At this point, and at those prices, I can't bring myself to give Google a premium price for that product.

Maybe if I find a cheap Pixel 1, I'll give Android one more go. Otherwise, it's Apple.

Even if Apple is pricey, I'll expect decent support and to amortize that cost over more than a year, two at the outside.

P.S. The Moto G5+ was widely heralded as "the" budget Android choice. And while the camera is definitely not top tier, it takes mostly ok pictures, and the phone otherwise functions decently. Even its IPS screen is no slouch.

It was already a bit behind, on Android 7.0 and not 7.1 . This caused me some concern, but I wasn't going to plop down e.g. full price for a Pixel 1 with the Pixel 2 just weeks away.

But now we have the Bluetooth... I forget the catchy name. The Bluemageddon. And I'm back to plugging in the speaker to listen to podcasts (fortunately, old enough to have a jack). The older FM adapter in the car, that has a jack; its replacement is Bluetooth only. (And I'm sorry, but my older car is in fine shape and I don't really need to replace it, nor to I wan to rip apart its rather nice integrated and apparently rather well-tunend stereo system.)

Anyway, at least the G5+ has an audio out jack. Because I don't know when the hell Lenovo is going to get around to shipping the Bluetooth fix to it.

So, basically, Google, if you happen to be reading this: Fuck all this.

I've also started to encounter interesting posts from developers who say that this kind of outlay for an Android device on which they can adequately test, is getting outside the realm of the reasonable. Not my bailiwick.

But if you're a small-time developer, and your iPhone bites it, seems you may actually get some support from Apple.