We’ve cut Google enough slack for poor Pixel updates. Now it’s time to hold it accountable

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Picture this: You pay a premium in the hopes of getting VIP access to the newest and exclusive Android features before other users. But what you end up getting instead is a sub-optimal experience, fraught with bugs or issues that prevent you from using your phone as it was advertised. That’s not an imaginary scenario but the reality Pixel owners have had to brave against while taking continuous blows from recent updates.

Monthly Pixel updates have been a colossal mess and have caused countless unforgivable issues for owners. With issues like significantly reduced battery life , glitchy displays, phones getting stuck in boot loops , or becoming unreasonably sluggish, recent Pixel updates have continued to make everyday usage difficult for scores of users.

Despite the impressive hardware, Pixels have been falling short of the premium experience that’s promised to users. This has started to stifle fans’ eagerness to buy new Pixel phones , so Google needs to fix this issue as a priority.

Google has never been extremely lucky when it comes to hardware. Its Tensor chips have long suffered from heating-related complaints , while batteries across several generations of phones have degraded faster than peers.

I could try to overlook those issues out of the soft spot I have for Google. However, the other issues I’m highlighting here are purely software-driven and appear only after new updates, which makes them much more difficult to forgive.

The Pixel March update, which coincided with the Android 16 QPR3 update, brought an onslaught of challenges. Pixels started rebooting randomly (which remains unfixed to date), displays on the newest Pixel 10 phones started glitching , phones went from being snappy to sluggish , GPS wouldn’t point to your correct location , and clocks decided to shift to a different time zone .

And that’s just one major update; if I could somehow find a way to travel back a few months in time, I would still come across brand new Pixels saddled with unexplained flickers on the Always-on Display, delayed notifications , and the carnage revolving around all means of connectivity getting severed . Add to those instances the horror stories around Pixel owners being unable to dial 911, and at this point, I’m not even whining about the inconveniences. Pixels are, in fact, failing at the one basic job for a phone: making a call.