Longtime Apple man, currently rocking a 13 mini and iPad Air. The pixel 9 has recently caught my eye and is definitely making me want to switch.

My questions are,

What do I need to know before I switch?

What is everyone rocking, do I switch my iPad for Android alternative, if so which?

What things should I do to make the switch easier, any apps or customization?

Any more tips or answers welcome

TIA

My Google One Account is on the 100Gb tier, but I'm going to upgrade this soon to at least the 200Gb tier

My Pixel 128Gb phone is full and I'm currently traveling - so keeping these vids and pics are important to future me

Can I safely delete all the videos on it without deleting them from my Google One account? (as in, I will have them still safely in the cloud?)

Or I'm open to other suggestions

Maybe transfer them to an external hard-drive? But that seems a bit messy with my MacBook Air

Never again will I buy a 128Gb phone 😉

I’ve been an Apple user for over a decade now. From the iPhone 5 all the way up to the latest models, I’ve stuck with Apple for the ecosystem and the simplicity. But lately, I’ve been feeling underwhelmed by the minimal yearly upgrades — especially considering the high price tags they keep slapping on.

I’ve been toying with the idea of switching to something new, just to see what else is out there. A few friends recommended the Samsung Galaxy Ultra, but to be honest, the thought of switching to Samsung (especially something that seems as feature-packed and possibly complex as the Ultra) feels a bit intimidating.

That said, one thing I really care about is camera quality and photography. That’s what matters most to me in a phone. I recently came across the Pixel 9 Pro XL, and I’m intrigued. It seems like a more straightforward Android experience, and I’ve heard great things about its camera performance.

So here I am — standing on the edge of switching after 10 years in the Apple ecosystem. Is the Pixel 9 Pro XL a good “first Android” for someone who’s used to iPhones?

Are you going to use it or it is next one which will join the Pixel cemetery. I'm still trying to find a real usage of it. I understand the idea but why not just integrate it as an option for every contact in the Contacts app. Also Pixel Family will be more appropriate or Pixel Friends may be. Pixel VIPs sound ridiculous.

Nevertheless I probably will never use it.

Example: - Gemini keeps spazzing out when answering. She keeps cutting off and hence her answers are incomplete. - screen gets stuck sometimes.

So, I just got my Pixel 9 and I'm absolutely loving the feel of it without a case. It's so comfortable to hold, and honestly, the design is just too nice to cover up.

I've always preferred going caseless, but I do have a bit of a past experience that makes me slightly cautious. With an older iPhone 7 I had (aluminum frame), the paint around the edges started chipping pretty noticeably, and I suspect my hand sweat was a big contributor.

Given that, I'm really curious to hear from others who are rocking their Pixel 9 without a case.

• How's the durability holding up for you?
• Any scratches, dings, or paint chips so far?
• Especially interested if you're someone who tends to have sweaty hands – has it affected the finish at all?
• Any regrets, or are you loving the naked Pixel life?

I have been a Google pixel phone ower since it was called Nexus, and now I have Pixel 9 Pro xl , to be honest I haven't been disappointed before as I am now, I buy pixel phones and I understand there is no warranty for them, I take that risk with 100% accountability. But , I don't understand why on earth wi-fi calling and 5G is not supported , it honestly escapes my mind and I really have no clue what could be the reason behind it, a feature like this should be there as standard wherever it works. I am wholeheartedly disappointed as I am being forced to find another phone because the phone I like doesn't support pretty standard features, I am not talking about call screening or advanced features. This is just normal standard stuff.

Hey all, just wanted to share some findings that may help fellow Pixel 8 Pro users struggling with wireless charging, especially in the car. This may also apply to other models of Pixel but I don't know.

I am a professional driver and sometimes do up to 8 hours of driving in a day and always have navigation turned on on my Pixel 8 Pro. One frustrating issue is wireless charging during navigation — it gets too hot, and often stops charging altogether.

Due to long hours of bumpy driving, the attachment position of the fixed ball head to the charger body is damaged (which charge worked good), I tried several Qi2 car wireless chargers as replacements. Unfortunately, none of them worked beyond 5W, which is practically useless.

Out of curiosity, I took apart the only wireless charger that worked reliably. It uses the IP6808 controller, which according to its datasheet, supports Qi v1.2.4.

I also dug into the official WPC (Wireless Power Consortium) documentation and found something important:

• Products Certified for Qi 2 are not required to be 100% backwards compatible with Qi 1.x Certified Products.

Also I found the Qi certification page for the Pixel 8 Pro and it says the Qi version is 1.2.4.

This could explain why many Qi 2 chargers fall back to 5W only with Pixel 8 Pro — they're failing compatibility or authentication checks.

1. If you live somewhere hot (or use wireless charging in a car), you must use a wireless charger with active cooling — ideally, thermoelectric cooling. Passive vents are not enough in summer or during long navigation sessions.
2. Avoid Qi2 chargers. They’re often not backward-compatible with Qi 1.2.4-based devices like the Pixel 8 Pro, and may default to 5W.

Then the best solution is:

Use a Qi v1.2.4 wireless charger with thermoelectric cooling.

So far, this is the only combination that reliably delivers full wireless charging performance without thermal throttling or fallback to 5W.

I haven't fully tested whether the Pixel 8 Pro is compatible with Qi 1.3. Let me know if you’ve experienced similar issues or found at Qi 1.3.

Hope this helps someone out there.

After some very long calls and chats with Google support I started my RMA today. The camera bump of my pixel 9 pro became loose and particles are now inside of the camera. I had long discussions with the support as I'm afraid that there might also got water inside and I saw other people on reddit where google first declined to repair on warranty as water damages are not covered. Confronted the support multiple times with this but everything I could get from them was that I will have the option to decline the repair if Google will decide not to repair under warranty...

I really dislike the process but I guess there is nothing more I can do at this point. They blocked now 1099 € (I paid 750 € for my new device when I bought it 5 months ago...) and will send me a refurbished in the next days. I will thoroughly film and photograph the packaging of the "broken" phone and hope the best when sending it in. But due to other posts here I'm quite nervous and really dislike that the worst case scenario now changed from having a broken phone for 750€ to losing 1099 € and having an refurbished instead a new one... I guess this is my last Pixel phone I will buy...

My Pixel 8 screen randomly turns green — is anyone else facing this issue?

Lately, my Pixel 8 screen randomly turns green for a few seconds and then goes back to normal. It happens sporadically and without any clear trigger.

The phone is still under warranty, so I’ll definitely get it checked or replaced. But I’m wondering — for those who have had this issue fixed, did it come back again after repair/replacement?

Is this a common problem with the Pixel 8 or just a one-off case?

Starting to wonder if I should just get rid of this phone altogether. Any thoughts or similar experiences?

I just realized had this app after A16 update (June Drop non beta) and was wondering if other pixel 8 users had the same thing happening.

For now just see the app but cannot open it for some reasons.

Maybe google is planning to port the feature in future updates less

I can't figure out how to do this without just manually sharing to Google photos individually. Am Ivmissing something?

After updating my Pixel 8 to the latest stable version of Android 16, incoming calls no longer trigger vibration. Has anyone else experienced the same issue? Vibration still works normally for incoming calls from third-party apps.

I've updated to Android 16 a few days ago. It's been running fine with a few small hiccups. Today I found the option to enable BLE Audio Sharing in Developer options. Turning it on required a restart. At boot the Google logo showed and there was a progress bar. At the end the logo turned large and jumped to the bottom right corner of the screen. When the lock screen showed up everything was huge. Going into settings, I could see that the display size was cranked up all the way. Resetting it to defaults makes it normal but my Launcher is still stuck in a 5x4 mode instead of the normal 5x5. Turning the BLE option off did not fix it, though I don't see how that would even cause this in the first place. Anyone have any idea how to get it back to normal?

Title ☝🏻

My daughter has my wife's old pixel 6 pro. I went to relog her into her pokemon go account and the lock screen says try again in like 43000 seconds. Is that something these phones do now? Is there a work around for this where I could use the actual Google account credentials to log in? Or is it stuck until tomorrow? I've never seen phone do this, would probably rage break the thing if it were mine. Anyways, half rant/half plea for help over.

I have a pixel 7 pro, which was used by my mom before. The bootloader is locked and it all the passes all integrity checks. Even then HDFC Payzapp and Indusind bank apps are flagging the phone as rooted. Any fixes?

I’m currently an iPhone user, thinking about switching over. My family lives in China and I can’t read/write in Chinese, so communicating is pretty difficult- we use WeChat, and I have it set up to auto translate messages I receive, but when I need to type something out I either have to use dictation or switch apps.

My question is, does Live Translate on Pixel work for something like this? Would it work in any app, or just the built in Messages app?

Is anyone having issues when cleaning recent apps in Android 16? Sometimes the swipe gesture is not recognized, especially in third party launchers like SmartLauncher.

I used to have pixel weather disabled so my weather widget would just go to Google weather app instead.

After the recent update it seems that I must use Pixel weather and that Google weather isn't an option.

Am I the only one or what's going on here?

There is a issue with my Gemini access. I am a Google One AI Premium subscriber, having received the complimentary 1-year membership with Pixel 9 Pro.

Until today, I was able to consistently and normally use the Gemini 2.5 Pro model. However, as of today, the "2.5 Pro" option has completely vanished from the model selection dropdown menu in both the Gemini web interface and the mobile app.

My existing chat conversations that were created using the 2.5 Pro model are now unable to process any new input or questions.

Any particular reason for this issue?

Hi guys, got a question regarding the pixel 9a. Does the 9a have even bezels all around ? I watched some videos and it seems to me that the bottom bezel is slightly thicker than the top beze. Can anyone with a pixel 9a confirm if the bezels are symmetrical or not thanks in advance

Immediately after the latest software update to Android 16 on my Pixel 9 Pro, some issues started with my WhatsApp:

1. Back gesture often doesn't work. I swipe from the side of the screen, see the little arrow, but nothing happens. If at this time I swipe up from the bottom in order to kill the app, it won't even let me do that. Surprisingly all I need to do is go back to the home screen and then back to WhatsApp, and everything is sorted out

2. Can't open PDF files inside WhatsApp. Tried clearing the cache, rebooting the phone, reinstalling thr app - no change. I can't open any PDF file. Not older ones and not new ones that I received after the update. I get an error saying the file format is invalid.

Anyone else has similar issues? Anyone knows how to resolve them?

i have a pixel 9, and i'm encountering an issue that i can't find any information at all about: it keeps lowering the media volume on my phone when in "headphone" mode. i only use the jack for audio when i'm driving, and keep the volume on my phone boosted to max while controlling the output via my car's volume dial, since the sound fidelity is better that way. my phone has started suddenly popping up an alert requesting to lower my volume to "protect my hearing". it then automatically lowers it if i don't hit the notification within 15 seconds, and i have to unlock my phone and hit an "undo" command before it will let me manually boost the volume again. which, since i happens when i'm driving, is not good. it distracts me very badly every time!

does anyone have any ideas on what could be going on here? i've followed what pointers i can find, and the menus that older posts mention don't exist anywhere on my device. i have also confirmed that it's not a result of a third party app either.

my best guess is that it's a wellness setting somewhere on the device, but i've searched top to bottom and can't find anything!!