Five years with a Google Pixel 6 — one owner's unfiltered goodbye to Google phones

There’s a special kind of frustration that builds over five years. And for one Reddit user who went by “PresentSpecific5666,” those five years were spent with a Google Pixel 6 — a phone they got for free and still felt ripped off by.

The story begins when Sprint merged with T-Mobile. Both the user and his wife picked up Pixel 6 phones at no cost. His initial reaction: “It’s free, so I can’t complain.” That optimism didn’t last long.

The fingerprint scanner was a mess from day one. Google pushed update after update, but it never really worked. Each system update seemed to fix one bug while quietly introducing another. The cycle never ended.

Then the batteries started swelling. Both phones. The user says he used quality chargers, avoided fast charging, never overcharged — took care of the batteries like they were made of glass. The warranty covered replacements, so that was that.

Except the replacement phones ran hot. Battery health dropped fast again. He capped charging at 80%. Didn’t help.

Two weeks ago, a single drop of rain found its way into his wife’s charging port. The touchscreen went dead. The phone never recovered.

His own Pixel 6 held on a bit longer. Then the cellular modem started dropping signal constantly. And yesterday, a small pebble hit the screen. The tempered glass protector shattered — and took the display with it.

What infuriates him most? The Pixel 6 doesn’t support USB-C video output. No HDMI, no Miracast. His 2016 LG V20 could do both. Now he can’t even get his data off the thing easily.

His verdict is blunt: Google shouldn’t have shipped this phone. The fingerprint reader alone should have been a release blocker. And the fact that Google is tightening Android’s openness while “can’t even get their own hardware right” — in his words — is almost funny, if it weren’t so sad. He says he wouldn’t buy another Google phone for a dollar.

Some Pixel fans push back, saying the Pixel 6 was the first Tensor chip, and later models fixed things. But the user counters that people are still reporting problems with newer Pixels. Every brand has bugs, sure. But for a company with Google’s resources, the bar should be higher.

It’s one person’s story on Reddit, not a scientific survey. But five years of daily use — two phones, two batteries, endless bugs — is hard to dismiss as an isolated case. Google has made some genuinely good hardware since then. The Pixel 9 and 10 series earned real praise. But the Pixel 6 left a scar, and this user’s experience is a reminder that first-gen hardware carries real risk — especially when it’s your daily driver.