I love my Google Pixel, but these stubborn flaws are ruining the experience

Published Sep 6, 2026, 8:30 AM EDT Sanuj is a freelance tech journalist with over six years of experience covering smartphones, wearables, and consumer technology. He currently writes for Android Police, Tom's Guide, Android Central, Android Authority, and Pocket-lint. He has previously contributed to publications like Pocketnow and MakeUseOf. Since the start of 2025 alone, he has tested over 30 smartphones. He has also attended major global trade shows including MWC (2024, 2025, 2026) and IFA (2024, 2025), along with launch events hosted by Google, Samsung, and other leading Android brands. When he's not writing about tech, you'll find him sipping a cup of chai, scrolling Twitter, and reading updates about his favorite football club, Chelsea FC. Feel free to reach out to him via email at sanujb6 [at] gmail [dot] com. I'm a true Google Pixel enthusiast. As much as I enjoy using devices from other smartphone brands, including phones with 10x optical zoom or OnePlus devices with massive batteries, I use the Google Pixel 10 Pro as my daily driver. It's not because the Pixel 10 Pro is the perfect Android smartphone, but because of the experience it has delivered lately. The Pixel experience feels close to complete. But as with every Android smartphone maker, there are still many issues with the lineup that need to be fixed. Google is close to nailing the Pixel experience for me and turning me into a full-fledged Pixel loyalist, but a few things still need to be addressed to make it a stronger contender. Flagship Pixels need louder and better-tuned speakers Audio quality still feels behind rivals when watching content There are always intangibles we talk about when discussing the smartphone experience, and speakers are usually one of them. While most smartphone reviews focus on display quality, performance, battery life, charging, and cameras, speaker performance is often overlooked. I've used many flagship smartphones this year, and among them, the Pixel 10 Pro has the weakest speakers. They are not outright terrible, but for a $1,000 smartphone, you'd expect something better. Almost every phone in this price range, including the iPhone 17 Pro Max, Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, and the OnePlus 15, offers noticeably better speakers than the Pixel 10 Pro. The Pixel 10 Pro speakers sound muffled and flat, and the audio feels like it is coming from a small source, which limits depth. One thing I hope Google improves in the Pixel 11 series is speaker quality, with louder output, clearer sound, and better audio depth. Pixel camera processing feels safe and predictable now Google needs to take a look at its competitors In the Android world, Google Pixel smartphones are known for camera processing and post-capture AI work. When you take a photo on a Pixel phone, you generally know what to expect, regardless of lighting or location. Low light, harsh light, or night shots usually result in evenly lit images with natural-looking colors and restrained processing. However, that consistency has started to feel a bit boring in 2025. Other smartphone brands, especially Chinese competitors like Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi, have taken bigger risks with advanced camera hardware, modular camera attachments, and more aggressive processing improvements. As a result, Google's camera experience has begun to feel somewhat stagnant. Google needs to address this. Whether Google tackles it by reworking the camera pipeline from the ground up or by offering users more customization options, such as color profiles or stronger control over shadows and highlights, it needs attention. Google needs a stronger mid-range phone and new form factors Pixels should experiment more instead of playing it safe every year While 2025 was a strong year for Google in catching up to other flagships with the Pixel 10 series, the company's mid-range A-series lineup fell behind. I liked the design direction and approach of the Pixel 8a in 2024, which delivered a compact mid-range phone while closely mirroring the flagship Pixel 8 series. The Pixel 9a, however, went in a different direction. The Pixel 9a debuted with a minimal design, dropping the camera bar identity that defined Pixel phones. While it offers a large battery at an aggressive price, Google removed much of the device's charm. Other aspects also did not feel like meaningful upgrades compared to competing phones in the same price range. I think Google needs to rethink and revamp its mid-range smartphones. The Pixel A-series should offer more than an entry-level Pixel experience, develop a clear identity of its own, and improve in key areas, especially the processor and display. That said, it is starting to look like the Pixel 10a may offer largely the same experience we saw with the Pixel 9a. It's time for a Google Pixel Flip. Beyond the A-series, Google needs to experiment with new form factors. The company has done a solid job with book-style foldables in 2025 with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, offering IP68 dust and water resistance, the latest Tensor chipset, and software optimized for foldable screens. Now, Google needs to branch out further. I would love to see a Motorola Razr-style flip phone from Google that runs stock Android and delivers Pixel-level camera processing. Software bugs and long-standing issues need real fixing Great features mean little when basic reliability still feels inconsistent One of the biggest issues with Google Pixel smartphones is that you never know if the experience will remain the same from one week to the next. Pixel phones have earned a reputation for fixing things that are not broken, which often leads to a fragmented and inconsistent experience for users. For example, users have recently reported that some Pixel devices fail to save photos when shots are taken in quick succession. In these cases, images are stuck in a processing loop and eventually discarded, never being written to the file system. I have never heard of anything like this happening on other smartphones, yet many Pixel users have run into this issue. This is only one example of the bugs Pixel users have encountered recently. Countless other issues are reported regularly that, even if Google fixes them, shouldn't exist in the first place if the company wants to be taken seriously as a smartphone brand. Google needs to make major changes to how it develops and tests software on Pixel phones. Google needs to understand that the iPhone's reputation isn't based on hardware alone, but on years of stable, consistent software users can trust. Unless Google addresses this at a foundational level, what it is doing now is not sustainable. Tensor must improve if Google wants the Pixel lineup to be taken seriously Performance and efficiency gaps are becoming harder to excuse now Credit: Lucas Gouveia / Android Police | mundissima / Shutterstock We say this every year, but it feels truer than ever. Google needs to ramp up its work on Tensor chipsets if it wants to be taken seriously as a smartphone brand. The shift to TSMC for the Tensor G5 in the Pixel 10 series delivered some improvements, with better cellular reception and reduced heating than previous generations. However, the performance numbers the Pixel 10 series puts out still fall short of other $1,000 flagship phones. Pixel phones also cannot be relied on for gaming the same way as competing devices, and users continue to report ongoing day-to-day issues, including general sluggishness. Google has tried to do what it does best: fixing hardware shortcomings through software. Still, five generations in, it is clear this has become a hardware-level problem. I hope the Tensor chip in the Pixel 11 brings meaningful performance gains and catches up to Qualcomm and MediaTek. If not, it is worth asking why Google does not simply use chipsets from those companies instead? My Pixel wish list This is my Google Pixel wish list, and I can't wait to see how Google builds on the Pixel 10 legacy. As for brands like Samsung, my colleagues think it's time for the Galaxy Note to make a comeback.