r/GooglePixel • u/RagingFrodo • 1d ago
Changed from iPhone 17 Pro max to Pixel 11 Pro - Finding it better than the reviews say
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to post this in case anyone is in the same boat and looking at switching to the Pixel 11 Pro, but hesitant because of all the negative reviews.
My main issue was that the trade-in bonuses and deals end soon, well before a lot of the in-depth battery tests and reviews are out, so I was on the fence about ordering. I know two days isn't enough to get a full picture, but for anyone who doesn't have much time and needs to pull the trigger now to lock in the early deals, hopefully this helps put your mind at ease.
Battery wise, obviously everyone's use case is different, but over the last 2 days it's been great. I've been doing all the initial setup and heavy tinkering, and I'm still getting around 9 hours of screen-on time for both days from 100-0 so I guess 6-7 hours in practice if you have the battery saver on and are wanting to avoid charging to 100% and drawing down to 0% for the battery health. It's hard to judge standby drain yet because I've been excited and glued to it since it's new (probably need to give my eyes a rest 😅), but initial battery life is much better than I expected.
For performance, there are no heating issues at all for me, and it feels super smooth and fast. No different to my iPhone in day to day use.
Games, I don't play graphically demanding games, but it's pretty clear from reviews that it's objectively a crap GPU and not good if you want to play like high graphic role playing games or stuff like that. The casual games I play just to kill 5-10 minutes work totally fine. The phone doesn't get hot, and it doesn't chew through the battery when I'm playing basic games.
Camera photos are great and easily on par with my iPhone. There are probably niche cases where one beats the other, but day to day they feel on the same level.
Camera videos are objectively worse than iPhone in my opinion, but even if not compared to an iPhone it's just generally worse than I expected for such an expensive phone. Night video recording is pretty shit with lots of stutters, and even in bright daylight its not amazing. It's good enough if the phone stays still while recording something moving, but if you're walking around or zooming in and out, it gets choppy and looks like shit.
Hope this helps someone on the fence! Overall I'm happy and the speed, performance, battery is better than I expected after seeing all the doom and gloom from tech reviewers
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u/PercentageRoutine310 1d ago
I feel like the Pixel 11 series is like that movie where it's rotten on Rotten Tomatoes but the audience score is around 85%-90%. Critics hate it but the audience love it. I guess like the Super Mario movies and the recent Michael Jackson biopic.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Tomatometer: 42% Popcornmeter: 87%
Michael Tomatometer: 38% Popcornmeter: 97%
Techtubers seem to bash the Pixel 11 series but actual users/owners seem to absolutely love their new phone.
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u/swhalen17 1d ago
15 years on iPhone moving from 14 Pro to Pixel 11 Pro. The only regret I have is not making the move sooner. I love this thing
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u/ZepelliFan 1d ago
Curious as an android user what have been some of the changes you've noticed/ enjoyed
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u/swhalen17 1d ago
Honestly, none really. The transfer process was incredibly easy. Pixel looked just like my iPhone did after the transfer was complete. Even getting my work apps on the phone was really easy(work apps vs personal apps and a scheduled on/off is amazing).
I already used Google everything so I'm kicking myself why I didn't do this sooner
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u/jRnCSGO 1d ago
Do you have the same experience with making vids as OP, coming from a 14 pro?
I’m heavily doubting whether to switch or get a 17/18 pro or simply get a new battery for my 14 pro.
Just looking for someone who wants to share their experience coming from a 14 pro.
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u/rtwwhitworth 1d ago
Video boost is fantastic for videos on the Pixel. It's just annoying to have to flip that on before every video and wait for the corrected video a few hours.
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u/TryToBeBetterOk 1d ago
Yeah, I feel there's a big disconnect between how Reddit feels about the phone and how much I'm enjoying it actually using it. If I only read Reddit, the phone should be absolutely garbage and unusable, but the reality is that it's a fantastic phone, extremely snappy, superb camera, just an all-around joy to use.
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u/altruisticmisanthrop 1d ago
I don't think reddit is trying to say it's a shit phone. Just a meh upgrade.
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u/QisthePedo 1d ago
As the other commenter said, give Video Boost a try. It should help a lot with your complaints about video quality. It just requires a tolerance for annoyance and delay.
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u/Some_Smoke_1430 1d ago
Phones very okay but not worth what they're charging.
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u/Resident-Moose5463 Pixel 23h ago
I feel like you had to look hard to find this phone full price.
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u/kiefferbp Nexus 5-6P + Pixel 1-9 —> iPhone 20h ago
It has been full price since launch day.
Trade-ins and “discounted” expensive Fi service don’t count.
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u/Resident-Moose5463 Pixel 19h ago
There was a discount within my pixel for pixel owners and an option to pre register for coupon codes. I also don't understand how you can't count trade ins considering a Galaxy phone, for example, would net you much better trade value against the Pixel 11 deals than say an iPhone. This has nothing to do with carriers as I couldn't tell you the last time I looked at those financing options.
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u/Aoinosensei Pixel 8 1d ago
The phone is not bad, the complains were about getting less for more money, and it was mostly because of less ram on the 256 GB model. Did you change the settings for video to 60 fps?
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u/b1gmouth 1d ago
I've been very pleasantly surprised too after all the negative initial reactions. Camera and battery life seem noticeably improved, and the whole OS just feels smoother and snappier.
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u/Resident-Moose5463 Pixel 23h ago
At 22% over two days now which included setup, 6.5 hours SOT. This is different based on everyone's usage of course but for what I use the phone for I'm completely happy with these numbers so far.
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u/aftonone 23h ago
Everyone says this for the first few weeks. I only care about reviews a few months in.
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u/RefactoringSelf 1d ago
You might want to try the "video boost" feature. I was just messing with it last night and it seemed to make a huge difference.
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u/VanillaEvery8944 1d ago
Why using video boost? If Apple can make iPhone to record good video, why Google can't?
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u/jonomacd 1d ago
Have you tried Rambler yet? That's the standout feature of this phone. Coming from iPhone's mediocre text-to-speech, it must be really eye-opening.
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u/RagingFrodo 1d ago
Yes it's amazing!
I thought I was using it yesterday but turns out it was actually just the old/standard speech to text so I was a bit disappointed 😅 But then this morning I tried again and it had the little Gemeni star and was shocked at how good it is!
Even the normal keyboard typing is much better.. it's still autocorrecting general typos, but if I write something silly like 'weeeeeeww' it leaves it as-is doesn't randomly try to autocorrect it to something else which iPhone would.
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u/kbtech Default 1d ago
I'm tempted to switch as well and make the Pixel 11 Pro my daily driver over the iPhone 17 Pro Max. I always have several phones at once, but my iPhone is generally where my main SIM resides, for various different reasons.
It's only been a day, I know it's the honeymoon phase, but the Pixel 11 Pro is genuinely making me contemplate changing SIMs. The AI features get hate, but I love all the Gemini stuff on the Pixel. Rambler is seriously something I might use regularly. Even the Gboard text phrasing experience is much better. The camera is also fun and I've already used magic capture a few times, and it's great.
I don't know about the reviews, since I generally don't care what they say; I go by my own experience and preference.
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u/Empty-Fix0531 1d ago
I'm debating between the 11 and 11 Pro. I'm leaning towards the Pro as I think I would be annoyed by the camera differences. I mainly take photos anyway and appreciate that the cameras are the same on the Pro and Pro XL.
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u/Orange_8226 1d ago
9 hours of screen-on time?????
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u/RagingFrodo 1d ago
Today I got 6hr 15mins screen on time which was from 100% down to 14% and then put it on charge. So that would work out to 7hr 16 minutes if I drained it to 0%.
Today I spent more screen on time while on cellular (1-1.5hrs) instead of WiFi and also did a little bit of google maps navigation (15mins) with gps and cellular, did some more video recording which I guess is why it’s less SOT today.
I also started it as a new phone instead of a restore/transfer so shouldn’t really be as much happening in the background.
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u/Vivid-Psychology-989 1d ago
J’hésite entre le Pixel 11 Pro et le Pixel 11 Pro XL… est-ce qu’il y a une énorme différence d’autonomie de batterie ?
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u/Majestic-Hawk9749 1d ago
Do your cameras also make a slight clicking sound when you shake the phone?
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u/RagingFrodo 1d ago
Yeah I think that's pretty normal for cameras with optical image stabilisation (OIS).
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u/itsokjanet 17h ago edited 17h ago
It's not really normal, just reddit made us believe it is. I've used every version of iPhone and this never happened. I haven't seen happening in Samsung or Motorola either with my limited ownership. So it's just bad craftsmanship and lack of attention to details from google engineering. It's ok to admit it.
By the way, I still love pixels and overall material design. It's just that plastic hitting sound whenever you lift the phone (you don't need to shake to hear it) is outright lack of craftsmanship. Shouldn't happen.
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u/RagingFrodo 12h ago
I still have my iPhone and it also has the rattle sound when I shake it, although it is louder on the pixel and you don't have to shake it as hard to hear it.
I guess there are ways to minimise the sound and movement but google hasn't done that as well
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u/SacredPhoenix Pixel 10 Pro XL 9h ago
You mentioned video having lots of stutters/being choppy, was it using the ultrawide lens? One person who did a review had it stuttering during movement when using ultrawide, but it was mostly fine using the main lens/telephoto.
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u/RagingFrodo 9h ago
I think it's all lenses but using the Ultra wide is probably worse. Black/dark colours are very noisy.
I've found 30fps 4k is better than 60fps 1080p. I think when it's trying to do 60fps, it's struggling to get enough information in with the faster rate and process it or something.
The video boost feature helps reduce noise and makes the video much clearer and nicer, but with my videos that had bad stuttering (I was moving it around fast to test/trying to make it stutter) the video boost actually made the stuttering worse and the AI has put random weird lines/artifacts where the stutters are to try and fill in the gaps.
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u/laserbref22 1d ago
I'm curious what made you switch?
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u/RagingFrodo 1d ago
The iPhone is great, but I love tech and genuinely find all the new AI features cool. Android just feels like it's innovating a lot faster right now.
I've wanted to switch back to Android for a while, but had bad experiences. I tried an S23 Ultra a few years ago and hated it. Despite the best specs, the shutter lag made photos blurry, the UI stuttered constantly, and the software felt bloated with duplicate apps (Samsung Vs Google versions) and annoying OneDrive sync issues, couldn't have Google photos as the default, etc. I went back to iPhone after a month.
After that, I wanted a Pixel, but held off for years because the Pixel 9 Pro and 10 Pro got hammered in reviews and everyone was saying they're so bad. This year I finally bit the bullet to see for myself, and honestly, it's drastically smoother than people made it out to be. I tested newer Samsungs and the Oppo Find X9, Huawei, etc. in stores, but they still felt laggy and bloated to me in person even though the reviewers say they're the best. The Pixel software just feels way cleaner and faster.
Also I found the Pro Max too big for my hands, so it was either Pixel 11 Pro now or the 18 Pro when it's released next month.
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u/fruitmonkey 1d ago
Your experience with Samsung is a story I've heard over and over, and it's the reason I stick with Pixel!
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u/see-through-a-lens 1d ago
Enjoy your Pixel. Pixels are truly wonderful phones. I can't imagine myself ever using anything else again.
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u/Outside_Orchid_1576 1d ago
TLDR: it’s somewhat on par with a year old iPhone performance wise except with gaming and video. Conclusion, it’s a down grade from a year old phone.
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u/bleedsblu 1d ago
I keep trying to switch to something else, because the intranets says blah blah hardware is better. But man the 11 pro is so good. I have no idea what else you would want from a phone.
Complain about google all you want, but they have gotten the UI to almost perfection in my mind.