I spent 3 days with the Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro — and there’s only one I would buy

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It’s not the best time to buy a smartphone right now. The RAM crisis has driven up prices and widened the gap between mid-range phones and flagships. It’s harder than ever for manufacturers to offer phones that feel like good value without hiking prices. And while market pundits may argue that buying a premium flagship makes more sense than settling for a watered-down mid-ranger, the Pixel 11 makes a surprisingly strong case for spending less.

The base Pixel 11 starts at $899 — $100 more than the Pixel 10 — but still $200 less than the Pixel 11 Pro. And the more time I spend with it, the more I realize that most of what I actually want from a Pixel is already here.

That $899 price immediately puts the Pixel 11 in an interesting position, because Google has done something slightly unusual with this generation. The Pixel 11 Pro is very clearly the better phone, but I’m not convinced that the Pro is the Pixel most people should buy.

The first thing I noticed when switching between the Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro is that the regular Pixel doesn’t make me feel like I’ve picked up the lesser phone.

The Pixel 11 has the same 6.3-inch footprint as the smaller Pro, along with a very crisp and bright 3,000-nit Actua display, Gorilla Glass Victus 2, a 60-120Hz refresh rate, Tensor G6 , 12GB of RAM, and solid battery life that should get most people through the day and even beyond.

The phone also retains the triple-camera setup, including a 5x telephoto shooter, and it does not make you settle for a more basic camera arrangement than you might expect from a cheaper flagship.

While I appreciate the brighter display and the new anti-scratch coating the Pixel 11 Pro models bring, along with that gorgeous matte glass finish and polished frame , I don’t feel those differences fundamentally change how I would use the phone.