Best Google phone EVER! Every Pixel flagship ranked from WORST to BEST

**The Evolution of Google Pixel Phones: A Ranking from Worst to Best**

In this article, we will explore the evolution of Google Pixel phones, from their humble beginnings to the latest and greatest models. We will rank each model from worst to best based on its performance, features, and overall user experience.

**The Pixel 3 Series: A Mixed Bag**

The Pixel 3 Series was a mixed bag of emotions for users. On one hand, it brought some exciting features such as dual selfie cameras, which was something that Google hadn't seen on a Pixel before. The cameras also got some nice new software updates, including Night Sight and Super Zoom, which gave users excellent photos and videos. Additionally, the phone had IP67 water resistance, which is a significant improvement over its predecessor's IP67 rating. However, the phone's price was one of its biggest drawbacks, with the regular model starting at $799 and the XL model priced at $999. The screen was also quite bright, but not in a good way - it was considered one of the lowest brightest screens on a phone.

The battery life was another area where the Pixel 3 Series fell short. It was just shy of 11 hours of use, which is relatively low for a flagship phone. However, this phone does have some redeeming qualities, such as its iconic two-tone color on the back of the phone, which makes it stand out from other models.

**The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro: A Step Back**

The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro took a step back in terms of performance and features compared to their predecessors. The camera software was also not as refined as expected, with some users reporting issues with autofocus and exposure compensation. Additionally, the phone's battery life was quite short, and it struggled with heat issues, which made it uncomfortable to use for extended periods.

However, despite these drawbacks, the Pixel 6 Pro had some notable features, such as a high-quality display and a snappy performance. The phone also came with Android 11 out of the box, which provided a smooth user experience.

**The Pixel 7 and 7 Pro: A Solid Upgrade**

The Pixel 7 and 7 Pro were a significant upgrade over their predecessors in many ways. The camera software was improved significantly, with features like Photo and Blur, Clear Calling, and free access to Google One VPN. However, the phone's slow charging speed was a notable drawback.

Despite this, the Pixel 7 Pro had some impressive features, such as a high-quality display that was brighter and more punchy than its predecessor. The phone also came with Android 11 out of the box and had a solid performance under the hood.

**The Pixel 8 Series: A Great Effort**

The Pixel 8 series is arguably one of the best Google Pixel phones ever made. With seven years of OS and security updates, users can expect support until 2030. The phone also came with some exciting features like Circle to Search, Magic Editor, and Video Boost.

However, there were a few drawbacks that prevented it from being perfect. The Pixel 8 missed out on features like Video Boost Gemini at launch and manual camera controls, which are now available on the Pro model. Additionally, the phone had a temperature sensor that some users found unnecessary.

The price of the Pixel 8 series was also $100 higher than its predecessor, which may be off-putting for some buyers. However, the phone's charging speed was still slow compared to other flagships.

**Ranking Every Google Pixel Phone from Worst to Best**

After careful consideration, we have compiled a list ranking every Google Pixel phone from worst to best. Here is our list:

1. **Pixel 3 Series**: A mixed bag of emotions, with both exciting features and drawbacks that prevented it from being perfect.

2. **Pixel 7 and 7 Pro**: A solid upgrade over their predecessors, but slow charging speed held it back from being a top-notch phone.

3. **Pixel 6 and 6 Pro**: A step back in terms of performance and features compared to its predecessors, with some notable drawbacks like heat issues and short battery life.

4. **Pixel 8**: A great effort by Google, with exciting features and long-term support, but missing out on a few features and having slow charging speed.

We hope this article has provided you with an in-depth look at the evolution of Google Pixel phones, from their humble beginnings to the latest and greatest models.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhere at Android authority we love Google pixel phones and we've been reviewing them since the very first all the way back in 2016 they usually have the best cameras of any phone and depending on who you ask it's the best Android experience that you can get and this got us thinking what is the very best and the very worst of Google pixels phones before we get into the video if you like the latest and greatest from Android and enjoy some of the best reviews on the latest Android devices then subscribe to the Android authority YouTube channel so you don't miss out on anything also this video is brought to you by cook Tech 10 power bank and just stay tuned to later on because this is an impressive little power bank to rank the best and worst pixel phones we wanted to give every phone its Fair shots so there's no folds in this list and there's no a series either and there's a couple of things that we took into consideration we've looked it specs features importance of release and there's a bit of our own Android authority bias in there somewhere I know not all of you will agree with where we list our best and worst Google pixels so let us know in the comments down below where you run yours but let's start in stone cold last and you might be able to guess what this Google pixel is first in our list and it is the Google pixel 6 and the 6 Pro the pixel 6 was impressive on paper and as always it had great camera hardware and the pictures that it took were what you expected from a pixel at this point it had fairly big design change big batteries and price was something which we all enjoyed it was also a pretty ambitious release because this was the first phone in the pixel lineup That that had Google's tensor chip sadly as good as it was on paper it wasn't as good to use the tensor chip had pretty bad cellular connectivity and when your phone doesn't work as a phone it's never going to go down well couple this with phones that heated up hotter than the sun slower charging speeds than even I care to remember and fingerprint scanners where at launch they were pretty bad and to top it all off Google removed something which we love from Pixel phones and that was the unlimited high quality storage backup on Google photos so putting all of this together this is why the pixel 6 and 6 Pro comes firmly in last place I'm a bit sad of where we've had to rank the next phone and this was one of my favorites ever and I'm not sure why but coming in at seventh place is the pixel 4 and pixel 4 XL the reason I'm a bit sad of where this ranks is that I loved the design of the pixel 4 it's almost panda look it squeeze for assistant and A really lovely smooth 90 HZ display Astro photography was also introduced and I know most people barely use this or only used it a few times but this was a genuinely cool camera feature it also had a recorder app that was seen as a revelation by some and depending on where you sat it had a pretty good 3D Face Unlock that 3D Face Unlock though did come at the expense of a fingerprint reader and one of Google's newest biggest features with motion sense was blocked in a load of countries you add in the fact that we only had dual cameras on the pixel 4 when Samsung and Huawei were out there there offering triple camera setups and at the time it was also pretty expensive this ranked solo for one reason and one reason only is that it probably had the worst battery life that I've ever had on any Google pixel which means sadly for what I think is the best looking pixel in our list it falls into second to last place a lot of people say that sequels never live up to the hype of the original and I'm not sure people will right about this because next on the list is the Google pixel 2 and 2 XL there were a couple of Firsts on the pixel 2 and XL and one of my all-time favorites is now playing we also saw dust and water resistance for the first time with an IP67 rating and another first was eim support along with active Edge so you could squeeze for assistant 3 years of updates and some really solid cameras thingss look promising for the pixel 2 and pixel 2 XL it did though let itself down in some places despite mocking Apple the year before Google followed through and also removed the headphone jack and if you paid the huge $849 for the 2XL you had a pretty awful experience with the display and even if you went for that smaller pixel 2 you had bezels that were big enough to land planes on we also didn't get any wireless charging on either of these phones when Samsung and Apple had both fully embraced it even though the 2 and 2XL brought us some great features that we still use to they like now playing sadly it let itself down in more places than it did make itself look good so this is why it sits at number six on our list I don't really know what I feel about this next pixel it's not really good and it's also not really bad and that's why it sits right in the middle of our list and at five is the Google pixel 5 this was an interesting release for Google it still hadn't opted for triple cameras with every other major Flagship had and it's stuck with the same 12.2 megapixel camera it also opted to go with a pretty middle-of the range Snapdragon chip which actually meant the it was less powerful than the pixel 4 the year before and for whatever reason there was also no XL version of the pixel 5 so you were stuck with the smaller form factor whether you liked it or not and a lot of people did really like that smaller form factor and really liked that 90 HZ display 5G was introduced for the first time on Pixel and this was the last time we sadly ever saw a rear fingerprint reader and actually talking of lasts it's the last in the series to have the unlimited Google photos back up as well so a phone from Google that actually was okay it wasn't really good and it wasn't really bad at anything and that's why the Google pixel 5 aptly named sits at number five on the list before we have a look at the next ranking let me talk to you about the cook Tech 10 power bank and this is a seriously impressive 10,000 Mah hour power bank which has Ultra fast charging at 120 ws and you can charge the power bank to 55% in just 15 minutes it's lightweight Compact and airplane safe so you can take it wherever you need to and use its type A and typee C ports to charge your devices and of course you can use that real time display to see all the information you might need it's fantastic if you're a gamer as well because if you have a Nintendo switch for example it can charge that fully 1.3 times if the cook Tech 10 power bank sounds like a little bit of you check the description below for all the details you need to pick one of these up yourself without this next phone we wouldn't even be talking about a list of the best and worst pixels because this one is the original OG Google pixel this was undoubtedly a landmark release for Google and shapes a lot of what we see now Google wanted control over how Android could look and feel and the best way to do that was to create the Google pixel we saw Google Assistant integration unlimited original quality Google photo backup and 3 years of updates which at the time was really impressive by far the strongest selling point of the original Google pixel was its camera quality and it had some really impressive cameras with some really impressive HDR Plus and depending on who you ask Google pixel still carries that mantle today of being the best camera on any phone you can pick up shockingly though this was the only Google pixel to ever have a headphone ja it wasn't all great though and with a newn named first gem product you kind of come to expect it there is no water or dust resistance on either the smaller or the XL version no ois for the camera and even though the phones would get 3 years of updates you'd be lucky if it lasted that long with how prone it was was to get in chips and dents the other downside of the original pixel is that it was carry locked to Verizon in the US and the XL cost $849 because of this even though it was the first pixel it doesn't quite give it enough to make the top three and sits at number four next is arguably the best Google pixel before we entered that tensor era of phones and you probably know what this one is already but this is the Google pixel 3 and 3XL if I asked you to name one thing that stood out about the pixel 3 Series I would guess you would say that huge Notch that came with the 3XL and it got a lot of stick at the time for being one of the worst looking notches on a phone of all time but you know what I kind of liked it it allowed us to have dual selfie cameras which was something that we hadn't seen on a pixel before the cameras also got some nice new software updates as well things like night sight and I remember at the time finding night sight to be such a cool feature supered Zoom also gave the pixel 3 owner some really solid two times Zoom shots and that IP had jumped from 67 to what we all have now in ip68 and for the very first time we finally saw some wireless charging on a Google pixel one of the biggest failings of the pixel 3 Series though was its price and this was expensive $799 for the regular and $999 for the XL and and for that you wouldn't want any disappointment but sadly that is what you got with one of the lowest brightest screens I've seen on a phone in a long time and it was so annoying another irritating part was once again with the pixel phone the battery life was just not what you'd expect of a phone just shy of $11,000 this was the last pixel to also have the iconic two-tone color on the back of the phone and just for that alone it takes it into our top three and that is where the pixel 3 and 3XL sits the pixel 6 and 6 Pro was the worst pixel on our list so could its predecessor do any better well the pixel 7 and 7 Pro sits at number two and it's there for a reason the pixel 7 and 7 Pro pretty much fixed everything that was wrong the year before the awful cellular connectivity seemed to be pretty much fixed the pixel 6 had a load of bugs the pixel 7 fixed them the fingerprint scanner that didn't really work at large on the pixel 6 and also being fixed on the new 7 again it almost goes without saying on this list but the pixel 7 and 7 Pro had some really top quality cameras and it gave you some excellent photos and added some features such as photo and blur and you also got other features such as clear calling and maybe a lot of people didn't use this but you also got free access to Google one VPN which you can't really complain about of course there were issues with the pixel 7 and the biggest issue for us was its slow charging speed the charging was horribly slow and the battery could and should have been a bit better than it was and the phones still got hot which is something that Google didn't manage to fix T G2 was certainly better than the original but still laed behind some of its Rivals like Samsung and Apple the pixel 7 and 7 Pro though was a really solid phone and good effort by Google and the software experience was probably one of the best you'd ever have had on a Google pixel phone so that's why it makes number two on the list taking top spot of every single Google pixel phone probably is no surprise and it's the latest and greatest from Google it's the pixel 8 and the pixel 8 Pro this could be a bit of bias as it's still really fresh in my mind but the pixel 8 series really is a great phone there are 7 years of os and security updates taken us up until 2030 not that anyone will take advantage of this but it's still nice to have Google also gave some really cool AI features with circle to search magic editor and video boost the heating issues that laying the six and seven had mostly been fixed and it had some of the best displays that we've ever seen on any pixel they're brighter and puncher and they're just enjoyable to use the letdowns of the pixel 8 Series this year sadly was the pixel 8 it misses out on features such as video boost Gemini at launch and of course those manual camera controls it does also miss out on one of the weirdest inclusions in a phone that I've ever seen which is that temperature sensor and if any of you have ever use that temperature sensor more than once I'm going to eat my hat there was also a price increase of $100 this year which while annoying is kind of inevitable charging though is still slow compared to some of the other flagships which is something that we really want to be improved having said that though the Google pixel 8 and 8 Pro take the top spot on our list of ranking every single Google pixel from worst to best so let me know in the comments do you agree with our list and if you don't put in your own list in the comments cuz I'm curious to see you would rank some of these phones I dare one of you to put the pixel 4 at number one I'd love you forever before you head off though if you subscribe to the Android authority YouTube channel that means that you won't miss a single video that we upload so if you do that then I will see you in the next videohere at Android authority we love Google pixel phones and we've been reviewing them since the very first all the way back in 2016 they usually have the best cameras of any phone and depending on who you ask it's the best Android experience that you can get and this got us thinking what is the very best and the very worst of Google pixels phones before we get into the video if you like the latest and greatest from Android and enjoy some of the best reviews on the latest Android devices then subscribe to the Android authority YouTube channel so you don't miss out on anything also this video is brought to you by cook Tech 10 power bank and just stay tuned to later on because this is an impressive little power bank to rank the best and worst pixel phones we wanted to give every phone its Fair shots so there's no folds in this list and there's no a series either and there's a couple of things that we took into consideration we've looked it specs features importance of release and there's a bit of our own Android authority bias in there somewhere I know not all of you will agree with where we list our best and worst Google pixels so let us know in the comments down below where you run yours but let's start in stone cold last and you might be able to guess what this Google pixel is first in our list and it is the Google pixel 6 and the 6 Pro the pixel 6 was impressive on paper and as always it had great camera hardware and the pictures that it took were what you expected from a pixel at this point it had fairly big design change big batteries and price was something which we all enjoyed it was also a pretty ambitious release because this was the first phone in the pixel lineup That that had Google's tensor chip sadly as good as it was on paper it wasn't as good to use the tensor chip had pretty bad cellular connectivity and when your phone doesn't work as a phone it's never going to go down well couple this with phones that heated up hotter than the sun slower charging speeds than even I care to remember and fingerprint scanners where at launch they were pretty bad and to top it all off Google removed something which we love from Pixel phones and that was the unlimited high quality storage backup on Google photos so putting all of this together this is why the pixel 6 and 6 Pro comes firmly in last place I'm a bit sad of where we've had to rank the next phone and this was one of my favorites ever and I'm not sure why but coming in at seventh place is the pixel 4 and pixel 4 XL the reason I'm a bit sad of where this ranks is that I loved the design of the pixel 4 it's almost panda look it squeeze for assistant and A really lovely smooth 90 HZ display Astro photography was also introduced and I know most people barely use this or only used it a few times but this was a genuinely cool camera feature it also had a recorder app that was seen as a revelation by some and depending on where you sat it had a pretty good 3D Face Unlock that 3D Face Unlock though did come at the expense of a fingerprint reader and one of Google's newest biggest features with motion sense was blocked in a load of countries you add in the fact that we only had dual cameras on the pixel 4 when Samsung and Huawei were out there there offering triple camera setups and at the time it was also pretty expensive this ranked solo for one reason and one reason only is that it probably had the worst battery life that I've ever had on any Google pixel which means sadly for what I think is the best looking pixel in our list it falls into second to last place a lot of people say that sequels never live up to the hype of the original and I'm not sure people will right about this because next on the list is the Google pixel 2 and 2 XL there were a couple of Firsts on the pixel 2 and XL and one of my all-time favorites is now playing we also saw dust and water resistance for the first time with an IP67 rating and another first was eim support along with active Edge so you could squeeze for assistant 3 years of updates and some really solid cameras thingss look promising for the pixel 2 and pixel 2 XL it did though let itself down in some places despite mocking Apple the year before Google followed through and also removed the headphone jack and if you paid the huge $849 for the 2XL you had a pretty awful experience with the display and even if you went for that smaller pixel 2 you had bezels that were big enough to land planes on we also didn't get any wireless charging on either of these phones when Samsung and Apple had both fully embraced it even though the 2 and 2XL brought us some great features that we still use to they like now playing sadly it let itself down in more places than it did make itself look good so this is why it sits at number six on our list I don't really know what I feel about this next pixel it's not really good and it's also not really bad and that's why it sits right in the middle of our list and at five is the Google pixel 5 this was an interesting release for Google it still hadn't opted for triple cameras with every other major Flagship had and it's stuck with the same 12.2 megapixel camera it also opted to go with a pretty middle-of the range Snapdragon chip which actually meant the it was less powerful than the pixel 4 the year before and for whatever reason there was also no XL version of the pixel 5 so you were stuck with the smaller form factor whether you liked it or not and a lot of people did really like that smaller form factor and really liked that 90 HZ display 5G was introduced for the first time on Pixel and this was the last time we sadly ever saw a rear fingerprint reader and actually talking of lasts it's the last in the series to have the unlimited Google photos back up as well so a phone from Google that actually was okay it wasn't really good and it wasn't really bad at anything and that's why the Google pixel 5 aptly named sits at number five on the list before we have a look at the next ranking let me talk to you about the cook Tech 10 power bank and this is a seriously impressive 10,000 Mah hour power bank which has Ultra fast charging at 120 ws and you can charge the power bank to 55% in just 15 minutes it's lightweight Compact and airplane safe so you can take it wherever you need to and use its type A and typee C ports to charge your devices and of course you can use that real time display to see all the information you might need it's fantastic if you're a gamer as well because if you have a Nintendo switch for example it can charge that fully 1.3 times if the cook Tech 10 power bank sounds like a little bit of you check the description below for all the details you need to pick one of these up yourself without this next phone we wouldn't even be talking about a list of the best and worst pixels because this one is the original OG Google pixel this was undoubtedly a landmark release for Google and shapes a lot of what we see now Google wanted control over how Android could look and feel and the best way to do that was to create the Google pixel we saw Google Assistant integration unlimited original quality Google photo backup and 3 years of updates which at the time was really impressive by far the strongest selling point of the original Google pixel was its camera quality and it had some really impressive cameras with some really impressive HDR Plus and depending on who you ask Google pixel still carries that mantle today of being the best camera on any phone you can pick up shockingly though this was the only Google pixel to ever have a headphone ja it wasn't all great though and with a newn named first gem product you kind of come to expect it there is no water or dust resistance on either the smaller or the XL version no ois for the camera and even though the phones would get 3 years of updates you'd be lucky if it lasted that long with how prone it was was to get in chips and dents the other downside of the original pixel is that it was carry locked to Verizon in the US and the XL cost $849 because of this even though it was the first pixel it doesn't quite give it enough to make the top three and sits at number four next is arguably the best Google pixel before we entered that tensor era of phones and you probably know what this one is already but this is the Google pixel 3 and 3XL if I asked you to name one thing that stood out about the pixel 3 Series I would guess you would say that huge Notch that came with the 3XL and it got a lot of stick at the time for being one of the worst looking notches on a phone of all time but you know what I kind of liked it it allowed us to have dual selfie cameras which was something that we hadn't seen on a pixel before the cameras also got some nice new software updates as well things like night sight and I remember at the time finding night sight to be such a cool feature supered Zoom also gave the pixel 3 owner some really solid two times Zoom shots and that IP had jumped from 67 to what we all have now in ip68 and for the very first time we finally saw some wireless charging on a Google pixel one of the biggest failings of the pixel 3 Series though was its price and this was expensive $799 for the regular and $999 for the XL and and for that you wouldn't want any disappointment but sadly that is what you got with one of the lowest brightest screens I've seen on a phone in a long time and it was so annoying another irritating part was once again with the pixel phone the battery life was just not what you'd expect of a phone just shy of $11,000 this was the last pixel to also have the iconic two-tone color on the back of the phone and just for that alone it takes it into our top three and that is where the pixel 3 and 3XL sits the pixel 6 and 6 Pro was the worst pixel on our list so could its predecessor do any better well the pixel 7 and 7 Pro sits at number two and it's there for a reason the pixel 7 and 7 Pro pretty much fixed everything that was wrong the year before the awful cellular connectivity seemed to be pretty much fixed the pixel 6 had a load of bugs the pixel 7 fixed them the fingerprint scanner that didn't really work at large on the pixel 6 and also being fixed on the new 7 again it almost goes without saying on this list but the pixel 7 and 7 Pro had some really top quality cameras and it gave you some excellent photos and added some features such as photo and blur and you also got other features such as clear calling and maybe a lot of people didn't use this but you also got free access to Google one VPN which you can't really complain about of course there were issues with the pixel 7 and the biggest issue for us was its slow charging speed the charging was horribly slow and the battery could and should have been a bit better than it was and the phones still got hot which is something that Google didn't manage to fix T G2 was certainly better than the original but still laed behind some of its Rivals like Samsung and Apple the pixel 7 and 7 Pro though was a really solid phone and good effort by Google and the software experience was probably one of the best you'd ever have had on a Google pixel phone so that's why it makes number two on the list taking top spot of every single Google pixel phone probably is no surprise and it's the latest and greatest from Google it's the pixel 8 and the pixel 8 Pro this could be a bit of bias as it's still really fresh in my mind but the pixel 8 series really is a great phone there are 7 years of os and security updates taken us up until 2030 not that anyone will take advantage of this but it's still nice to have Google also gave some really cool AI features with circle to search magic editor and video boost the heating issues that laying the six and seven had mostly been fixed and it had some of the best displays that we've ever seen on any pixel they're brighter and puncher and they're just enjoyable to use the letdowns of the pixel 8 Series this year sadly was the pixel 8 it misses out on features such as video boost Gemini at launch and of course those manual camera controls it does also miss out on one of the weirdest inclusions in a phone that I've ever seen which is that temperature sensor and if any of you have ever use that temperature sensor more than once I'm going to eat my hat there was also a price increase of $100 this year which while annoying is kind of inevitable charging though is still slow compared to some of the other flagships which is something that we really want to be improved having said that though the Google pixel 8 and 8 Pro take the top spot on our list of ranking every single Google pixel from worst to best so let me know in the comments do you agree with our list and if you don't put in your own list in the comments cuz I'm curious to see you would rank some of these phones I dare one of you to put the pixel 4 at number one I'd love you forever before you head off though if you subscribe to the Android authority YouTube channel that means that you won't miss a single video that we upload so if you do that then I will see you in the next video\n"