Opposite of my experience, I daily drove a Pixel 6 Pro from launch until 8 Pro launched and have been using 8 Pro since. I upgraded because I can, my Pixel 6 Pro is working just fine, I've added it to my growing device catalog for testing during mobile development. Over the course of the 6 Pro, I replaced it twice, once for a cracked screen and the second time for cracked back glass using preferred care (both close in time to each other from similarly stupid drops). I do not use a case for my phone. None of those three devices had any issues with battery. My partner is using a 7, two of my friends have 6 Pros, and I just upgraded my parents from 4a to 7a and battery hasn't really been a serious problem from any of them. It's not insanely good but it's also not a pain point for me.

As an engineering lead I do basically all of my non-programming work directly on Pixel, including tons of remote desktop, meetings, GitHub/productivity, k8s management, etc. I don't get to write code nearly as much any more, probably around 10-20% of my work week. At least for those workloads, things are fine. But the workload you run can dramatically change things, especially if you've got particularly power hungry apps involved. The OS gives you tools to identify what those apps might be when you dig into the battery area of settings.

> even without google play services. (came from a 5a)

Since you can't remove GMS from a Pixel without flashing a ROM to it as far as I know, can I assume you are not using stock software? A lot of Pixel's battery performance is made up using the adaptive battery features. When they are off, things are more dicey. Do those work on custom non-GMS ROMs to begin with?

To sum it up, battery can definitely be better, but I'm just not seeing the kinds of problems people complain about and that surprises me given my experiences.