And personally, I won't buy anything directly from Google ever again. Their customer service for me has been terrible. I'll happily buy another Pixel, but from pretty much anybody else.
I loved my Pixel, but Google's customer service experience is so poor that it completely drove me away from the line altogether. Doesn't look like things have gotten any better since I went to Apple (which definitely has problems of its own but at least has listened to critiques and responded in the past).
Good thing they didn't open the Google Store for Europe, now they can close it for all I care, I had to jump through hoops to get my Pixel. The Pixel battery was much worse than the battery of my wife's iPhone. Now I am sporting her old phone because I don't give a shit about the latest and greatest anymore.
There's this meme that Google has terrible customer support that is years out of date. When you have a problem with a Google product that you actually paid for (like one of their hardware devices), experiences are generally good. I had a replacement Nexus 5X shipped with no problem, for instance.
I had issues with my pixel 2 and pixel 3, both of them were poorly handled by Google support...
I was a terrible critic of apple but now I own an iPhone just because I am fairly certain that I will be better treated if something happens and there's an actual physical store.
Same. I had a terrible experience with Google CS and the original Pixel, which I ended up throwing in the garbage after less than a year because it was defective and they wouldn't do anything about it. Will never make that mistake again.
I'm new on the "Won't buy another Pixel phone". Both my wife's and my phones (5a) just died out of the blue, within a few months of each other. Hers just a day before warranty expired. I'd had niggles with an earlier generation Pixel that had me starting to ask questions about future purchases, but the 5a experience really put the nail in that coffin.
It was a pain to get mine repaired by them. They sent me to a "local" repair shop (40ish minutes drive away), who despite being their only authorized repair shop in the area, couldn't get any parts off Google for it, and wouldn't for months to come (and indicated this is just a constant story for them, and that what I was seeing was very common). Google essentially wasted a bunch of my time driving back and forth to repair shops. Then I had to send it to them and it sat unacknowledged (despite having delivery confirmation) for well over a week. They did at least send me a complete replacement, but my assumption has to be it's going to do exactly the same thing again.
For my wife's phone, they argued that because I clicked a wrong button in their repair website despite logging the phone as broken in time that it died after the warranty expired. I had a long argument with them, then gave up and decided I'd take my trade elsewhere.
In both cases, their attitude towards me as a customer was absolute bullshit. I've never had to work so hard to get someone to acknowledge that a phone could stop working, without having done anything to it.
I like the hardware and the pure Android experience as an end user. I'm not willing to deal with hostile customer support to get it.
I was limping along on a fading Nexus 5X (goes to sleep for a night, then revives) and refusing to pay the outrageous prices for the Pixels. Huawei has a phone I was eyeing, and I would have dumped Google Fi. But the Pixel 3a came out at exactly the right time, so I am still in the Google fold for this product cycle. But this story cured me of ever buying a phone directly from Google. Just like one shouldn't buy web hosting and domain registration from the same entity, the lesson here is never buy a device directly from Google. The risk is just too great.
+1. I'll never buy Google hardware again. 6 weeks ago, my Pixel C tablet bricked itself playing Minecraft: Pocket Edition (my guess is that the heat corrupted some of the flash memory). Google agreed to replace it under warranty, but they didn't manage to address the package correctly (they forgot to include some details, like the street, city, zipcode, and state (according to FedEx)).
What followed was 4 weeks of calls to Google support. Each time they promised they would reach out to the "shipping partner" and get it sorted. I was also receiving emails threatening to charge me the full cost of the replacement device because I hadn't sent in the broken tablet yet.
Eventually the package got delivered... back to the Google warehouse. Google wasn't aware of this until I called them up - their system assumed it had been delivered to my house. Another promise to fix the situation - and this time they managed to actually get a package to my house. Only it was a Pixel C Keyboard, not a tablet.
Another call, another promise. It's been over a week now and the latest package has not yet been shipped, it's stuck in the order confirmed state.
So, 6 weeks later, still no replacement. Luckily the tablet is mostly for entertainment, I personally plan to never rely on Google for anything important like making a living.
I'm never buying another Google device after the customer support horror I went through for my Pixel C tablet.
I guess the customer support horror I went through when they canceled my phone number out of the blue in Google Fi is also factored into that decision (took two months to get my phone number back), but to be fair, that wasn't an issue with their hardware.
I mentioned this in another thread here before, but I've had 3 Pixel 5a devices completely die on me. Dealing with Google support was such a pain I gave up. My first one died nicely within warranty, and they sent me to a "local" authorised store. Who confirmed it was dead, complete motherboard failure, and then told me that google was refusing to ship them the parts they needed for a repairs. Google sorted out returns after a little badgering, and then the device just sat there collected but not being processed at all, no indications of progress or whatnot until suddenly a new device arrived.
Then my wife's one died a few days before the end of her warranty. They sent us to the local store, who again confirmed same issue. Motherboard dead. Google told them they'd follow up with us, and then after a few days I reached out to them but because that was now out of warranty they refused to replace the device. I completely gave up at that point. It wasn't worth it to get a replacement device that would likely die just like our previous two had, so we bought a non-Google replacement. That argument with google over warrant was so ridiculous and so frustrating, for an amount of money that they'd blink and not miss, we just swore off buying google hardware ever again.
Then just a month ago, my warranty replacement died in exactly the same way. Technically speaking I could get a replacement, as I understand it. No way I'm going to go through all that hassle again.
I was thinking about it, my credit card has always been extremely good about stuff like this. However, I use google for everything, my entire life is on it. I'd rather lose the $649 I paid for the pixel, then get blackballed from google services.
So for now, I'm just patiently awaiting their response and hopefully they'll give me the green light to mail it in for a replacement or something.
On the contrary, because I bought the Nexus 6P from the Google Store, they replaced it with a Pixel XL for free. The Google experience is terrible through a third party, but their Google 'direct' experience is pretty darn fantastic.
Google pushed away frugal customers. That was a very smart business decision for them.
When Google sells a Pixel 8 Pro for $999, they’re sending a signal that says “our phone is just as good as the iPhone.”
I think your story points to how the Nexus line was basically an unfinished product where Google wasn’t even willing to attempt to sell it at a profitable price point until they could buy a hardware designer (HTC) and integrate that company into Google to produce a comprehensive product. Your Nexus phone had to be entirely replaced and yet you only gave the company $500. So they just sold two flagship phones for $250 each. That’s not a business, that’s a charity.
My Nexus 5X bootlooped right in front of my eyes with no user intervention.
The Nexus lineup wasn’t as good as an iPhone (nor a Samsung or Huawei phone for that matter) and that’s why nobody paid iPhone money for it.
I had not one but two 'under warranty' problems with my Pixel 5 that they acknowledged but because I'm not in the country I bought it in, (and I haven't been back there since COVID began) they wouldn't repair it.
Since one of the problems was with the logic board it was not even really possible for me to pay for a repair in a reasonable way.
I ended up buying a pixel 4a, because I didn't want to switch ecosystem, so went for the cheapest Google phone. Might not be able to avoid giving Google/Apple money, but I can certainly avoid buying the flagship devices.
I had a Google Pixel phone. Less than a year old old. Treated with kid gloves. Always kept in a case. Pristine condition.
An approved Google software update bricked it. This was, by all accounts, a known issue.
The phone was under warranty. I sent it back.
They shipped me a scratched up refurbished phone. It ran fine for a week then bricked itself due to the same software update. I sent that back.
They sent me another, even worse scratched up refurbished phone. That too bricked after a week due to the software update.
I've got $3,000 worth of hold charges on my CC whilst Google are playing footsie with my phones. I sent that phone back.
They "lost" it and claimed I sent back a different phone. Then that became that I sent back a phone with a different serial number. Then a different model of phone. I pressed for details but they could never tell me any details about the phone I had allegedly sent back.
They wanted me to pay for all the phones, then eventually just the one phone that was missing. Finally Google admitted "we lost the phone but that's your problem."
After a month I said "fine, you fix this shit or I am doing a charge back." They didn't fix it. I did a credit card charge back for the thousands of dollars currently on hold on my card.
Google decided to disable my Google payments account so I couldn't use the Playstore. Or buy groceries using Google Pay. Or process any subscription items attached to the Google payments account. Or access my store rewards cards stored in my Google Pay wallet.
Google still owed me for the cost of the original phone that was a brick that I no longer possessed after it was sent to Google.
I took Google to small claims, and won.
Google decided that wasn't to their liking and disabled the Google account attached to the phone.
Fuck Google.
P.S. Please stop up-voting. This is not a vote-worthy post. It is simply a "this is what happened." Save your attention for something that is worthy. Save your anger for things that matter.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I had a Nexus 6P and after that experience I promised myself that I will never buy a Google hardware device ever again. The company has the wrong mentality regarding its handsets and how to take care of the customers who buy them.
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