I’ve had a Pixel 5 since it was released, and I can’t oversell how great this phone is, and currently I can’t think of any reason to move away from Pixel phones in the future. Now that the development of hardware has evened out, software features are what really distinguish a phone maker. My phone is nearly three years old and I’m still getting regular security updates, which was unheard of in Android phones a few years ago. Not only that, but I’m receiving new features all the time that Google is adding to the pixel line.

My phone battery recently started swelling to the point of separating the screen from the body of the phone. With any other phone I’ve had in the past, I would have immediately replaced it with a new phone since a 3 year old phone is ancient anyway. This time I bought a battery replacement kit and fixed my phone and expect to have another couple years of use out of this device.

I wish google would have tool parity between what shows up in the Google Photos app on a phone and what shows up on photos.google.com. Even as a Google One subscriber that has access to the features/tools that are otherwise pixel phone exclusives. There’s still no object eraser on the web. And I do wish google would change what tools are made available for a photo. For example, one photo I have, in the “tools” section of photos.google.com, has the “Blur,” “Sky,” and “Color Focus” options. Another photo has “Portrait Light,” “Blur,” and “Color Focus.”

The inconsistencies are annoying; I don’t want to be relegated to doing everything on my phone when it comes to playing with photos in google photos.