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Recommend the G pro 2? Would you buy again? What's to know?

I've kept my eye on the G pro 2 for a while (was about to get the original O G pro, but waited for this to come out). So I'm well aware of the specs, features, reviews, etc. But what I want to know is a real world user's opinion of the device.
Is the phone pretty decent? Any frustrations or quirks to know before trying to get one?
Key questions:
*How is the Mic/voice quality? (sending and receiving during a voice call)
*How is the battery life(I know it depends on usage and habits of the user, but just overall, how would you rate it personally, compared to other current/comparable Android phones)?
*Is it relatively stable and responsive?
*What bothers you about this phone?
*Would you buy it again if you were in the market for a new phone right now?(tells me that you like the phone and are overall happy with it)
I plan on getting a F350(a bit confused with the S/L/etc. acronym endings, can any one shed light?) I want to use it on at&t's network. On paper, and seeing professional reviews, the G pro 2 seems like my phone (1080p 5.9" screen, expandable memory via microsdhc, user replaceable battery, decent camera, etc.) But I want to know, if in practice, the phone is stable/frustration free(relatively speaking), decent real world battery life (if it's competent/comparable at least.. ), hoping that this is not one of those, "you have to root it and install a custom rom in order for this phone to be bearable"- type thing.
My other considerable is the Sony Xperia Z2 (prices are right, even though the screen is smaller and the battery isn't "replaceable"). I didn't want the Samsung Galaxy series due to the smaller screens and bloatware they put on there(note's a great series, but simlar.. bloatware, plus really expensive).
Thanks! I appreciate any input!

these are my questions too..

I came from a Samsung S3 (running CM).
first impressions were: Nice clean looks and lines, it's big (but it's not unwieldy). my wife has a Note 3 and it's about the same. the curve along the back sides makes it more comfortable to hold. Obviously, it's a heavier phone due to size, so your hand might get tired if you're one to use your phone lying down or something.
Screen is fantastic. I have no problems with colour issues with the screen and it's bright enough for me, even outdoors.
Battery life is good. standby can last more than a day. in usage, i was a bit busy yesterday and didn't use it too much, but from 0700 to 2300, i had 63% before i plugged it in. on a more typical day, I'd probably have around 40%. mainly a mixture of whatsapp, a few blogs, games and some TV show watching at lunch.
Camera is decent and acceptable auto focus speed. not a lot of bloatware.
I'm running 10e firmware due to bugs in 10f and waiting for lollipop. 10e is stable. not had problems with it.
problems: it's not widely available and the user base is small. so don't expect any fancy mods/firmwares or anything like that. as such, there's not a lot of accessories for it either outside of LG's own stuff.
My friend has the Z2 (not looked, but isn't the Z3 pricing nearly the same now?), and his camera is better and the battery life is longer due to Sony's Stamina software. display is about the same. If you want a big, stock phone, the LG is great. if you want to play around and like to customise your phone, then i'd go with the Sony.

Thanks for your input Ray-Lee .
I'm on the fence between the two phones, I like the bigger screen on the G pro 2, I haven't held one yet in person, but I don't think I"ll be bothered by it at all. Only thing that really entices me for the Z2 are the current prices for it right now.. for relatively similar specs, smaller screen, but better camera compensates. Honestly, I want the device to work well out of the box.. this is xda and I do play with custom firmwares and roms, but that's more of a result than a mission for me these days.. as in, if the unit runs better/faster/more stable compared to stock(or.. if stock is so horrendous that it must be rooted and flashed to be "decent").

ssnova said:
Thanks for your input Ray-Lee .
I'm on the fence between the two phones, I like the bigger screen on the G pro 2, I haven't held one yet in person, but I don't think I"ll be bothered by it at all. Only thing that really entices me for the Z2 are the current prices for it right now.. for relatively similar specs, smaller screen, but better camera compensates. Honestly, I want the device to work well out of the box.. this is xda and I do play with custom firmwares and roms, but that's more of a result than a mission for me these days.. as in, if the unit runs better/faster/more stable compared to stock(or.. if stock is so horrendous that it must be rooted and flashed to be "decent").
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Click to collapse
Ive been using this phone pretty much since it came out (D838 rooted stock) and the stock Performance is fantastic if im honest it really doesn't need a custom rom unless you want to "mod" alot of things and even then as long as your careful theres still alot you can do with just root, i love this phone so much and its modified enough for my liking without a rom, its fine right out of the box and if you can live without a custom rom (which is really doesnt need that much) i think you'll be as happy as i am with this phone on stock with or without root.
But yes if you do like to flash and mess about alot go with the z2/note3 as there is more options there but this is still a brillant phone.

bjscott55 said:
Ive been using this phone pretty much since it came out (D838 rooted stock) and the stock Performance is fantastic if im honest it really doesn't need a custom rom unless you want to "mod" alot of things and even then as long as your careful theres still alot you can do with just root, i love this phone so much and its modified enough for my liking without a rom, its fine right out of the box and if you can live without a custom rom (which is really doesnt need that much) i think you'll be as happy as i am with this phone on stock with or without root.
But yes if you do like to flash and mess about alot go with the z2/note3 as there is more options there but this is still a brillant phone.
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Click to collapse
Thanks a lot for the assurance. I'm still bouncing around phone options, I guess it just comes down to price (best bang for buck, with expandable memory at least). I'm still considering the G pro 2, but I saw how the GS note 3 has come down a lot in price.
Thanks again!

ssnova said:
Thanks a lot for the assurance. I'm still bouncing around phone options, I guess it just comes down to price (best bang for buck, with expandable memory at least). I'm still considering the G pro 2, but I saw how the GS note 3 has come down a lot in price.
Thanks again!
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Click to collapse
I've had both and granted you can mess around with roms and stuff but for pure joy in use i much prefer the g pro 2 its a really really good phone and for the low price you really cant beat it in my opinion unless this phone gets a good recovery and cm11 ill never bother with costom roms ect. For me its perfect on stock the peformence is amazing, to date (about 6 months of owning this phone) the battery still amazes and im yet to see any lag ever!! The ui is amazing, for a phone out of the box you cant beat it if you like music it outputs brillantly im just in love so maybe im a little one sided but i hope whatever you do you will be happy! Let me know!

bjscott55 said:
I've had both and granted you can mess around with roms and stuff but for pure joy in use i much prefer the g pro 2 its a really really good phone and for the low price you really cant beat it in my opinion unless this phone gets a good recovery and cm11 ill never bother with costom roms ect. For me its perfect on stock the peformence is amazing, to date (about 6 months of owning this phone) the battery still amazes and im yet to see any lag ever!! The ui is amazing, for a phone out of the box you cant beat it if you like music it outputs brillantly im just in love so maybe im a little one sided but i hope whatever you do you will be happy! Let me know!
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Click to collapse
I only can agree with that!
I did get mine last week and i am very happy with it! Came from Galaxy Note 2 wich i liked very much but i dont trust Super Amoled Display technology since noone grants you that it will operate more than 3 years with heavy use. I chose this device because it has similar dimensions as the Note 2, stronger hardware, bigger 1080p reliable IPS LCD screen and fabulous 3200 mAh battery.
It's a must have for phablet lovers that want to have a good performing phone with large screen.
After just a few days of use this is my opinion. On software side is everything ok, just the usual Kit Kat problem that bugs lots of users out here, tha lack of having permissions for apps to write to sd card. That was the only thing that bothered me, but thats on Google side. This phone is truly amazing!
Hope that helps the peple to choose the best device for their specific needs. I found mine definitely.

Thank you for the input bhun and derbyshire! I really like the phone and want to get it, but for me the G pro 2 shipped from Asia to the US (I need the F350 model for LTE compatibility), it's about $600, I'm going to wait out just a little longer, it's a bit out of my budget (was hoping to score a phone for less than $450.. Sony Z2 and ZU did fit that for me, but not anymore either, haha).
I'm glad to hear that it's a great phone though(G pro 2), hopefully the prices will come down a bit for the F350 model and I can obtain one soon. Thanks again to all who have contributed!
bhun said:
I only can agree with that!
I did get mine last week and i am very happy with it! Came from Galaxy Note 2 wich i liked very much but i dont trust Super Amoled Display technology since noone grants you that it will operate more than 3 years with heavy use. I chose this device because it has similar dimensions as the Note 2, stronger hardware, bigger 1080p reliable IPS LCD screen and fabulous 3200 mAh battery.
It's a must have for phablet lovers that want to have a good performing phone with large screen.
After just a few days of use this is my opinion. On software side is everything ok, just the usual Kit Kat problem that bugs lots of users out here, tha lack of having permissions for apps to write to sd card. That was the only thing that bothered me, but thats on Google side. This phone is truly amazing!
Hope that helps the peple to choose the best device for their specific needs. I found mine definitely.
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Click to collapse

The things that bother me about this phone are the poor wifi signal, I can be within a meter of my router and it still fluctuates between 3 and 4 bars. Any less than 4 bars wifi signal seems to have a noticeable impact on browsing performance. I also find the mobile data hotspot a pain, every so often the connection would hang and you would have to turn data off and back on again to get it to work. It seemed to do that every hour or so. Also if the phone gets even minutely warm, the brightness level will restrict itself to between 80% and 90%. I have had 3 LG G Pro 2 and they have all been the same. I also notice some flickering at times, especially when there is a white background on a webpage. I am almost fed up of mine and looking at selling it soon. It does have the potential to be a good phone, and I think all the faults I mentioned could be fixed with a decent firmware update.

I agree with you on wifi reception, its been the worst amongst all the phones i have owned
Sent from my LG-D838 using Tapatalk

Good Buy
It's a good buy switching. Switched from GS5 to this

Buyer's Advice for Moto G 2015

Hi everyone,
It looks like after 3.5 years of service my S3 I9300 is about to kick the bucket. Seeing as this year's smarphones are a failure and last year (2014's) top dogs are still over 500usd I figured it would be a waste of money to buy either of them. After some googling I found the moto g 2015 to be a good option.
It meets the requirements I wanted: FM radio, good xda support, removable sd card, ??doable?? battery replacement. It's just too bad there's no blackberry style led notification like the s3. From the antutu benchmarks it looks like it has ~80% the power of my S3?
My question is, how good is the new moto g? Any nasty surprises, gotchas or buyer's remorse. I plan to put CM12.1 first day out of the box. Is the performance decent? I'd mostly use it for web browsing, youtube, google maps, and reading pdf comics. No intense 3D games as it looks like all mobile games are going towards the "pay to play 2mins" model or the "ads galore for 2 mins" model.
Is the new moto g a good choice? Of course I'd get the 2gb ram version.

Hello,
I really have no regrets with mine. I was pretty much looking for the same requirements that you mention. I find that it performs quite well, I actually do use mine for gaming. It handles some of the more graphically demanding games without issue (Dead Trigger 2, Modern Combat 5, etc). I know this is not what you plan to use it for, but just throwing it out there.
What did your i9300 score in the current version of Antutu? The MotoG3 scores around 24550 for me. I can provide screenshots of the score breakdown if it would be helpful for you to see how the different tests scored.
The only thing Motorola left out is a gyroscope and NFC support.

Is quite nice actually, however here in mexico motorola released a turbo version that is even nicer.
I must confess that i regret buying this after the one plus x announcement, but that's just my personal preference and i've yet to see reviews of how does it perform
The phone is really good for it's price, and finding decent phones under 5 inches these days is just a nightmare.
If you don't mind spending some extra money, i'll recomend you a z3 compact.
But it all comes down to personal needs and preferences. Moto gestures in this phone are something really awesome that i can't live without, some things that i find missing are the stereo speakers, the notificacion led and an amoled screen for better battery management.
Oh and battery life is actually really good.

Thank you for your suggestions.
I've never used the nfc once so I'm not going to miss it. I've uploaded my s3 antutu score just for curiosity. I'm overclocking it to 1.7GHz with a small undervolt. I know benchmark scores are only a rough guide for real world expectations and should be taken with a grain of salt.
The turbo edition looks great but Mexico is way too far for me to go and with it being a region special device, will it really have much xda support? I'll definetely miss the amoled display but at least it's ips lcd. Isn't that the best kind of lcd? I love the S3's vibrant colors. The z3 compact is 400usd which is almost double the 220usd. Considering I'm paying in cad that's gonna hurt.
Just not sure how good the z3 compact xda support is. It's not like I'm looking for a small phone. Actually I would prefer a big phone for reading comics on the go but I don't want to unload a lot of money for a phone right now for reasons in the first post.

AAccount said:
Hi everyone,
It looks like after 3.5 years of service my S3 I9300 is about to kick the bucket. Seeing as this year's smarphones are a failure and last year (2014's) top dogs are still over 500usd I figured it would be a waste of money to buy either of them. After some googling I found the moto g 2015 to be a good option.
It meets the requirements I wanted: FM radio, good xda support, removable sd card, ??doable?? battery replacement. It's just too bad there's no blackberry style led notification like the s3. From the antutu benchmarks it looks like it has ~80% the power of my S3?
My question is, how good is the new moto g? Any nasty surprises, gotchas or buyer's remorse. I plan to put CM12.1 first day out of the box. Is the performance decent? I'd mostly use it for web browsing, youtube, google maps, and reading pdf comics. No intense 3D games as it looks like all mobile games are going towards the "pay to play 2mins" model or the "ads galore for 2 mins" model.
Is the new moto g a good choice? Of course I'd get the 2gb ram version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All in all I like mine, I have no regrets for the investment... I have had several higher end smart phones like the LG G2 and Nexus 5, and really don't see any real-world difference in use even when gaming so I don't know how much I trust the Antutu scores, and the battery life is very good. The notification LED missing is annoying, at first, but like everything else you get used to it and the Moto Display is an acceptable replacement for it.
As far as a doable battery replacement, you might to watch a tear down video before you say that, replacing the battery in this years Moto G is a bit tougher than the older models. "doable" would vary on your technical expertise.
I was a flash-a-holic with my Nexus devices and my LG G2, but to be honest the G3 us the first phone I haven't even really had the urge to flash a custom ROM on, or even root, the stock ROM is very good... Pure Android with (literally) a few Moto apps that are actually usable and functional without getting in the way, and the stock ROM is very optimized to the hardware, CM and other ROM devs haven't been able to get near the same battery life as stock. If you are set on CM, I would suggest waiting a minimum of a week before even unlocking it, there are a handful of rare issues which could potentially pop up (yellow screen, low volume, ghost touches, etc) and sometimes don't show up for a few days. No point in ruining your warranty day one, especially when the stock ROM is so well done.
The screen on the G3 is better than most people give it credit for, it isn't as good as the LG G2, but it is easily better than the Nexus 5, which is weird, sort of.... I am actually quite impressed with the screen and how vibrant and bright it is with minimal battery draw.
My 2 cents are go for it, you won't be disappointed.

I did lookup a teardown. Didn't the battery replacement involve
hair dryer to the screen
unscrew the motherboard
hair dryer to the battery
While I've never attempted doing the hair dryer treatment it doesn't look that bad. Compared to some of the other teardowns I've seen on ifixit, this one didn't involve: gotcha placed cables that are guaranteed to break without the magic touch, insane amounts of glue, or a screen that's so delicate that getting it out is near impossible. Overly optimistic??
Honestly, I figured that when that time comes, after the old battery is removed, I can cut a hole where the battery fits in and just hold it in place with duct tape. That way next time I can just remove the duct tape and disconnect. That's assuming the phone lives that long. My 2011 tablet and my 2012 era phones are both dieing in the span of a few months. :crying: The tablet is retired because of that. I'd rather my devices not actually die so when I want to use them again for whatever reason they'll still turn on and work ok.
Thanks for the tip of waiting a week for issues to pop up. I guess I'll carry 2 phones for that week. The moto g will get its initiation as a comic book reader and fm radio. I like the little features of CM like circle battery, network speed indicator, quick settings rearranging. Root is also a must for me for adblocking, xposed xprivacy, xposed youtube adblock. Can't live without either of those 3.

Stock 1.4 GHz (1363 MHz)

Thoughts about the Moto X Pure/Style after extended usage

The point of this post is just to share my thoughts about the direction Motorola has taken with flagships. After using this phone for more than a year I can conclude:
Besides near stock Android and Turbo charging, the phone is mediocre at best. I have never felt as good as what i felt with my previous flagships (a Oneplus One).
The Battery life is way below average. After using the phone for a year the battery has really started to show its age and its not lasting as long as it should.
Another annoying issue I noticed is the fact that Motorola implements almost the same design language for their lower end G series and X series. Apart from the size, someone who isn't a tech geek can easily mistake my Pure for a lower end Motorola phone. The new Z series has fixed this, but again it would be difficult for the uninitiated to tell the difference between a Moto Z Play and the more premium Moto Z. Samsung, LG, HTC, Xiaomi go to great lengths to ensure that their flagships stand out and look very different from the budget phones.
I dont think i need to mention the fact that ever since Lenovo has taken over, the update wait time has increased a great deal, new reports suggest that the Pure will only get Noughat in May 2017
The developers that choose to work on the Pure deserve a lot of credit, but the fact is that a lot of developers chose to develop for other devices rather than the Pure.
A lot of accessory manufacturers decided that the moto X Pure didn't deserve any attention. To find a decent case was not very easy, (I especially missed using a Spigen case) and the fact that there is not a single working tempered Screen glass protector proves this. (I know the Pleson works almost 100% but its not available freely in all countries neither is it perfect.)
In conclusion I'm pretty sure this will be my last Motorola phone simply because it would be smarter to spend a little more and get a Galaxy, and with phones like the Oneplus 3T it makes little sense to buy a phone like the Moto Z which is priced considerably higher.
Would love to hear from other people what they think and if they are going to stay loyal to Motorola.

Heavy weight
Easy to get heated

The point about sharing design with mid range Moto phones is dope. People often ask if it's a Moto X Play or a Moto G 3rd Gen and then we need to tell them it's X Style ??

Well ... I understand your point of view, but what I think is that you chose badly the device, since you found him "mediocre at best"
The points listed:
Comparing the most powerful AND STABLE 32-bit processor to the second in line of Qualcomm's 64-bit generation SOC's with new architecture and everything else, I believe to be extremely wrong, since after the SD810 fiasco the creation of the SD808 was the fix the company used (and i think it was a good one, but this is something mostly disagree with me '^^)
About the OnePlus One, it is really a beast phone with the SD801 (the 32bits GOD) and i understand that you had a remarkable experience with it, since i had (now it is with my girlfriend) an Xperia Z3 with the same SD801 as the OnePlus One i understand when you say it was a more fluid usage, since i think the same, but... I don't think you can compare something that is pretty stable with some new technology.
I never had any problems with the battery because i use as a normal phone and i play games only at home and waiting in lines (bank/medic/...), it gives me something next to 18 hours (stock ROM/kernel) of use with 3 hour SOT or 7 to 8 hours SOT when i use it to watch movies/series/animes in my bed, mostly at weekends. Through the week i unplug it from charger at 6:30, go to work, and at 18:00 i go back home (40 ~ 35% left), the weekend is always a mess for battery stats,
As for the design I don’t have much to say, because I find it very beautiful, and being same design language is a plus for me, i like to have a “invisible phone” in the croud, only people that asks me what is my phone should know the answer.
Now the two really bad points ...
As for Lenovo acquiring Motorola, I fully agree that it was dumb, at least it should keep Motorola working as it always did.
And the lack of smartphone accessories really is laughable
We can keep talking about it, but i really think is a good phone and the testing Nougat ROM's are amazing, i can't wait for the official Nougat update.

btw all samsungs look the same too, comapre new A series with S: very simmilar glass on glass design.
other than that, you're right there are some dissapoitments but it's not real flagship phone, it's more like very good mid-end device, It was never priced like a flagship so don't expect it to be real flagship - that's my opinion. OPO is a differen't story, they managed to get price down with other ways like it's distribution, services ect.

It is a flagship phone. Why would you think otherwise? SD 8xx, 5.7" 2K screen, 21 MP back camera, etc. Upon release the starting price for 16gb was $399, while most mid range phones hit at $250-$300. At this point, nearly 2 years later, it could be considered a mid range but that is because hardware moves forward.
As to my thoughts: I think this is a great phone, even now. I run unrooted stock and pretty much it is a Nexus device with a few extras for customization thrown via Moto apps. These apps are few and I appreciate that they add actual additional features and not just replicate what Android and Google actually does already. The phone runs smooth, has a good camera for good lighting, and handles everything I throw at it. I will admit that battery life could be better, but it is acceptable and at least the turbo charge makes up for this shortcoming. I don't regret this purchase, even if the update process is dismal.
Update: I have hit the end of my warranty period, so I unlocked the bootloader and rooted. I have applied my favorite rooted apps and settings (Xposed, amplify, Greenify, TiBu to disable/uninstall certain apps and services, BBS to track wakelocks, and AdAway) so hopefully I will see improved battery life.

I bought the phone 6 months ago and I love it. I always used to be a android tinkerer. But recently most of the features that I used to root for have become stock. All I really need in a phone is stock android (although I wish we would get updates sooner) and the front facing speakers (because anything else is stupid). While I will probably be buying whatever google has out when I decide that it is time to upgrade in a year or two. It isn't due to anything motorola did wrong in particular. I also tend to keep phones a long time and upgrade to a tried and tested phone (which 6 months ago was the moto x pure, getting great reviews.) I upgraded from the Galaxy Note 2, and this was a wonderful step up.

I bought mine used last summer, upgrading from a Galaxy Note II. I'm a little disappointed in the battery life, but it gets me through most days. I agree about the lack of accessories and the slowing speed of updates. I'm also amazed at how well my Note II still stands up while running a custom MM Rom. I hope the X Pure works that well when it is that old.
But there are things that I really love about this phone too. I am amazed at how good the front speakers sound. I never thought I would care this much, but they are really good. I'm happy with the camera, since most of my photography is in good lighting conditions. This is my first phone with a camera that was good enough to not bother with a point and shoot. I'll move to a custom ROM if the updates stop altogether, but they haven't stopped yet. I'm happy that it still has a headphone jack, I use it all the time. Speed is fast enough to never annoy me, where my Note 2 was fast enough to rarely annoy me.
I choose this phone as an aging flagship instead of a midrange (Honor 5X, Asus Zenfone Laser 2, Moto G 3rd Gen) and I'm glad that I did.

Note2 versus Moto X Pure Edition
Znomon said:
I bought the phone 6 months ago and I love it. I always used to be a android tinkerer. But recently most of the features that I used to root for have become stock. All I really need in a phone is stock android (although I wish we would get updates sooner) and the front facing speakers (because anything else is stupid). While I will probably be buying whatever google has out when I decide that it is time to upgrade in a year or two. It isn't due to anything motorola did wrong in particular. I also tend to keep phones a long time and upgrade to a tried and tested phone (which 6 months ago was the moto x pure, getting great reviews.) I upgraded from the Galaxy Note 2, and this was a wonderful step up.
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Click to collapse
smallmj said:
I bought mine used last summer, upgrading from a Galaxy Note II. I'm a little disappointed in the battery life, but it gets me through most days. I agree about the lack of accessories and the slowing speed of updates. I'm also amazed at how well my Note II still stands up while running a custom MM Rom. I hope the X Pure works that well when it is that old.
But there are things that I really love about this phone too. I am amazed at how good the front speakers sound. I never thought I would care this much, but they are really good. I'm happy with the camera, since most of my photography is in good lighting conditions. This is my first phone with a camera that was good enough to not bother with a point and shoot. I'll move to a custom ROM if the updates stop altogether, but they haven't stopped yet. I'm happy that it still has a headphone jack, I use it all the time. Speed is fast enough to never annoy me, where my Note 2 was fast enough to rarely annoy me.
I choose this phone as an aging flagship instead of a midrange (Honor 5X, Asus Zenfone Laser 2, Moto G 3rd Gen) and I'm glad that I did.
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Click to collapse
Note 2 holdout here too . I'm just finishing up my first week since the upgrade and am quite pleased so far. I have the feeling that the MXPE is going to be a good low maintenance, long haul phone that I can get a few good years of service out of without too much hand-holding, just like with the Note. And with a nice, bright LCD screen instead of Led, I won't ever have to worry about burn-in or custom kernels to help correct green tint; pretty much everything just works. In fact, there's a ton of features that used to require a special app or a custom rom on the Note 2 that are built right in to the X, so there was a lot less effort required out-of-the-box to get everything to work, and on the stock Rom, no less! Even tethering works on the stock rom, which is something that I've never seen on any smartphone in my life.
Comparing the battery life of the two devices, I have yet to conclude any formal tests, but so far, the Pure Edition looks like it's going to be delivering 3-4 hours of screen-on time at best, while the Note 2 delivered as much as 4-5 hours on a good day. That said, I used that phone much more conservatively, so that could have something to do with it, but overall, the runtime of the Pure Edition isn't looking all that great. I think it's just got too much power for its own good, and when you combine that with a ludicrously-high screen resolution, (which demands more effort to render those high-resolution fonts and animations) it strains the CPU and GPU more. Time will tell if things improve after I settle in with it.

Overall I am happy with my X pure, though I share some of the others gripes.
Pros
-Screen
-Above average camera
-Good front camera with flash
-Good CPU, 3GB RAM
-front speakers
-no complaint on call quality
-Sd card slot - I have a 64GB card split as 20GB adopted and 40GB external
-moto ROM is near stock
-Moto features are well done (lock screen notifications)
-Simple unlock/root process
-GSM & CDMA = yes on VZ
-Quich charge 2
-understated design (I like it, others not as much)
- PRICE for these features unmatched
Cons
-Gets hot under load
-Battery life could be better - depends on how much I use it. GPS OFF helps. QC is a necessity with this phone
- lack of choice for accessories
- curved back - one handed is a chore and can't use on the table face up. It does feel nice to hold for a call though.
Other
- upgrade cycle has been slower than some would like. However it still exists at least. Other phones would be dead by now, this one is still alive.
Overall, Pros outweigh the cons and there is a lot for me to love about this phone.
I think I have been spoiled, because I'm finding it hard to find a device to upgrade to without sacrifices. The only phones I would consider are the Pixel and Moto G4 and one is expensive and the other underpowered.

well, i did the poll but i did it as a yes i would buy another, with condition of course.
i came from the original disappointed motorola fans, the Photon 4G fan. back then... it was the photon of the era. It had the ability to work as a PC, GSM capabilities, 4G wimax and at the time was the best performance with dual core 1 gigahertz and qHD. really a prime of a phone at that time compared to the S2 and the evo. cyanogenmod came out and did wonders on that phone because moto blur was so trashy. Then... the worst happened. Sprint ordered motorola to lock down the bootloader to 2.3.6 which is severely locked and no modifications were allowed to be done anymore. those who were lucky to not have 2.3.6 were able to mod to ICS but those who had 2.3.6 had to bootstrap the phone to work with cyanogenmod and that even was a piss poor attempt at making it work.
now i buy the moto x pure with alot of resentment from the photon but after hearing the reviews is when i bought it. after plagues of hardware problems with hte nexus 5 i simply needed a way to go back and the best device was the moto x. i was so sure i wanted this phone i custom ordered it (after reading rave reviews), i ordered the black leather with red accent 64 gig with 2 years protection. with over a year on this phone... i will admit i still love it.
there were a few hardware problems but i do have the 2 year protection and they did repair it for me... replaced the screen and the battery and wireless modules. i since then have not had problems with it (and believe they remedied the issues that i had with the older devices). i own an HTC M9, and my sister has the s7 edge. the only thing i like about the m9 is the dolby atmos and the carrier aggregation (hoping for a wireless update for the X). other than that... my phone is still superior despite older technology.
why?
i love my moto x because of the moto display. my absolute favorite! i also love the flash light and camera gestures.
the camera works great, signal is still better than most other phones, it barely crashes, the speakers still work very well, still speedy, turbo charge is still an amazing product and i bought the car charger for it. battery had 90 mins on screen time and still has 41% battery and i like the fact its unlocked gsm. i tried freedom pop a few weeks ago and i put that sim in. switched over quickly and it worked great then when i was done... i put my sprint sim back in and it worked just as great too.
the reason i dont see much to switch to however is because samsung, LG, and HTC hasnt really enticed me yet as to why their phone is better. samsung i have to see what will make them different... but LG really hasnt enticed me and im curious on what HTC does, though im not a metal phone fan (feel the feraday cage idea disintegrates the signal, IMO). Pixel is nice... but i simply dont have the money.
what would make me switch to another phone...
1) 4 gig of ram (preferably 6 gigs)
2) HPUE has to be baked in for Sprint LTE at a minimum but 5 channel aggregation would be amazing, AND GSM UNLOCKED
3) best camera software
4) minimum 5.5 inch screen
5) battery that will last for full 24 hours without need of charge or quick charge 4.0 with dual pol
6) shatter resistance and waterproof
for now... the moto x meets my demands without incremental improvements until i see whats next. hopefully a moto z successor that actually works on sprint

In the 2 years it has been out the update cycle has been slower than Samsung's Motorola did not deliver on the support side the main selling point they had with this device was it was going to be similar to the Nexus upgrade cycle well my warranty was up before the first update came out... In addition to the fiasco that is accessories for this phone I am really regretting not going with the LG v10

I don't know why everyone still complains about the accessories. This was never a mainstream device since it was completely carrier independent and sold unlocked. The previous Moto X (and Moto G) line was sold as both branded and unlocked so they were actually seen at pretty much any company that sold cellular service. For those looking for contract or payment plan pricing, they could get it from the carrier. With limited visibility, and the lack of payment plans through carriers the Pure was just not that popular. Companies that make accessories are going to focus on popular selling phones first as that is where they will make the most money... At least we have some options.

I sold my Moto X Pure to buy a Google Pixel XL.
If I were to sell the Pixel XL, then the Moto X Pure is the only phone I'd consider buying.
It was the best all-around phone I've ever had.
I'd even go with it over the new OnePlus 3 second edition or Galaxy S7 variants.
Regardless of price.
Moto Z. lmao what a stinker that phone is compared to Moto X Pure.
Unless you want pretty. Then you shouldn't even be on XDA if that's all you care about.

Interesting comments. I've been a Nexus owner for years, with the 6P being my prior phone. It became my prior phone due to the all too common Boot Loop of Death (BLOD) that seems to be impacting more and more owners. While Huawei did replace it with a refurb'ed model, not in mint shape like the one I sent, but it did come back with 128g instead of the 32g I sent. The battery is terrible as compared with the MXPE, I've been through most of the custom roms/kernels and nothing has really helped and I don't do social media nor play games on it. The built in features of the Moto really impressed me, they are actually functional and add value. The Moto Display is excellent as is the voice recognition of the Moto voice. The bluetooth stack seems to have issues (with me at least), my cell signal is a bit worse and the lack of updates is sad.
I've considered the Pixel, but the price is insane and after having the Pixel features on the 6P I'm happy with the Moto.
When I got my 6P back, it took about a week to change my sim back to it from the Moto, I put it back in the Moto the next day and don't plan on taking it out.

I've had several issues with my Moto X Pure:
1. Frequent static emanating from the headphone jack, which puts a real damper on quiet classical music. I've read on discussion boards that this is a known problem with jacks on the Moto X.
2. Failure to recognize SD cards. I'm now on my third card, and the phone is less than a year old.
3. The camera now fails to operate because of a "lack of disk space" -- although I have more than 24GB available.
Like you, I will never buy another Motorola phone.

Gourdman said:
I've had several issues with my Moto X Pure:
1. Frequent static emanating from the headphone jack, which puts a real damper on quiet classical music. I've read on discussion boards that this is a known problem with jacks on the Moto X.
2. Failure to recognize SD cards. I'm now on my third card, and the phone is less than a year old.
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Click to collapse
1. This is interesting and must be sample-specific. I'm a pretty avid music listener and haven't had any problems with the headphone output on either of my MXPEs (had to RMA my first toward the end of the warranty period). I'd definitely notice and complain if there were any perceptible noise.
2. This one I do have experience with. I bought a brand new Samsung EVO 64 GB mSD card at the same time as the phone, and it gave me fits, but seems to work in other devices. Tried an older SanDisk I had laying around and it's worked fine.

ominousnimbus said:
1. This is interesting and must be sample-specific. I'm a pretty avid music listener and haven't had any problems with the headphone output on either of my MXPEs (had to RMA my first toward the end of the warranty period). I'd definitely notice and complain if there were any perceptible noise.
2. This one I do have experience with. I bought a brand new Samsung EVO 64 GB mSD card at the same time as the phone, and it gave me fits, but seems to work in other devices. Tried an older SanDisk I had laying around and it's worked fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had issues with static, but only on some select 3.5mm plugs. I just figure it was that specific plug itself.
Have had no issues with my SanDisk plus. I use it as removable storage and not as adopted storage. But going back to your statement, I have owned a multiple phones and have noticed some don't play well with certain brands of cards but do well with others. I'm not sure why this is but it does happen.

I really hope I don't get SD slot troubles. My Note 2 did that and it drove me crazy. Maybe next time I should just shell out for a 64+ GB phone.

Times have changed
smallmj said:
I really hope I don't get SD slot troubles. My Note 2 did that and it drove me crazy. Maybe next time I should just shell out for a 64+ GB phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Newer versions of Android (and their apps, along with the stock Rom apparently) are not nearly as frugal with the 16GB of storage as the Note2 was. I'm already at 7.8/9.6GB used with just a basic load of apps and data (music is on the card and camera photos are also directed to be stored there) on the MXPE.
For comparison, my Note2 has a massive load of software & data, plus a ton of camera photos, all on the main storage volume, and only 6.26GB out of the total 10.95GB available are used.
All that to say that 16GB used to be plenty, but "modern" software is just too bloated for that. If I do upgrade phones anytime in the next ~2 years, it'll probably be to a larger Moto X Pure Edition, but for now, that 64GB MicroSD card should be plenty adequate.

Realistic options for a replacement to the Moto X Pure

So I am getting sick of the battery life of this device and charging twice a day just to get by... the QC helps but it isn't always a viable option for someone who is on the road/travels a lot. I am probably going to go back to my Moto G 2015 for the time being as I could get a full days use most of the time on a single charge and just selling my MXPE.
But now the question comes up as what to replace it with... Moto G 5th gen, Blu Pure XR, ZTE Axon 7 Mini, or ???
My requirements are simple, or so I think...
1) 4+ hours SOT, preferably 5+, in mixed signal environment of WiFi/LTE/3G and sometimes without the best signal strength (for reference, I currently get about 2.5 hours on MXPE)
2) 5.2"-5.7" screen with 1080p minimum resolution
3) Stock Android, "near" stock, or simple UI (no TouchWiz, EMUI, ZenUI, or other bloated UI) that allows easy use of replacement launcher
4) 64GB internal storage or 32GB internal+microSD
5) 3GB or more of RAM
6) Full AT&T network compatibility (GSM 850/1900 and LTE Band 2/4/5/12/17 and optionally 29/30)
7) Nougat or Marshmallow with a Nougat upgrade "guaranteed"
8) 3.5mm headphone jack
9) Dual band WiFi - 2.4 & 5Ghz
10) $300USD or less
Would be nice, but not essential...
1) Unlockable bootloader (implies root/custom recovery/ROM development community)
2) Front facing speakers
3) NFC
4) USB 3.0
Absolute no no's are Samsung, Asus, or Huawei/Honor devices.
What else fits these requirements that I am not considering?

I believe the one phone that comes to mind that would fit most of your requirements is the Axon. I took a break from the MXPE (when it flew off my roof and died a horrible death in a rain storm) and had the Axon 7 (normal size) for about a month. You will get NEAR 4 hours of SoT, a qhd screen, 5.5 inches, relatively light for metal body. Unlockable bootloader and decent dev for it, last I checked. Things that bothered me/ pissed me off were that DTTW was laggy and slow, the actual cell service seemed to be really bad, possibly because of the full metal body phone, and the biggest annoyance - no backlit capacitive buttons, so you were left sort of blind in the dark trying to hit buttons. There is also no way through the build.prop to enable the on-screen buttons to bypass the issue at night, last I checked.
LG V20 could be an option too since it has a bootloader unlock now, 3.5-4.5 hours of SoT. I think it has a bottom bezel speaker though, which is a little weird, and as always the LG software has complaints. The dev is good enough to get around that though.
I'm in the same boat as you though. I've been looking pretty hard to find a new phone and the V20 is the only one I am really considering right now.

Get the OnePlus 3T it meets all your needs I get easily 6 to 7 HR sot

datchico305 said:
Get the OnePlus 3T it meets all your needs I get easily 6 to 7 HR sot
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Click to collapse
Would love to... tell me where I can get a new OP3T for under $300... That one is a hard stop requirement.
@xgerryx Same for LG V20 and Axon 7 (which never goes on sale, although the Mini does often), the $300 price point is a big deal

This phone has been a little disappointing. It's good, but definitely not great. It's a night and day difference from the Galaxy S3 I was using, but I wish I had held out a little longer for the SD 820 phones instead of buying in 2015.
It sounds like you've already got a pretty inclusive list for phones that are sold in the US and meet your requirements.
I just checked swappa, and if you're willing to go used, the OnePlus 3 is starting to get down towards the price point you're looking for. It has the same size battery as the MXP, and between the more efficient SoC than this godawful 808/810 generation and an FHD AMOLED I'd think you should get better screen on time out of it. It's a OnePlus so it has loads of good development, so you'll have all kinds of kernel/rom/tweaking available to really squeeze every erg out of it.

jason2678 said:
This phone has been a little disappointing. It's good, but definitely not great. It's a night and day difference from the Galaxy S3 I was using, but I wish I had held out a little longer for the SD 820 phones instead of buying in 2015.
It sounds like you've already got a pretty inclusive list for phones that are sold in the US and meet your requirements.
I just checked swappa, and if you're willing to go used, the OnePlus 3 is starting to get down towards the price point you're looking for. It has the same size battery as the MXP, and between the more efficient SoC than this godawful 808/810 generation and an FHD AMOLED I'd think you should get better screen on time out of it. It's a OnePlus so it has loads of good development, so you'll have all kinds of kernel/rom/tweaking available to really squeeze every erg out of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That actually could be an option... I will investigate further.

acejavelin said:
Would love to... tell me where I can get a new OP3T for under $300... That one is a hard stop requirement.
@xgerryx Same for LG V20 and Axon 7 (which never goes on sale, although the Mini does often), the $300 price point is a big deal
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you happen to be SUPER interested in the V20, I have seen some go for like 310-320 on Swappa in good to mint condition. You gotta hound the seller though and keep track of it all damn day for when the price drops. Not an awesome experience but I'm waiting for the same thing myself.

xgerryx said:
If you happen to be SUPER interested in the V20, I have seen some go for like 310-320 on Swappa in good to mint condition. You gotta hound the seller though and keep track of it all damn day for when the price drops. Not an awesome experience but I'm waiting for the same thing myself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not really interested... TBH, my experience with non-Nexus LG Android devices has been... well... lets just say less then wonderful.
Although I would have to say that the LG enV from years ago probably ranks up there as my favorite phone of all time, back when you could actually get DAYS of usage out of a cell phone on a single charge. I remember I would charge it twice a week. lol

acejavelin said:
I'm not really interested... TBH, my experience with non-Nexus LG Android devices has been... well... lets just say less then wonderful.
Although I would have to say that the LG enV from years ago probably ranks up there as my favorite phone of all time, back when you could actually get DAYS of usage out of a cell phone on a single charge. I remember I would charge it twice a week. lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea I agree. After my terrible experience with the buggy LG G4, I'm very skeptical about going back again. At the same time I am running out of companies to try out! Haha. Gotta circle back eventually, especially on Verizon.

xgerryx said:
Yea I agree. After my terrible experience with the buggy LG G4, I'm very skeptical about going back again. At the same time I am running out of companies to try out! Haha. Gotta circle back eventually, especially on Verizon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NEVER AGAIN!!! I refuse to drop $140 plus taxes and fees (realistically $160) for the service level I get now for $72 per month. Plus the limitations on devices, I would have to buy at least one new phone and/or go under contract. Nope, not happening. (Can you tell I have a grudge against Verizon, lol)

I would look around swappa for a OnePlus 3 or 3t it's worth it no bugs lag free and monthly updates it's already on nougat 7.1.1 and the beta builds they offer are great as well and development is great lots of greats ROMs and kernels and unlocking bootloader will not void warranty

TBH...I think you will have a hard time meeting all of your requirements right now. The market looks pretty dismal which is very unfortunate. I personally will hold out a little longer. I'm really looking hard at what Nokia/HMD are coming up with and hoping their roadmap for US devices includes a mid range device soon. So far their line up seems decent and if they are true to their word about expedient updates for Android, and they will sell devices with unlockable bootloaders at decent prices, I'll be sold.

moving to a galaxy s8 plus, comes tomorrow

unitz0mbie said:
moving to a galaxy s8 plus, comes tomorrow
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Click to collapse
Like @acejavelin stated, Samsung is not an option, and I agree with him. Yes they have great hardware for the most part, but a less powerful processor running vanilla, our near vanilla Android will run just as well considering the lack of heavy handed UX. I will admit the phone looks great hardware and looks wise, but I personally don't like the look and feel of Samsung TW.

unitz0mbie said:
moving to a galaxy s8 plus, comes tomorrow
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sammie's are to bloated... Every Samsung devices we have ever had has been problematic... Hope you enjoy yours though but I would never spend that kind of money on a phone.

I have a moto g5 plus as well, its pretty good. It's fast and smooth. Screen and camera are good too, but obviously not as good as the X style.

Yes mxpe battery sucks. I have to charge 2-3 times a day and am not even a heavy user. I know its more than your actual budget but better wait, save a bit more and probably the price will drop also and go for a OP 3T.

i know your problem man.. but why don't you wait for a nougat update?? why not? maybe they might fix up the battery drain issue!
there are barely very less phones which have dual front facing speakers.. market has got very saturated.. all look for flagship but they just don't think that having a good speakers is also a part of flagship project!
as per my personal opinion... this phone is just the best phone ive ever used (till 2015) but in upcoming era you will see more and more features
i will recommend you to wait and not hurry up to get a phone...
if you need a pure stock surely get nexus but just wait for new nexus phone.. maybe they might consider it as a flagship and the value might be cheap??
anyways if you're just asking for all the requirements my opinion (AXON 7) not just only for dual front facing speakers but also for the processor(sd 820),storage(64gb,6gb ram) expandable ovbio (256gb)
plot twist: has hybrid sim XD
but im legit that it'll be upgraded to android 'O'
but it cost around $350
think man.. public reviews are also good
it meets all the requirements but is as costly as mxpe

Sagar_1401 said:
i know your problem man.. but why don't you wait for a nougat update?? why not? maybe they might fix up the battery drain issue!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nougat can't "fix" our battery issue... Radio and display panel are hardware issues and that's where 75% of all battery drain is. It isn't even issues, it's just how much power they use normally. The SD808's radios are terribly inefficient, and the display panel uses more power than some small towns. If you think Nougat is going to noticably improve active use time, your kidding yourself.
To be honest, I might just pull my old Nexus 5 out if the drawer and switch to it... The battery life can't be much worse.
The sound aspect is less important. FF speakers are nice, but as long as I can hear a YouTube video in an average room and turn the ringer up enough u don't care.
I bought the MXPE as an upgrade to my G 2015 and it was on sale for under $250, and for the most part it is, I just didn't realize how bad the battery was, it is easily half of my G.

I got Axon 7 after X and can't be happier. I've had the A7 since August. Has the front speakers i wanted, nice beautiful Samsung screen. Battery is definitely better then X. Software was buggy at the beginning but they have improved it a lot. Axon 7 has been getting a lot of updates, doesn't mean it'll continue, we were the 1st ones to receive 7.0 with the exception of Google devices, and we are the only ones so far (afaik) to receive 7.1.1 with also the exception of Google devices.
It has its flaws but i love the phone. For the money you can't beat it. It's on sale now on newegg for $330.

Why so much hate for the 3 XL ?

Wow the Pixel 3 XL is getting bagged and dogged on left and right as if it's the worst smartphone ever made. Yes it could have been designed better for sure. Try to go the more minimal notch like Essential or something, and no bottom chin, do the stereo speakers like the HTC 10, or and the iPhone XS, and Note 9's, do, etc... to allow a more full screen design. Yes give us 6GB RAM.
Mainly in tech forums I keep reading so much hate for the Pixel 3 XL;
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pixel-3-pixel-3-xl.2106788/page-68#post-26666374
And YouTube channels dogging on the phone big time
But I still wouldn't go iPhone, just not an iOS fan whatsoever. And Samsung Touchwiz not my thing either. So if I hate the iPhone, don't like Galaxy phones and the Pixel 3 is sub par, what's the other options? I wish we had a third option, a Windows Surface phone or something.
Oh well, I still have my White Pixel 3 XL on order, and not changing. Yes the notch is ugly, and more RAM would have been nice, but I still value stock Android, updated directly and quickly from Google, and the smooth fluid vanilla UI, and the amazing camera, and A+ rated display, and IP68 rating, and wireless charging. Maybe I'm a sucker, but that's my choice.

Honestly, I didn't even notice the notch when I was checking out the display phone at Verizon. I love the feel of the phone, very well balanced and light compared to my old Nexus 6. Can't wait to get my phone call on Thursday (I hope) to come and pick up my phone.

I think manly they are charging Flagship prices but not delivering on flagship hardware /specs compared to whats already on the market and instead are betting on software to carry them. Now i love pure android how its meant to be not a fan of all tweaks each manufacture adds to the phone, If Samsung offered a note 9 /S9 pure (ie stock android no mods) i think the pixel would be left in its dust. The Pixel's have always seemed to be a generation behind. I love my pixel 2 xl i know i just wanted something more to go with the great feel of stock android and what not. maybe next year, i have my 3 XL ordered and will use it for a week or two to see if its worth the upgrade over my 2 XL

How would I have like to see Google design the Pixel 3 XL? Well on a realistic manner not some unrealistic futuristic design but a realistic version could have been a cross between like the LG V30 shape and size with the minimal bezels but give it the Essential notch and stretch the screen out on the top and bottom. And then do the stereo speakers like on the Note 9 or iPhone so they don't have to be front-facing, and allow for full display with almost no bezels at like 6.2" or so. And give it 6GB RAM. And a bigger 4,000MaH battery.

At the end of the day, for October 2018, I still think FOR ME, the Pixel 3 XL is the best phone out.
- Stock vanilla Android is my bread and butter OS. I go back to owning the Nexus-One when it was new, then waiting in line for the Nexus-S at launch. I just have a thing for stock Android, all other versions of Android just irritate me, or frustrate me.
- Updates first and quickly
- A+ rated display
- Best camera
- Wireless charging now
- IP68 rating is nice
- Phone can easily be rooted, mainly for the best ad blocking and Substratum themes
No other phone right now interests me. The Note 9 or S9+ ? Not at all, no way, Lagwiz still exists no matter what people say. The LG V40, yeah that's cool, but not a fan of the LG skin, and they suck at updates. iPhone XS Max looks super cool, a very beautifully built device, really liked it a lot, but man I hate iOS, and on the XS Max the OS looks out of place, dated like something from a decade ago. OnePlus 6T, yeah will be a great phone, but they always skimp somehow.
Is the Pixel 3 XL the best phone of 2018 ? NO, not at all. But for me a stock Android nerd, it's really the only option.

Yeah if the Iphone XS Max ran android it would be a dream phone lol IMO ... That said i do think the Note 9 Running stock android with all the software options of the pixel 3 would be a great option as well .

PSA:
Don't read Mac/Apple websites for reviews on Android devices. They are quite happy being locked into their apple ecosystem and will never appreciate the open source model of a pixel device.

No hate here, just wish the display was LARGER......Note9/V40 temp me with their larger displays......but I can't get away from pure google... C'mon google, 6.5 next year!!!

Why the hate? Did you notice that big black malignancy at the top of the screen? What about specs that are less than impressive? My guess is the answer is right there between those two things. Flagship means flagship, you want to charge this kinda money you need some wow factor and the ability to say you're second to none and have that hold water.
These devices don't give me that vibe. Too me they're like the second toughest guy on the block saying "Look, I can juggle!" As to the former enough has been said about it. I personally found my Best Buy experience to fall between what some said. At points when I was busy manipulating the GUI I forgot about it completely. Any time I stepped back from specific tasks the thing jumped out at me, it was like getting mugged with an ugly stick every timei looked at the phone as an object.
Yeah, I'm stupid so I'm still thinking about buying even though I'm not convinced I won't be sorry.

razor237 said:
I think manly they are charging Flagship prices but not delivering on flagship hardware /specs compared to whats already on the market and instead are betting on software to carry them. Now i love pure android how its meant to be not a fan of all tweaks each manufacture adds to the phone, If Samsung offered a note 9 /S9 pure (ie stock android no mods) i think the pixel would be left in its dust. The Pixel's have always seemed to be a generation behind. I love my pixel 2 xl i know i just wanted something more to go with the great feel of stock android and what not. maybe next year, i have my 3 XL ordered and will use it for a week or two to see if its worth the upgrade over my 2 XL
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't agree with this at all. The pixel 3 xl has a Samsung screen which looks amazing (and I bet is par or at least close to what you see on a Samsung phone), it has the latest Quallcom processor, the best cameras and software, same day updates, wireless charging, front facing speakers, I mean, what else does it need to be 'flagship specs' to you? What, because it only has 4 GB of RAM? That's literally the ONLY thing I can come up with, and that's only because many OEM's have stuffed more RAM in their phones this year. And honestly, it's not really necessary, at least not for 90% of people who use smartphones. Sheet, iPhones only have 4 GB or RAM. They only had ONE GB or RAM for a looonnnggg time. No one complained about that.
To me, this is a premium flagship, no question. The hate is mostly the RAM and notch. It's superficial. Last year it was the blue shift. Which, I think that plus the terrible quality control was actually warranted. This year, it's not much to hate on. Either you like it, or don't get it. And you can hide the notch. Either way, I'm excited about it coming today. I LOVE 2 xl, but I'm definitely ready for this upgrade, even though I was very on the fence before I checked one out in the store. My point here is, people are going to hate on something every time. Every time. If you don't like something, don't get it. It's really that simple.
My $0.02

gettinwicked said:
I don't agree with this at all. The pixel 3 xl has a Samsung screen which looks amazing (and I bet is par or at least close to what you see on a Samsung phone), it has the latest Quallcom processor, the best cameras and software, same day updates, wireless charging, front facing speakers, I mean, what else does it need to be 'flagship specs' to you? What, because it only has 4 GB of RAM? That's literally the ONLY thing I can come up with, and that's only because many OEM's have stuffed more RAM in their phones this year. And honestly, it's not really necessary, at least not for 90% of people who use smartphones. Sheet, iPhones only have 4 GB or RAM. They only had ONE GB or RAM for a looonnnggg time. No one complained about that.
To me, this is a premium flagship, no question. The hate is mostly the RAM and notch. It's superficial. Last year it was the blue shift. Which, I think that plus the terrible quality control was actually warranted. This year, it's not much to hate on. Either you like it, or don't get it. And you can hide the notch. Either way, I'm excited about it coming today. I LOVE 2 xl, but I'm definitely ready for this upgrade, even though I was very on the fence before I checked one out in the store. My point here is, people are going to hate on something every time. Every time. If you don't like something, don't get it. It's really that simple.
My $0.02
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was simply stating why i think so many people hate the new pixel 3 xl from reading it sure does seem like a lot don't like it.
I agree the screen looks great but it should since they woke up and used a Samsung panel this time yay , my issue with it is its basically the same size as the 2 xl when you look at the usable part of the display and that is kinda disappointing to me i wanted a screen the size of the note 9 / XS max on the pixel 3 xl instead they went with a huge notch that takes away from the phone in stead of adding to it i honestly think they would have been better with out it at all, in person the notch isn't bad at all its big but once you play with it for a bit i didn't notice it as much and i don't mind the bottom chin as people call it since i love front firing speakers always hated cupping the end of the phone to direct the sound lol . They added an extra front camera and notch but no type of face id another missing feature that would have been a great addition to the pixel but we got wireless charging back so i guess its a trade off.
I said nothing about the ram because i think that's a mute point for most for the exact reason you said, apple has had little ram for a long time there is a difference between the two since apple designs the cpu they can help optimize it for the amount of ram they are using but mostly they iOS optimized for how it can handle the ram. google does the same with the pixel, most of the other phones need the extra ram because all the bs they add uses so much of it. for me as of now my daily usage on my 2 XL is 2.4-3.2 or so, 4gb is enough for me in 6 months that may not be the case but i doubt it
everyone has different ideas of what makes a phone flag ship quality or not, so this is just my opinion and you can agree or not for me i feel they could have done better and they came up a bit short compared to other phones only time will tell though and i still cant wait to get mine and use it to see if its worth the upgrade from the 2xl or not for me.

Nah, I don't buy it. Flagship is flagship. Almost flagship if it weren't for one big weakness is not flagship, it's second rate. I'm one of those people that can take advantage of more than 4 gigs of ram, I'm currently using 3.2 at home which is about average for me but usually hit in the upper 4s, lower 5s at work. Go ahead and name the one phone which is claiming flagship status and charging flagship prices but does not have me covered? See where I'm going?
Flagships is flagship, not second best with software optimization that every rooted oneplus will have installed not too far down the road on a phone that costs little more than half the price. Yeah, I'm talking about the camera. Still perhaps best in class overall but more than one reviewer has noted that telephoto shots lag behind other flagships including the fruit devices. They need to up their game here, flagships don't polish turds, they deliver the best hardware and polish that.
One that doesn't bother me in the slightest that I noted is the phones perceived build quality is a step behind Samsung and Apple. I cant point to one particular thing, either of those two just felt a little more expensive. As I said, I don't care because the phone will go into a case and I wont see it again until I give it to one of my kids or grand-kids in the spring.
So yeah, to me it feels like it's not quite up to flagship par except in price. It's all those things combined that give me that impression. And yeah, I'm still thinking about buying it, last night I got as far as putting it in my cart. Pixel has always been more the whole than the sum of its part, they are satisfying to own even if some things about them are underwhelming. The doubletake on the notch has me spooked though, when I was moving around the GUI it faded out of existence but when I just looked at the phone I kept doing this "whoa, what the hell were they thinking" thing. Cant figure out if that's ever going to go away or if it's going to be like a sore tooth. Still, buy in or not I'll never really consider it flagship hardware and every redraw I get will remind me of it should I start to forget.

The flagship price, the poor software utilization of the notch, the smaller battery and 4 GB RAM were the deal breakers.
The Note 9 is every bit as fast as the Pixel 3 XL, has a much better screen, better battery and SPen for the same price. The Pixel 3 XL may very well be a great phone but when priced with the Note 9, it needed SOMETHING to justify the price. Also, one can easily get a great condition LG V35 ThinQ or S9+ with better specs for hundreds less. Once the price drops, then it might be a better competitor.

For me a premium device needs to last me 2 years and be a useful companion for the duration.
The phone needs to be well built to last, have a good screen and the hardware features need to be ergonomic.
In addition to this the phone must have quick, well thought out software that ties in nicely to my favourite services.
For me, my best option is the Pixel 3 XL. I was considering the new Mate 20 pro as it is very similar in price here in the UK but there is now way I'll be putting up with their software and clutterware for two years. I'm also put off by their storage media and awful to uae, curved screen.
The pixel is getting stick for having underwhelming specs but this is a very short-sighted view unless your sole purpose for the device is to run benchmarks. People needs to evaluate what they use their phones for and what they need to achieve that.
I'm running the original Pixel XL 32Gb and it is still fantastic for all of my everyday uses. My wife is in fact selling her Samsung s9 and will be having my Pixel now that I've upgraded to the 3 XL.
Just as a side note, iPhones are brilliant for many as they offer a great experience across their devices and therefore are useful for their duration. This is more important than having a 40MP camera and 8Gb of RAM for the vast majority.

A lot of that was subjective: I find the Apple experience awful, spread it out across more devices and I call that cancer. I have to say however that your concept in general is on the mark in that the experience is what matters rather than the numbers. It's a fair summation.

for the peeps that hate on the notch and the ram .. just go buy the OnePlus 6T and be done with it

It's all just opinion as we have stayed here. The easy to pick on parts of any product is the visual appearance and listed specs. The new pixel XL appears to be poor in this area for a lot of people. Usabilit of the entire package is impossible to judge from online reviews.
If it is anything like the original Pixel, the phone will be great. If it's like my old Samsung phones or my iPhone 7, no thank you.

The phone is what it is. If you don't like it for the way it looks or a feature that it has or doesn't have, don't buy it. If all you have to say is you hate the notch, spare us. There are a lot of phones I don't like. I don't buy them and I don't seek out their communities and complain about them. This forum is here for the people that have the phone, not for those that hate it.

dmb219 said:
The phone is what it is. If you don't like it for the way it looks or a feature that it has or doesn't have, don't buy it. If all you have to say is you hate the notch, spare us. There are a lot of phones I don't like. I don't buy them and I don't seek out their communities and complain about them. This forum is here for the people that have the phone, not for those that hate it.
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This! Sooo much this! Last year with the pixel 2 xl, there were so many trolls who had zero intention of ever buying the phone who came onto the forum just to talk sheet. One thread went hundreds of pages. It was ridiculous and stupid. If people like that really have that much time on their hands that they have to go troll things that have nothing to do with them, get a hobby or a life. Seriously. I'm surprised there isn't more yet on here. But, people have only begun to start getting their phones, so, I'm not holding my breath that it won't start.

It still looks like a toy next to any Samsung phones.
My note 9 looks like a monster next to my xl3.
I hate the notch. I'm not those people that will get over it.
I never will.
Anyway, display on xl3 looks great to me.
Camera is amazing.
Anything else