Told You So? Nope (Premium)

Google says that sales of its smartphones doubled YOY in the most recent quarter thanks to the Pixel 3a. So, what does it mean?

I’d like to think that Google just proved what I’ve said all along: That its smartphone business is simply too small, too boutique-like, to justify pricing its handsets like the market leaders.

After all, I’ve been hammering on this for years.

Google nailed it with the Nexus 5X and 6P back in late 2015. “This is the Android flagship you’re looking for,” I wrote of the 6P in my review, “and best of all it’s reasonably priced.” I was just as impressed by the 5X, which was “significantly less expensive” than (ahem) the Microsoft Lumia 950, though pricing was, of course, the least of that handset’s issues.

But then Google jumped the shark. With the first Pixels in 2016, Google delivered handsets that were not “credible Android-based alternative to the deep hardware, software, and services integration that Apple offers with iPhone,” devices that did not “provide any real advantages over other Android flagships.” Worse, Google priced the Pixel at the same level as the iPhone. “A comparable iPhone 7 Plus is the same price,” I noted of the first Pixel XL. “And is the superior phone on so many levels. Performance, reliability, consistency, and battery life especially … Were the Pixel XL priced at $500 and up, like the Nexus 6P, rather than at $770 and up, this would be a no-brainer and we’d be having a different conversation. But the Pixel is priced where it is, has the miscues and general blandness I’ve described. And we’re having a different conversation. And I don’t feel good about this.”

I was less wordy in a follow-up to that review. “It’s expensive,” I write. “Too expensive.” There you go.

For the Pixel 2 in 2017, Google had enough hardware issues that I simply gave up trying to review it as it was impossible to recommend. (Having to return two of them to Google for issues later verified my stance.) But aside from that, my 128 GB model had cost me over $1000! “The Pixel 2 XL is indeed too expensive,” I noted.

So, when the Pixel 3 lineup rolled around late last year, I was already a broken record on the obvious. “The handset is simply too expensive and has too many design and functional issues,” I wrote in my review. I had only purchased the device because it was half-off during a one-day sale. “At half off, these phones were finally priced correctly given the reliability risks,” I noted.

Google finally returned to the affordable smartphone market earlier this year when it released the Pixel 3a and 3a XL. I immediately snapped up a Pixel 3a XL for $480, and I loved it, and I still do. “The Pixel 3a XL is a tremendous value,” I noted in my review, using words I’d never used before to describe any Pixel. “[It] is easy to recommend. It provides one of the very best smartphone cameras available today and yet costs about...