The Pixel Experience: A Disappointment from Google's Flagship Device

As I held the Pixel 4 XL in my hands, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and anticipation for what this device had to offer. After all, Google was known for its focus on software experience, and I had high hopes that this would be no exception. However, as I began to explore the device's features and functionality, I started to feel a growing sense of disappointment.

One of my primary concerns with the Pixel 4 XL is its inconsistent design language. The navigation bar, in particular, looks sloppy and unrefined compared to other Android devices on the market. Google's insistence on keeping the navbar, despite user requests to remove it, feels like a holdover from previous generations of phones. And while I understand that some features may not be possible due to hardware limitations, I wish there was more flexibility in customizing the look and feel of the device.

Another issue I have with the Pixel 4 XL is its lack of customization options. Google has traditionally been known for its focus on software experience, but when it comes to the Pixel series, this seems to take a backseat. Split screen mode, for example, feels half-hearted compared to other devices on the market. On Samsung devices, split screen mode is seamless and intuitive, but on the Pixel 4 XL, it's more of an afterthought.

The lack of customization options extends to other areas as well. The system font, in particular, is a disappointment. I've grown accustomed to the clean and modern design of Samsung's system font, and I'm not pleased with the Google alternative. There seems to be no way to change this font to something more pleasing, which is a small but significant complaint.

Furthermore, the Pixel 4 XL has some notable visual quirks that detract from its overall appeal. The introduction of Android 12 brought about a new transition animation that feels cheap and unpolished. This speckled effect looks like it belongs in an older generation of phones, rather than on a flagship device like the Pixel 4 XL. I've found this animation to be inconsistent throughout apps and even in certain unlocks, which is frustrating.

The Pixel 4 XL's face unlock feature also fails to impress. Despite factory reset and other attempts to get it working, the feature remains broken. This is particularly disappointing given Google's history of innovation in this area.

In conclusion, my experience with the Pixel 4 XL has been a letdown. While I was initially excited about the prospect of using Google's flagship device, I've found that there are too many things that don't work for me. The inconsistent design language, lack of customization options, and visual quirks all contribute to a sense of disappointment. Unless significant changes are made in future updates, I'm afraid I won't be switching to the Pixel 4 XL anytime soon.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello galaxy i'm chris pirillo and you're watching the locker gnome daily report or tldr for short i am streaming live every night on twitch you can feel free to join me and the rest of the community over there i'm geeking out right now as i'm recording the video i'm actually streaming it to the community who's watching me do this live i want to tell you the things that i don't like possibly even hate about the pastel 6 pro which i've been using for a few days i've done a couple videos and i will continue to do videos about this device and on this device over the coming months especially as other flagships get released from other manufacturers uh the pastel six pro is definitely the latest pixel that's a nice thing i can say to start off this video i will be recording a separate video about the things that i love or like about this device so just understand i'm sharing my experience my perspectives my personal opinions just if they they don't align with yours well you know what are you gonna do i mean we we can still get along right we just may look for different things in these devices that we use and that we might care about keep in mind i've been using pixel devices going all the way back to the pixel 2 xl so i know what makes a good pixel experience what makes a good pixel experience is not in my humble opinion the pixel 6 pro and yes i'm going to call it the pixel 6 pro i was saying past l6 pro because one of the things that i really don't like about it is the material u it's more an android 12 thing but let's face it it's android 12 on a pixel 6 and and that's way that google wants android to be i don't like material u not because of the idea but because of the execution i think it's a step in the right direction but it just it it doesn't offer anything beyond a pastel color i want a monochromatic experience i don't want a partially monochromatic experience i want a full monochromatic experience that's it just like a gray just give me can i can i get a gray this is gray but the software itself no you gotta have blue no no no you need blue you need color in your life i don't want color in my life i just i'm good i got enough color i just want gray just make it gray simple straightforward uh that's my choice that's my preference so uh this was not really um something that i enjoyed or appreciated the material you and the way it's being executed today i think still needs some time to bake uh forget about support in all of google's apps or third-party apps that will come over time but not as interesting to me unless i could choose my color let me choose my color you're making a material you another thing that i really don't like almost hate is the fact that dark mode is not really dark mode it's dark ish mode like me when it comes to dark mode is like black give me black black black full on black black black this is black you see see the screen right now the wallpaper black completely black it blend it's gone doesn't exist but dark mode is like more like gray like a light gray which is fine i'll take that over white but i would rather have just a complete blackout and maybe if i had a complete blackout the pastel colors wouldn't be so bothersome but it's the fact that the pastel colors are sitting on top of a gray and i'm like can you just give me a full on black mode dark dark true dark amoled dark like it's possible to do you just can't do it on the pixel so i don't like the dark mode i don't like material u uh i i i'm just gonna rattle off i've got a list here in front of me uh another thing i don't like in no particular order by the way this isn't ranked um when i was testing the camera that's another video i'm gonna be uh or a couple videos i'm gonna be doing with this device over the coming days uh the screen wasn't very bright outdoors or wasn't bright enough and even this uh weather in seattle we had uh usually it's rainy this time of year but we had a couple of bright days the sun was actually out in seattle and it was very dim the screen itself was very very dim not just when i was using the camera but just trying to operate the software in broad daylight that was a challenge on this device didn't like it so that was my experience with brightness cranked all the way up and i don't know maybe maybe it was my phone i it could have been my phone but like i said the brightness was cranked all the way up uh another thing i didn't like is that uh i did not want to switch to this device immediately so all those things that i talked about before just started to add up all those things on top of the other things i'm going to be mentioning it i just didn't feel like despite me thinking i was going to switch from the samsung galaxy s21 ultra to the pixel 6 pro like within an hour i'm like i don't think it's going to happen like i really don't and the more i use it the less likely i believe i'm going to be switching to this device at least in the near term so i don't like that i don't like the fact that that i spent my money and and i'm going to be keeping the device because i need it to compare it against other flagships as they get released over the coming months uh i have no intention on returning it uh it's it's it's it's if i wasn't doing what i did these tech videos or doing twitch every night and geeking out and people asking me my opinions i don't know if i'd be keeping it any at this point because it's not it's not a pixel experience i was expecting they improved the hardware but the software the thing the pixel was known for i feel kind of got sidelined uh and i say that because as i've been testing the camera it's scatter shot like sometimes the images are great sometimes they're not sometimes it's like they're using the processing that they used in the pixel 4 xl without accommodating the fact that allegedly they have i mean they do have new lenses but like it just doesn't seem like they're taking advantage of them so they haven't tweaked their algorithm yet with the camera output dark mode is worse or like night mode or whatever the hell you call it on the camera is is worse in many situations which is shocking to me i don't remember ever having a pixel experience with software that was as questionable as it has been for the pixel 6 pro in the first couple of days even with the first drop of like system updates within the first day or so uh that was shocking so the camera hasn't been what i thought it was going to be i don't like that because i love the pixel camera look in general but it it and maybe it'll improve over time out of the gate some of the shots that i'm taking on this not as impressive as the shots i've been taking on other devices too much lag i cannot use a device as too much lag you know this and it is prevalent again could be early on uh but all the more reason that this is probably going to be a different device six months from now than it is today but the problem is i'm not using the device six months from now i'm using it right now i'm being asked for my opinion right now i'm giving you my experiences right now i can only talk to you about the right now and right now there's too much lag there's lag in various spots will it be tweaked i guess maybe possibly you don't know no one knows uh it's it's likely uh but certain third-party apps like amazon or uh uh like twitter these are apps that are juddery everywhere but it's even more pronounced on the pixel 6 pro uh and those are just a couple apps i ran into a few others that that also had lag i'm not going to document every single app that has lag suffice to say even in the launcher itself there is lag at times so there's a lot of optimization that needs to be done that may or may not happen it isn't there today speaking of launcher i do not like the pixel launcher at all i don't like it it's it's not even just bare bones it's like they're not doing anything with it nothing interesting nothing helpful i mean there's some minor tweaks to it but i never liked the pixel launcher to begin with it's one of the reasons why i switched over to using a third-party launcher but the problem with using a third-party launcher now is that the way i guess that they've managed the navbar experience in android from 11 and 12. third-party launchers are buggy not because of what they are i don't care which one you use there are bugs that are introduced or issues that are introduced when you use a third-party launcher in android 11 and 12. to the point where third-party launcher developers some of them have given up because like google's saying no no we we we're not interested in helping improve third-party launchers so i'm just saying i can't even use a third-party launcher without it introducing other inconsistencies so the pixel launcher compared to other first party pixel or other first party launchers on other devices yeah the pixel launcher needs a lot of help uh another thing that i don't like is the circular keycap design i'm still getting used to it this is a minor uh you know complaint but the board and i love g board i like the design of the old g board and now they've made the key presses circular like the pops up everything's circular and it's just taking some getting used to and maybe i will get used to it over time but i think i like the more uh the rectangly squared off look if only because on the pixel you've got your your capsules right at the top those are those aren't circular they're they're rounded corners on rectangles so why aren't the keys the same so it's like it's like a slight inconsistency between those two things then speaking of you know your circular icons why can't i mean i don't i think they remove the the option to change the shape of the at least i maybe i gotta look hang on let me let me just check i thought i could not find a way yeah dark theme themed icons and app grid that's it that's all i can do i can't change the the shapes of the icons they're all gonna be circular so it's like they removed the customization options who knows if they're coming back so it just like i said just one inconsistency after another after another after another i've run into random glitches and ui snags i've screenshotted a few and posted them on social i'm not talking about app crashes that's a completely different complaint by the way i've heard i've been told that if you're running into app crashes you have to do a factory reset and not back up from a backup or restore from a backup i should say uh but what's the point like if i can't restore from a backup i'm starting from scratch to get rid of app crashes that sounds like it's a problem with google not me so i didn't do that i haven't had too many app crashes if if any at all at least on this particular device i'm talking about just glitches like like software that's not quite fully baked yet like everything is still in beta and and the pixel still feels like it's still in beta though it's a final device a final product it still feels like it's in beta with android 12 still feeling like it's in beta the pixel experience should be software and i'm not feeling it um notification layout and design and maybe this could be negative i could have a true black dark mode uh i just i don't like the look and feel of it as much as i do on other devices there's just something that's a little off-putting about it uh it could take some getting used to but at this point i'm not going to be using it as a daily driver so i'm like all right maybe they'll improve it maybe they won't maybe that's the look they want to go with this year pixel is like changing everything every seemingly every year to try to get to a group of people who want the pixel but that's my question is who's the pixel 4 i don't know if it's going to win over iphone users i don't know if it's going to win over samsung or other android users it's going to win over pixel users because they're pixel users but even me as a pixel user i'm looking at and going i can't i i can't as much as i would want to i can't uh the navbar nonsense so this is difficult to explain certain apps treat the nav bar differently than other apps uh the best example okay i've got test ufo still up here i was showcasing this the other day uh in the live stream uh frame rates uh on test ufo um so you've got the nav bar at the bottom but like chrome is just one example out of thousands of apps that just they don't have a transparent background sometimes that background is white sometimes it's black sometimes it's non-existent it's it's it's incongruent between apps so that creates incongruency between apps and that is very very prevalent i don't know if google chrome's going to fix this problem if they even see it as a problem but it creates incongruency when you flip between apps and some apps have this when you switch to the task switching mode a dark bar at the top and a dark bar at the bottom and some have light and then a non-existent bar it's just it's inconsistent it looks sloppy and i would love to be able to turn off the navbar which you can do by the way on other android devices but google says no got to have the nav bar yeah you got to do it this way that's just it's the pixel way okay cool that's a pixel away it's not my way uh and i can't customize it because google doesn't really allow for a lot of customization on the pixel anymore not that they had a lot to begin with um split screen something that i use very often is half-hearted especially compared to other split-screen software experiences on other devices for example on samsung we do split screen very well by comparison google's still messing around with it that might be addressed with android 12 l if i'm to understand what's coming down the pike but right now i don't have android 12l i only have this and i only have this software uh so the split screen i can't even use uh by comparison uh the back gesture arrow i don't really like uh at all uh it it it like it hovers over but it's there's no background to it the the the arrow that that slides over when you go back and it just i don't know it just it's not floating really it's there but there's no like drop shadow to indicate that it's above the layer of the app it's just at the same layer as the app and it just doesn't look as clean as it could as i've seen it experienced on other android devices um another thing that i have to note the system font i i don't like the system font and and that's possibly because i've grown so accustomed to samsung's system font which i love and and the fact that samsung just it's it's so clean and it's not gonna say perfect but i just like it better than i like google's system font and there's no way to effectively change to my knowledge effectively change the font i can change the size that doesn't help so i just don't like the font and by comparison that's something i could probably get over small complaint but as i said early like these things add up for me like this is not just one thing it's one thing on top of another on top of another on top of another another thing that's really kind of i'm not gonna say janky chintzy is the best word to use they introduced a transition like an animation in android 12 and i thought i got rid of it where it's like this kind of speckled like transition is it just looks chintzy it looks cheap it looks like i just it doesn't look finished it doesn't look polished this speckled transition like what's going on with that i don't like it it just doesn't look it doesn't look modern it feels like it belongs like a decade ago so it's there and i've found it throughout apps some apps have it some apps don't some unlocks have it some some some don't i found it when i unlocked diana's device uh just because i was getting her set up on the pixel 4 xl and by the way the pixel 4 xl face unlock doesn't work face unlock has not worked on the pixel 4 xl with android 12 and it doesn't work on the final build of android 12 either despite factory reset etc things are broken i the pixel what made the pixel great was the software experience and they raised the bar with hardware but they left the software to the sidelines and i'm telling you it's not one thing it's one on top of the other on top of the other so uh in summation i have to ask who is this for um in summation i have to suggest possibly uh i'm not making any recommendations i'm just telling you i don't know if i could use this uh every day i don't know if it's if if it's going to dramatically improve within six three months one month six months is it going to change that much and by then are other flagships out that draw even more attention away from the pixel that have a demonstrably better software experience as i've discovered despite the samsung-ness of a samsung device even with good lock um so maybe you know i would continue to revisit it but as of right now as i said early on i don't intend on switching to this and that's a to me it's a disappointment um because i wanted to switch to this i was excited for it as as someone who considered themselves once a pixel fan i i i don't i there's too many things that i don't like about this experience and i i'm that i like in other experiences so it doesn't stack up for me it doesn't work for me there are many things that i do like and i'll be documenting those tomorrowhello galaxy i'm chris pirillo and you're watching the locker gnome daily report or tldr for short i am streaming live every night on twitch you can feel free to join me and the rest of the community over there i'm geeking out right now as i'm recording the video i'm actually streaming it to the community who's watching me do this live i want to tell you the things that i don't like possibly even hate about the pastel 6 pro which i've been using for a few days i've done a couple videos and i will continue to do videos about this device and on this device over the coming months especially as other flagships get released from other manufacturers uh the pastel six pro is definitely the latest pixel that's a nice thing i can say to start off this video i will be recording a separate video about the things that i love or like about this device so just understand i'm sharing my experience my perspectives my personal opinions just if they they don't align with yours well you know what are you gonna do i mean we we can still get along right we just may look for different things in these devices that we use and that we might care about keep in mind i've been using pixel devices going all the way back to the pixel 2 xl so i know what makes a good pixel experience what makes a good pixel experience is not in my humble opinion the pixel 6 pro and yes i'm going to call it the pixel 6 pro i was saying past l6 pro because one of the things that i really don't like about it is the material u it's more an android 12 thing but let's face it it's android 12 on a pixel 6 and and that's way that google wants android to be i don't like material u not because of the idea but because of the execution i think it's a step in the right direction but it just it it doesn't offer anything beyond a pastel color i want a monochromatic experience i don't want a partially monochromatic experience i want a full monochromatic experience that's it just like a gray just give me can i can i get a gray this is gray but the software itself no you gotta have blue no no no you need blue you need color in your life i don't want color in my life i just i'm good i got enough color i just want gray just make it gray simple straightforward uh that's my choice that's my preference so uh this was not really um something that i enjoyed or appreciated the material you and the way it's being executed today i think still needs some time to bake uh forget about support in all of google's apps or third-party apps that will come over time but not as interesting to me unless i could choose my color let me choose my color you're making a material you another thing that i really don't like almost hate is the fact that dark mode is not really dark mode it's dark ish mode like me when it comes to dark mode is like black give me black black black full on black black black this is black you see see the screen right now the wallpaper black completely black it blend it's gone doesn't exist but dark mode is like more like gray like a light gray which is fine i'll take that over white but i would rather have just a complete blackout and maybe if i had a complete blackout the pastel colors wouldn't be so bothersome but it's the fact that the pastel colors are sitting on top of a gray and i'm like can you just give me a full on black mode dark dark true dark amoled dark like it's possible to do you just can't do it on the pixel so i don't like the dark mode i don't like material u uh i i i'm just gonna rattle off i've got a list here in front of me uh another thing i don't like in no particular order by the way this isn't ranked um when i was testing the camera that's another video i'm gonna be uh or a couple videos i'm gonna be doing with this device over the coming days uh the screen wasn't very bright outdoors or wasn't bright enough and even this uh weather in seattle we had uh usually it's rainy this time of year but we had a couple of bright days the sun was actually out in seattle and it was very dim the screen itself was very very dim not just when i was using the camera but just trying to operate the software in broad daylight that was a challenge on this device didn't like it so that was my experience with brightness cranked all the way up and i don't know maybe maybe it was my phone i it could have been my phone but like i said the brightness was cranked all the way up uh another thing i didn't like is that uh i did not want to switch to this device immediately so all those things that i talked about before just started to add up all those things on top of the other things i'm going to be mentioning it i just didn't feel like despite me thinking i was going to switch from the samsung galaxy s21 ultra to the pixel 6 pro like within an hour i'm like i don't think it's going to happen like i really don't and the more i use it the less likely i believe i'm going to be switching to this device at least in the near term so i don't like that i don't like the fact that that i spent my money and and i'm going to be keeping the device because i need it to compare it against other flagships as they get released over the coming months uh i have no intention on returning it uh it's it's it's it's if i wasn't doing what i did these tech videos or doing twitch every night and geeking out and people asking me my opinions i don't know if i'd be keeping it any at this point because it's not it's not a pixel experience i was expecting they improved the hardware but the software the thing the pixel was known for i feel kind of got sidelined uh and i say that because as i've been testing the camera it's scatter shot like sometimes the images are great sometimes they're not sometimes it's like they're using the processing that they used in the pixel 4 xl without accommodating the fact that allegedly they have i mean they do have new lenses but like it just doesn't seem like they're taking advantage of them so they haven't tweaked their algorithm yet with the camera output dark mode is worse or like night mode or whatever the hell you call it on the camera is is worse in many situations which is shocking to me i don't remember ever having a pixel experience with software that was as questionable as it has been for the pixel 6 pro in the first couple of days even with the first drop of like system updates within the first day or so uh that was shocking so the camera hasn't been what i thought it was going to be i don't like that because i love the pixel camera look in general but it it and maybe it'll improve over time out of the gate some of the shots that i'm taking on this not as impressive as the shots i've been taking on other devices too much lag i cannot use a device as too much lag you know this and it is prevalent again could be early on uh but all the more reason that this is probably going to be a different device six months from now than it is today but the problem is i'm not using the device six months from now i'm using it right now i'm being asked for my opinion right now i'm giving you my experiences right now i can only talk to you about the right now and right now there's too much lag there's lag in various spots will it be tweaked i guess maybe possibly you don't know no one knows uh it's it's likely uh but certain third-party apps like amazon or uh uh like twitter these are apps that are juddery everywhere but it's even more pronounced on the pixel 6 pro uh and those are just a couple apps i ran into a few others that that also had lag i'm not going to document every single app that has lag suffice to say even in the launcher itself there is lag at times so there's a lot of optimization that needs to be done that may or may not happen it isn't there today speaking of launcher i do not like the pixel launcher at all i don't like it it's it's not even just bare bones it's like they're not doing anything with it nothing interesting nothing helpful i mean there's some minor tweaks to it but i never liked the pixel launcher to begin with it's one of the reasons why i switched over to using a third-party launcher but the problem with using a third-party launcher now is that the way i guess that they've managed the navbar experience in android from 11 and 12. third-party launchers are buggy not because of what they are i don't care which one you use there are bugs that are introduced or issues that are introduced when you use a third-party launcher in android 11 and 12. to the point where third-party launcher developers some of them have given up because like google's saying no no we we we're not interested in helping improve third-party launchers so i'm just saying i can't even use a third-party launcher without it introducing other inconsistencies so the pixel launcher compared to other first party pixel or other first party launchers on other devices yeah the pixel launcher needs a lot of help uh another thing that i don't like is the circular keycap design i'm still getting used to it this is a minor uh you know complaint but the board and i love g board i like the design of the old g board and now they've made the key presses circular like the pops up everything's circular and it's just taking some getting used to and maybe i will get used to it over time but i think i like the more uh the rectangly squared off look if only because on the pixel you've got your your capsules right at the top those are those aren't circular they're they're rounded corners on rectangles so why aren't the keys the same so it's like it's like a slight inconsistency between those two things then speaking of you know your circular icons why can't i mean i don't i think they remove the the option to change the shape of the at least i maybe i gotta look hang on let me let me just check i thought i could not find a way yeah dark theme themed icons and app grid that's it that's all i can do i can't change the the shapes of the icons they're all gonna be circular so it's like they removed the customization options who knows if they're coming back so it just like i said just one inconsistency after another after another after another i've run into random glitches and ui snags i've screenshotted a few and posted them on social i'm not talking about app crashes that's a completely different complaint by the way i've heard i've been told that if you're running into app crashes you have to do a factory reset and not back up from a backup or restore from a backup i should say uh but what's the point like if i can't restore from a backup i'm starting from scratch to get rid of app crashes that sounds like it's a problem with google not me so i didn't do that i haven't had too many app crashes if if any at all at least on this particular device i'm talking about just glitches like like software that's not quite fully baked yet like everything is still in beta and and the pixel still feels like it's still in beta though it's a final device a final product it still feels like it's in beta with android 12 still feeling like it's in beta the pixel experience should be software and i'm not feeling it um notification layout and design and maybe this could be negative i could have a true black dark mode uh i just i don't like the look and feel of it as much as i do on other devices there's just something that's a little off-putting about it uh it could take some getting used to but at this point i'm not going to be using it as a daily driver so i'm like all right maybe they'll improve it maybe they won't maybe that's the look they want to go with this year pixel is like changing everything every seemingly every year to try to get to a group of people who want the pixel but that's my question is who's the pixel 4 i don't know if it's going to win over iphone users i don't know if it's going to win over samsung or other android users it's going to win over pixel users because they're pixel users but even me as a pixel user i'm looking at and going i can't i i can't as much as i would want to i can't uh the navbar nonsense so this is difficult to explain certain apps treat the nav bar differently than other apps uh the best example okay i've got test ufo still up here i was showcasing this the other day uh in the live stream uh frame rates uh on test ufo um so you've got the nav bar at the bottom but like chrome is just one example out of thousands of apps that just they don't have a transparent background sometimes that background is white sometimes it's black sometimes it's non-existent it's it's it's incongruent between apps so that creates incongruency between apps and that is very very prevalent i don't know if google chrome's going to fix this problem if they even see it as a problem but it creates incongruency when you flip between apps and some apps have this when you switch to the task switching mode a dark bar at the top and a dark bar at the bottom and some have light and then a non-existent bar it's just it's inconsistent it looks sloppy and i would love to be able to turn off the navbar which you can do by the way on other android devices but google says no got to have the nav bar yeah you got to do it this way that's just it's the pixel way okay cool that's a pixel away it's not my way uh and i can't customize it because google doesn't really allow for a lot of customization on the pixel anymore not that they had a lot to begin with um split screen something that i use very often is half-hearted especially compared to other split-screen software experiences on other devices for example on samsung we do split screen very well by comparison google's still messing around with it that might be addressed with android 12 l if i'm to understand what's coming down the pike but right now i don't have android 12l i only have this and i only have this software uh so the split screen i can't even use uh by comparison uh the back gesture arrow i don't really like uh at all uh it it it like it hovers over but it's there's no background to it the the the arrow that that slides over when you go back and it just i don't know it just it's not floating really it's there but there's no like drop shadow to indicate that it's above the layer of the app it's just at the same layer as the app and it just doesn't look as clean as it could as i've seen it experienced on other android devices um another thing that i have to note the system font i i don't like the system font and and that's possibly because i've grown so accustomed to samsung's system font which i love and and the fact that samsung just it's it's so clean and it's not gonna say perfect but i just like it better than i like google's system font and there's no way to effectively change to my knowledge effectively change the font i can change the size that doesn't help so i just don't like the font and by comparison that's something i could probably get over small complaint but as i said early like these things add up for me like this is not just one thing it's one thing on top of another on top of another on top of another another thing that's really kind of i'm not gonna say janky chintzy is the best word to use they introduced a transition like an animation in android 12 and i thought i got rid of it where it's like this kind of speckled like transition is it just looks chintzy it looks cheap it looks like i just it doesn't look finished it doesn't look polished this speckled transition like what's going on with that i don't like it it just doesn't look it doesn't look modern it feels like it belongs like a decade ago so it's there and i've found it throughout apps some apps have it some apps don't some unlocks have it some some some don't i found it when i unlocked diana's device uh just because i was getting her set up on the pixel 4 xl and by the way the pixel 4 xl face unlock doesn't work face unlock has not worked on the pixel 4 xl with android 12 and it doesn't work on the final build of android 12 either despite factory reset etc things are broken i the pixel what made the pixel great was the software experience and they raised the bar with hardware but they left the software to the sidelines and i'm telling you it's not one thing it's one on top of the other on top of the other so uh in summation i have to ask who is this for um in summation i have to suggest possibly uh i'm not making any recommendations i'm just telling you i don't know if i could use this uh every day i don't know if it's if if it's going to dramatically improve within six three months one month six months is it going to change that much and by then are other flagships out that draw even more attention away from the pixel that have a demonstrably better software experience as i've discovered despite the samsung-ness of a samsung device even with good lock um so maybe you know i would continue to revisit it but as of right now as i said early on i don't intend on switching to this and that's a to me it's a disappointment um because i wanted to switch to this i was excited for it as as someone who considered themselves once a pixel fan i i i don't i there's too many things that i don't like about this experience and i i'm that i like in other experiences so it doesn't stack up for me it doesn't work for me there are many things that i do like and i'll be documenting those tomorrow\n"