https://hackernoon.com/a-month-with-pixel-2-xl-1fe876bcf5aa

At the end of this Summer, I started looking for a new smartphone. I bought an Essential PH-1 right after the release, and that was quite a weird buying experience. I ended up returning it and described my thoughts in this article. I waited for the release of the new generation of Pixel phones from Google and bought a Pixel 2 XL at the beginning of November. I’ve used it for almost a month now, and you will learn my honest user experience if you read the article below.

Google has never been great at design, and on my personal scale of companies , that are able to deliver something convenient and good looking, it’s closer to losers than leaders. So, when I first saw Pixel 2 XL in Best Buy, my reaction was like: Come on Google, why? How could you take LG V30 and make it so much uglier? These thick bezels on a bezel-less phone (is it what everyone is selling in 2017?) just made me sick. Now, after a month of usage, I’ve got used to them and don’t feel any dissonance anymore, but yeah, they are ugly, especially after almost visually perfect Essential phone.The body is made of aluminum, but somehow Google have decided to cover it with an extra layer of plastic. So, the back side feels well… plasticky. I put my phones in cases to protect them from scratches and hide the metal plate, used for a magnet phone holder in my car, so the look and feel of the back side doesn’t matter that much to me.After some “getting used to it” process, I would describe the visual appearance of the phone as OK, but far from perfect.