Aside from a few years as an early teen with my signature pink Nokia flip phone with 250mb of data and Snake in-built, I’ve been entirely devoted to the Apple movement.
It started with an iPhone and over the years progressed until I owned a MacBook, Airpods, an Apple Watch and then later and greater versions of these products.
My dad, an avid Samsung user, looked down on the Apple fixation, especially when I swore never to use an Android because “they’re too clunky and I’d never be able to move all of my photos and apps across”.
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Once you’re in the Apple universe it’s difficult to see light at the end of the tunnel and everything is so interconnected that it feels impossible to break the spell.
But earlier this year, a close girlfriend of mine whipped out her Google Pixel at the table while we were on holidays in Lisbon and decisively showed me how she removed strangers from the background of her pics.
“The quality of these photos are amazing,” I whispered, watching her casually delete a man from arms-length of our selfie.
We decided her phone was the only one we were going to use going forward for all our group shots, and the device won MVP of the holiday.
I even acknowledged the phone in my Instagram caption post trip.
So when I had the opportunity to try the latest Pixel device — the 8 Pro — I jumped at the chance. This was the ultimate camera phone.
I jumped into the review head first and immediately started to transfer everything from my iPhone across to the Google Pixel.
Just like Apple does, you get prompts at every turn to help you progress through the onboarding stage and, just by plugging my old phone into the new one, everything moved across seamlessly.
It took less than an hour to download and re-install all my apps and was ready to go with messages, contacts and my calendar as if I’d been using the Pixel all along.
The only app I struggled with was Whatsapp but I do feel as though I hadn’t “backed up” my conversations before switching everything across, so I started from a clean slate.
The camera tips the new iPhone 15 by a few megapixels and it’s immediately obvious too.
The crispness and advanced features, particularly the ability to edit within the app, is far better than anything Apple is offering at present.
I actually got engaged halfway through reviewing the phone and was able to snap some beautiful pictures from that life-changing weekend with my new device — pictures I’ll have forever.
If you run most of your life out of gmail it’s also very easy to save passwords and look at emails because the Google web is interconnected.
I thought it would take me a little while to get used to the home screen interface.
But in a lot of ways all smartphones are the same, with buttons like Do Not Disturb, brightness, alarms and Bluetooth and my Google wallet for paying at the touch of a button.
The battery life is extensive and oftentimes if I forget to plug in the phone at night I wake up the next morning to a fully able and working phone.
And if you miss your Apple Watch, the Google phone has an accompanying Pixel watch you can invest in to track your steps, heart rate and exercise.
I have been utterly blown away by the Pixel’s abilities and can safely say I won’t be going back to Apple anytime soon.
You can purchase the Google Pixel 8 Pro from Dick Smith and at a host of Aussie retailers.
